Monday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time

“He sighed from the depth of his spirit and said, “Why does this generation seek a sign? Amen, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.”” (Mark 8:12.)

In commenting on these verses from today’s Gospel Proclamation, Saint John Chrysostom writes:

“But for what sign from heaven were they asking? Maybe that he should hold back the sun, or curb the moon, or bring down thunderbolts, or change the direction of the wind, or something like that? In Pharaoh’s time there was an enemy from whom deliverance was needed. But for one who comes among friends, there should be no need of such signs.

No sign more impressed the crowds than the miracles of the loaves. Not only did they want to follow him, but also seemed ready to make him a king. In order to avoid all suspicion of usurping civil authority, he made a speedy exit after this wonderful work. He did not even leave on foot, lest they chase after him, but took off by boat.” (The Gospel of Matthew, Homily 53.)

Collect

O God,
Who teach us that You abide
in hearts that are just and true,
grant that we may be so fashioned by Your grace
as to become a dwelling place to You.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 

Top

Life in the Kingdom of God isthe “greater righteousness”

εὐαγγελίζω (euaggelizo)
“to announce the Good News of victory in battle”

“I tell you, unless your righteousness (δικαιοσύνη, dikaiosýnē)
surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees,
you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

Matthew 5:20
Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

θεωρέω (theoreo)
(“to perceive, discover, ponder a deeper meaning”)

Spoiler alert: Jesus’ words this Sunday are particularly challenging and stinging. While there are times in the Public Ministry that Jesus does offer words and teachings that comfort, His Sermon on the Mount continuously challenges disciples to deeper and deeper levels of grafting onto and into His Divine life and love - indeed, His very Person. There is no ‘arrival point’ in living Jesus’ Sermon. There is no finish line, no graduation, no reward and certainly no stopping point. Kingdom living, in the sacred Word proclaimed by Saint Paul, is a “straining forward” - “forgetting what lies behind but straining forward to what lies ahead, I continue my pursuit toward the goal, the prize of God’s upward calling, in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13-14). This also underscores that Kingdom living is not earned, not self-initiated nor a work that I do on my own. Living as prescribed by Jesus in His Sermon is a gracious response to the One Who loves infinitely and wants nothing more than that love to be received and responded to by a life marked by the “greater righteousness” or “greater justice.”

Initially, a life of “greater righteousness” may seem nebulous and ethereal. To that end, Jesus offers some very concrete and very challenging examples. This Sunday we listen to His approach to anger, adultery and oaths. Next week Jesus’ approach to revenge and hatred round out the examples. Known as the Antitheses of the Sermon, Jesus provides them to offer his disciples a practical start to the demands of Kingdom living, but not a sum-total or all inclusive definition of “greater righteousness/justice.” In other words, even if one were to live the summons of all Antitheses perfectly, there would still be more to do in the way of response to living Jesus’ “greater righteousness/justice.” What is this righteousness/justice that believers are call to internalize and act upon?

In present usage, we tend to view “righteousness” or “to do justice” as ‘being proved right,’ especially after some ordeal or confrontation. There may even be a hint of revenge or punishment added for good measure that attempts to put oneself in a good way as the person-in-the-right after a contentious argument or hurtful ‘discussion.’ Biblically though, righteousness and justice translate the Hebrew word tsedeq. Tsedeq is part of a family of Hebrew words formed from the Hebrew root word tsadaq. While conveying a legal aspect of ‘being in the clear,’ ‘being not-guilty,’ the root tsadaq fundamentally has to do with ‘right’ in the sense of ‘right-living,’ ‘right or proper order,’ ‘right, just, or proper relationship.’

Tsadaq, especially when it is applied to people throughout the Scriptures, refers often to living in proper relationship: proper relationship with God, with others, with the true self and all of creation. Used extensively by the Fathers of the Church, tsadaq (the Fathers used the Greek translation of tsadaq: dikaios, the same word that appears in the Greek New Testament) expressed the original harmony that radiated from creation. Original Justice is ‘original tsadaq’ declaring, that since all reality flowed from the hand of the Creator, all reality originally was in right-relationship with the Creator; all creation was tsadaq with the Creator. Far from a contemporary usage and understanding of ‘justice,’ biblical righteousness/justice is first and foremost about living life relationally as well as each relationship in its proper place. “Greater righteousness” does not calculate what must be done or avoided but only asks how may I love redemptively and sacrifically because of Jesus Who has loved each of us first.

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

“I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven...” (Matthew 5:20.)

In commenting on this verse from today’s Gospel Proclamation, Saint John Chrysostom writes:

“Jesus speaks of righteousness here as virtue in its fullness. In speaking of Job, Jesus said, “He was a blameless man, righteous.” According to the same meaning of the word, Paul even called that person righteous for whom, as he said, no law is laid down: “For the law is not made for a righteous person.” One might find “righteous” in many other passages rendered as “virtuous in general.”

