We have One God
The 30th Sunday of Ordinary Time
October 29, 2023
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Exodus 22:20-26; Psalm 18; 1 Thessalonians 1:5-10; Matthew 22:34-40
The Holy Days that we celebrate this week, All Saints and All Souls Days, help us put these readings into context. We remember our past and we look to our future at the same time. At the very beginning and at the end of our lives, we belong to God, and that reality ought to shape our thoughts and actions. If we love God as God loves us, we will turn from our idols to serve the living and true God. This means listening to God’s commandments and applying them to our times.
The Book of Exodus is not just a nice biblical standard for the ancient Hebrews who lived nomadically at the edge of deserts, it remains a Gospel imperative for us today. It is certainly about living in right relations with others and remembering that we have the same basic needs and human rights. It is about being compassionate to others because, by accident of birth or like our ancestors, we could find ourselves in a similar precarious existential situation. It is not too much of a stretch to know that we could find ourselves in a situation of misfortune.
Today, human mass migrations occur across the globe because of wars and persecution, lack of human rights, environmental damage, survival of one’s children, or the quest for a meaningful life. People across the world are hurting, and often they are faced with rejection, exclusionary immigration policies, and demonization. Our faith demands that we treat the less fortunate with kindness and assistance without fixating on political platforms or ideologies. To solve the challenges of displaced people, refugees, and migrants, we must stop calling them names, and get to know them as individuals.
The solution in the U.S. cannot be done state-by-state with border states bearing the brunt of the response. It requires an international response, most specifically of building economies and freedom in countries where its citizens are fleeing poverty, injustice, and persecutions. International cooperation will help world economies build systems that benefit people in their own homes. We must work together to relieve the suffering of the world, especially those who we think are different from us. From the Vatican to the Archdiocese of Boston, church leaders are calling for churches to be ready and willing to assist migrants “in order to provide short-term critical care and shelter in the biblical sense of welcoming the stranger so that migrant families do not go unhoused this winter.”
In the beginning and the end, we belong to the Lord. We share a common heritage, and we are faithful, compassionate people of goodwill who try to do the right thing by God. The hard words of Jesus must cause us deeper self-reflection. To love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, we must love the neighbor, the stranger, the alien, the widow, the orphan, the other person we may not know or understand, as we love ourselves. Today, these are the unhoused, those with addictions, those who speak a different language, skin color, culture, or have a different religion. This is the fulfillment of the Torah; it is the fulfillment of God’s law, and it is the principle by which God demands we live in right relations with one another at all levels of society.
The question that remains to us is, “Can we first see, and then respond by relieving, the suffering of another person? We have in common with all others the ability to love and to suffer. This is what is essential in life. Can we lessen the suffering of another person? Can we prove our love to God that we care compassionately for those who are in existential need? I’m confident that your love is that strong.
Scripture for Daily Mass
Monday: (Romans 8) We are not debtors to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
Tuesday: (Romans 8) I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us. For creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God; for creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.
Wednesday: (Revelation 7) I, John, saw another angel come up from the East,
holding the seal of the living God. He cried out in a loud voice to the four angels who were given power to damage the land and the sea, "Do not damage the land or the sea or the trees until we put the seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God."
Thursday: (Wisdom 3) The souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them. They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead; and their passing away was thought an affliction and their going forth from us, utter destruction. But they are in peace.
Friday (Romans 9) I speak the truth in Christ, I do not lie; my conscience joins with the Holy Spirit in bearing me witness that I have great sorrow and constant anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh.
Saturday (Luke 14) He told a parable to those who had been invited, noticing how they were choosing the places of honor at the table. "When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet,do not recline at table in the place of honor.
Gospel:
Monday: (Luke 13) Jesus was teaching in a synagogue on the sabbath. And a woman was there who for eighteen years had been crippled by a spirit; she was bent over, completely incapable of standing erect. When Jesus saw her, he called to her and said, "Woman, you are set free of your infirmity."
Tuesday: (Luke 13) "What is the Kingdom of God like? To what can I compare it?
It is like a mustard seed that a man took and planted in the garden. When it was fully grown, it became a large bush and the birds of the sky dwelt in its branches."
