A Lectio Divina Approach to the Sunday Liturgy
BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD (Series 7, n. 40)
22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B – August 30, 2009
“Be Doers of the Word”
BIBLE READINGS
Dt 4:1-2, 6-8 // Jas 1:17-18, 21b-22, 27 // Mk 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
(N.B. Series 7 of BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD: A LECTIO DIVINA APPROACH TO THE SUNDAY LITURGY includes a prayerful study of the Sunday liturgy of Year B from the perspective of the Second Reading. For other reflections on the Sunday liturgy of Year B, please go to the PDDM Web Archives: WWW.PDDM.US and open Series 1 & 4.)
I. BIBLICO-LITURGICAL REFLECTIONS
After hearing in these past five Sundays the insightful catechesis of the Church on the Eucharist as the bread of unity, the bread of spiritual renewal, the bread of wisdom, the bread of the strong, and the bread of the covenant, this Sunday’s liturgy presents the challenge of Christian living: “Be doers of the word.” Today’s bible readings help us delve into the meaning and implication of being nourished by the bread of the word.
In the Old Testament reading (Dt 4:1-2, 6-8), Moses exhorts the Israelites to hear and to observe the commands of the loving God – ever close to his people – that they may live and take possession of the Promised Land. The Law of the Lord, with its statutes and decrees that Moses proposed to the chosen people, was meant to intensify their love-covenant relationship with God and help them to be faithful. Based on the word of the Lord, the Law was geared to make life for the Israelites a joyful and liberating experience. Through faithful and obedient observance of the divine word, God’s gift of life to the people will be deepened and become fruitful.
The liturgical scholar, Adrian Nocent comments: “The commandments and decrees that Moses transmits in God’s name are a sign of the Lord’s love for his people. They bring out the two major aspects of the covenant he is establishing with the Israelites. God chooses this people, leads them, protects them amid the many difficulties they encounter, and constantly proves his fidelity to them. God’s fidelity calls for man’s fidelity to him in return: concretely, man must hear and keep the commandments; he must observe them in their entirety without adding or subtracting anything from them. This, then, is how man should respond to the fidelity of God. If he hears and accepts the law, if he meditates on it and observes it, he will contribute to the carrying out of God’s plan of salvation. If and when Israel thus responds, she will show herself to the pagans as a great and wise people. The law is thus not meant as a crushing burden, but as a leaven and a source of enthusiasm for Israel, which will find in the law both salvation and greatness.”
The Gospel reading (Mk 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23) shows that God’s commandment and its observance could be perverted. The Pharisees and the scribes struggled to observe human precepts, erroneously considered as doctrines, while disregarding the spirit and content of God’s great command of love. Mary Ehle remarks: “Jesus is calling people to a new relationship with him, based on what is in their hearts. Human traditions that can lead to the defilement of people and their relationship with God, Jesus now sets in their proper place – in service to God’s commandment – the Great Commandment, love of God, neighbor and self.” Unless religious observance proceeds from the heart, which is the seat of faith, and unless it promotes the divine command of charity, it is bound to become false and hypocritical, empty and barren. Love is the fulfillment of the Law.
The Second Reading (Jas 1:17-18, 21b-22, 27) from St. James energizes us with his exhortation: “Be doers of the word!” His main concern is to help the Christian community persevere in conversion to God and to make the believers grow in the Gospel life. He underlines the intimate relationship between faith in God and love of neighbor, which characterizes our covenant relationship with God. The great pastor, St. James, inspires us with his keen sense of the wholeness of Christian life. Indeed, there is an active and inseparable relation between religion and life. For St. James, there is no fragmentation of faith and works and there is no such thing as part-time Christians in the Church.
Adrian Nocent explicates: “St. James, the great apostle of Christian action in the world, gives good advice. We ought to welcome the Gospel with a truly teachable spirit: humble enough to learn, able to face the truth even when it hurts, not blinded by prejudice, and sufficiently self-controlled to accept discipline. We should practice true religion. He wants our faith to be not merely an abstract assent, but a practical application in human living. James’ orphans and widows (v. 22) are his shorthand for all the oppressed for whom religion calls us to care.”
In this special Year for Priests, it is our joy to present some notes concerning Alberto Hurtado, the remarkable Jesuit priest from Chile who was canonized by Pope Benedict on October 23, 2005 in Rome (cf. Luis Quezada, “I’m Content, Lord! I’m Content!” in THE WORD AMONG US, August 2006, p. 51-56). In his care for the needy, the orphans and the street children in Chile, St. Alberto Hurtado is an excellent example of a disciple who is both a “hearer of the word” and a “doer of the word”.
Alberto Hurtado was born in 1901, in Vina del Mar, a port city in central Chile. By the time he was five, his father had died and his mother had moved to Santiago with her two sons, after selling the family property to pay off debts. Having no home of their own, they lived with different relatives – an experience that acquainted Alberto with the struggles of the homeless and needy. He learned compassion from his mother, too. “It is good to put your hands together to pray, but it is better to open them in order to give”, she used to say. Young Alberto did this by sharing with poor children the coins his uncle gave him. Later, as a student, he devoted Sunday afternoon to helping serve the poor in Santiago’s most blighted areas.
He also prayed. In fact, as he sensed a growing call to be a Jesuit priest, he prayed long and hard that doors would open and that his mother’s financial situation would improve. Eventually, his prayers were answered in the form of a court ordered settlement that ensured his mother a decent income. In 1923, with a law degree in hand, Alberto entered the Society of Jesus. His long years of formation took him to Argentina, Spain, and Louvain, Belgium, where he wrote a doctoral thesis on the art and science of education. Upon being ordained a priest in 1933, he wrote a friend that he felt “completely happy” and wanted only “to live out my ministry with all the fullness of my inner life and my outer activities”.