But I urge you to observe how grace has abounded under the new covenant. Jesus desires to have his prospective disciples considered as greater than the teachers under the old covenant. For by “scribes and Pharisees” here he meant the upright, not the lawbreakers. If they were not acting in a commendable fashion, he would not have spoken of them as righteous. Nor would he have compared the unreal to the real.

Note how Jesus also in this passage commends the old law. He does so by comparing it with the new, a comparison that implies that it is of the same family, so to speak. More or less, it does share many family resemblances. He does not find fault with the old law but in fact makes it more strict. Had it been evil, Jesus would not have accentuated it. Instead, he would have discarded it. If the law is so commendable, how is it not adequate to bring us into the kingdom? After the coming of Christ we are favored with a greater strength than law as such. Those who are adopted as children are bound to strive for greater things.” (The Gospel of Matthew, Homily 16.)

Collect

O God,
Who teach us that You abide
in hearts that are just and true,
grant that we may be so fashioned by Your grace
as to become a dwelling place to You.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 

Top

The apparition of Our Lady of Lourdes

Optional Memorial — 11 February

Our Lady of Lourdes

From a letter from Saint Bernadette Soubirous, virgin

I had gone down one day with two other girls to the bank of the river Gave when suddenly I heard a kind of rustling sound. I turned my head toward the field by the side of the river but the trees seemed quite still and the noise was evidently not from them. Then I looked up and caught sight of the cave where I saw a lady wearing a lovely white dress with a bright belt. On top of each of her feet was a pale yellow rose, the same color as her rosary beads.

At this I rubbed my eyes, thinking I was seeing things, and I put my hands into the fold of my dress where my rosary was. I wanted to make the sign of the cross but for the life of me I couldn’t manage it and my hand just fell down. Then the lady made the sign of the cross herself and at the second attempt I managed to do the same, though my hands were trembling. Then I began to say the rosary while the lady let her beads slip through her fingers, without moving her lips. When I stopped saying the Hail Mary, she immediately vanished.

I asked my two companions if they had noticed anything, but they said no. Of course they wanted to know what I was doing and I told them that I had seen a lady wearing a nice white dress, though I didn’t know who she was. I told them not to say anything about it, and they said I was silly to have anything to do with it. I said they were wrong and I came back next Sunday, feeling myself drawn to the place.

The third time I went the lady spoke to me and asked me to come every day for fifteen days. I said I would and then she said that she wanted me to tell the priests to build a chapel there. She also told me to drink from the stream. I went to the Gave, the only stream I could see. Then she made me realise she was not speaking of the Gave and she indicated a little trickle of water close by. When I got to it I could only find a few drops, mostly mud. I cupped my hands to catch some liquid without success and then I started to scrape the ground. I managed to find a few drops of water but only at the fourth attempt was there a sufficient amount for any kind of drink. The lady then vanished and I went back home.

I went back each day for two weeks and each time, except one Monday and one Friday, the lady appeared and told me to look for a stream and wash in it and to see that the priests build a chapel there. I must also pray, she said, for the conversion of sinners. I asked her many times what she meant by that, but she only smiled. Finally with outstretched arms and eyes looking up to heaven she told me she was the Immaculate Conception.

During the two weeks she told me three secrets but I was not to speak about them to anyone and so far I have not.

Scriptures for the Optional Memorial

Collect

Grant us, O merciful God,
protection in our weakness,
that we, who keep the
Memorial of the
Immaculate Mother of God,
may, with the help of her
intercession, rise up
from our iniquities.
Through our Lord
Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with
You in the unity of the
Holy Spirit, God,
for ever and ever.

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 

Top

Saturday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time

“He answered, “I heard you in the garden; but I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid.” Then God asked: Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat?” (Genesis 3:10-11.)

Saint Symeon the New Theologian offers the following insight on this verses from today’s First Reading:

“Do you see, dear friend, how patient God is? For when he said, “Adam, where are you?” and when Adam did not at once confess his sin but said, “I heard your voice, O Lord, and realized that I am naked and hid myself,” God was not angered, nor did he immediately turn away. Rather, he gave him the opportunity of a second reply and said, “Who told you that you are naked? Unless you ate of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat.”

Consider how profound are the words of God’s wisdom. He says, “Why do you say that you are naked but hide your sin? Do you really think that I see only your body but do not see your heart and your thoughts?” Since Adam was deceived he hoped that God would not know his sin. He said something like this to himself, “If I say that I am naked, God in his ignorance will say, ‘Why are you naked?’ Then I shall have to deny and say, ‘I do not know,’ and so I shall not be caught by him and he will give me back the garment that I had at first. If not, as long as he does not cast me out, he will not exile me!”

While he was thinking these thoughts ... God, unwilling to multiply his guilt, says, “How did you realize that you are naked? Unless you ate of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat.” It is as though he said, “Do you really think that you can hide from me? Do you imagine that I do not know what you have done? Will you not say, ‘I have sinned?’ Say, O scoundrel, ‘Yes, it is true, Master, I have transgressed your command. I have fallen by listening to the woman’s counsel, I am greatly at fault for doing what she said and disobeying your word. Have mercy on me!’” But he does not humble himself, he does not bend. The neck of his heart is like a sinew of iron! For had he said this he might have stayed in paradise. By this one word he might have spared himself that whole cycle of evils without number that he endured by his expulsion and in spending so many centuries in hell.” (Discourses, 5.)