Wednesday (Matthew 5) When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain,
and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. He began to teach them, saying:
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.
Thursday (John 6) “Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me, because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me.
Friday (Luke 14) On a sabbath Jesus went to dine at the home of one of the leading Pharisees, and the people there were observing him carefully. In front of him there was a man suffering from dropsy.
Saturday (Luke 6) Jesus went up to the mountain to pray, and he spent the night in prayer to God. When day came, he called his disciples to himself, and from them he chose Twelve, whom he also named Apostles
Saints of the Week
October 30: Dominic Collins, S.J., priest and martyr (1566-1602), was a Jesuit brother who was martyred in his native Ireland. He became a professional solider in the Catholic armies of Europe after the Desmond Rebellion was put down in 1583. He joined the Jesuits in 1584 at Santiago de Compostela and was sent back to Ireland in 1601 with a Spanish contingent. He was captured, tried for his faith, and sentenced to death.
October 31: Alphonsus Rodriguez, S.J. (1532-1617) was widowed at age 31. When his three children died, Alphonsus joined the Jesuits as a lay brother at age 40 after attempting to complete the rigors of study. He was sent to the newly opened college in Majorca where he served as a porter for 46 years. His manner of calling people to sanctification was extraordinary. He served obediently and helped others to focus on their spiritual lives.
October 31: All Hallows Eve (evening) owes its origins to a Celtic festival that marked summer's end. The term was first used in 16th century Scotland. Trick or treating resembles the late medieval practice of souling when poor people would go door to door on Hallomas (November 1) receiving food in return for prayers for the dead on All Souls Day (November 2.)
November 1: All Saints Day honors the countless faithful believers - living and dead - who have helped us along in our faith. Our liturgical calendar is filled with canonized saints, but we have many blesseds and minor saints who no longer appear on it. We have local saints across the world. We have many people who live Gospel values who we appreciate and imitate. We remember all of these people on this day.
November 2: All Souls Day is the commemoration of the faithful departed. November is known as All Souls Month. We remember those who died as we hasten towards the end of the liturgical year and the great feast of Christ the King. As a tradition, we have always remembered our dead as a way of keeping them alive to us and giving thanks to God for their lives.
November 3: Rupert Mayer, S.J., priest (1876-1945), resisted the Nazi government and died while saying Mass of a stroke. In 1937, he was placed in protective custody and was eventually released when he agreed that he would no longer preach.
November 3: Martin de Porres, religious (1579-1639) was a Peruvian born of a Spanish knight and a Panamanian Indian woman. Because he was not pure blood, he lost many privileges in the ruling classes. He became a Dominican and served the community in many menial jobs. He was known for tending to the sick and poor and for maintaining a rigorous prayer life.
November 4: Charles Borromeo, bishop (1538-1584), was made Bishop of Milan at age 22. He was the nephew of Pope Pius IV. He was a leading Archbishop in the Catholic Reformation that followed the Council of Trent. During a plague epidemic, Borromeo visited the hardest hit areas so he could provide pastoral care to the sick.
This Week in Jesuit History
- October 29, 1645. In the General Chapter of the Benedictines in Portugal, a statement published by one of their order, that said St Ignatius had borrowed the matter in his Spiritual Exercises from a Benedictine author, was indignantly repudiated.
- October 30, 1638. On this day, John Milton, the great English poet, dined with the Fathers and students of the English College in Rome.
- October 31, 1602. At Cork, the martyrdom of Dominic Collins, an Irish brother, who was hanged, drawn, and quartered for his adherence to the faith.
- November 1, 1956. The Society of Jesus was allowed in Norway.
- November 2, 1661. The death of Daniel Seghers, a famous painter of insects and flowers.
- November 3, 1614. Dutch pirates failed to capture the vessel in which the right arm of Francis Xavier was being brought to Rome.
- November 4, 1768. On the feast of St Charles, patron of Charles III, King of Spain, the people of Madrid asked for the recall of the Jesuits who had been banished from Spain nineteen months earlier. Irritated by this demand, the king drove the Archbishop of Toledo and his Vicar General into exile as instigators of the movement.
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