A Lectio Divina Approach to the Sunday Liturgy
BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD (Series 8, n. 50)
32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C – November 7, 2010 *
“Strengthened by the Lord of Life”
BIBLE READINGS
II Mc 7:1-2, 9-14 // II Thes 2:16-3:5 // Lk 20:27-38
(N.B. Series 8 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 C from the perspective of the Second Reading. For reflections on the Sunday liturgy of Year C based on the Gospel reading, please scroll up to the “ARCHIVES” above and open Series 2. For reflections based on the Old Testament reading, open Series 5.)
I. BIBLICO-LITURGICAL REFLECTIONS
We are almost at the end of the liturgical year and coasting toward a new one. In our spiritual journey as a worshipping community, we have experienced our vulnerability as well as the courage and strength that come from God. As the liturgical year draws to a close, our attention is drawn gently towards the transitory character of human existence and our eternal destiny with God. The “last things” fascinate us and the reality of the “end time” provokes us. This Sunday’s liturgy of the Word enriches us with profound insights on life and death.
The Old Testament reading (II Mc 7:1-2, 9-24) portrays the intense sacrifices of the Jewish martyrs who trusted in the faithful God who would bring them back to life. The faith declaration that “the King of the world will raise them up to live again forever” is a radical expression of the gradually developing belief of Israel in the resurrection of the body. Explicit belief in the resurrection only appeared in Judaism during the persecution of the Greek king Antiochus IV (167-164 B.C.).
The biblical scholar Eugene Maly explains: “For a long time Israel of the Old Testament period had no positive conviction of a life after death. True, they thought that the deceased went to Sheol. But Sheol was a shadowy place of shadowy existence. Israel had no conviction of a fullness of life after death. But Israel had a hope. It was in a God who willed that fullness of life and would somehow bring it about … The real breakthrough in the expression of this hope came in the second century B.C. In the book of Daniel we read, ‘Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake; some shall live forever …’ (12:2). It is no accident that this revelation was realized at a time of persecution of the just. The book of Second Maccabees was written as a theological reflection on that same persecution. Our reading is part of a story of a Jewish mother and her seven sons who were put to death for their faith. And we read of their affirmations of the resurrection of the body, powerful statements that need no commentary of themselves.”
The Gospel reading (Lk 20:27-38) intuits that resurrection is not resuscitation. It is not the mere continuation of this life, but its complete transformation by the living God. Harold Buetow remarks: “The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the Good News of the fullness of life in this age and of the resurrection in the age to come. For us death is a door, not a wall that ends growth and action like the Berlin wall, but a door into a Christmas-tree room full of surprises. Someone had compared death to standing on the seashore. A ship spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the open sea. She fades on the horizon, and someone says, ‘She’s gone’. Just at the moment when someone says, ‘She’s gone’, other voices who are watching her coming on another shore happily shout, ‘Here she comes’. Or to use another metaphor, what the caterpillar calls ‘the end’, the butterfly calls ‘the beginning’. When in a moment we say the last line of the Creed, ‘We believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting’, we are asserting the belief that, in a way no one fully understands, at our resurrection our body joins with our spirit to continue our existence in eternal life. So our body as well as our spirit is holy, and for both of them this life isn’t all there is.”
In the Gospel passage, we can glean an even more fundamental truth, i.e. that the loving relationship initiated by God lives on and transcends death. Love can not be diminished or terminated by physical death because the living God is not subject to death. The God of life, in the paschal mystery of Jesus Christ, vanquishes the darkness of sin and the power of death. Faith in the God of life enables us to look forward to our glorious destiny with him and the fullness of life after death.
As we continue our pilgrimage to the end time, Saint Paul’s beautiful prayer that we hear in this Sunday’s Second Reading (II Thes 2:16-3:5) inspires us to a greater trust in the Lord of Life: “May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting encouragement and good hope through his grace, encourage your hearts and strengthen them in every good deed and word … May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and the endurance of Christ.” With the living Lord on our side, we believe that the power of Christ’s resurrection is at work in us – through the daily challenges and difficulties we experience as his disciples – even now!
The liturgical scholar Adrian Nocent comments on the Second Reading: “Saint Paul is again offering the Thessalonians a message of hope. A Christian’s life may be one of struggles and difficulties, but God loves him and gives him consolation and joyous hope as well as strength to do good and proclaim the Gospel. The Christians must pray that the gospel may be spread and God’s word heard everywhere. The spread of the Gospel will bring persecution from non-believers, but God is faithful; he protects his messengers from evil and gives them courage and strength. We must therefore persevere in our journey. This passage is short but bracing, and can be of great help in our everyday routine and when we are tempted to get bogged down and grow discouraged. The certainty of God’s love for us and of the help he gives us will raise us up and keep us from dwelling too long on the big and little afflictions of life.
