Spiritual Accompaniment:
The Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time 2024
November 10, 2024
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1 King17:10-16; Psalm 146; Hebrews 9:24-28; Mark 12:38-44
We immediately see the parallels between Elijah and the widow of Zarephath and Jesus and the widow of the two mites at the Treasury. Both widows were indigent and at the edge of existence, and they demonstrated their trust. The widow at Zarephath trusted this mysterious man who spoke on behalf of God and assured her of sufficiency. The widow with the two mites trusted in the God who she knew was behind and beyond the trappings of the Temple. Jesus notes the style and manner by which people make their contributions, and he applauds the women for giving what she can.
We often think that the enemies of Jesus are the Pharisees, Sadducees, and the Scribes because we think of people as enemies. Rather, the enemy of faith is the attitude of clericalism. Jesus warned against the clericalism of the Scribes and Pharisees because it created their attitudes of exceptionalism, legalism, elitism, and rigorism that led to their hypocritical actions. In the Gospel, Jesus condemns the attitude clericalism of the Scribes while applauding the attitude of generosity of the widow. It ought to be no surprise that Pope Francis has set his papacy on eliminating clericalism. With that gone, we can focus on mercy, Elijah showed the widow mercy because he stayed with her and sustained her during her time of grief. He spiritually accompanied her and left her with hope.
Spiritual accompaniment will be a crucial pastoral role on the future church. It involves a ministry of listening, consolation, and reconciliation that brings about unconditional acceptance and belonging. It leads to a life of transformation. Through listening and engagement, we will perceive the uniqueness of each person and to help them find a responsible solution for their life’s situations. To do this, we must get to know the person’s whole story. We must help people process the pain they carry, to explore the disillusionment with the church and institutions, to help process the grudges one may carry against God so that it does not turn into self-blame or other hurtful tendencies. The type of ministry will have to understand a person’s despair, loss of hope, and loss of meaning in life. This accompaniment needs to help people leas a most meaningful life.
The future of the Catholic church will be when it rediscovers the small “c” catholicity, that is, when it becomes universal again. Spiritual accompaniment will be in a liminal space between religious and secular spheres. The language of the future will have to express itself in understandable ways to one’s environment. The role of the clergy will be beyond institutional boundaries to provide empathy and respect for a person’s story. The work will be to listen to the people, to foster their trust once again, to provide avenues of hope, and to help them in their search for meaning. One must create new spaces of love within the church, where love is a space of trust, of security, and of acceptance. The church must help people truly become themselves because it is only when we are accepted and loved, just as we are, that we can accept and love others. As the new archbishop of Boston writes in his motto: We are called to put out into the deep.
Elijah spiritually accompanied the widow of Zarephath to sustain her and to get her back on her feet. Jesus showed how the widow at the Temple spiritually accompanied the Temple in the face of legalism and clericalism. This type of accompaniment ushers in the Reign of God and gives hope to those striving to survive. Let’s pray we can be there for one another in such a way that our actions give meaning and hope to others who are clinging onto their despair. Let’s pray we can simply show up for one another and put out into the deep.
Scripture for Daily Mass
Monday: (Titus 1) For a bishop as God's steward must be blameless, not arrogant, not irritable, not a drunkard, not aggressive, not greedy for sordid gain, but hospitable, a lover of goodness, temperate, just, holy, and self-controlled, holding fast to the true message as taught so that he will be able both to exhort with sound doctrine and to refute opponents.
Tuesday: (Titus 2) You must say what is consistent with sound doctrine, namely, that older men should be temperate, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, love, and endurance.
Wednesday: (Titus 3) But when the kindness and generous love of God our savior appeared, not because of any righteous deeds we had done but because of his mercy,
he saved us through the bath of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.
Thursday: (Philemon 7) I urge you on behalf of my child Onesimus, whose father I have become in my imprisonment, who was once useless to you but is now useful to both you and me. I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you.
Friday (2 John 4) Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh; such is the deceitful one and the antichrist. Look to yourselves that you do not lose what we worked for but may receive a full recompense.
Saturday (3 John 5) Beloved, you are faithful in all you do for the brothers and sisters,
especially for strangers; they have testified to your love before the Church. Please help them in a way worthy of God to continue their journey.
Gospel:
Monday: (Luke 17) Things that cause sin will inevitably occur, but woe to the one through whom they occur. It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck and he be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin.
Tuesday: (Luke 17) Who among you would say to your servant who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here immediately and take your place at table’?
Wednesday (Luke 17) As he was entering a village, ten lepers met him. They stood at a distance from him and raised their voice, saying, “Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!” And when he saw them, he said, “Go show yourselves to the priests.”
Thursday (Luke 17) Jesus said in reply, “The coming of the Kingdom of God cannot be observed, and no one will announce, ‘Look, here it is,’ or, ‘There it is.’ For behold, the Kingdom of God is among you.”
Friday (Luke 17) As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man; they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage up to the day
that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Similarly, as it was in the days of Lot
Saturday (Luke 18) Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says. Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night? Will he be slow to answer them? I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily.
