33rd Week, Monday, Nov 18
Apocalypse 1:1-4; 2:1-5 / Luke 18:35-43
Do not grow discouraged; Return to your former deeds.
It was halftime in the Dallas Cowboy-St. Louis Cardinal game on Thanksgiving 1985. A reporter was interviewing Lou Holtz, newly appointed head coach of Notre Dame's football team. "What's the first thing you're going to do to try to get the 'Fighting Irish' back to their old winning ways?" asked the reporter. Holtz surprised everyone by saying, He writes, "I'm going to work on establishing three things with my players: love, trust, and commitment." Holtz's formula for returning Notre Dame to its winning ways is what Jesus himself would prescribe for people who want to return to the ideals of their former life. They must trust that they can change, commit themselves to change, and use love as their motivation for change.
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How far have we drifted from our old ideals? "Until we lose ourselves there is no hope of finding ourselves." Henry Miller
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From today until the end of the Church year we read from the book of Revelation, apocalyptic writing. The author wants to express trust in God and the future, for ultimately God will win the struggle between good and evil, involving not only the earth but also heaven intervening. He does not know how, and to a large extent he is guessing, using traditional apocalyptic images, many inspired by religious experiences of God’s people in the past, and trying to apply them to the present but even to the future. But underlying all this, even when describing calamities, is the firm faith and hope that God will win and that therefore there is no reason to be afraid.
After Jesus had scolded the apostles for their lack of understanding and faith, Luke shows him curing the blind man. Is it perhaps to teach the apostles a lesson and show them that they need to be healed from their blindness by faith? In any case, Jesus becomes light and gives light to the blind man. We ask our Lord to give us eyes of faith.
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The test of our zest and fervour, of commitment and conviction, of love and faithfulness, will be over the test of time. Under the test of time, we will know where we stand in the areas of our work and our relationships, and also in every aspect of our lives.
We may start with something with zest and fervor and profess our commitment and declare our conviction.
But as the days go by, with its monotony and repetitiveness, we get bored for a lack of variation and variety. We are not as excited and energetic as when we first started. It can happen with marriage, with caregiving to the elderly, with a job, and even in our relationship with God.
Like the blind man who has his sight restored by Jesus, may we "see again" and love God and others deeper.
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Prayer
God, almighty Father, each of us too could say: Let me see again, for I am blind to the love that you show me in the people around me. Let me see again, for I am blind to your goodness and beauty that you reveal to me in your creation and in the events of life. May we too hear from the lips of your Son: your faith has saved you. We ask this through Christ, our Lord. Amen
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Apocalypse 10:8-11 / Luke 19:45-48
The eating of the scroll symbolizes that John has assimilated its content. The content is sweet while he assimilates it, but turns sour in his stomach. John's reaction reveals a twofold fact about the Christian life. The revelation of the scroll contains the sweet promise of victory for the Christian. But the price of the victory is a certain amount of pain and suffering. There is a basic principle of Christianity at work here. The Christian life contains the sweet promise of heaven, but the Christian must be prepared to pay the price of pain that the struggle for heaven will involve.
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How willing are we to struggle and suffer in the present to attain eternal life in the future? "No Christian escapes a taste of wilderness on the way to the promised land." Evelyn Underhill
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Today the author of Revelation reflects, like Jeremiah and Ezekiel before him, on his prophetic role. The word of God is sweet-tasting to him, but contains a bitter message of warning he has to preach.
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No matter how wonderful or awesome someone or something might be, after some time we will get used to it. Whether it is a new relationship or a new interest, after a while, the initial fervour will cool off. And then we begin to take it for granted and become rather casual with it. It can even happen to something sacred and holy. And that was the situation that Jesus was addressing in the gospel passage.
The Temple, which was the house of God, which was also a profound sign of the presence of God among His people, was being taken for granted and even the religious authorities were rather casual with it. The Temple was not just a building but it was to be a house of prayer where God meets His people. But Jesus made this remark - "you have turned it into a robbers' den. We may not be so brazen as to turn God's house into a robbers' den. But we may be complacent and take things for granted because we have gotten used to it and become casual in our relationship with God.
Jesus reminds us that God's house is to be a house of prayer and worship. Our attitude in the house of God also reflects our relationship with God. May we not take that for granted and become too casual or used to it.
Jesus drove out the merchants from the Temple and it might be a good time to ask ourselves: What has the Lord to drive out from us to make us better Christians? What stands in the way of being closer to him in the life of every day? What matters for us Christians is that we are attached to the Lord and close to the people he has entrusted to us. Then we can worship him with our whole life.
Let us Pray
God our Father, we often turn our hearts into houses of pride and greed rather than into homes of love and goodness where you can feel at home. Destroy the temple of sin in us, drive away all evil from our hearts, and make us living stones of a community in which can live and reign your Son Jesus Christ, our Lord forever and ever.
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The first memorial oratory to be erected over St Peter’s tomb, at the foot of the Vatican Hill in Rome, was the work of Pope St Anacletus (c.76-83). Here the first Pope’s remains have reposed ever since, except for a short period in 258 when they were concealed in the catacombs of St Sebastian for the sake of protection from desecration during the Valerian persecution. Constantine the Great had a magnificent Basilica constructed over the tomb in 319. It was later razed and reconstructed by Pope Julius II who himself had blessed the foundation stone in 1506. The present structure, the world’s greatest and richest church, built from designs of Bramante and Michelangelo, with a capacity of 50,000 worshippers, was solemnly consecrated by Pope Urban VIII in 1626.
In 103, Pope Anacletus built an oratory over the tomb of St Paul, near the Abbazia delle Tre Fontane on the Ostian Way, where Paul is believed to have been beheaded or buried. Such chapels were respected as inviolable under Roman law. In 324, Constantine the Great transformed the oratory into a beautiful basilica. In 385 a larger edifice, over 400 feet in length, took its place. Situated “outside the walls”, this so-called Theodosian Basilica fell victim to plunder in 739. It was, however, intermittently restored and embellished between 1500 and 1700. Destroyed in a great fire in 1823, the new St Paul’s which has maintained the ancient dimensions and was consecrated by Pope Pius IX in 1854, is possibly even more magnificent and devotionally awe-inspiring than the enormous Vatican Basilica of St Peter’s.
