Word to the Wise
Monday, September 19, 2022 - Monday in the 25th Week in Ordinary Time
[Prov 3:27-34 and Luke 8:16-18]Refuse no one the good on which he has a claim when it is in your power to do it for him. Say not to your neighbor, "Go, and come again, tomorrow I will give," when you can give at once. [Proverbs] "No one who lights a lamp conceals it with a vessel or sets it under a bed; rather, he places it on a lampstand so that those who enter may see the light..." [Luke]
Collections of wise sayings are part of the Bible and, indeed, part of literature dating from ancient times in various cultures. In the Bible, examples of these are found in the books of Proverbs, Wisdom, Ecclesiastes, and Sirach. Often these collections come from the notes of disciples, which scripture scholars tell us took place with the disciples of Jesus. There are "sayings" of Jesus which appear in the gospels according to Luke and Matthew that do not appear in Mark, from whom both Luke and Matthew borrowed extensively. The theory widely accepted is that there was a separate "collection" of sayings in a document called "Q" (for the German word Quelle, which means "source." In any case, we see this at work in today's gospel scripture in the image of the light not being put under something. Matthew includes this saying in the Sermon on the Mount [Matt. 5:15-16]. Luke places it after the Parable of the Sower of the Seed. Each evangelist used Jesus' wisdom to suit the story he was trying to tell of Jesus' life, death and resurrection.
The "wisdom" to be gleaned from the image of the lamp in both Luke and Matthew is simple enough. If we want the gospel to spread, we don't hoard it like a personal possession. We proclaim it. As we learned in St. Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians last week, each of us does this proclamation according to the talents and gifts that God has given to each of us. The great Dominican renaissance artist, Fra Angelico (Bl John of Fiesole) once complained to Bl. John Dominic (Dominican archbishop of Florence) that his painting never allowed him to go out and do street preaching. John Dominic assured him that his paintings were an eloquent preaching! Whatever gift we have from God can be an instrument of evangelization. "Let your little light shine!" AMEN
[Note to the Beloved Congregation: from Sept 20-27, I will be on the west coast of Oregon in PDT. So WTTW will seem to come later to your screens]