Link to today’s readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/090121.cfm

Today in our First Reading we start reading from Paul’s Letter to the Colossians, and we will continue to do so up to and including Thursday 09 September (Thursday of the 23 Week in Ordinary Time). Colossians is a short letter of only four chapters and was written by St Paul around 60-61c.e., when Paul was first imprisoned in Rome. Though it might be short in length, the Letter to the Colossians is rich in theology, especially that branch of theology we call Christology – the theology of / thinking about Jesus the Christ.

The city of Colossae was on the trade route between Ephesus and the East, in that part of the world we would now refer to as modern Turkey. The people of the Church of Colossae had been influenced by false teaching the challenged the divinity of Jesus, and so Paul writes to challenge this false teaching and correct their belief. In this letter then we find quite a developed Christology (Col 1:15-20) that sees Jesus the Christ as the ‘image of the unseen God’, who ‘existed before all things, and in him all things hold together’, who is ‘the first-born from the dead’, and through whom “all things…everything in heaven and everything on earth” have been reconciled to the Father”. It is in this letter that we find this wonderful promise: “You have been buried with him in baptism, by which also you have been raised up with him through your belief in the power of God who raised him from the dead” (Col 2:12).

This letter provides a rich foundation for us to understand ourselves as living in Christ: “As the chosen of God, then, holy and beloved. Clothe yourselves in heartfelt compassion, in generosity and humility, gentleness and patience” (Col 3:12).

Today’s First Reading, and tomorrow’s (Thursday) form part of Paul’s thanksgiving and prayer for the people of Colossae, and set the scene for Paul’s wonderful description of Christ as the head of all creation. To simply ‘sit in’ the verses of Col 1:15-20 and let our minds (and souls) conjure up images in response will help, if only fleetingly, to grasp cosmic and timeless nature of the Christ.

For today though let us rest in Paul’s words as they apply to us:

We give thank for you to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, continually on our prayers, since we heard about your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you show towards all God’s saint, because of the hope which is stored up for you in heaven.

Link to today’s Mass Readings: Monday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time | USCCB

As I mentioned in one of the reflections from last week, here we find an excellent example of Paul (and the Christian community) “doing theology”. That is, bringing the reality of the Christ-event into dialogue with the current experience of believers, and allowing that to inform and transform that experience in Christ.

Here we find Paul drawing attention to the difference between the Christian experience of grief, and the pagan experience of grief (as understood at the time). Paul’s opening sentence “We do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters”^[1] really has the impact of saying: Let me clear a few things up for you, because how we (the Christian community) understand this circumstance is quite different from those around us. For those of you (too) familiar with Friday evenings at Year 8 Debating this is similar to the 2^nd Speaker for the Affirmative saying: The Opposition has told you X, but they are idiots and they are wrong.^[2]

The great difference here for St Paul, and so for us, is that our grief is experienced in the bedrock of ‘hope’. It does not mean that our experience of loss does not bring pain and grief, or that our experience of loss is not unsettling and bewildering (at times), but that this grief and loss is not accompanied by the thought that this is all there is; that this is the end.

I remember Phillip Adams commenting that he found the thought of his daughters or wife dying unbearable to him, because as an atheist their death meant the annihilation of their being. They wouldn’t be going somewhere else where one day he would be with them, there would be no sense of “until we meet again” – they would simply cease to exist.^[3] It is in contrast to this unspeakable grief that St Paul writes of the Christian experience; the Christian experiences grief in the context of the hope of the resurrection.

Let us commend to God all those who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith, particularly those who have no-one to remember them:

Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.

May their souls, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through your mercy rest in peace and rise in glory.

^[1] Other translations put this a little more forcefully: “But we do not want you to be uninformed” (New Oxford Annotated Bible”, or, “Now we do not want you to be in ignorance, brothers and sisters” (Richard, E.J. (1995). Sacra Pagina: First and Second Thessalonians. (D.J. Harrington, Ed.). The Liturgical Press.

^[2] And “yes”, I have adjudicated debates where the Opposition were referred to as idiots.

^[3] This comment was made at a debate at Sydney University in the early 2000s. I cannot remember whether Phillip Adams was in discussion with Cardinal George Pell around the topic of whether atheists could be moral people, or whether Mr Adams was chairing the discussion.

Link to today’s readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/0827-memorial-monica.cfm

St Monica lived between 332-387c.e., and was the mother St Augustine. While this might sound as if the family home was a garden of saints, such was not the case. Monica’s husband (Patricius) was a pagan with a temper and ‘wandering eye’ (shall we say), and Augustine’s saintliness was only to develop in his more mature years.

As a young man Augustine dabbled with the heresy of Manichaeism, had a mistress, and fathered a child out of wedlock. In his book The Confessions he recounts a prayer he prayed in his younger days: "Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet." (Confessions 8.7.17). Poor Monica must have been ready to rip her hair out!

However, a mother’s persistent prayer, petition, and example won through, and Augustine was baptized a Catholic by St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan in 387 c.e., and was ordained a priest in 391. Four years later he became Bishop of Hippo. Augustine was to become one of the most prolific thinkers and writers of early Christianity, whose influence is still strongly felt today.  All of this due to the grace of God, and the prayers of a mother.