Saints of the Week
November 10: Leo the Great, pope and doctor (d. 461) tried to bring peace to warring Roman factions that were leaving Gaul vulnerable to barbarian invasions. As pope, he tried to keep peace again - in particular during his meeting with Attila the Hun, whom he persuaded not to plunder Rome. However, in Attila's next attack three years later, Rome was leveled. Some of Leo's writings on the incarnation were influential in formulating doctrine at the Council of Chalcedon.
November 11: Martin of Tours, bishop (316-397), became an Roman soldier in Hungary because he was born into a military family. After he became a Christian, he left the army because he saw his faith in opposition to military service. He settled in Gaul and began its first monastery. He was proclaimed bishop in 371 and worked to spread the faith in at time of great uncertainty and conflict. He divided sections of his diocese into parishes.
November 12: Josaphat, bishop and martyr (1580-1623) was a Ukranian who entered the Basilian order and was ordained in the Byzantine rite. He was named the archbishop of Polotsk, Russia and attempted to unite the Ukrainian church with Rome. His opponents killed him. He is the first Eastern saint to be formally canonized.
November 13: Francis Xavier Cabrini, religious (1850-1917) was an Italian-born daughter to a Lombardy family of 13 children. She wanted to become a nun, but needed to stay at her parents’ farm because of their poor health. A priest asked her to help work in a girls’ school and she stayed for six years before the bishop asked her to care for girls in poor schools and hospitals. With six sisters, she came to the U.S. in 1889 to work among Italian immigrants. She was the first American citizen to be canonized.
November 13: Stanislaus Kostka, S.J., religious (1550-1568) was a Polish novice who walked from his home to Rome to enter the Jesuits on his 17th birthday. He feared reprisals by his father against the Society in Poland so we went to directly see the Superior General in person. Francis Borgia admitted him after Peter Canisius had him take a month in school before applying for entrance. Because of his early death, Kostka is revered as the patron saint of Jesuit novices.
November 14: Pedro Arrupe, S.J., Superior General (1917-1991) was the 28th Superior General of the Jesuits. He was born in the Basque region of the Iberian Peninsula. He is considered one of the great reformers of the Society because he was asked by the Pope to carry out the reforms of Vatican II. November 14th is the commemoration of his birth.
November 14: Joseph Pignatelli, S.J., religious and Superior General (1737-1811) was born in Zaragosa, Spain and entered the Jesuits during a turbulent era. He was known as the unofficial leader of the Jesuits in Sardinia when the Order was suppressed and placed in exile. He worked with European leaders to continue an underground existence and he was appointed Novice Master under Catherine the Great, who allowed the Society to receive new recruits. He secured the restoration of the Society partly in 1803 and fully in 1811 and bridged a link between the two eras of the Society. He oversaw a temperate reform of the Order that assured their survival.
November 15: Albert the Great, bishop and doctor (1200-1280), joined the Dominicans to teach theology in Germany and Paris. Thomas Aquinas was his student. With his reluctance, he was made bishop of Ratisbon. He resigned after four years so he could teach again. His intellectual pursuits included philosophy, natural science, theology, and Arabic language and culture. He applied Aristotle's philosophy to theology.
November 16: Roch Gonzalez, John del Castillo, and Alphonsus Rodriguez, S.J. (1576-1628) were Jesuit priests born to Paraguayan nobility who were architects of the Paraguayan reductions, societies of immigrants based on religious faith. They taught the indigenous population how to plant farms and other basic life skills that would protect them from the insidious slave trades of Spain and Portugal. By the time the Jesuits were expelled, 57 such settlements were established. Roch was a staunch opponent of the slave trade. He, John, and Alphonsus were killed when the envy of a local witch doctor lost his authority at the expense of their growing medical expertise.
November 16: Margaret of Scotland (1046-1093) was raised in Hungary because the Danes invaded England. She returned after the Norman Conquest in 1066 and sought refuge in Scotland. She married the king and bore him eight children. She corrected many wayward abuses within the church and clarified church practices.
November 16: Gertrude the Great (1256-1302) was placed for childrearing into a Benedictine monastery at age 5 in Saxony. She lived with two mystics named Mechthild and as she developed her intellectual and spiritual gifts, she too became a mystic. Her spiritual instructions are collected into five volumes. She wrote prayers as a first advocate of the Sacred Heart.
This Week in Jesuit History
- November 10, 1549. At Rome, the death of Paul III, to whom the Society owes its first constitution as a religious order.
- November 11, 1676. In St James's Palace, London, Claude la Colombiere preached on All Saints.
- November 12, 1919. Fr. General Ledochowski issued an instruction concerning the use of typewriters. He said that they could be allowed in offices but not in personal rooms, nor should they be carried from one house to another.
- November 13, 1865. The death of James Oliver Van de Velde, second bishop of the city of Chicago from 1848 to 1853.
- November 14, 1854. In Spain, the community left Loyola for the Balearic Isles, in conformity with a government order.
- November 15, 1628. The deaths of St Roch Gonzalez and Fr. Alphonsus Rodriguez. They were some of the architects of the Jesuit missions in Uruguay and Paraguay.
- November 16, 1989. In El Salvador, the murder of six Jesuits connected with the University of Central America together with two of their lay colleagues.
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