Faith Daily | 13 October 2022

PRAYER of the DAY - APBA p591

Almighty God,

in your wisdom you have so ordered our earthly life

that we must walk by faith and not by sight:

give us such trust in your fatherly care

that in the face of all perplexities

we may give proof of our faith by the courage of our lives;

through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

GOSPEL for the Day: Luke 11: 47-54

47Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your ancestors killed. 48So you are witnesses and approve of the deeds of your ancestors; for they killed them, and you build their tombs. 49Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, “I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute”, 50so that this generation may be charged with the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world, 51from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be charged against this generation. 52Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.’

53 When he went outside, the scribes and the Pharisees began to be very hostile towards him and to cross-examine him about many things, 54lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say.

GOSPEL REFLECTION: Mary Dean

It is not often that Jesus expresses blazing anger. The cleansing of the Temple is one instance. This passage is another. It reminds us that the God of peace and mercy is also the God of righteousness and justice. His anger here is directed at hypocrisy.

Pope Francis, in a recent homily, expressed similar rage: “Hypocrisy is the language of the devil; it is the language of evil that enters our heart and is sown by the devil...We have to learn to examine ourselves, to reflect on what is inside of us, to see the sin, hypocrisy and the wickedness that is in our heart, and to say it before God with humility. “

One of the things we find so difficult to understand is the powerful presence of evil in our midst. Yet it is most certainly there. The chosen people had killed God’s prophets, and the contemporaries of Jesus justify this by attacking him furiously and finally kill him too.

As the gospel of Luke moves along, Jesus can be seen to be on a collision course with the religious and political Jewish leaders. He becomes more and more outspoken. The lawyers, the scribes and the Pharisees become more and more angry and intent on doing him down. Jesus points out that their legality, applied to religious observance, is far removed from the love of God. They set traps for him looking for a legal reason to arrest him.

Violence and religion is a topic for all times, including our own. Jesus himself was a victim of religiously inspired violence.

The history of humankind has many examples of prophetic people who suffered death for the truth. Jesus himself was to suffer because of the lack of acceptance of his message.

It is a great freedom for our hearts and minds to be open to the truth, and not become embedded in our own prejudices. May your word live in us.

FINAL PRAYER Ps 139:23-24

Search me God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting,

Amen.