God bless you! For the past few weeks I have chosen to offer not a homily but a service to those who wish: I present the Sunday Bible readings to aid understanding of the biblical text with a short commentary always starting with the word of God. I hope it may be useful to you: if you wish, let me know and I thank you for your attention." The Word of God is an uphill path, the more you strive, the more you advance towards the light " (paraphrase from St John of the Cross) " Each verse of the Bible is like a step: reading it is easy, living it is the real challenge of faith (paraphrase from "the Ladder of Paradise" by St John Climacus). Each week I will send the text on Wednesday evening or Thursday morning to allow time to read and meditate.

Here is next Sunday's.

XXXIII Sunday Ordinary Time (year B) 

Commentary on the readings [17 November 2024]

*First Reading from the Book of the Prophet Daniel 12, 1-3

 *In the storm of persecution Faith in the resurrection is born 

The book of Daniel is named not after its author but after its protagonist, the prophet Daniel who lived in Babylon during the years of the last kings of the Neo-Babylonian empire and was written during the Maccabean revolution (2nd century BC). There are at least two important statements in today's text. First of all, Daniel comforts his contemporaries who were going through a difficult time. When he says: 'It will be a time of distress, such as there had never been', he is speaking of the future, but it is only in appearance because they were under occupation and persecution. Opposition books could not be circulated, so he pretends to speak of the past or the future, but in truth of the present, and readers understand and take the comfort they need. Reigning after the conquests of Alexander the Great and the first rather tolerant successors was Antiochus Epiphanes, sadly famous for his terrible persecution of the Jews. He placed himself at the centre of the Temple as a god and the Jews had to choose: submit or remain faithful to their faith, facing torture and death. Some bent, but many remained faithful and were killed. Daniel tells them that Michael, the leader of the Angels, watches over them and if they are now experiencing defeat and the horror of terror, they are nevertheless victorious in a battle that takes place both on earth and in heaven: the heavenly army has already won. Human history is a gigantic struggle in which the victor is already known, and this particularly concerns the people of the Covenant. 

To the message of comfort for the living Daniel joins a reference to those who sacrificed themselves so as not to betray the living God. Since God does not forsake those who die for him, those who die will thus be resurrected. The word 'resurrection', which is part of our vocabulary today, was virtually unknown at the time. For centuries, the question of individual resurrection did not arise as the focus was on the people and not on the individual, on the present and future of the people and not on the fate of the individual. In the history of Israel, interest in the destiny of the individual emerged as a conquest and progress during the exile linked to the idea of individual responsibility. It must always be remembered that faith in the faithful God matures with the events of history and Israel increasingly understands that God desires the good of man and never abandons him. The experience of the Covenant thus nourished Israel's faith and it was realised that if God wants man free from all bondage, He cannot leave him in the chains of death. Truth exploded when some believers sacrificed their lives for God and their death became a source of faith in eternal life. It was thus understood that martyrs will rise for eternal life: "Many of those who sleep in the region of the dust shall awake: some to eternal life, and some to shame and everlasting infamy". The book of Daniel considers resurrection only for the righteous, but later it will come to be understood that resurrection is promised to all mankind composed of good and bad human beings and indeed no one is totally good or bad. Finally, only when we are enlightened by the certainty that God loves us, can we understand that we will live forever.

