2nd Week, Monday; 1 Sam 15:16-23 / Mark 2:18-22
As we look at the 1st reading, we may wonder why Samuel was harping on the disobedience of king Saul to the extent that he was going to be disposed of as king. We may think that what king Saul did was rather pragmatic, and that the best sheep and oxen from the booty was sacrificed to God.
But we must remember that the battles in the Old Testament were religious wars. It was not just one nation against another, but also one god against another. Hence, the customary battle procedure of the "ban" was a primitive religious practice in which everything captured in battle was destroyed because it was considered as religiously profane and contaminated.
So king Saul not only made a defiled and unclean offering to God, he also did not make the sacrifice from what was his own.
When this is understood, then we will realize the seriousness of the extent of the disobedience of king Saul and why he was later disposed of as king.
In the gospel, the topic of discussion seems to be fasting. But the teaching of Jesus can be summarized in the last phrase of the gospel - New wine, fresh skins.
When applied to the spiritual observances of our faith like fasting and doing penance and observing the precepts of the church, we need to ask ourselves if we know the reason and purpose of such observances.
Because if we are unclear about why we are doing what we are doing, and especially when we find it burdensome or troublesome, we will rationalize it away and we will want to be pragmatic and practical.
We may think that we are smarter and more practical than the laws and the teachings of the Church.
But pride comes before the fall. King Saul succumbed to it. May we be wise and subject ourselves in obedience to God, least we fall.
Saint Paul the Hermit
Feast day January 15
St. Jerome wrote, or at least translated from the Greek, a little biography of St. Paul the Hermit. Some speculate that he did so in order to establish St. Paul’s reputation as the “first hermit” and to let the world know that the great St. Anthony had a predecessor. Others regard the story as so full of fables that they treat Paul as a type of a third-to-fourth-century hermit rather than as a historical individual.
A Christian from his youth, Paul was orphaned at age 15. In 250 the persecution by Decius forced him into hiding, first at a friend’s house and then, fearing exposure, to a cave in the Egyptian desert. He had planned to return home after things quieted down, but the peaceful solitude of the desert seduced him to stay. A palm tree and a spring near his cave provided him food, clothing, and water until he turned 43. After that time, as it had happened for Elias, a raven brought him half a loaf of bread each day.
In Paul’s 90th year in the desert his presence was revealed to St. Anthony, who immediately went to find him. Anthony met Paul in his cave, and the two hermits became friends overnight. They shared a whole loaf of bread brought by the raven, discussed world events, and prayed. Anthony thought he had found a companion, but Paul knew that God had sent Anthony to help him die. The biography described their meeting:
Blessed Paul said to Anthony: “For a long time now, I have known that you dwelled in these regions. And for a long time God had promised you to me for a companion. Since my hour of eternal sleep has arrived, and because I have always desired ‘to be dissolved and to be with Christ’ (see Philippians 1:23), having ‘finished the course, . . . a crown of justice’ (see 2 Timothy 4:7–8) remains for me. You have been sent by God to bury my miserable body, rather to return earth to earth.”
Anthony listened to these words with tears and groans, begging Paul not to leave him behind, but to accept him as a companion on that journey. Paul answered: “You ought not seek your own interests but those of another. It is indeed profitable for you to cast off the burden of the flesh to follow the Lamb, but it is also profitable for the rest of your brethren that they may be the more instructed by your example. I beg of you, hasten, if is not too much to ask, and bring back the cloak which Athanasius the bishop gave you, to wrap about my wretched body.” Now, blessed Paul made this request, not because he cared at all whether or not his body decayed covered up or naked, since for a long time now he had been wearing garments woven from palm leaves, but because he wanted to spare Anthony the grief of witnessing his death.
Anthony went to get the cloak. When he returned he found Paul kneeling with arms outstretched, but already dead. Two lions dug Paul’s grave and Anthony buried him. But he kept Paul’s outer garment woven from palm leaves, which he treasured from that time and which he always wore on great feast days.
Paul was spared a lonely death because he found a friend in Anthony. His experience suggests that we become friends with the sick and elderly and provide them companionship in their last days. And that we make friends with younger people ourselves as insurance against loneliness in the autumn of our lives.
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OLD AND NEW
Introduction
The reading from Samuel narrates the beginning of the disenchantment with King Saul. He kept the spoils of war that he was told not to keep.
You know from experience that change is always a problem to us. It calls us away from the security of our ingrained habits and our certainties. And it forces us to go unfamiliar ways. That is why, as if by nature, we resist change. It is an inherent law of Christianity to be always open to renewal and conversion. The trouble is that the old and the new are usually intolerant of one another.
Opening Prayer
Unchanging and ever-new God, you want us to be your pilgrim people on the march with Jesus, your Son, toward a new future of justice and love. Do not allow us to be suffocated in being contented with old habits and sluggish ways. Help us to accept the pain of leaving the familiar behind us and open us to the challenge of the Gospel to become more like your Son who guides our faltering steps, Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Saul did not enjoy God’s favor for long. Today’s reading recalls an occasion when he incurred God’s displeasure. The prophet Samuel makes it very clear that obedience is of greater value than sacrifice. Submission to the will of God takes precedence over ritual. In so many words, Saul is told that his days are numbered.
While Jesus has no argument with fasting, it is clear that the emphasis of his teaching falls elsewhere. It is always spiritual alertness that comes to the fore. This means to see my neighbor as brother or sister and to regard that relationship as preeminent, to the exclusion of my personal concerns. We can ask ourselves, which parables stand out most clearly? The Good Samaritan, the father and the prodigal son, the lost sheep, the lost coin. More than anything else, it is the recognition of the sovereignty of God and the needs of others.
Everything rotates around this basic principle.
We may feel a certain remorse for eating that chocolate cake during Lent. But God is more concerned about the person with whom I have not spoken for months. Or the shut-in who could use an occasional helping hand.
The Samuel story suggests that we not disregard what God asks of us. The Gospel at least suggests that we don’t have to travel far to put Christ’s teaching into practice.
Points to Ponder
Saul’s disregard of God’s will
Obedience better than sacrifice
Fasting in our lives
The Great Commandment as paramount
Intercessions
– For the Church, that the People of God and its leaders may follow the promptings of the creative Spirit, to speak to the people of today in the language of today, the ever-new message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we pray:
– For artists, poets and inventors, that they may reveal to us the splendor of creation and the riches of life beyond its apparent drabness, we pray:
– For our communities, that we may not be afraid of authentic change and draw from Christ the courage to start the renewal of the world and of the Church with the renewal of ourselves, we pray:
Prayer over the Gifts
Lord, our God, with bread and wine, we celebrate the covenant you renew with us in the blood of Jesus Christ. Make us indeed your new faithful people bound to you in an everlasting union of love. Renew our hearts; make us your new wine of hope and joy, that we may rebuild this earth today and march forward with your Son toward a new heaven, where you will be our God for ever.
