Word to the Wise
Wednesday, September 10, 2014 - Wednesday in the 23th Week in Ordinary Time
[1 Cor 7:25-31 and Luke 6:20-26]Raising his eyes toward his disciples Jesus said: "Blessed are you who are poor,for the Kingdom of God is yours......[Luke]
These familiar words begin St. Luke's version of the "Beatitudes." The setting is different - not on a mountain, but on a plain! Furthermore, there are "curses" that follow which seem to address the opposite of each "beatitude." ["But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation, etc."] Luke's "beatitudes" seem to echo Mary's "Magnificat" in the infancy narrative, which should alert us to the overall preaching of his gospel! God is doing something new. The things that are regarded as "goods" by the world are being overturned and become obstacles. Jesus is God's decisive "intervention" in human history.
It is important to remember that each gospel was addressed to a particular community in a particular time and place. Gradually, each was shared more broadly and applied to the circumstances of a larger world. The disciples of Luke's time were experiencing poverty, hunger and persecution just as were those of Jesus' time. The same is true today! We have only to look at the situation of the Chaldean Catholics in Iraq at the hands of the Islamist radicals called ISIS.
Jesus does not "glorify" poverty, hunger and persecution. He promises that God has not forgotten those who suffer. He warns those who think they are powerful and who have more than a "sufficiency of this world's goods." We do not have to look far to find poverty, hunger and persecution. How do we respond to it? AMEN
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