Wednesday of the Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time

“Christ between the Virgin and St John the Baptist”
by Jan Gossaert, 1510-15

 
Readings for Wednesday of the Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time [1]
 
Readings from the Jerusalem Bible [2]
 
Readings and Commentary:[3]
 
Reading 1: 1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13
 
Brothers and sisters:
Strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts.
 
But I shall show you a still more excellent way.
 
If I speak in human and angelic tongues
but do not have love,
I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.
And if I have the gift of prophecy
and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge;
if I have all faith so as to move mountains,
but do not have love, I am nothing.
If I give away everything I own,
and if I hand my body over so that I may boast
but do not have love, I gain nothing.
 
Love is patient, love is kind.
It is not jealous, love is not pompous,
it is not inflated, it is not rude,
it does not seek its own interests,
it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice
over wrongdoing
but rejoices with the truth.
It bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.
 
Love never fails.
If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing;
if tongues, they will cease;
if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing.
For we know partially and we prophesy partially,
but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
 
When I was a child, I used to talk as a child,
think as a child, reason as a child;
when I became a man, I put aside childish things.
At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror,
but then face to face.
At present I know partially;
then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.
So faith, hope, love remain, these three;
but the greatest of these is love.
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Commentary on 1 Cor 12:31-13:13
 
St. Paul shifts his focus from the diversity of the different functions within the Body of Christ (which is the Church), to the gifts common to those enlightened by Christ. First among these gifts is love which informs all reason, directing the Christian to the love of Christ.
 
“In speaking of love, Paul is led by spontaneous association to mention faith and hope as well. They are already a well-known triad (cf 1 Thessalonians 1:3), three interrelated features of Christian life, more fundamental than any particular charism. The greatest . . . is love: love is operative even within the other members of the triad, so that it has a certain primacy among them. Or, if the perspective is temporal, love will remain (cf. "never fails,") even when faith has yielded to sight and hope to possession.” [4]
 
CCC: 1 Cor 12 1988, 2003; 1 Cor 13 735, 800; 1 Cor 13:1-4 1826; 1 Cor 13:4-7 1825; 1 Cor 13:5 953; 1 Cor 13:8 773; 1 Cor 13:12 163, 164, 314, 1023, 1720, 2519; 1 Cor 13:13 1813, 1826, 1841
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Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 33:2-3, 4-5, 12 and 22
 
R. (12) Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
 
Give thanks to the LORD on the harp;
with the ten-stringed lyre chant his praises.
Sing to him a new song;
pluck the strings skillfully, with shouts of gladness.
R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
 
For upright is the word of the LORD,
and all his works are trustworthy.
He loves justice and right;
of the kindness of the LORD the earth is full.
R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
 
Blessed the nation whose God is the LORD,
the people he has chosen for his own inheritance.
May your kindness, O LORD, be upon us
who have put our hope in you.
R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
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Commentary on Ps 33:2-3, 4-5, 12 and 22
 
Psalm 33 is a hymn of praise in which God as creator is celebrated. In this selection the just are invited to share the Lord’s salvation, and are promised his protection. The psalm rejoices in the active help God gives to his chosen people.
 
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Gospel: Luke 7:31-35
 
Jesus said to the crowds:
“To what shall I compare the people of this generation?
What are they like?
They are like children who sit in the marketplace and call to one another,
 
‘We played the flute for you, but you did not dance.
We sang a dirge, but you did not weep.’
 
For John the Baptist came neither eating food nor drinking wine,
and you said, ‘He is possessed by a demon.’
The Son of Man came eating and drinking and you said,
‘Look, he is a glutton and a drunkard,
a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’
But wisdom is vindicated by all her children.
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Commentary on Lk 7:31-35
 
St. Luke gives us a difficult parable (also found at Matthew 11:16-19). Jesus had just been criticized for eating with tax collectors and “sinners.” His reaction here indicates that those who reject his behavior are themselves behaving like children making fun of others. The unbelieving or critical group he tells us have rejected John the Baptist and are now rejecting the Lord himself, but history would prove their identities. (“But wisdom is vindicated by all her children.”)
 
