Saturday, November 18, 2017


XXXIII SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME – CYCLE A –  2017

Ø  We continue with the themes proper of the end of life: vigilance and faithfulness.   

Ø  As the end of the liturgical year or year of the church is almost here, the liturgy offers these themes for our consideration.   

BOOK OF PROVERBS

Ø  This book calls our attention for his miscellaneous composition: there are poems more or less long, there are also lists of short proverbial sentences

Ø  We do not find in this book the biblical themes of the Old Testament.    

Ø  It contains pragmatic reflections and rules to help men and women to live a good life.    

Ø  This book is catalogued together with the books of Job, Sirach, Ecclesiastes and Wisdom as wisdom literature.   

Ø  Proverbs is the most secular of these books.    

FIRST READING : Prov 31:10-13. 19-20. 30-31

Ø  This   text from Proverbs is a hymn to the strong woman

Ø  This woman is a blessing and cause of happiness for her husband, not because of her external beauty but for her beauty and harmony as a person.    

Ø  This is a very beautiful text, as we read, it if we allow our imagination to picture the words we read, we see a woman busy all day long about her home and the care for her own who lack nothing, not even her servants lack anything.    

Ø  We all know women like this, usually they are simple women, who pass unnoticed, and we do not take time to look at them because they are so humble that they do nothing to call our attention.   

Ø  Women centered in the good of their family.    

Ø  Once I met a woman who lived in such poverty that you cannot even imagine, and I knew through her children that she ate once a day or every other day, because she first gave food to her children.   

Ø  Whenever we read this text I always think about her.     

Ø  The text says “blessed the man” yes, one thousand times blessed because he has a treasure in the companion of his life.   

RESPONSORIAL PSALM:    Ps. 128: 1-2. 3. 4-5

R. (cf. 1a) Blessed are those who fear the Lord.
Blessed are you who fear the LORD,
who walk in his ways!
For you shall eat the fruit of your handiwork;
blessed shall you be, and favored.
R. Blessed are those who fear the Lord.
Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine
in the recesses of your home;
Your children like olive plants
around your table.
R. Blessed are those who fear the Lord.
Behold, thus is the man blessed
who fears the LORD.
The LORD bless you from Zion:
may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem
all the days of your life.
R. Blessed are those who fear the Lord.

·         Blessed the man who fears the Lord.  

·         He will have work; this will make him happy because he will be able to feed his family.   

·         His wife in the midst of his home and his children around the table. This is the image of a peaceful home, a place that helps all who live under the same roof.   

·         And the psalmist adds that this is the blessing of the one who fears the Lord.    

·         In our society many persons who are honest and who fear the Lord do not enjoy the blessing of having a job due to the selfishness of some who organize society and the economy without taking into consideration the good of each human being, every human being is a spark of the divinity, and thus is entitle to respect and care. 

GOSPEL - Mt 25:14-15. 19-21

This Sunday we can chose between a long or a short version of the Gospel. For this commentary I have chosen the short one because it ends in a positive way. Since we are used to the other ending, maybe this change will call our attention and so it will help us better to reflect deeply on what Jesus really wants to say.   

Ø  The parable is about the Kingdom of Heaven  

Ø  Jesus has spoken in several occasions about the Kingdom of Heaven: it is like a banquet, like the virgins who accompany the bride, like the pearl, like the field, like the net…   

Ø  This parable tells us that there is  a man who goes on a voyage and leaves his reliable servants in charge of his goods which are represented by the talents.    

Ø  The talent is a coin, but it is also the ability to do something.   

Ø  And the text says that he gave to each one according to his own capacity.  

Ø  Let us think about talent as the skill I have, or how I am gifted for something. Each one of us has a different talent, and no one is better than the other. What God sees as good is the effort I put in using my talent.  

Ø  The master comes back after a long time   

Ø  And as he calls them to give an account of their administration, the first one who had received 5 talents  brings back 5 more talents he earned with the talents he had received.    

Ø  The master congratulates him and invites him to share in the joy of his Master.    

Ø  I think that this is a suggestive image of the Kingdom “to share the joy of the Lord, of our Father God. “

Ø  It seems to me that this is what Jesus wants to tell us about the Kingdom here and after.   

SECOND READING  1 Thes 5: 1-6

Ø  Paul and in general the Christians of the first century inherit from the Jewish apocalyptic literature some ideas on the “second coming of the Lord.”   

Ø  The description of the Old Testament theophany is wrapped with an apocalyptic attire and shows some recurrent themes: 

o   The coming of the Lord will be imminent    

o   It will come like a thief, suddenly  

o   Nobody knows either the time or the way    

o   When he comes he will judge    

Ø  Paul invites us not to pay attention to the details that is to the apocalyptic details which the text offers.   

Ø  But to live with a watchful waiting, like the lover who awaits for the beloved.   

Ø  The biblical commentary from which I have taken this explanation says that what the first Christian Communities wrote and spoke and believed of the coming of the Lord had been clarified by the Church over the centuries.   

Ø  This means that I cannot interpret the meaning by myself, neither accept the explanations given by our brothers and sisters from other Christian traditions or from the sects, but we must be attentive to what the Catholic Church teaches. 

CLARETIAN CORNER

 One night while praying and in bitter tears, pleading to our Lord that by the merits of His Passion and death to have mercy on the necessities of His church which at that time were many, our Lord told me and pointing at Mgr. Claret as if I saw him between our Lord and me.” This, my daughter, is the apostolic person whom you have asked me for so many years and with so much tears”.

His Divine Majesty showed me the grace He poured on that holy soul for the preaching of the gospel, and our Lord told me that there was no other remedy for the peace of the church. I did not know that person. Only a few days before I heard that a   certain chaplain by the name of Monsen Claret began preaching with much zeal about the honor due to God and the salvation of souls. It seems to me that have been at least eleven or twelve years ago. Venerable María Antonia París, Foundress of the Religious of Mary Immaculate Claretian Missionary Sisters. Autobiography 19.

 For my greater embarrassment I should like to quote the words of the author of the Book of Wisdom (8:19): "I was a boy of happy disposition. I had received a good soul as my lot." That is, I received a good nature or disposition from God, out of his sheer goodness

I remember that during the war of independence, which lasted from 1808 to 1814, the people of Sallent were so frightened of the French--and with good reason, since the French had burned the city of Manresa and the town of Calders, near Sallent that everyone fled when they heard the news that the French army was on its way. During the first evacuation I recollect being carried on someone's shoulders; but during the last evacuation, when I was four or five, I went on foot and gave grandfather Clara, my mother's father, a helping hand ]. It was at night, and his eyesight was failing, and I guided him through the obstacles with such patience and kindness that the poor old man was very glad to see that I hadn't run off to join my brothers and cousins who had abandoned the two of us. I always showed him a great deal of affection until he died, and not only him but also all those who were elderly and disabled. St. Anthony Mary Claret, Founder of the Religious of Mary Immaculate Claretian Missionary Sisters. Autobiography 18-19.

 BIBLIOGRAFÍA

CLARET, SAN ANTONIO MARÍA. Autobiografía.

PARIS, VEN. MARÍA ANTONIA , Autobiografía

Sagrada Biblia, vesión oficial de la Conferencia de Obispos de España (Holy Bible, oficial edition of the Spanish  Conference of Bishops.)





 
 






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