A Lectio Divina Approach to the Sunday Liturgy
BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD (Series 4, n. 41)
22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B – September 3, 2006
“Cherish the Lord’s Commands!”
BIBLE READINGS
Dt 4:1-2, 6-8 // Jas 1:17-18, 21b-22, 27 // Mk 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
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 First 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
When I was a student at Maryhill School of Theology in the Philippines, a lanky and amiable Dutch professor, a member of the religious congregation Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, taught the courses in Canon Law. He was both a Canon scholar and a moral theologian. His approach was so spirit-filled and refreshing that Canon Law, together with Sacred Scriptures, became my favorite course. Some of my friends could not believe that Canon Law had become a favorite. One of them joked that probably my professor disagreed with Canon Law – that could explain why the course became so interesting. I countered that the approach was what made the course special. The professor, with his quaint Dutch accent, helped his students understand the meaning and the function of the Law in the Church. He discussed various cases with insightful reflections. He introduced us to the principle of epikeia – that in a particular situation a law may not apply. Thus properly understood and interpreted, Canon Law ceases to be burdensome, constricting and legalistic. It becomes a very positive and regenerating element of the life and growth of the Church.
In this Sunday’s Old Testament Reading (Dt 4:1-2, 6-8), we hear Moses exhorting his people to cherish the statutes and decrees that he was teaching them to observe. The Law that Moses was transmitting to Israel was part of the love relationship between God and his chosen people. It was meant to promote the wisdom and life of God’s people so that they may reach and take possession of the Promised Land. The Law was an instrument to teach God’s children to walk on the way of life to their privileged destiny as a “great nation that is truly wise and intelligent”. The Law or the Torah serves as directions for living and orients towards the holiness and greatness willed for them by the Lord God.
The authors of the Days of the Lord, vol. 5, comment: “Through the Law, God teaches his children to walk so that taking at every hour of everyday, at every phase of life, the step they can and must take, they may reach the end of the journey. Scrupulous faithfulness to observances can certainly turn into formalism, invite criticism, and fall prey to narrow-mindedness and ridicule. It would be wrong to base one’s judgments on these caricatures that the genuine followers of the Law are the first to denounce. The humble and persevering observance of God’s law and its prescriptions gives its adepts the strength to stand, to walk for a long distance, because they keep a regular pace. Their example carries others along, or at least shows the way.” Indeed, our life that is an Exodus to the Promised Land necessitates walking in the way of God’s commands. The Word of God, of which the Law is a vital expression, summons us to a greater intimacy with God and to a deeper responsibility for the advent of salvation and the promotion of God’s glory.
The gift of the Law is an expression of God’s love for his people Israel, and the people’s observance of the divine commands expresses their positive response to that faithfulness and love. The liturgical scholar Adrian Nocent remarks: “The commandments and decrees that Moses transmits in God’s name are a sign of the Lord’s love for his people. They bring out the two major aspects of the covenant he is establishing with the Israelites. On the one hand, God chooses this people, leads them, protects them amid the many difficulties they encounter, and constantly proves his fidelity to them. On the other hand, God’s fidelity calls for man’s fidelity to him in return; concretely, man must hear and keep the commandments; he must observe them in their entirety without adding or subtracting anything. This then is how man should respond to the fidelity of God. If he hears and accepts the law, if he meditates on it and observe it, he will contribute to the carrying out of God’s plan of salvation. If and when Israel thus responds, she will show herself to the pagans as a great and wise people. The law is thus not meant as a crushing burden but as a leaven and a source of enthusiasm for Israel, which will find in the law both salvation and greatness.”
Against the Old Testament backdrop of the true meaning and function of the Law in the life of the chosen people Israel, we see how serious was the issue raised by Jesus in the Gospel reading (Mk 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23) against a degraded approach to God’s commands and a faulty interpretation of the Law. The Pharisees had confronted Jesus for not observing the ritual prescription of purifying the hands before meals. In response, the Divine Master endeavored to enlighten their minds about what truly defiles. What defiles comes from what is inside a person’s heart and the evil motivations deep within. He therefore criticized the Pharisees for their hypocrisy and their belief that if they carry out external practices, they are good persons no matter what their hearts and thoughts are like. Moreover, their reverence for God was empty because they taught dogmas that were mere human precepts. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for a warped understanding that seek to compensate human traditions for true obedience to God’s commands.
Indeed, human traditions can be a scapegoat for not embracing fully the sweet yoke of God’s Law. According to Harold Buetow “To uphold human tradition can be attractive, because to try to catch the awesome reality of God in the small nets of our mind can be insecure, mysterious, and occasionally uncomfortable effort. It is far easier to use traditions as fig leaves hiding our nakedness before God. But Jesus condemned the Pharisees for setting aside God’s commandments in order to uphold human tradition.”
The appeal that Moses addressed to the people in Exodus to the Promised Land to cherish the Law of God and Jesus’ endeavor to help us grasp the true meaning of the Law are directed to us anew. The authors of the Days of the Lord, vol. 5, assert: “The liturgy for this Sunday urges Christians to a rigorous examination of their lives and behavior. God’s commandments are a grace that assigns to us a considerable responsibility toward the whole world. If they are humble received and faithfully kept, they render witness to the wisdom of God who gave them, at the same time they insure salvation in truth. For Jesus is a free man who frees others and calls them to act responsibly by conforming their lives to the desires of their hearts in which the Word has been sown.”
PERSONAL REFLECTION
“Tough Choices, Right Choices, Better Choices”
Sr. Cynthia Calabig FMA
Corpus Christi Convent, San Francisco, CA-U.S.A.
