Below is a reflection for next week's gospel.

Sunday Readings:

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
January 31, 2010

Gospel Summary

Luke 4:21-30

Biblical passages used in the liturgy often suffer from being removed from their contexts. This is particularly noticeable in today's gospel selection, which shows Jesus referring to a biblical passage from Isaiah, which he has just read without telling us what it is. We need to note, therefore, that he has just read an important messianic passage. Accordingly, when he declares that this prophecy has been fulfilled, he is in effect announcing his own claim to be God's chosen one for the liberation of Israel.

Jesus senses some resistance to this dramatic announcement and counters it by reminding them that it is always difficult for local folks to believe that one of their own might be much more than they have given him permission to be. In a sense, this is a recognition of the truth in that adage: "Familiarity breeds contempt."

This narrowness of vision takes on much more serious implications when it touches our own relationship with God. As Jesus points out, God has never felt obliged to recognize privilege based solely on birth (or church membership). Being a member of a chosen people simply clarifies one's obligation to respond to God's special claims on that people; It does not excuse one from obedience to those claims. It is a privilege with heavy responsibilities. Thus, in the gospel story, the widows and lepers from outside of Israel prove to be more worthy of God's attention than the members of his own people.

Life Implications

It is important to recognize the symbolic and universal implications of the narrow-minded attitude of excessively provincial people. The challenge of today's gospel takes us far beyond the merely social implications of that phenomenon. The fact is that we are all tempted to reject the challenging initiatives of God in order to cling to our own more familiar and controllable vision of life. The words of Isaiah are pertinent here: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts (55:8-0).

This point is sharpened in the words of Jesus to Peter when he reacts against the thought of a suffering and dying Messiah: "For you are not on the side of God, but of men" (Mark 8:33). Jesus is God's Messiah long before he is our Messiah. And, although we will always be tempted to "domesticate" and make reasonable the claims of God, they will forever challenge us to be converted from self-satisfied, provincial and merely human ways of relating to God's message.

As a matter of fact, the divine message, embodied in the person and words of Jesus, calls us into the "wilderness" of endless concern for others. For we never really know where unselfish love will lead us. We may even have to say at time, "My life is really no longer my own. I have loaned it to others who are more in need than I am." When that happens, we will understand why Jesus said that God went outside of Israel to take care of the widow of Sidon and Naaman, the Syrian.

Demetrius R. Dumm, O.S.B.
Source: The National Institute for the Renewal of the Priesthood, www.jknirp.com

Question of the Week

Answer: When Sr. Janet was eight years old she won the bubble gum blowing contest at Hudson Street School in Johnstown, PA. Luckily for for WTU, that is not her greatest lifetime achievement.To learn about the initiatives in Health Care, Catholic Education and Catholic Mission that are the core of Sr. Janet's work at WTU, click here.

Social Justice Corner

Haiti Reborn, a program of the Quixote Center, is accepting donations for earthquake relief in Haiti. Donations can be put in a “rice bowl/box” at the front desk, made on line at www.quixote.org/earthquake or by check (memo line: Haiti relief) to Quixote Center PO Box 5206, Hyattsville, MD 20782.

Help Haiti Heal
Oblates of St. Francis DeSales, Port-au-Prince
Mail checks to 721 Lawrence St. NE, Washington DC 20017.
Make checks payable to Fr. Tom Hagan, OSFS

Jerry Hall Scholarship Fund Still Growing!

In March of this year, the Union very unexpectedly lost one of its full-time faculty, Assistant Professor of Word and Worship Jerry Hall, S.J., who passed away following a brief illness. This wise and unassuming scholar of liturgy was also an accomplished singer whose gentle and compassionate demeanor made him a wonderful colleague, mentor, and friend to so many. In a desire to celebrate Jerry’s life and to honor our community’s memory of him, the Rev. Jerome Hall, S.J. Memorial Scholarship fund was established.

To date, 31 alumni, faculty, and staff have made donations to the scholarship fund totaling $4,480. The Union continues to encourage donations to the fund, which must grow to a minimum of $250,000 before it can be endowed, and before it will be possible to draw income to award the first student scholarship. If you wish to make an online donation to this fund, please use the online donation form.