The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today invite us to celebrate the gift we have received that lights our path and calls us together as people freed from being captives to life draining culture.
Lights on our path
The reading from the Prophet Ezra describes the Decree of Cyrus that marked the end of the Babylonian Captivity.
* [1:1] In the first year of Cyrus: the first regnal year of Cyrus was 539 B.C., but his first year as ruler of Babylon, after the conquest of that city, was 538 B.C., the year in which he issued an edict, replicated on the famous Cyrus cylinder, permitting the repatriation of peoples deported by the Babylonians.1
Psalm 126 celebrates a harvest of Joy.
* [Psalm 126] A lament probably sung shortly after Israel’s return from exile. The people rejoice that they are in Zion (Ps 126:1–3) but mere presence in the holy city is not enough; they must pray for the prosperity and the fertility of the land (Ps 126:4). The last verses are probably an oracle of promise: the painful work of sowing will be crowned with life (Ps 126:5–6).2
In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus teaches a parable about a lamp under a jar.
* [8:16–18] These sayings continue the theme of responding to the word of God. Those who hear the word must become a light to others (Lk 8:16); even the mysteries of the kingdom that have been made known to the disciples (Lk 8:9–10) must come to light (Lk 8:17); a generous and persevering response to the word of God leads to a still more perfect response to the word.3
Luis Rodriguez, S.J. comments that Jesus addresses pseudo-humility in today’s gospel reading. We are children of light, gifted with a variety of talents and with the light of faith vision, talents that are given to us in stewardship, and we cannot go and dig a hole to hide our talents and light.
In the process some will praise us. Let it be, as long as we do not manipulate them into praising us. No matter how brilliant or mediocre we may be, we all have our “fan club” trying to put us on a pedestal. That is their problem, not ours. Trying to climb on a pedestal would be our problem, not theirs, but being placed on a pedestal by others is their problem, not ours. That some people think highly of us is collateral damage of our way of living.4
Don Schwager quotes “The Word of God is like a lamp to guide us,” by Origen of Alexandria (185-254 AD).
"Scripture does not say this about a tangible lamp but about a comprehensible one. One does not 'light' the lamp and conceal it 'with a vessel' or put it 'under a bed, but on the lamp stand' within himself. The vessels of the house are the powers of the soul. The bed is the body. 'Those who go in' are those who hear the teacher... He calls the holy church a 'lamp stand.' By its proclamation, the Word of God gives light to all who are in this world and illuminates those in the house with the rays of the truth, filling the minds of all with divine knowledge. (excerpt from FRAGMENTS ON LUKE 120, 122)5
The Word Among Us Meditation on Luke 8:16-18 comments that if we want our light to shine into the darkness, we need to proclaim Jesus, the Light of the World. And we should do that not only through our words but through the witness of our lives. We might not even realize it, but our faith, our hope, and our love make the transformative power of God’s love and mercy visible for all to see.
Remember that our light can shine not just for people far from the Lord but for one another as well. No matter how long we have been following Jesus, we can proclaim the gospel to our brothers and sisters both by our words and by how we live our lives. Then together we become a light that can never be concealed! “How can I shine for you today, Lord?”6
Franciscan Media shares some of the story of Saints Andrew Kim Taegon, Paul Chong Hasang, and Companions and the development of the Church in Korea.
We marvel at the fact that the Korean Church was strictly a lay Church for a dozen years after its birth. How did the people survive without the Eucharist? It is no belittling of this and other sacraments to realize that there must be a living faith before there can be a truly beneficial celebration of the Eucharist. The sacraments are signs of God’s initiative and response to faith already present. The sacraments increase grace and faith, but only if there is something ready to be increased.7
Friar Jude Winkler highlights the story in Ezra about the exile to Babylon and Cyrus policy for people who had been made captive. Not all Jews left Babylon and the Jewish community there existed until the 20th century. Friar Jude reminds us that our secret life has been intuited in many cases because often, hidden sins can be sensed as something not right in us.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, comments that many of us have a confused, guilt-ridden, obsessive attitude about money. There’s hardly anybody who can think in a clear-headed way about it. At the end of Luke’s parable of the so-called dishonest steward, Jesus creates a clear dualism between God and wealth, or what he calls “mammon”: “You cannot serve God and mammon” (Luke 16:13). Mammon was the god of wealth, money, superficiality, and success. Jesus says, in effect, “You’ve finally got to make a choice.” Most of Jesus’ teaching is what Fr. Richard calls nondual—a theme he often teaches—but there are a few areas where He’s absolutely dualistic (either-or), and it’s usually anything having to do with power and anything having to do with money.
Jesus is absolute about money and power because he knows what we’re going to do. Most of us will serve this god called mammon. Luke’s Gospel even describes mammon as a type of illness, as Jesuit John Haughey (1930–2019) explained: “Mammon is not simply a neutral term in Luke. It is not simply money. It connotes disorder. . . . Mammon becomes then a source of disorder because people allow it to make a claim on them that only God can make.” [1] “Mammon illness” takes over when we think all of life is counting, weighing, measuring, and deserving. We go to places that have sales, so that we don’t have to give as much to get the same thing. My mother spent much of her time cutting coupons to save ten cents. It was good and even necessary for a while, I guess, but it’s very hard to get rid of that fixation.8
We seek to be open to the prompting of the Spirit so the Light of Christ can illuminate the areas of our transformation where we are still held captive.
References
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