Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jan 30 2025

Eat, Drink, Live

As a boy, I was often sent to Kauder’s Bakery on the corner of Preston and Ensor Streets in Baltimore. There was nothing like the variety of breads today, but whether it was white, rye, or Vienna, the smell of fresh baked bread and especially the crunch of the crust stays with me more than sixty years later.

Kauder’s came to mind after reading today’s Gospel. Biblical scholars point out that the crowds would have been appalled at Jesus’ words: “Unless you eat the flesh of the son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.” The word used for “eat” is a very physical word, the equivalent of munching or chewing. To hear “eat my flesh” would have been repulsive. An invitation to cannibalism! The same with “drink my blood.” Jewish law was very clear that no blood should remain in any animal slaughtered for eating. Blood was the “seat of life” and life belonged only to God.

But this is precisely the point. Behind this “sign” is God’s wondrous life-giving plan: to bring us into intimate communion when we partake of the very life of the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ. We are not to get drunk on the wine of this world but on the divinized drink of everlasting life. Not mundane manna but the bread that mediates an encounter with the Lord of our salvation. This is truly Wisdom’s house, where we eat both the bread of God’s word and the bread that is the Lamb of God.

Consider/Discuss

Can you appreciate the shocking impact of Jesus’ words on those listening?
Do these words have any impact on you or have they become too familiar to shock?

Responding to the Word

Lord Jesus, you call us to the banquet table to eat the food that will nourish us for eternal life, bringing us into communion with you, the Father, and the Holy Spirit. Give us an appetite for this food you so generously offer. May we not turn away from it for other food that neither nourishes nor satisfies.

Jan 30 2025

Scripture Study for

Wisdom prepares a lavish banquet. Everything is ready, and servants are sent out to call in the guests. Wisdom always invites, cajoles, persuades; she never commands. She feeds the desire for knowledge and insight; she satisfies the hunger for learning. Wisdom is interested in the simple, the innocent, the childlike, those who are eager to learn. She oversees all of the mysteries of the universe; in her hands are the secrets of life. These are the delicacies with which she spreads her table; this is the fare that she offers her guests. No one can survive without Wisdom. The way of understanding is the way to life. The wisdom theme continues in the second reading. Christians are encouraged to live like the wise, not like the foolish. The wise are those who know how to make the most out of every opportunity. They can recognize the decisive point of the moment, and they can seize it. The ignorance against which the author warns is the inability to draw prudent conclusions in practical situations. Some people just do not seem to be able to learn from experience. As a remedy to this, Christians are urged to seek God’s will for them and to live in accordance with it. The bread of life discourse ends with a eucharistic reinterpretation of the manna tradition. Jesus’ flesh is food and his blood is drink. His flesh and blood are the source of life for those who partake of it. Just as we become one with what we eat and drink, so Jesus and those who feed on him form an intimate union. Those who share in the Eucharist already possess eternal life. For them, the future holds fullness of life that will be enjoyed after the general resurrection on the last day. Jesus, not manna, is the bread that came, not from the sky, but from the very being of God. Those who ate manna died; those who feed on Jesus live forever.

Jan 15 2025

God’s Ever-Expanding Table

A woman has a daughter tormented by a demon. She hears about Jesus, seeks him out, and pleads with him to pity her child. Who could turn away? Yet Jesus dismisses her, saying dogs do not get the children’s food. Is Jesus really comparing her to a dog begging at table? Is he turning away because his mission to the house of Israel limits who benefits from his healing power? What was Jesus thinking?

Three things can be said here.

First of all, it is probable he was not literally calling her a dog any more than we are when we say about someone, “Every dog has its day.” Second, it is possible that at this time Jesus understood his mission as taking care of his own people first. We are told he grew in wisdom. Would this not include a growth in fully understanding his Father’s will and how far it went? Third, is it not even possible that this was a moment of growth, that the woman’s faith pushed him further along in widening his mission, and in recognizing that everyone was welcome at the table of the kingdom, and that his work was to respond wherever he found faith?

