The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today invite us to humbly pray in gratitude for our experience of God with us on our journey.
The reading from the Book of Sirach declares Divine Justice.
* [35:1–26] Keeping the commandments of the law and avoiding injustice constitute sacrifice pleasing and acceptable to God (vv. 1–5). Offerings also should be made to him, cheerfully and generously; these he repays sevenfold (vv. 6–13). Extortion from widows and orphans is injustice, and God will hear their cries (vv. 14–22a). Punishing the proud and the merciless and coming to the aid of the distressed, he requites everyone according to their deeds (vv. 22b–26). (Sirach, CHAPTER 35, n.d.)
Psalm 34 offers praise for Deliverance from Trouble.
* [Psalm 34] A thanksgiving in acrostic form, each line beginning with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. In this Psalm one letter is missing and two are in reverse order. The psalmist, fresh from the experience of being rescued (Ps 34:5, 7), can teach the “poor,” those who are defenseless, to trust in God alone (Ps 34:4, 12). God will make them powerful (Ps 34:5–11) and give them protection (Ps 34:12–22). (Psalms, PSALM 34, n.d.)
The reading from the Second Letter to Timothy shares the reward for Fidelity.
* [4:6] The apostle recognizes his death through martyrdom to be imminent. He regards it as an act of worship in which his blood will be poured out in sacrifice; cf. Ex 29:38–40; Phil 2:17.
* [4:7] At the close of his life Paul could testify to the accomplishment of what Christ himself foretold concerning him at the time of his conversion, “I will show him what he will have to suffer for my name” (Acts 9:16). (2 Timothy, CHAPTER 4, n.d.)
The Gospel of Luke is the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax-Collector.
* [18:1–14] The particularly Lucan material in the travel narrative concludes with two parables on prayer. The first (Lk 18:1–8) teaches the disciples the need of persistent prayer so that they not fall victims to apostasy (Lk 18:8). The second (Lk 18:9–14) condemns the self-righteous, critical attitude of the Pharisee and teaches that the fundamental attitude of the Christian disciple must be the recognition of sinfulness and complete dependence on God’s graciousness. (Luke, CHAPTER 18, n.d.)
Chas Kestermeier, S.J. asks if God is actively loving the world he is in a sense using our hearts, and if he is solving the world’s problems he is using our minds, and if he is feeding and healing and lifting up the poor he is using our hands – and we, as a group, do not do as well at all that as we would wish. The question still remains then: if God is at work through us, why doesn’t he reach better results?
Karl Rahner once noted that being a true Christian does not lie in reaching success; to the contrary it is a life of betrayal of our ideals and human hopes, of anything that we can measure. It is always, for our spiritual life as well as for what we endeavor in Christ’s name, a matter of leaving everything in God’s hands to perfect: God created us humans as radically imperfect beings, and he alone will bring that perfection to us. He writes straight with our crooked lines, but he loves our scribbles and scratches because it is us, his beloved children, who are offering them as our gift to him...
The Kingdom is not only a destination, it is a journey – a pilgrimage – and the true pilgrims are not those who ride in comfort but those who help the other pilgrims along the way. (Kestermeier, 2022)
Don Schwager quotes “The medicine of repentance,” by Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 A.D.
"How useful and necessary a medicine is repentance! People who remember that they are only human will readily understand this. It is written, 'God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble' (1 Peter 5:5, James 4:6, Job 22:29, Proverbs 3:34). The Pharisee was not rejoicing so much in his own clean bill of health as in comparing it with the diseases of others. He came to the doctor. It would have been more worthwhile to inform him by confession of the things that were wrong with himself instead of keeping his wounds secret and having the nerve to crow over the scars of others. It is not surprising that the tax collector went away cured, since he had not been ashamed of showing where he felt pain." (excerpt from Sermon 351.1) (Schwager, n.d.)
The Word Among Us Meditation on Luke 18:9-14 comments that prayer isn’t always a raw, gut-wrenching experience like the tax collector had. But if we want to encounter God as we pray, we do need to approach him with honesty and humility. We need to open our hearts to God and ask him to come in.
When you go to Mass today, you’ll be entering a holy place where God and his children come together. Come, like the tax collector, without pretense and ready to receive his grace and mercy.
“God, you alone are holy. I open my heart and invite you to cleanse me. Make me like you!” (Meditation on Luke 18:9-14, n.d.)
Friar Jude Winkler shares his reflections on the texts today.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, reflects on the spiritual foundations of nonviolence embodied and taught by Martin Luther King Jr. Part of the genius of Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968), inspired by the teachings of Jesus and Gandhi, was that he was able to show people that violence was not only immoral but also impractical and, finally, futile. In the long run, violence does not achieve its own stated purposes, because it only deepens the bitterness on both sides.
King would insist that true nonviolent practice is founded on spiritual seeing. . . . He took it as axiomatic that the attitudes of nonviolence were finally impossible without an infusion of agape love from God and our reliance upon that infusion. He defined agape love as willingness to serve without the desire for reciprocation, willingness to suffer without the desire for retaliation, and willingness to reconcile without the desire for domination. This is clearly a Divine love that the small self cannot achieve by itself.
We must live in and through Another to be truly nonviolent. [1] (Rohr, 2022)
We experience the help of the Spirit in humility and service as we engage with the people in our lives.
References
Kestermeier, C. (2022, October 22). Creighton U. Daily Reflection. Online Ministries. Retrieved October 23, 2022, from https://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/102322.html
Luke, CHAPTER 18. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved October 23, 2022, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/18?9
Meditation on Luke 18:9-14. (n.d.). The Word Among Us: Homepage. Retrieved October 23, 2022, from https://wau.org/meditations/2022/10/23/519106/
Psalms, PSALM 34. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved October 23, 2022, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/psalms/34?2
Rohr, R. (2022, October 23). A Nonviolent Love — Center for Action and Contemplation. Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved October 23, 2022, from https://cac.org/daily-meditations/a-nonviolent-love-2022-10-23/
Schwager, D. (n.d.). God, Be Merciful to Me a Sinner! Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations – Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved October 23, 2022, from https://www.dailyscripture.net/daily-meditation/?ds_year=2022&date=oct23
Sirach, CHAPTER 35. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved October 23, 2022, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/sirach/35?12
2 Timothy, CHAPTER 4. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved October 23, 2022, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/2timothy/4?6
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