Today’s Gospel alerts us to the compassion Jesus felt for another mother, one who had lost her only son. Jesus comes to the town of Nain, and happened upon the funeral procession of young man, the only son of his widowed mother. The Gospel tells us ‘When the Lord saw her he felt sorry for her. “Do not cry” he said. Then he went up and put his hand on the bier and the bearers stood still, and he said, “Young man, I tell you to get up.” And the dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him to his mother.’

Of course, we who know the gospel story in full can imagine in this narrative another widow (Mary) grieving the loss of her only son as he (Jesus) is carried to the grave.

Today, let us be thankful for all people who have been supportive of us as we journey through life. Those people who hold us in their prayers each, and particularly our own mothers – wherever it is in God’s embrace they may presently be.

Imagine downloaded from https://s3.amazonaws.com/cdn.monasteryicons.com/images/popup/st-monica-icon-439.jpg on 26 August, 2021.

Link to today’s Mass Readings: Wednesday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time | USCCB

 ^[2] (https://youtu.be/vXMPNXXnCls)

Link to today’s Mass Readings: Monday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time | USCCB

Today in our First Reading we start making our way through St Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians. 1^st Thessalonians is the earliest text we have in the New Testament, written around 49-51c.e. In Paul’s later writings, e.g., Romans, Corinthians, we find a much more developed theology, but here we find Paul being more pastoral or personal in style and language. It is written at a time only 15-16 yrs after the death and resurrection of Jesus, when there still would have been members of Christian communities alive who actually accompanied Jesus on his journeys, who mourned his death as the death of someone they had sat at table with, and who celebrated his resurrection as the return of one with whom they had walked the roads of Israel.

While, as I mentioned, the majority of the letter is pastoral or personal in nature, we do find in its final chapters some ‘theologizing’. In 1Thess 4:13-18 we find Paul speaking to the community at Thessalonica about those ‘who have fallen asleep’; this was a Greek euphemism for those who had died. The early Church, as we do, waited in hope for the Second Coming of Jesus, but where we are more resigned to it possible being ‘some way off yet’, for the early Church it was unclear. He – Jesus – said he would return, but was it meant to be next week, next month, next year…the community was unclear. At the time of this letter’s writing, people (including those who had known the early Jesus) had started to die, and so the community was left with the question: What happens to these people, will they too be gathered up by the Lord? In Paul’s response we have an example of the early Church ‘doing’ theology, that is, applying the experience of the Christ-Event to their present-day life. I love reading or listening to this passage from 1^st Thessalonians as it is such a powerful example of the dynamic of reality of the Christ-Event in dialogue with the questions of our lives. (NB: Keep your ‘eyes open’ and your ‘ears peeled’ on Monday of next week, as 1 Thess 4:13-18 is the First Reading that day!)

In today’s First Reading we find this lovely greeting to the people of Thessalonica: ‘We give thanks to God always for all of you, remembering you in our prayers, unceasingly calling to mind your work of faith and labour of love and endurance in hope of our Lord Jesus Christ, before our God and Father, knowing, brothers and sisters loved by God, how you were chosen.’ Imagine if this was the spirit with which we all greeted each other as we gathered for the celebration of the Eucharist^[1], or as a family as we sat down to enjoy a meal together, or if this is how schools started their day. Do our faces actually radiate some joy as we greet the brothers and sisters we have, by virtue of baptism, in the Lord.

^[1] Whenever it is that we can start gathering again.

The Alleluia Verse from today’s readings:

Alleluia, alleluia.
Receive the word of God, not as the word of men,
but, as it truly is, the word of God.
Alleluia, alleluia.

This is such a great call to attend to the Word for what it is – the Word of God – and therefore be subject to it, rather than it subject to us.

I remember some years ago, about twenty probably, chatting with some Religious Education teaching colleagues who were horrified at my comment that: “No, I don’t think it’s appropriate to use something from Anthony De Mello’s book The Prayer of the Frog as an alternative to scripture for the First Reading at Mass”. The response of “You can’t seriously suggest that poetry or some other piece of meaningful literature can’t be used in this place” was met with “No!” Doesn’t this conversation illustrate for us the need to understand and appreciate the Word for what it is: the Word of God! Our Alleluia verse asks us to do this.

In a couple of schools where I was the Religious Education Coordinator/Director of Religious Education, I tried (mostly with a great lack of success and against some strong opposition) to encourage staff to use the ‘readings of the day’ or prayers from the ‘Mass of the day’ for the times that we prayed together. Among the arguments I used to support this approach, apart from that it would allow us to join in harmony with the rest of the praying Church, was that it is vitally important for a Christian to be formed by the Word of God rather than employing the Word of God to make a point. When we always pick readings to suit a ‘theme’, or select a prayer or reading that ‘says something nice’, then we limit the Word’s capacity to form us, and as a consequence will never grow in the Christian life.

There is great merit in placing ourselves in the presence of the Word across the liturgical year, rather than placing the Word at our disposal across the less ordered nature of our years. To do the former is to let God be God in our lives, while the latter tells God who we’d like God to be.