A Lectio Divina Approach to the Sunday Liturgy
BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD (Series 4, n. 14)
8th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B – February 26, 2006
“The Bridegroom’s Renewing Love”
BIBLE READINGS
Hos 2:16b, 17b, 21-22 // 2 Cor 3:1b-6 // Mk 2:18-22
N.B. This new series of BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD: A LECTIO DIVINA APPROACH TO THE SUNDAY LITURGY presents a biblico-liturgical study of the Old Testament reading of each Sunday Mass to serve as background for a better understanding of the Gospel proclaimed in the liturgy. For a biblico-liturgical study of the Gospel for each Sunday, please go to the PDDM Web Archives: WWW.PDDM.US.
I. BIBLICO-LITURGICAL REFLECTIONS
A friend from the neighboring apartment came over to our home for a chat. She informed us about an uncle who was a contract worker in Saudi Arabia. After several years of hard work and sacrifice in that distant, foreign land earning a living for his family, he discovered when he returned to the Philippines that all his salary had been squandered by his wretched wife who had been running around with four different men. Enraged and brutally hurt, he almost killed his wife who had prostituted herself with numerous partners. Deeply humiliated and despondent, he tried to alleviate his misery by getting drunk.
The plight of this unjustly aggrieved spouse is similar to the experience of the Old Testament prophet Hosea. The Jerusalem Bible gives a commentary on this pathetic prophet and his work: “Hosea, a native of the Northern Kingdom, was a contemporary of Amos, since his ministry began under Jeroboam II, though it continued through the reign of his successors; Hosea may even have lived to see the fall of Samaria in 721 B.C. It was a somber period for Israel with the victorious advance of Assyria (734-732 B.C.), internal rebellions (four kings assassinated in fifteen years), religious and moral corruption. Of Hosea’s life during those turbulent times we know nothing beyond his own domestic troubles, but these were to condition his ministry as a prophet … Hosea has married a wife whom he loves but who deserts him; his love remains however, and, having put her to the test, he takes her back. The prophet’s sad experience becomes a symbol of Yahweh’s dealings with his people … Israel, the bride of God, has become a faithless harlot and has aroused the anger and jealousy of her divine husband. God’s love remains; he will punish her, but only to bring her back and restore her to the joys of their first love.”
This Sunday’s prophetic reading (Hos 2:16b, 17b, 21-22) is one of the most beautiful passages ever proclaimed in the liturgical assembly. It is a tender appeal for a renewed love relationship. The Lord Yahweh offers to renew the nuptial bond violated and adulterated by Israel’s infidelities and apostasies. As the loving, faithful spouse of Israel, Yahweh sought to revive the spark that had characterized their covenantal relationship in the beginning. The following words of Yahweh, filled with unmitigated love, alluded to the Exodus experience in the wilderness when he had espoused Israel to himself by ratifying a covenant with them at Mount Sinai and making them his chosen people: “I will lead her into the desert and speak to her heart. She shall respond there as in the days of her youth, when she came up from the land of Egypt” (Hos 2:16b, 17b). By alluring his bride Israel into the spiritual desert of a chaste, unadulterated relationship, God was trying to restore the original intimacy of their covenantal bond as spouse-Lord and bride-people.
The magnanimous character of Yahweh’s relationship with erring Israel can be easily gleaned in the following declarations he made to his chosen people: “I will espouse you to me forever: I will espouse you in right and in justice, in love and mercy. I will espouse you in fidelity, and you shall know the Lord” (Hos 2:21-22). The covenantal bond is to be lived in righteousness and justice, in steadfast love and mercy. God’s relation with his people is marked with integrity and faithfulness, with tenderness and abounding compassion. The response that the deservedly chastised Israel would need to give to Yahweh’s renewed offer of covenantal love is for them to live in justice, mercy and fidelity. Then the bride-people Israel would have the pleasure of coming to “know the Lord” not just in theory, but in an all-embracing way that would involve acknowledging God’s will and obeying his law.
Hosea’s evocative imagery of Yahweh’s nuptial relationship with his people Israel is a most fitting background for this Sunday’s Gospel reading (Mk 2:18-22) about the “messianic Bridegroom”. The nuptial love of the Bridegroom, Jesus, for the Church - the new people Israel – brings about a new and eternal covenant. Using the parable of the old garment that cannot be repaired by sewing new cloth onto it and the parable of the old wineskin that cannot be used for new wine, Jesus gives us a glimpse of the radical character of the new covenant ratified in his blood. By the paschal mystery that he had accomplished on the cross, the Bridegroom Christ has espoused the Church to himself in a life-giving and renewing love.
The liturgical scholar Adrian Nocent concludes: “Faith in the presence of the Bridegroom with his new covenant, while requiring a new outlook, also makes dialogue with God possible … In this dialogue God constantly renews us; we become a new garment, new wine: ‘There she shall answer as in the day, of her youth, as at the time when she came out of Egypt’ … The Christian, despite his infidelity, does not have a past weighing upon him. Moreover, the mystery of his liberation by divine love is ever alive, ever renewed: ‘I will betroth you to me for ever’ ”
II. POINTS FOR THE EXAMINATION OF THE HEART
A. How do the pathos and deep agony of the abandoned spouse, Hosea, impact us? What feelings are evoked in us by Israel’s betrayal of her spouse, Yahweh? How do we react to the prophet Hosea’s fidelity to his faithless wife? How does the forgiving and renewing love of Yahweh for wayward Israel touch our hearts?
B. In what ways are we the unfaithful spouse of Yahweh? How do we respond to God’s forgiving love and his gracious invitation to renew our nuptial covenant?
C. Are our hearts gracious enough to respond to God’s eternal and faithful love crystallized in the paschal offering of Christ, the messianic Bridegroom? Do we cherish the radical newness that God’s forgiving and renewing love bring to us through his Son Jesus Christ? Are we ready to share the tenderness of God’s love with the forlorn and abandoned of today’s world?
III. PRAYING WITH THE WORD
(Cf. Commission Francophone Cistercienne, La nuit, le jour, 31 // Days of the Lord, vol. 5, Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1993, p. 78)
Assembly: Lord, Bridegroom of the Church,
speak to our hearts.
We are listening to you.
In the mirror of your Word,
you fill us with your image
and we live by your light.
Jesus, handed over for the Church,
show us the way.
We are following you.
On the way of suffering
your freedom renews us
and our strength is in the Spirit.
O Christ, you are the portion of the Church.
May your Day come.
We are waiting for it.
By longing to encounter you,
we are advancing in the mystery;
here you unveil your face.
IV. INTERIORIZATION OF THE WORD
The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the week. Please memorize it.
“I will espouse you to me forever: I will espouse you in right and in justice, in love and mercy. I will espouse you in fidelity, and you shall know the Lord” (Hos 2:21-22).
V. TOWARDS LIFE TRANSFORMATION
A. ACTION PLAN: Pray that the faithful love of the forgiving God may reign in the world. Pray especially for those who are experiencing the anguish of a betrayed nuptial relationship – for those whose marriage bond has been adulterated and shattered. Offer your contribution to promote the beauty and integrity of the sacrament of matrimony.
B. ACTION PLAN: To celebrate the renewing love of Jesus, the messianic Bridegroom, 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. 2, n. 13): 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