Readings for Monday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time[1][2]
Readings from the Jerusalem Bible
Commentary:
Reading 1 Jon 1:1–2:1-2, 11
We begin the Book of the Prophet Jonah with the command from God to go to the Assyrian town of Nineveh. Jonah represents a narrow-minded group of Jews who believe that as God’s Chosen people, the Lord does not care about other nations. He is afraid of going to this town so he runs in the opposite direction, to the far west – to Tarshish (believed to have been south west of modern Spain).
The ship Jonah has sailed upon runs into a serious storm and the sailors (although not identified as Jews) have the mindset that the storm is a punishment sent by God for someone on board. Jonah knows he is the one and tells the sailors to cast him over the side, which they do after praying to God not to punish them.
The story tells how a giant fish swallowed up Jonah and kept him in his belly for three days (significant from a Christian perspective), and then spewed him out on dry land. Note, the prayer uttered by Jonah while inside the fish is the Psalm Response we use today.
Responsorial Psalm Jonah 2:3, 4, 5, 8
R. You will rescue my life from the pit, O Lord.
Jonah’s prayer from inside the giant fish that swallowed him is an individual lament. The prophet calls to God out of fear, pleading to be restored to favor and asking that once more he might “look upon your holy temple.”
Gospel Lk 10:25-37
We are given St. Luke’s account of the “Good Samaritan” which today reinforces the story of Jonah. The Lord uses this story to tell the pious man, obviously a Jew since he answered the Lord’s first question with the Shema, that God came for all people and that His love is to be extended to everyone.
Reflection:
The message today is very clear – God is the Father of all mankind and His expectation is that the love he has shown for us, we should show each other. The message comes at us hard from both the old and the new testaments.
We begin with the story of Jonah, a Prophet called by God to take a warning to Nineveh. Because that town was in Assyria, enemies of the Jews, Jonah, like many of his contemporaries, could not believe God would help non-Jews. On top of that, since they were hostile to the Jews, what kind of a reception would he receive, and why would they even listen to him. Faced with these views and feelings, Jonah did the logical thing – he ran in the opposite direction.
The commentary above gives a description of the story. The lesson to be learned is clear – God did not come “just” for one group of people; He came for the whole human race, his children.
From that story, some seven hundred years before the Lord walked the earth, we are given a more pointed and personal story with the same message – the story of the Good Samaritan. Here a person hoping to “justify himself” before Jesus as a faithful member of the Jewish community asks Jesus to explain the Lord’s own Great Commandment by asking, “Who is my neighbor?”
The story of the Good Samaritan, also a group known as hostile to the Jews, tells him that all peoples of all races are neighbors and that the story should be an example for him to follow. It is a good reminder to all of us. In the world climate in which we find ourselves, it is easy to develop stereotypes and biases that would lead us to behave as if some groups are not worthy of our love. When we run into a vocal group whose message is hate and violence it is easy to forget the Good Samaritan.
Our prayer today must be that we, as faithful followers of the Lord who spent three days in a tomb that we might find a path to eternal life, might emulate the Good Samaritan. We pray that all those we meet today will see in our actions that we treat them as “neighbors” and extend to them the love of Christ.
Pax
[1] After Links to Readings Expire
[2] The Picture today is Jonah Leaves the Whale’s Belly, by Tintoretto, 1577-78
Readings from the Jerusalem Bible
Commentary:
Reading 1 Jon 1:1–2:1-2, 11
We begin the Book of the Prophet Jonah with the command from God to go to the Assyrian town of Nineveh. Jonah represents a narrow-minded group of Jews who believe that as God’s Chosen people, the Lord does not care about other nations. He is afraid of going to this town so he runs in the opposite direction, to the far west – to Tarshish (believed to have been south west of modern Spain).
The ship Jonah has sailed upon runs into a serious storm and the sailors (although not identified as Jews) have the mindset that the storm is a punishment sent by God for someone on board. Jonah knows he is the one and tells the sailors to cast him over the side, which they do after praying to God not to punish them.
The story tells how a giant fish swallowed up Jonah and kept him in his belly for three days (significant from a Christian perspective), and then spewed him out on dry land. Note, the prayer uttered by Jonah while inside the fish is the Psalm Response we use today.
Responsorial Psalm Jonah 2:3, 4, 5, 8
R. You will rescue my life from the pit, O Lord.
Jonah’s prayer from inside the giant fish that swallowed him is an individual lament. The prophet calls to God out of fear, pleading to be restored to favor and asking that once more he might “look upon your holy temple.”
Gospel Lk 10:25-37
We are given St. Luke’s account of the “Good Samaritan” which today reinforces the story of Jonah. The Lord uses this story to tell the pious man, obviously a Jew since he answered the Lord’s first question with the Shema, that God came for all people and that His love is to be extended to everyone.
Reflection:
The message today is very clear – God is the Father of all mankind and His expectation is that the love he has shown for us, we should show each other. The message comes at us hard from both the old and the new testaments.
We begin with the story of Jonah, a Prophet called by God to take a warning to Nineveh. Because that town was in Assyria, enemies of the Jews, Jonah, like many of his contemporaries, could not believe God would help non-Jews. On top of that, since they were hostile to the Jews, what kind of a reception would he receive, and why would they even listen to him. Faced with these views and feelings, Jonah did the logical thing – he ran in the opposite direction.
The commentary above gives a description of the story. The lesson to be learned is clear – God did not come “just” for one group of people; He came for the whole human race, his children.
From that story, some seven hundred years before the Lord walked the earth, we are given a more pointed and personal story with the same message – the story of the Good Samaritan. Here a person hoping to “justify himself” before Jesus as a faithful member of the Jewish community asks Jesus to explain the Lord’s own Great Commandment by asking, “Who is my neighbor?”
The story of the Good Samaritan, also a group known as hostile to the Jews, tells him that all peoples of all races are neighbors and that the story should be an example for him to follow. It is a good reminder to all of us. In the world climate in which we find ourselves, it is easy to develop stereotypes and biases that would lead us to behave as if some groups are not worthy of our love. When we run into a vocal group whose message is hate and violence it is easy to forget the Good Samaritan.
Our prayer today must be that we, as faithful followers of the Lord who spent three days in a tomb that we might find a path to eternal life, might emulate the Good Samaritan. We pray that all those we meet today will see in our actions that we treat them as “neighbors” and extend to them the love of Christ.
Pax
[1] After Links to Readings Expire
[2] The Picture today is Jonah Leaves the Whale’s Belly, by Tintoretto, 1577-78
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