A Lectio Divina Approach to the Sunday Liturgy
BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD (Series 6, n. 28)
10th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A – June 8, 2008
“Responding to God’s Merciful Love …”
BIBLE READINGS
Hos 6:3-6 // Rom 4:18-25 // Mt 9:9-13
N.B. Series 6 of BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD: A LECTIO DIVINA APPROACH TO THE SUNDAY LITURGY includes a prayerful study of the Sunday liturgy of Year A from the perspective of the First Reading. For another set of reflections on the Sunday liturgy of Year A, please go to the PDDM Web Archives: WWW.PDDM.US and open Series 3.
I. BIBLICO-LITURGICAL REFLECTIONS
This Sunday’s Old Testament reading (Hos 6:3-6) creates a fascinating backdrop for Jesus’ healing and saving ministry. One significant verse in this prophetic passage is echoed by Jesus in today’s Gospel proclamation: “For it is love that I desire, not sacrifice …” (Hos 6:6) to underline the need for a total response to God’s merciful love. The deeply afflicted but idolatrous people of Israel, using enchanting nature images like dawning day and spring rain that waters the earth to express their resolve, seemed determine to go back to the Lord Yahweh and be reconciled with him: “Let us know, let us strive to know the Lord; as certain as the dawn is his coming, and his judgment shines forth like the light of day! He will come to us like rain, like spring rain that waters the earth” (Hos 6:4). But their vehement declaration of conversion and trust in God, whose compassion is as life giving as the gentle touch of the spring rain, was insincere. The beauty of their poetry could not hide the ugliness of their infidelity. In spite of their enchanting words purporting conversion, Israel was negating the love of Yahweh. They did not have true repentance and the courage to embrace the challenges of being God’s covenanted people.
The biblical scholar Eugene Maly comments: “The first reading begins as though Israel really did want to get to know the Lord and follow him. But then it continues with God wondering what he is going to do with Israel because her piety (that is, her love of God) is as passing as the morning dew. Her protestations of wanting to turn to him are feigned; they do not ring true. Hosea leaves no doubt about what he is asking of these people. All the ritual sacrifices in the world mean nothing if they are not offered in love. In typical Semitic form he quotes God as saying, For it is love that I desire, not sacrifice, and knowledge of God rather than holocausts. The verse is quoted by Jesus in the Gospel reading; he can see it as the heart of Israel’s faith. The two words used here are filled with meaning. Love in its Hebrew form is a special attachment to God. This love seals the relationship between two covenant partners. Therefore, it is a loyal and steadfast love, a love that can be counted on … The other word is knowledge of God. This word, too, in its Hebrew form is rich in meaning … Above all, it means a total, personal experience of the one who is known. So while that would mean intellectual understanding, it also and especially means the attachment of the will, the affections, the whole person.”
While the devotion of Israel to Yahweh was as fickle and feckless as morning dew, the love of Yahweh for them was true, firm and unshakable. It did not vanish like the dew at the rising of the golden rays of the sun. In spite of unrequited love, the Bridegroom Yahweh did not despair but committed himself to changing the heart of his Bride Israel. His faithful love was so relentless that he pursued his people again and again in order to incite them to know and love him. What God desired from Israel was a faithful love that would negate foreign idols and lead to a total submission to his benevolent saving plan. Israel, however, was incapable of a total, faithful response. The Assyrians thus invaded and destroyed Israel. According to the perception of the prophet Hosea, the violence of the mid-eighth century B.C. resulted from Israel’s infidelity and idolatry.
In contrast to the picture of an unfaithful people depicted in the Old Testament reading, today’s Gospel reading (Mt 9:9-13) presents a paradigm of a true response to the divine call. The tax collector Matthew responded immediately, fully and irrevocably to Jesus’ invitation, “Follow me”. The Lord Jesus saw in him not just an ostracized “sinner”, but what he could become once he embraced God’s offer of a healing and transforming love. To Matthew’s credit, he responded fully to grace - to the merciful love of God, crystallized in the person of Jesus Christ. Love-sick in the soul, the tax collector entrusted himself to the caring “physician” who was capable of giving him the true health that blossoms into eternal life. The Pharisees, however, were not ready to respond to the merciful offer of God’s love in his Son Jesus. As righteous “good people”, they have difficulty availing themselves of Christ’s healing ministry. They were impervious to grace and would not allow the healing love of God to bind their hidden, festering wounds. Indeed, the mercy of God personified in Jesus Christ calls for a positive response as total and immediate as that of the tax collector Matthew.
The authors of the Days of the Lord, vol. 4, remark: “God’s mercy forms the framework of the whole history of salvation and of the covenant from the beginning. It is the object of faith, hope and thanksgiving … This divine mercy Jesus taught by many means, not only in words. He is the living image, the incarnation of it. His way of welcoming sinners, going to them, sharing in the intimacy of their meals has revealed the God of mercy to the eyes of all. To believe in him is to find again the unfailing love in the coming of salvation offered to all, because Jesus, our Lord, delivered himself up for our faults and rose for our justification. The Church, which is the community of sinners to whom God was merciful, must in its turn announce this good news and exemplify it by its behavior, its attitude towards other sinners and publicans.”