Isaiah reminds his Jewish listeners that God will bring the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord to his holy mountain, where they will worship. Paul reminds his Gentile listeners that God’s gifts and call to the Jews are irreversible. In a word, everyone has a place at the table.

Consider/Discuss

Do I believe that Jesus grew in wisdom and strength and favor?
Are there any groups that I tend to see as not belonging at the table of the Lord?
Do I take seriously the power of faith, my faith?

Responding to the Word

We pray to look beyond categories of nationality, ethnicity, class, gender, or any other arbitrary dividing line we put up to exclude others from the mercy of God and from being treated with justice, compassion, and forgiveness. We ask for the grace to respond to others as we would have God respond to us.

Jan 15 2025

Scripture Study for

Israel’s primary ethical obligation was social responsibility. Righteousness, which describes the quality of the relationship with God, is really a divine characteristic. Human beings only appropriate it when they are in right relationship with God. In response to the people’s fidelity, they are encouraged to proceed to God’s holy mountain. Even faithful foreigners will be allowed to rejoice here as members of the praying community. The temple is now designated as a house of prayer for all people, not merely a national shrine reserved for the elect. Now God is accessible to all, not merely to those of the bloodline of Israel.

Lest Gentile Christians think that their acceptance of Christ has made them superior to Jews, Paul emphasizes Israelite privilege. They were God’s special people, and it was to them that God granted extraordinary gifts. Paul argues that if he turned to the Gentiles because some Jews would not listen to him, now Jews will be jealous because Gentiles have accepted his message and will be converted. If the Jews’ rejection of the gospel brought reconciliation with God to the rest of the world, how much more will their acceptance of the gospel affect them? Gentiles have no reason to feel superior, for they too were sinners, and God granted them divine mercy.

The story of the Canaanite woman addresses several important and interrelated issues: crossing territorial and cultural boundaries, public social exchange of women and men, the Christian mission to the Gentiles, and the issue of faith. First, despite the belief that to cross into pagan territory was to leave God’s holy land, Jesus deliberately crosses into Gentile territory. In addition, the woman was unattended, a fact that threatened Jesus’ respectability. However, Jesus disregards the factors of gender, ethnic/religious background, and questionable lifestyle in order to reconcile to God a person who was marginalized by society.

Jan 12 2025

A Tale of a Healer

The sun shone as she sat stroking a puppy on the step. The others gathered around. They wanted to hear her story again. “Tell us about when the Master came here to Tyre.” The growing Christian community hungered for stories about Jesus.

“The difficulty started when I was four—my arms and legs began to twitch. Sometimes, I blacked out. My mother began to moan, ‘Oh no, the demon wants her!’ My older brother had writhed and died when that same demon had arrived. I was scared.

“One day, my mother saw a group of Jewish men visiting the city. She glimpsed Jesus the healer. She called out to him, ‘Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is tormented by a demon.’ The men ignored her. She knew that she didn’t belong there. But she really loved me. Her heart ached from the grief that she might lose me, too. ‘Send her away,’ a man grunted. Jesus didn’t. At that moment, my mother said her heart swelled with hope. Maybe? Could the mercy of the God of Israel extend even north of the border?

“Hope and love made my mother persist. She would not give up. She fell to her knees and cried out, ‘Help me, sir!’

She said that she’ll never forget how gently Jesus said, ‘It is not right to take the children’s bread and give it to the puppies.’ She felt the Holy Spirit swell up within her: “Even the little dogs eat the scraps under the table!” Jesus was astonished. His face shone as he looked her in the eye. At that moment I was healed! Until the day she died, she told everyone about God’s mercy toward me. And she seemed to take in every stray puppy in the city.”

Consider/Discuss

Think of a time when you persisted in prayer. What was it that made you keep asking?
How is the mercy of God greater than any of our expectations? Where have you experienced that mercy?

Living and Praying with the Word

God of mercy, be gracious to us. We know that none of us deserve your love. Yet we hope in you. You gather people from all over the world to rejoice in you. In solidarity with the scared and the forlorn, the outcast and the refugee, we praise you for always loving us. Together, bring us to your holy mountain and reconcile this world that you have made.