(Saturday of
the Second Week in Ordinary Time)
 |
| Sts. Timothy and Titus, Artist and Date are UNKNOWN |
(Note: the Gospel for this
Memorial is from the Proper of the day)
Reading 1: 2 Timothy 1:1-8
Paul,
an Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God
for
the promise of life in Christ Jesus,
to
Timothy, my dear child:
grace,
mercy, and peace from God the Father
and
Christ Jesus our Lord.
I
am grateful to God,
whom
I worship with a clear conscience as my ancestors did,
as
I remember you constantly in my prayers, night and day.
I
yearn to see you again, recalling your tears,
so
that I may be filled with joy,
as
I recall your sincere faith
that
first lived in your grandmother Lois
and
in your mother Eunice
and
that I am confident lives also in you.
For
this reason, I remind you to stir into flame
the
gift of God that you have through the imposition of my hands.
For
God did not give us a spirit of cowardice
but
rather of power and love and self-control.
So
do not be ashamed of your testimony to our Lord,
nor
of me, a prisoner for his sake;
but
bear your share of hardship for the Gospel
with
the strength that comes from God.
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Commentary on
2 Tm 1:1-8
St. Paul writes to one of his key
disciples, St. Timothy, from Rome where he is a prisoner. It is clear that the
affection between the two of them is strong as Paul reminds him of his
installation as Bishop ("…the gift of God that you have through the
imposition of my hands”). Paul encourages Timothy to remain strong and
faithful to the Gospel, even in the face of opposition.
CCC: 2 Tm 1:3 1794; 2 Tm 1:5 2220; 2 Tm 1:6 1577, 1590; 2 Tm 1:8 2471, 2506
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Or: Titus 1:1-5
Paul,
a slave of God and Apostle of Jesus Christ
for
the sake of the faith of God’s chosen ones
and
the recognition of religious truth,
in
the hope of eternal life
that
God, who does not lie, promised before time began,
who
indeed at the proper time revealed his word
in
the proclamation with which I was entrusted
by
the command of God our savior,
to
Titus, my true child in our common faith:
grace
and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our savior.
For
this reason I left you in Crete
so
that you might set right what remains to be done
and
appoint presbyters in every town, as I directed you.
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Commentary on
Ti 1:1-5
This selection is the introduction to St. Paul’s letter to Titus.
"The heading is particularly long and formal. It contains, as usual
(cf. Romans 1: 1-2; 1
Corinthians 1:13; etc.), the sender's name--Paul; the addressee's --Titus;
and the greeting--"Grace and peace". In this case, however, Paul's
title (Apostle), and the prerogatives of his authority and his God-given
mandate to preach are given special emphasis (v. 3). This has led some scholars
to argue that the epistle was in fact written by a disciple of St Paul--who
would have put in all this about the Apostle's authority in order to give the
letter more weight. However, it is more reasonable to suppose that when St Paul
was writing the letter he had Titus very much in mind and also the community in
Crete, whom false teachers were beginning to unsettle; the solemn, official
tone would be due to the serious nature of their doctrinal aberrations and to
the need to ensure that the church in Crete was property organized. [4]
In the second paragraph he lets us
know what Titus’ mission is: to form the Church on Crete (which according to
the best scholarship, Paul himself never visited).
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Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 96:1-2a,
2b-3, 7-8a, 10
R. (3) Proclaim God's marvelous deeds to all the nations.
Sing
to the Lord a new song;
sing
to the Lord, all you lands.
Sing
to the Lord; bless his name.
R. Proclaim God's marvelous
deeds to all the nations.
Announce
his salvation, day after day.
Tell
his glory among the nations;
among
all peoples, his wondrous deeds.
R. Proclaim God's marvelous
deeds to all the nations.
Give
to the Lord, you families of nations,
give
to the Lord glory and praise;
give
to the Lord the glory due his name!
R. Proclaim God's marvelous
deeds to all the nations.
Say
among the nations: The Lord is king.
He
has made the world firm, not to be moved;
he
governs the peoples with equity.
R. Proclaim God's marvelous
deeds to all the nations.