The following article, “Broken Windows, Broken Lives” (cf. POVERELLO NEWS, January 2008, p. 4-5) illustrates how the POVERELLO HOUSE in Fresno tries to incarnate the spirit of the healing and merciful Jesus by trying “to fix broken lives and souls”. Having experienced and responded to the divine mercy and grace, Mike McGravin (“Papa Mike”) and his staff endeavor to be a witness and an apostle of God’s mercy in the Church and in the world.
In 1982, two sociologists named James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling proposed a hypothesis about urban disintegration, and called it the “broken window theory”. The idea became the basis of policing efforts in many cities, most notable in New York, where a dramatic, almost unbelievable drop in crime rates followed its implementation. The sociologists observed that if a window on a building is broken and left unrepaired, other windows on the building will soon be broken. Disorder invites more disorder. If nothing is done about signs of negligence such as broken windows, graffiti, litter, or abandoned cars, then vandals are emboldened to commit acts that further add to the appearance of deterioration. This has a net effect of raising the anxiety of law-abiding citizens, who sense that such physical decline makes an area unsafe. Thus, good citizens stay away, and the area attracts unsavory businesses, criminality, and more visual chaos.
Areas of cities in which there are large concentrations of homeless people are good examples of this concept. Whether mentally ill or addicted, the chronically homeless live in squalor, and because, theoretically, there is safety in numbers, a couple of encampments invite others. Predictable problems ensue, including garbage piling up, prostitution, health hazards, an increase in drug trafficking and violence. From a policing perspective, a “broken window” approach would mean cracking down, not only on major crimes, but smaller ones also, such as vandalism and vagrancy. Applied to homeless camps, this would mean arresting and dispersing the inhabitants. This has been done, usually with temporary success. However, such an approach tends to create anger and division in a community. While many applaud such efforts, others believe a crackdown is equivalent to a civil rights violation.
Poverello House takes a different “broken window” approach. We acknowledge that unchecked homelessness breeds crime, discourages business, and frightens citizens, and we realize that police action is often warranted. However, using solely a draconian, zero-tolerance approach will only serve to move the homeless to another area. As Jesus said, the poor we have with us always, and when they are pushed hard, they simply leave and show up somewhere else, often where they are equally unwelcome. The problem isn’t solved; it’s just displaced. The Poverello way, metaphorically, is to try to fix broken windows, one pane at a time. We do this in many ways. We have created a clean, safe, attractive environment that is a sharp contrast to the streets outside our gates. Homeless people can come here, eat, find shelter, and use all the services that make their lives a little better. Among the things we offer is opportunity. Our drug rehabilitation program has graduated dozens of men who have found new purpose in life, and have never returned to addiction and homelessness. It is always available and it is free, like all other Poverello services.
We agree that homelessness bespeaks brokenness in our communities. Fixing a broken windowpane may seem inconsequential, but it helps make the neighborhood a better place. Fixing broken lives and souls may also seem to be a futile endeavor, but each life rescued from ruin means one less story of despair contributing to the overall corrosion of a city.
II. POINTS FOR THE EXAMINATION OF THE HEART
Why was Israel’s declaration of conversion not pleasing to God? Why was their piety like a morning cloud and like the dew that early passes away?
What can we learn from Matthew’s decisive response to Jesus’ call, “Follow me”?
How do we respond to God’s merciful love offered to us in the person of his Son Jesus Christ? How do we endeavor to incarnate the divine mercy in today’s world?
III. PRAYING WITH THE WORD
Leader: Loving Father,
we are deeply sorry when we delude ourselves with facile forgiveness,
which we presume to obtain
without true repentance and conversion of heart.
We have grieved you with our unfaithfulness.
We have failed to respond to your merciful and compassionate love.
Help us to receive fully the gift of love you offer us in Jesus,
the radical expression of your benevolence for us.
Like Matthew,
the tax collector who responded to Jesus
and followed him on a path of goodness and healing,
may we be true disciples of Jesus.
May your beloved Son-Servant
heal our sin-sick soul and restore us to spiritual health.
Transformed by his merciful touch
that is as life giving as the gentle spring rain,
may we be limpid witnesses of your love
and apostles of divine mercy in today’s “wounded” world,
crying out for healing and forgiveness.
We love you and praise you;
we adore you and serve you,
now and forever.
Assembly: Amen.
IV. INTERIORIZATION OF THE WORD
The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the week. Please memorize it.
“Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. Go and learn the meaning of the words, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ I did not come to call the righteous but sinners. ” (Mt 9:12-13).
V. TOWARDS LIFE TRANSFORMATION
ACTION PLAN: Meditate on the merciful love of God which demands a personal response and which needs to be lived out in our daily life. Endeavor to incarnate the mercy and goodness of God by your service to the poor, the sick, the homeless, and the marginalized in our present society.
ACTION PLAN: To help us experience more deeply Jesus’ challenge “I desire mercy, not sacrifice”, make an effort to spend an hour in Eucharistic Adoration. Visit the PDDM WEB site (www.pddm.us) for the EUCHARISTIC ADORATION THROUGH THE LITURGICAL YEAR (Vol. 4, n. 27): A Weekly Pastoral Tool.
Prepared by Sr. Mary Margaret Tapang PDDM
PIAE DISCIPULAE DIVINI MAGISTRI
SISTER DISCIPLES OF THE DIVINE MASTER
60 Sunset Ave., Staten Island, NY 10314
Tel. (718) 494-8597 // (718) 761-2323
Website: WWW.PDDM.US