Responsorial Psalm 15 (16), 5.8, 9-10, 11

*The great commitment in the image of the Levite 

In Psalm 15(16), of which today we meditate on just a few verses, it all seems simple when we take refuge in God because only in him is our good. In verse 5 we read: "The Lord is my inheritance and my cup: in your hands is my life" and continues "my inheritance is great" (v.6) and then states that "for this my heart rejoices and my soul exults; my body also rests secure because you will not forsake my life in hell nor will you let your faithful one see the grave" (v.8,9,10). In reality, under very simple appearances, Psalm 15/16 translates the terrible struggle of faithfulness to the true faith: exactly the same as Daniel's call not to deny the faith despite the persecution of King Antiochus Epiphanes. The struggle for fidelity marks Israel from the very beginning, ever since Moses during the exodus perceived the risk of idolatry: think of the episode of the golden calf when the people convinced Aaron to build it (Ex. 32). When they then entered the land of Canaan (between the 15th and 13th centuries BC), the danger of idolatry remained as they saw that everything was going wrong. War, famine, epidemic aroused the desire to rely on two certainties: The Lord and Baal because, in difficulties, one is tempted to resort to every god possible and imaginable. King Ahaz did it in the 8th century by sacrificing his son to idols, and his grandson Manasseh fifty years later. This is why the prophets fought against idolatry, which is the worst of slavery. This psalm therefore translates the preaching of the prophets in the form of a prayer: there resounds an invitation to the believers to follow the preaching, and at the same time it is a supplication to God to help everyone endure in the time of trial. It would also be helpful to read the verses not found on this Sunday (vv.1-4) where it is said, among other things, that "to the idols of the land, to the mighty gods went all my favour. They multiplied their sorrows those who run after a foreign god" and then states "I will not pour out their libations of blood, nor will I pronounce with my lips their names". In short, it is necessary to turn only to the God of the Covenant as the only one able to guide his people on the difficult path to freedom. Over the centuries, it has been understood that the God of Israel is the only God for all mankind. If there is an exclusivity for Israel, it is because he chose him freely and revealed himself to them as the one true Lord. It is up to Israel to respond to this calling by binding itself exclusively to him and, in so doing, fulfil its mission as a witness to the one God before the other nations. To express this mission, Israel in this psalm compares itself to a Levite: "The Lord is my inheritance and my cup, in your hands is my life" (v.5). It alludes to the singular condition of the Levites that, at the time of the partition of the Promised Land among the tribes of Jacob's descendants, the members of the tribe of Levi had received no part of the land and thus their portion was the House of God (the Temple), the service of God. Their whole life was consecrated to the service of worship; their livelihood was guaranteed by tithes and a portion of the crops and meat offered in sacrifice. Israel is at the heart of humanity as the Levites are the heart of Israel, both called to the direct service of the Lord, the source of joy. Bearing in mind the first reading that speaks of the resurrection of bodies (Dan 12), one understands that the eternity spoken of in this psalm is not about individual resurrection because the true subject of all the psalms is never an individual but the whole of Israel sure to survive being the chosen of the living God. And verse 10: "Thou shalt not forsake my life in hell, nor let thy faithful see the grave" does not express faith in individual resurrection but is an appeal for the survival of the people. Certainly when the prophet Daniel (first reading) proclaimed faith in the resurrection of the dead, this verse made such sense; later Jesus and now all of us can confidently say that our hearts rejoice and our souls are rejoicing because the Lord does not abandon us to death, but rather at his right hand, an eternity of joy awaits us.

*Second Reading from the Epistle to the Hebrews 10:11-14. 18

 Jesus delivers humanity from the fatality of sin 

The letter to the Hebrews, like and more than the other New Testament texts, aims to make it clear that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah-priest, and therefore the Jewish priesthood is superseded. Having ended the role of the priests of the Old Covenant, in the New Covenant the only priest is Christ. But what are the characteristics of the priests of the Old Covenant compared to Christ? The author focuses on two points: the liturgy of the Old Testament priests was daily and they always offered the same sacrifices; Jesus, on the other hand, offered a unique sacrifice. The worship of the Jewish priests was ineffective, since the sacrifices did not have the power to eliminate sins, whereas, with his unique sacrifice, Jesus eliminated the sin of the world once and for all. There are statements here that were important to the Judeo-Christian milieu of the time, such as the expression 'to eliminate sins' because the word 'sin' returns several times in this text. Experience says that after Christ's death/resurrection sins continue to exist in the world, so to say that Jesus took away the sin of the world is to point out that sin is no longer a fatality because, thanks to the gift of the Holy Spirit, we can overcome it. Furthermore, when we read that "with one offering he has made perfect for ever those who are sanctified" we must understand that the term "perfect" does not have a moral meaning, but expresses fulfilment, completion. That is, we have been led by Christ to our fulfilment; thanks to him we have become free men and women: free not to relapse into hatred, violence, jealousy; free to live as sons and daughters of God and as brothers and sisters. In the celebration of the Eucharist we keep saying 'Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world'. This makes one think of the prophet Jeremiah (31: 31-33) who prophesied: "Behold, the days will come - the Lord's oracle - when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah...I will put my law within them, I will write it on their hearts", or of Ezekiel (36: 26-27): "I will take away from you the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit within you and make you live by my laws". The early Christians knew that one must allow oneself to be led by the Holy Spirit, but an essential condition is to remain united to Christ like the branches to the vine.  We read again in the text: "Christ...is seated forever at the right hand of God and is now waiting for his enemies to be placed at the footstool of his feet" (vv12-14). The expression 'seated at the right hand of God' had been a royal title in Israel for centuries. On the day of his coronation, when he took possession of his throne, the new king sat at the right hand of God, and in this context to say that 'Jesus Christ sat forever at the right hand of God' means that Jesus is the true King-Messiah awaited. This concept is reinforced by what follows: "He is now waiting for his enemies to be set at the footstool of his feet". The tradition was that on the steps of the thrones of kings were carved or sculpted figures of chained men representing the enemies of the kingdom, and the king ascending the steps of the throne trampled on them, symbolically crushing his enemies, and this was not gratuitous cruelty but a guarantee of security for his subjects. Signs of these figures can be found in the thrones of Tutankhamun (discovered in 1922 by archaeologist Howard Carter in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt), while in Israel, the only trace remains of what the prophet pronounced for the king in the coronation rite: "Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet". If Christ is indeed the Messiah, the awaited eternal king descendant of David, the old world is now over. One last clarification: why is it said: "the sacrifice of the Mass"?  In the Epistle to the Hebrews we read: "Now where there is forgiveness there is no more offering (sacrifice) for sin". The term sacrifice remains even though, with Christ, its meaning has changed: for him, "to sacrifice" (sacrum facere, to perform a sacred act) does not mean to kill one or a thousand animals, but to live in love and to give one's life for one's brethren, as the prophet Hosea already stated in the 8th century B.C.: "I want love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God more than holocausts." (6, 6).