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Commentary on
Ps 96:1-2a, 2b-3, 7-8a, 10
“Announce his salvation, day after day.” This song of praise to
the Lord invites all humanity to participate in God’s salvation. “This psalm
has numerous verbal and thematic contacts with Isaiah Chapters
40-55, as does Psalm
98. Another version of the psalm is 1
Chronicles 16:23-33.” [5]
CCC: Ps 96:2 2143
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Gospel: Mark 3:20-21
Jesus
came with his disciples into the house.
Again
the crowd gathered,
making
it impossible for them even to eat.
When
his relatives heard of this they set out to seize him,
for
they said, “He is out of his mind.”
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Commentary on
Mk
3:20-21
Jesus returns to his home and is
greeted with disbelief by some his own relatives. They likely believe, because
of his excessive focus on his mission and the claims made about his actions,
that he has become delusional.
This short passage provides a sense
of the challenges Jesus faces in his mission to proclaim the Kingdom of God.
His fame had clearly spread as a consequence of his teaching, his natural
charisma, and his miraculous healing power. The disbelief by even his relatives
is a barrier to be overcome.
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Reflection:
The
Gospel begs a question of us today. If
we took the Gospel completely to heart and lived it so diligently that every
suggestion Jesus made about how life was to be lived was followed completely,
would our families think we had lost our minds?
The answer that may have popped into our minds may have been “No, I try
to do that now and no one thinks I am insane.”
On
the Feast of Saints Timothy and Titus, two of St. Paul’s emissaries (also
likely considered insane by others), we are invited to consider more closely
the circumstances surrounding Jesus that would have caused that kind of
reaction from those with whom he had grown up.
We can only suppose that he had been apprenticed to his father (foster
father) Joseph during his adolescent and early years before we encounter him at
the Jordan
He
was no doubt thought to be a bit strange by his peers – probably too good. The adults would have loved him because of
his seeming maturity beyond his years.
Perhaps suddenly or with little discussion with his mother (tradition
tells us St. Joseph had passed away somewhat before this), he decides that he
is called to begin something important and goes out to see John, baptizing at
the Jordan River. Even if he had been
accompanied by some of his relatives, what happened at the Jordan
Upon
his return, the first person to recognize that event was St.
John the Baptist who sees him and tells his disciples “Behold the Lamb of God” (John1:29). What a strange title to use. Yet some of John’s disciples follow him. This leads to the call of the first four and
quickly that number grows to twelve (symbolic of the number of Tribes of Israel
perhaps).
Some
of these “disciples” were of questionable character and there would have been
news of him having developed a power to heal.
There would also be some rather disturbing news about confrontations
with the religious leadership. His family
(half-brothers, half-sisters and cousins) would have heard that he had been
challenging the Pharisees and scribes – not a good thing and highly uncharacteristic
of the good and gentle young man they had known growing up.
This
would have been the prelude to Jesus coming home. His excessive preoccupation with the
proclamation of the Kingdom
of God
It’s
fairly clear how these two short verses came about. Have we not seen similar situations in our
own lives? Have we not known people who
went off on a retreat or perhaps made a Cursio weekend and had come back
changed, significantly changed, not the same person? Did we think of them as fanatics or religious
zealots? We now come back to our
original question. If we took the Gospel
completely to heart and lived it so diligently that every suggestion the Jesus
made about how life was to be lived was followed completely, would our families
think we had lost our minds? The answer
might be yes. And if we did, would that
be such a bad thing? Should we not be
fanatical about our faith?
Conversion
comes in stages to most. It is a process
rather than an event. What is clear is
that even a gradual change will be met with resistance. The attitudes and values of Christ are not
welcome in many parts of our society and attempts will be made to silence those
who shout too loudly. The same was true
in the time of Timothy and Titus. They
were sent by St. Paul to proclaim the Good News to an unbelieving world.
Today
our prayer is that we too might be thought of as being a bit mad, if it is
Christ’s witness we proclaim.
Pax
[1]
The Icon is of Sts. Timothy and Titus, Artist and Date are UNKNOWN
[2]
S.S. Commemoratio # 520 /#316 (Gospel)
[3]
The readings are taken from the New
American Bible, with the exception of the psalm and its response which were
developed by the International Committee for English in Liturgy (ICEL). This
republication is not authorized by USCCB and is for private use only.
[4]
The Navarre Bible: “Letters of St. Paul”, Scepter Publishers, Princeton, NJ, ©
2003, p. 611
[5]
See NAB footnote on Psalm 96
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