A Lectio Divina Approach to the Sunday Liturgy
BREAKING THE BREAD OF THE WORD (Series 5, n. 8)
3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C – January 21, 2007
“They Understood What Was Read …”
BIBLE READINGS
Neh 8:2-4a, 5-6, 8-10 // I Cor 12:12-30 // Lk 1:1-4; 4:14-21
N.B. Series 5 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 C from the perspective of the First Reading. For another set of reflections on the Sunday liturgy of Year C, please go to the PDDM Web Archives: WWW.PDDM.US and open Series 2.
I. BIBLICO-LITURGICAL REFLECTIONS
Two of our postulants who were teaching catechism at the San Jose Elementary School in Antipolo (Philippines) prepared their class to celebrate the Rite of Penance. They engaged the children actively and creatively. One little girl brought her family’s tablecloth to cover the teacher’s desk that would serve as a makeshift altar. Some brought flowers and candles. Others were trained to proclaim the bible readings and to offer the prayer intentions. The whole class learned some easy and delightful sung responses. The priest proclaimed the Parable of the Prodigal Son in the vernacular and, in simple terms, explained to the children the meaning of the Gospel reading. During the celebration of the Word, the class was unusually attentive and focused. Some were shedding tears. When the catechists asked why they were weeping, they replied: “It is because we are sorry for our sins!”
This Sunday’s Old Testament passage (Neh 8:2-41, 5-6, 8-10) describes a liturgy of the Word where the Law “which the Lord had given to Israel” was proclaimed and explained to the people, enabling them to understand what was read. When Ezra, the priest-scribe, read from the book of the Law, the people wept from the sheer emotion of hearing God’s Word. They had recognized the special character of the word proclaimed, producing a remarkable effect in their lives. Indeed, the community that actively sought the Law, not only heard it, but also understood its vital significance. The reading from the Law, constituted by the Pentateuch or the first five books of the Bible, must have shed light on their fragile and feckless inner core for the community responded with tears. The liturgical reading from the Law was not meant, however, to condemn, but to be a font of joy and strength for that assembly who hungered for the life-giving Word of God. Moreover, the divine Word that they had heard intently with their hearts moved them to a vital social action and impelled them to share compassionately their resources with the needy.
Aelred Rosser comments: “Notice the basic liturgical structure in this first reading. The people assemble, hear the Word of God, receive explanatory instruction and encouragement and then respond in worship and prayer. The framework of our own liturgy is not very different. Ezra reads the law to people who are very much in need of hearing it. Their highly emotional and heartrending response indicates that they need both the encouraging words of the law’s promise as well as, perhaps, the discipline which the law requires of them. The combination of sorrow for sin and the joy of being forgiven always produces healing tears. The occasion presented here is certainly a high holy day, perhaps Yom Kippur, the New Year. Notice that the long and arduous ceremony (from daybreak till midday) is followed by a feast celebrated in the classic way: rich food, good drink and special provisions for the poor. It is a tradition that we would do well to follow.”
Against the backdrop of Nehemiah’s account of an assembly receptively listening to the Word of God and being effectively challenged by that Word, this Sunday’s Gospel episode of Jesus unrolling the scroll and reading the Isaiah prophecy about the Servant of Yahweh, anointed by the Spirit of the Lord to bring glad tidings to the poor and to fulfill the Father’s saving plan, acquires greater impact. The episode in the synagogue at Nazareth confronts us with a more vigorous challenge to listen, understand and respond positively and willfully to the Word of the Lord that is proclaimed and ever actualized – the all-powerful Word fulfilled in our hearing and in the here and now of our daily life. The Word of God read and proclaimed in the liturgical assembly seeks a listening and an understanding heart.
The biblical scholar Eugene Maly remarks: “The Gospel reading concludes with Jesus returning to his place, with the eyes of all fixed on him, and with his statement that Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. The reference is, of course, to himself. Perhaps the Church deliberately ended the reading here, not continuing with Luke’s report of the people’s reaction. Perhaps she ends it with this bold statement of Jesus to let us hear the fullness of the Word and express our own reaction, not influenced by that of others. What will it be? Rejection and continuing in the same rut? Or acceptance and change? It must be one or the other; that is the nature of the Word.”
PERSONAL REFLECTION: Lk 1:1-4; 4:14-21
By Sr. Mary Tiziana Dal Masetto PDDM
Ministry of Spiritual Direction
Fresno, CA – U.S.A.
He stood up to read and was handed a Scroll … He unrolled the Scroll and found the passage … “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me … he has anointed me” … Rolling up the Scroll he handed it back and sat down, and the eyes of all looked intently at him.
Often I contemplate an icon in which Jesus Master, indicates his teaching position with his right hand and holds a Scroll in his left hand.