Once back in Chile, Hurtado lost no time putting his dreams into action. He taught high school and university students, seminarians and lay people. Young people were drawn to him through the retreats he preached and the mission trips he led; it seemed that no matter what activity he was pursuing, he fired young hearts to give themselves to Christ and work for his glory. But in the midst of all these outreaches, Alberto was most concerned for the poor. He worried about the orphans who roamed Santiago’s streets and climbed onto city buses to sing for money, to beg, or to steal purses. While others ignored them, he was keenly aware of the homeless youths who spent nights around bonfires under bridges and in parks. Some, he knew, were addicted to drugs or drink and stole to support their habits; some had done jail time. What he saw broke his heart. “Every poor person, every vagrant, every beggar is Christ himself who is carrying his cross”, he often said. “As such, we ought to love him and care for him.”
In October 1944, a sick, shivering man came to Hurtado looking for a place to stay. He was the very picture of misery. Days later, still shaken by the encounter, Alberto spoke of the man’s distress at a women’s retreat. His heartfelt account of the poverty on Santiago’s streets was like seed falling on good soil. When he spontaneously suggested opening a shelter for the neediest and the street children, the women responded with generous donations of money, jewels, and land. “Christ’s Home”, the Hogar de Cristo, opened its doors the following May. Everyone was welcome, the only requirement being that they have a real need. Alberto was directly involved in the project, recalled Maria Opazo, whose husband often accompanied him when he went out at night looking for children in need. He drove a green truck and drove it fast, slamming on the brakes when he saw a child lying on the ground. Stopping briefly on the bridge over the Mapocho River, he would blow the horn, and the children would come out yelling, “It’s Papa Hurtado!” When the truck was full, he took the children to the Hogar and then started all over again. “This would go on almost every night from 10:00 p.m. to about 3:00 a.m.”, said Mrs. Opazo.
Fr. Hurtado opened more houses, some of them rehabilitation centers and vocational schools that offered people the skills they needed to earn a living. Above all, he wanted everyone served to come to respect “their value as a person and dignity as a citizen, and more so, as child of God.” Today, the Hogar de Cristo and its many affiliates carry on their founder’s vision by caring for thousands of children, teens, and adults throughout Chile. (…)
Alberto was only fifty years old when he experienced the first symptoms of the disease that would cut his life short. A year later, after suffering a stroke, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The illness meant a reduction in the amount of work he could accomplish and, ultimately, an early death, but he received the news as a gift from God. Wanting to make the most of his last days, Hurtado kept his door always open. His room became a place of pilgrimage for people of all social conditions. He said farewells, thanked everyone for “such evidence of love and devotion” – and never forgot the poor. In his last letter, written only days before his death on August 18, 1952, Alberto charged his friends to continue his work: “As the needs and miseries of the poor show themselves, find ways to help them as you would help the Master … I confide the poor little ones to your care, in the name of God.”
II. POINTS FOR THE EXAMINATION OF THE HEART
1. What is the meaning of God’s Law in the life of the chosen people? Why did Moses enjoin the Israelites to hear and observe God’s commandments and decrees? Why is the Law of the Lord just and perfect? What is its significance in relation to our covenant relationship with our loving, provident God?
2. What lessons can you glean from Jesus’ confrontation with the Pharisees and scribes concerning ritual purity? Have you experienced the temptation to pervert God’s great command of love and to “cover up” by external religious observance? Is our religious observance truly emanating from within our heart, the seat of faith?
3. Are we both “hearers of the word” and “doers of the word”? Are we grateful for all the good and gifts we receive from the Lord? Do we welcome the word of truth that gives us life and do we nurture the word of God planted in our heart? Is our faith expressed in our care for the “widows and orphans”, for the poor and needy?
III. PRAYING WITH THE WORD
Leader: Loving Father,
every good gift and every perfect present comes from you,
the creator of the heavenly lights.
You brought us into being by your word of truth.
We thank you for the life-giving word planted in our heart.
Help us to listen and to put your word into practice.
Teach us to worship you in spirit and truth.
May we serve you with true reverence and wholeness of life
by taking care of the “orphans and widows” in their suffering.
Give us the grace to be compassionate to the poor and needy
and to serve them with active and effective charity.
In today’s fragmented society,
may we give witness to your healing love and transforming power
by being both “hearers of the word” and “doers of the word”.
Let all peoples praise you and glorify you,
now and forever.
Assembly: Amen.
IV. INTERIORIZATION OF THE WORD
The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the week. Please memorize it.
“Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourself.” (Jas 1:22)
V. TOWARDS LIFE TRANSFORMATION
A. ACTION PLAN: Pray that by being “doers of the word”, we may give witness to the awesome goodness and wisdom of God in today’s anguished world. By our care for the “orphans and widows”, for the poor and needy, let us allow the word of God planted in our hearts to bear abundant fruits.
B. ACTION PLAN: To strengthen us in our Christian commitment to be “doers of the word”, make an effort to spend an hour in Eucharistic Adoration. Visit the PDDM WEB site (www.pddm.us) for the EUCHARISTIC ADORATION THROUGH THE LITURGICAL YEAR: A Weekly Pastoral Tool (Year B, vol. 5, n. 40).
Prepared by Sr. Mary Margaret Tapang PDDM
PIAE DISCIPULAE DIVINI MAGISTRI
SISTER DISCIPLES OF THE DIVINE MASTER
60 Sunset Ave., Staten Island, NY 10314
Tel. (718) 494-8597 // (718) 761-2323
Website: WWW.PDDM.US