This Sunday’s Gospel pericope is one of the most revolutionary passages in the New Testament. Here, we see Jesus arguing with the legal experts about the traditional law and the emphasis they are giving to irrelevant practices and rigid adherence to certain traditions like the rules on cleanliness and eating habits.
In effect Jesus was pointing out that things could not be clean or unclean in any religious sense of the term. Only persons can really be tainted and corrupted; and what corrupts a person comes from his own actions, which are the product of his own choices. Choices that come from the depths of one’s being, the heart! Our choices define our character. For this reason, the choices we make are crucial. They either build us or destroy us. But why are making choices so hard? Because WE HAVE TOO MANY OPTIONS! The answer seems ridiculous and paradoxical. But in reality the world offers unlimited choices that cause dissatisfaction. Too many choices can lead to an unbridled search for what is “best”. In the process, our energy is wasted and leaves us a feeling of constant regret and disappointment. They make us feel that we missed out on many great opportunities while waiting for a better one, which never came.
Many years way back, the options were limited. Today the picture is very different. There is an impressive array of options from which one can choose. Because there are such a variety of choices, we find it hard to know where to begin. In the classroom of Plum High School social studies teacher Ron Sakolsky is this advice from Albus Dumbledore, the wise but fictional headmaster in the Harry potter books: “It is not our abilities that identify us. It is our choices.”
It is worth considering why even in the most affluent countries in the world with an enormous number of choices one can make every day people show signs of being less happy that they were years way back. Why are so many people getting depressed? Why are people who have everything feel so frustrated and discontented? Why do they feel exploited in the midst of freedom, feel miserable in the midst of prosperity and abundance?
Why? Because we have many choices, we want the best and we do not know what to choose. We do not want to give up something for something else. It is ironic that having many desirable choices brings about disappointment and regret. Why? Because in the process we burden our life with meaningless regret over missed opportunities or choices deferred in search of an unattainable “best”. This makes us miserable over nothing. Another reason is our lack of commitment. Commitment to a system of beliefs, of laws and rules is important because they give meaning and direction to our living. And having once chosen to commit myself to them, I no longer regard the decision I made as “up for grabs”.
Although having too many choices can cause a lot of misery, it does not mean doing away with many choices. It is good to have many possibilities to choose from. But it isn’t the choices themselves that matter. It’s the sense of control of our own lives. And strangely enough, we often get far more of a sense of control by voluntary limiting our own choices than by leaving all our options open all the time. Once we have limited our choices, it doesn’t matter anymore that we have a huge variety to choose from because we have already chosen.
Setting boundaries aren’t limits. It is a form of disciple. Setting boundaries define the choices that I have made. Christianity sets limits and boundaries. That is what makes it difficult to be a disciple of Christ. Discipleship comes from the word “discipline”. My being a Christian makes me a disciple of Christ, a follower of Christ. And my being a disciple of Christ didn’t force the demands of Christianity on me. I chose to be a follower of Christ and I chose those rules that Christ has set forth as part of my identity. In doing so, I have more freedom, not less. And most importantly, I chose to do so and I feel comfortable with my choice.
One of the benefits of self-discipline is re-enforcing our zone of inner freedom. By educating our self to discipline, we develop inner motivation and character that enable us to resist pressures from the outside. Karol Wojtyla before becoming a Pope wrote philosophical essays on freedom in the truth. In one of his writings entitled “The Acting Person” he explains that in our freedom, we must follow what we capture as good and worthy of being chosen, but the choice is not forced upon us. We consent to the attraction because our reason approves of it. In acting freely, we experience ourselves as the source of our own activity and as responsible for the results.
Lord, we are faced with many tough choices about our Christian living. Help us make wise decisions in our day-to-day life. We want a meaningful life that is lived in the truth. Help us to be reflective persons, at peace with others and to stand before God in the goodness of a life well lived. Lord, please be with us as we struggle with the hard questions of life. Open our eyes to see you in the midst of it all. Amen.
II. POINTS FOR THE EXAMINATION OF THE HEART
A. What is our attitude towards the Law of God? Is it a spirit-filled understanding that enables us to see statutes and decrees within the context of love-filial relationship with God? Do we cherish the God’s commands? How do we regard the role and function of the Law within the Church?
B. In what ways we have failed to embrace the true meaning and challenge of God’s command in our lives? Have we been guilty of legalism and hypocrisy? How do we rectify these? Are we willing to respond to God’s call to conversion and to be transformed by the sweet yoke of God’s Law that enables us to tread in his ways?
C. Do we look to Jesus as the true expression and sacrament of God’s life-giving will and commands? Do we allow ourselves to be filled by the Spirit of love that enables us to act upon the great commands of God’s love and neighbors?
III. PRAYING WITH THE WORD
(Adapted from Days of the Lord, vol. 5, Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1993, p. 208)
Leader: The Son of man knows the thoughts of humans. When our hearts are naked before him, let us implore his pity. Without ceasing, let us cry:
Assembly: Purify us, Lord. Draw us near to you.
Leader: Listen to my word, practice it and you will live. If any love me, my Father will love them and we shall dwell in them. Love one another, and so you will remain in my love.
Assembly: Purify us, Lord. Draw us near to you.
IV. INTERIORIZATION OF THE WORD
The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the week. Please memorize it.
“Now, Israel, hear the statutes and decrees which I am teaching you to observe, that you may live …” (Dt 4:1)
V. TOWARDS LIFE TRANSFORMATION
A. ACTION PLAN: Pray that we may have a deeper understanding of the meaning of God’s commands and the great “giftedness” of his statutes and decrees in our life as children of God and as followers of Jesus Christ. Enable the people around you to experience that the Law of God is perfect, refreshing the soul.
B. ACTION PLAN: To help us contemplate more deeply and thank the Lord God for the gift of Law, which is in view of wisdom and life, 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. 41): 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