When I read today’s Gospel, the image of the Scroll becomes prominent. Jesus has arrived at Nazareth. Knowing the heart of Jesus, his return seems to indicate that he wants to flood his village with an immense wave of goodness. He enters the home of his Mother and her welcome is done with a silent embrace. He came looking for an opportunity to launch an urgent call in his own city.
The Sabbath day came and there was the opportunity. Mother and Son went to the synagogue together in the same way that they had when he was a child and she was a young mother. Some were eager to see and hear him; others remained hard and close-minded. The Mother took her place among the women. The Son took his place among the men. Jesus resembled a solid oak without fear of the storm. After the ritual prayers, at the service of the Word, Jesus rose and went to the lectern to do the reading that preceded the commentary.
In the height of silence so dense, all eyes were open, expectant and fixed upon him. Jesus knew what he wanted and in what direction he was going. He found immediately the text that interested him: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me …” It made explicit reference to the characteristics of his mission: the Messiah of the poor, the meek and humble servant, the liberator of the oppressed, the one who would grant freedom from every kind of slavery. Jesus compares his liberating action to a year of grace, a jubilee which would last until the end of time, in order to inaugurate a kingdom of justice, truth and peace.
Jesus slowly rolled back the Scroll and gave it to the synagogue attendant and declared: “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” The time has been completed. The kingdom of God has come. I am fascinated by this Divine Teacher who makes his entire life a celebration of grace lasting till the end of time.
I pray: “My Divine Teacher, you open the Scroll before me every time that the Scriptures are proclaimed during the Liturgy or during my private prayer. I want to listen to you … I intend to set aside every preoccupation of mine, judgment, preconceived categories … I want to bring silence within myself so that your voice pronounces in me and for me the Word of God. I am waiting that you open the Scroll and find the passage written today for me … If you are the one reading for me, there will always be a text or a phrase which is meaningful for my situation. If my heart is filled with you, I immediately find the Word meant for me.”
Now, when I find myself before the icon of the Divine Master holding his Scroll, I see him unfolding it slowly and gradually gazing upon me, and that immense wave of goodness and mercy which Jesus brought to Nazareth continues to inundate me and to ripple around me, reaching the farthest ends of the earth.
II. POINTS FOR THE EXAMINATION OF THE HEART
A. Do we experience the importance of the proclamation of the Word of God in the liturgy? Like the liturgical assembly in Ezra’s time, do we endeavor to listen to the Word with receptive hearts, willful attention and self-sacrifice? Do we invest time, effort, love and creativity in order to glean the meaning and challenge of God’s Word for us? Do we try to hear and understand the Word, both personally and as members of the faith community? Do we respond to the social challenge of God’s living Word?
B. Do we believe that the messianic prophecy about the one “anointed to bring good news to the poor and release to the captives” is fulfilled in Jesus Christ? Do we look to Jesus as the true saving Word and the Good News incarnate? Is Jesus, the Word of God made flesh and made Eucharistic bread, a font of life, joy and strength for us?
C. What is our response to Jesus’ declaration: “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing”? What is the personal implication for us of this declaration? Do we truly hear the fullness of the Word that is actualized in the here and now of our daily life? Do we endeavor to fulfill and incarnate in our lives the meaning and saving implication of the paschal mystery proclaimed in the Church’s liturgy?
III. PRAYING WITH THE WORD
(From a monk of the Eastern Church, cf. Days of the Lord, vol. 6, 1991, p. 27)
Assembly: You come to Nazareth.
It is the day of the Sabbath.
According to your custom, you enter the synagogue.
I enter it with you.
There, you offer to read the Book yourself.
You then want to explain the Word of God.
I translate this into Christian terms:
you have confided to your holy Church the deposit of inspired Scriptures.
I have no wish to read the Word without your Church or against your Church:
she is the supreme and infallible interpreter
of what was written under the Spirit’s power.
Yet you welcome me,
both in the “synagogue” and in the privacy of my room,
with the intensely personal welcome of the Word.
How should I understand this?
Lord, each time I take the Bible in my hands,
may I see that I lift you,
and may you teach me to “read”.
IV. INTERIORIZATION OF THE WORD
The following is the bread of the living Word that will nourish us throughout the week. Please memorize it.
“Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Lk 4:21)
V. TOWARDS LIFE TRANSFORMATION
A. ACTION PLAN: Pray that the proclamation of the Word of God in the liturgy may be received with an understanding heart. Pray that all may recognize and welcome Jesus Christ, anointed by the Spirit of the Lord to bring glad tidings to the poor. Endeavor to bring the fullness of salvation, accomplished in his public ministry and by his death and rising, into the anguished world of today. By our compassionate stance to the poor and needy, let us help people understand Jesus’ declaration: “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Lk 4:21)
B. ACTION PLAN: To help us contemplate more deeply the breadth, depth and height the challenge of the living Word Jesus Christ, 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 (Vol. 3, n. 8): A Weekly Pastoral Tool.
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