Word to the Wise
Saturday, September 30, 2017 - Saturday in the 25th Week in Ordinary Time
[Zech 2:5-9, 14-15a and Luke 9:43b-45]While they were all amazed at his every deed, Jesus said to his disciples, "Pay attention to what I'm telling you. The Son of Man is to be handed over to men." But they did not understand this saying; its meaning was hidden from them so that they should not understand it, and they were afraid to ask him about this saying. [Luke]
SEPTEMBER 30 ST. JEROME, priest and doctor of the Church
Jesus began his ministry in Galilee but that was only the humble beginning. It was spectacular enough in terms of what he accomplished just there. But there was a bigger truth that the disciples were not able to comprehend. From this point on in the Gospel According to Luke, Jesus sets his face toward Jerusalem where a grim fate would await him. The gospel traditions record at least three warnings to the disciples that Jesus' life story had some very hard realities to undergo, and the disciples were afraid to say anything, with the exception of Peter at Cesarea Philippi when he reacted sharply to one of Jesus' predictions. Jesus called him an "obstacle" and told him to get out of the way!
St. Jerome, whose feast day it is today, is famous for his translation of the Bible into Latin, but he is also famous for saying, "Ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ." Unlike the first disciples, we have the whole New Testament before us to enable us to get a bigger picture than they had. What do we make of this determination on the part of Jesus to go to Jerusalem to suffer and die? Why did it have to happen this way? St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that the only reason that makes any sense is love. The cross and resurrection which lay ahead of the small start in Galilee give us that bigger picture which disciples like St. Paul and others would be proclaiming to the world. There is much here for us to study so that we may not be "ignorant of Christ." AMEN
config
view
logs
3840.0 KB
106 ms
4