*Gospel according to Saint Mark (13, 24-32)

Jesus uses the apocalyptic style here 

In Mark's gospel Jesus now changes style and approaches in his discourses the divination literature that was then very much in vogue. All religions were asking the same questions: Will mankind go irretrievably to ruin or will Good triumph? What will the end of the world be like and who will be the victor? They used the same images of cosmic upheavals, eclipses of the sun or moon, celestial characters, angels or demons. The Jews first and then the Christians borrowed this style but inserted the Gospel message, i.e. divine revelation. That is why, in the Bible, this literary style is called "apocalyptic" because it brings a "revelation" from God: literally, the Greek verb apocaliptõ means to reveal, in the sense of "lifting the veil that covers the history of mankind". At the time, it was like a cipher language, in code: it speaks of the sun, the stars, the moon and how all this will be shattered, even if it means something else. It is the victory of God and his children in the great battle against evil that they have been waging since the origin of the world. Here is the specificity of the Judeo-Christian faith for which it is a mistake to use the term apocalypse to speak of frightening events because in the language of the Jewish and Christian faith it is exactly the opposite. Revealing the mystery of God does not tend to frighten humanity, but rather to encourage people to face every crisis in history by lifting the corner of the veil that covers history in order to hold on to hope. Already the prophets in the Old Testament used the same imagery to announce the day of God's final victory over every evil force. We find in Joel (2:10-11): "The earth trembles, the sky is shaken, the sun and moon are darkened and the stars cease to shine. The Lord makes his voice heard before his host. Great is his army, mighty in carrying out his commands. Great is the day of the Lord, terrible indeed: who shall be able to sustain it?". I also recommend reading these others from the prophet Joel (3:1-5 and 4:15-16) and Isaiah (12:1-2). These are not stories to instil terror, but to announce the victory of the God who loves us. The message is always this: God will have the last word because, as Isaiah writes, evil will be destroyed and the Lord will punish the wicked for their crimes (cf.13:10); it is the same Isaiah who, a few verses earlier (ch.12:2), announced the salvation of God's children: "Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, I will not be afraid, for my strength and my song is the Lord; he has been my salvation." These words, in which praise and faith in God as Saviour resound together with a deep sense of security and trust in divine protection, are part of a song of thanksgiving that celebrates the deliverance and support that God offers his people. In apocalyptic style, to proclaim faith is to assure that God is the master of history and one day evil will disappear. Therefore, rather than 'end of the world', it would be better to say 'transformation of the world' or rather 'renewal of the world'. All this emerges in this Sunday's gospel of Mark with one clarification: the definitive victory of God against evil only takes place in Jesus Christ. In the gospel we are only a few days away from Easter and Jesus resorts to this language because the battle between him and the forces of evil is now at its climax. To understand Jesus' message, we can turn to the gospel of John, when at the conclusion of his long discourse to the apostles he says: "I have spoken these words to you so that you may have peace in me. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage, I have overcome the world" (John 16: 33). And the parable of the fig tree that sheds its leaves fits well into this message, bearing in mind that the key to understanding is the adjective "near", "near": the signs only herald the nearness of the end, so beware of false prophets who see the end of the world now. Instead, we must watch and pray because the nearness of the end is for every generation - and this invitation is present throughout the Gospel.

Happy Sunday to you all!

+Giovanni D'Ercole