The following story is fascinating and illustrates that there is comfort and strength from beyond (cf. Deborah Sudduth-Snyder, “A Rose for Kate” in GUIDEPOSTS, July 2010, p. 33-34). God’s mysterious hand is at work to encourage us in loving and to assure us of the power of love that transcends death.
I love you. Just three simple words. So why couldn’t I say them to my aunt Kate, a woman who had meant so much to me through the years. I walked into my apartment and collapsed on the couch. I had taken off from work that morning and had hopped on a bus to visit my aunt at the nursing home. I’d stood by her bed, trying to tell her how much I loved her. But the woman I saw before me – frail, pale, with glazed eyes, only patches of stubble where short sandy blonde hair had once been – scared me silent. I knew that Aunt Kate didn’t have much time left. But that made it so much harder. Saying “I love you” felt like saying goodbye. And I couldn’t bring myself to do that.
Just a few months earlier, Aunt Kate and I had hiked at Warren Dunes State Park on the shore of Lake Michigan, a beautiful trail we had hiked so many times before, when my brother, Chris, and I were just kids and came to visit her in the summertime. Aunt Kate had always led the way on those outings, but this time she had to turn back. I knew that cancer was finally taking its toll. Still, to me, Aunt Kate was invincible. She was fearless and independent. The great outdoors was her playground. She never married and never had children, so she treated Chris and me like her own. She taught us how to hike and swim. We rode horses and camped out in the woods. It was Aunt Kate who had made a nature lover out of a city girl like me.
Then there was our garden. There was no room to plant anything where I lived, so Aunt Kate let me grow whatever I wanted at her house. “Garden? More like a jungle”, my dad had said when he saw it. My favorites were the yellow roses that Aunt Kate and I planted. Even after a harsh Michigan winter, they grew back year after year. I lay back against the couch and prayed, Lord, help me let her know how much I love her, before it’s too late.
That garden we planted popped into my mind. Flowers. That’s what I could give Aunt Kate. Yellow roses, like the ones we had grown together all those years ago. In the morning I went out to the florist and chose a beautiful bouquet. On the card I wrote the words I had such trouble saying aloud. The next day the nurse called to tell me that my aunt had received my gift. Good, I thought. On my next visit, I’ll be able to say it in person.
But the following day I got another call. One I hadn’t wanted to receive. Aunt Kate passed away. I was devastated. The funeral was hard to get through, but not as difficult as visiting the nursing home one last time to collect my aunt’s things. “She requested that you care for her flowers”, the nurse told me, handing me the roses, my card still taped to the vase. Silently I took them from her.
When I got back home, I set the flowers by the window and removed the card. Through tear-blurred eyes, I read the words I had written: “I love you.” Did she know, Lord, how much I loved her? Could she even read the card? I wondered. I wiped my eyes and the card came into focus. There were some light gray marks near the bottom. I looked more closely at the card. Below “I Love You”, in shaky pencil, just dark enough for me to make out, my aunt Kate had written “U 2”.
II. POINTS FOR THE EXAMINATION OF THE HEART
How does the courageous witnessing of the Jewish martyrs impinge on us? How does their faith in the God of life inspire us?
How do we respond personally to Jesus’ declaration that God is not God of the dead, but of the living? Do we desire to live forever?
Do we allow ourselves to be strengthened by God in every good deed and word? Do we pray that we may persevere in the love of God and endure in our witnessing of Christ?
III. PRAYING WITH THE WORD
Leader: O loving God,
you are the God of the living.
To you all are alive
and in you all exist.
Your infinite power
conquers the destruction of sin and death.
We believe that you will raise us up
to live again forever.
We believe in the resurrection of the body
and the life of the world to come.
As we wait eagerly for the completion of our glorious destiny,
continue to encourage our hearts.
Strengthen us in every good word and deed.
Teach us to love and serve you faithfully.
Help us to endure with Christ
and overcome the trials of life
and the deep challenges of daily living.
We thank you and adore you,
for you are our living God.
You will us to share in the eternal joy and the fullness of life.
We praise and glorify you.
We serve and extol 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.
“May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the endurance of Christ.” (cf. II Thes 3:5)
V. TOWARDS LIFE TRANSFORMATION
ACTION PLAN: Pray that the sustaining power of God and the reality of resurrection may continue to be felt by Christian disciples in their daily life. By your acts of justice, charity and peace, allow the loving plan of the Lord of life to be operative in the here and now of today’s world aching for true life.
ACTION PLAN: That we may present more intensely the saving power of the Lord of 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: A Weekly Pastoral Tool (Year C, vol. 6, # 50).
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