Jesus seemed to behave as though there was continually something to celebrate (cf. 5:33–34), and he drew into this celebration tax collectors and sinners—people known to be unsavory types who lived beyond the edge of respectable society (cf. at 5:30). In this way Jesus signaled the in-breaking of the eschatological time of salvation: his meals with sinners were a foreshadowing of the eschatological banquet (cf. at 13:29) of those who have received God’s grace and forgiveness. [5]
 
“Both John and Jesus entice their contemporaries to enter into the mind of God and exercise the highest freedom possible by playing the ‘game of the Kingdom’, but their contemporaries insist on remaining apathetic by clinging to the logic of earthbound life with all its preassigned values and meanings. Sorrow and joy define the dimension of greatest freedom, the dimension of the Kingdom of Heaven, while apathy, practicality, and common sense circumscribe the narrow confines of the worldly city.” [6]
 
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Reflection:
 
Have you ever wondered if, in the early Church, when persecution by either the Roman leadership or the Jewish hierarchy was ongoing, Christians could be identified simply by the way they acted in their daily lives?  We read St. Paul’s letters instructing various churches, and we read the Gospel, with Jesus explaining that his behavior and that of St. John the Baptist was misconstrued and reviled by non-believers.  It seems that hiding the faith of a Christian should be very difficult when they are placed in a social setting ruled by the passions and need for personal gratification of the day.
 
This question leads us to ask the same about ourselves.  There was a joke a while back that expressed this idea pretty well:
 
It seems there was a man driving through town during rush hour. Right behind him, tailgating, was a woman. Driving very aggressively she followed him through a couple intersections and finally he came to a traffic light that turned yellow as he approached. Although he could have accelerated through the intersection he chose to stop for the light.
 
Immediately the lady behind started laying on her horn, screaming curses out the window, and gesturing with her hands in a manner unbecoming a lady. As the tirade continued, a police officer who had been behind her walked up to the car and asked her to step out. There he promptly handcuffed her, called to have the car towed and took her to the police station for booking. After she had spent about two hours in the holding cell following that procedure, the arresting officer came to the cell and said “Sorry for the delay ma’am, you may go now.”
 
The woman was infuriated and demanded that the officer explain why she was stopped, booked and detained like a criminal. The officer replied; “Well ma’am, when I pulled up behind your car and saw the bumper sticker that said “What would Jesus do”, the chrome fish symbol with the word Jesus inside, and the vanity plate that read RU SAVED, and then I saw you in that car screaming obscenities and making those gestures to the driver in front of you, I naturally assumed that the car must have been stolen.”
 
It’s a really good story, and we can all get a good laugh out of it until we ask ourselves if we have not behaved in ways similar to the lady who was arrested.  If we were really good at living the way St. Paul told his friends at Corinth to live, we would not need bumper stickers identifying us as Christians.  If we lived the love of Christ, we would be instantly recognizable as followers of the one who was mocked and derided by those of his own faith when he walked the earth as a man.
 
Our challenge is to keep trying to live up to that standard.  To be motivated by our love of others from the moment we wake: “Lord, open my lips that my mouth may proclaim your praise,” to the last prayer of the day: “Lord, grant me a restful night and a peaceful death.”  If we can keep that ideal in front of us – hold it out like a lamp in the darkness – others will absolutely see the light and be attracted to it. But the Lord’s warning must also ring in our ears: “‘We played the flute for you, but you did not dance. We sang a dirge, but you did not weep.’”  Those who hate the light will deride us.  Those who wish to justify their own selfish behavior will want us to conform ourselves to the model they project, and if we do not their guilt will cause them to dislike or even hate us.
 
Today we are given great direction. St. Paul tells us that faith, hope, and love must be our attitudes.  We know this will mark us in the world, but today we pray for the courage to live as Christ commands us and as the saints show us.
 
Pax

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[1] The picture is “Christ between the Virgin and St John the Baptist” by Jan Gossaert, 1510-15.
[2] S.S. Commemoratio
[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] NAB footnote on 1 Corinthians 13:13.
[5] John Nolland, Luke 1:1–9:20, vol. 35A, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 1989), 348.
[6] Leiva-Merikakis, Erasmo. Fire of Mercy, Heart of the Word: Meditations on the Gospel According to St. Matthew (p. 823). Ignatius Press. Kindle Edition.