As the proclamation from Genesis continues at weekday Mass, insights from the distinguished Jewish Scripture scholar, Nahum M. Sarna, offer added perspective when reflecting on the living and enduring Word of God. In addition to his scholarly work on Genesis and Exodus, he has penned a most insight work on the Psalms, opening up the world of the Psalms to anyone who prays the Psalms especially the Liturgy of the Hours.

Nahum M. Sarna

“Human beings have arrogated the right to make decisions concerning human welfare independently of God and in defiance of His norms. They have lost their innocence and must assume full responsibility for their actions. Accordingly, God now metes out punishment on each transgressor in turn, in the order of their original appearance on the scene. In each case, the judgment is of a twofold nature: it affects what is of central concern in the life of each entity, and it regulates a basic relationship. The snake is punished in its manner of self-propulsion and in its contacts with human beings; the woman is doomed to suffer in childbearing, and her relationship to her husband is defined; the man is fated to a life of arduous labor, and his interaction with the soil is to be disagreeable.” (Nahum M. Sarna,  JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2001. 978-0809149285)

Collect

Keep Your family safe, O Lord,
with unfailing care,
that, relying solely
on the hope of heavenly Grace,
they may be defended always by Your protection.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 

Top

The preeminence of charity

Blessed Isaac of Stella

Cistercian Monk

An excerpt from his Sermon 31

Saturday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time

Why, brothers, are we so little concerned to seek one another’s well-being, so that where we see a greater need, we might show a greater readiness to help and carry one another’s burdens? For this is what the blessed apostle Paul urges us to do in the words: Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ; and also: Support each other in charity. For this surely is the law of Christ.

Why can I not patiently bear the weaknesses I see in my brother which, either out of necessity or because of physical or moral weakness, cannot be corrected? And why can I not instead generously offer him consolation, as it is written: Their children shall be carried on their shoulders and consoled upon their knees? Is it because I lack that virtue which suffers all things, is patient enough to bear all, and generous enough to love?

This is indeed the law of Christ, who truly bore our weaknesses in his passion and carried our sorrows out of pity, loving those he carried and carrying those he loved. Whoever attacks a brother in need, or plots against him in his weakness of whatever sort, surely fulfills the devil’s law and subjects himself to it. Let us then be compassionate toward one another, loving all our brothers, bearing one another’s weaknesses, yet ridding ourselves of our sins.

The more any way of life sincerely strives for the love of God and the love of our neighbor for God’s sake, the more acceptable it is to God, no matter what be its observances or external form. For charity is the reason why anything should be done or left undone, changed or left unchanged; it is the initial principle and the end to which all things should be directed. Whatever is honestly done out of love and in accordance with love can never be blameworthy. May he then deign to grant us this love, for without it we cannot please him, and without him we can do absolutely nothing, God, who lives and reigns for ever. Amen.

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 

Top

Memorial of Saint Scholastica, Virgin

“The woman saw that the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eyes, and the tree was desirable for gaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.” (Genesis 3:6)

Saint Gregory of Nyssa (part 2 of the background of Saint Gregory of Nyssa is found here) offers the following insight on this verse from today’s First Reading:

“Those who have been tricked into taking poison offset its harmful effect by another drug. The remedy, moreover, just like the poison, has to enter the system, so that its remedial effect may thereby spread through the whole body. Similarly, having tasted the poison, that is the fruit, that dissolved our nature, we were necessarily in need of something to reunite it. Such a remedy had to enter into us, so that it might by its counteraction undo the harm the body had already encountered from the poison. And what is this remedy? Nothing else than the body that proved itself superior to death and became the source of our life.” (Catechetical Oration, 27)

As the proclamation from Genesis continues at weekday Mass, insights from the distinguished Jewish Scripture scholar, Nahum M. Sarna, can offer an added perspective when reflecting on the living and enduring Word of God. In addition to his scholarly work on Genesis and Exodus, he has penned a most insight work on the Psalms, opening up the world of the Psalms to anyone who prays the Psalms especially the Liturgy of the Hours.

Nahum M. Sarna

“The word of the serpent prevails over the word of God. The allure of the forbidden has become irresistible. There is an undertone of irony in the formulation that she “saw that it was good,” for it echoes God’s recurring judgment about His creation in chapter 1. Now, however, good has become debased in the woman’s mind. Its definition is no longer God’s verdict but is rooted in the appeal to the senses and in utilitarian value. Egotism, greed, and self-interest now govern human action.

Hebrew le-haskil is the capacity for making decisions that lead to success. The Targums as well as the Septuagint, Latin, and Syriac versions all derive the verb from the stem s-k-l, “to see, contemplate.”

The woman is not a temptress. She does not say a word but simply hands her husband the fruit, which he accepts and eats. The absence of any hint of resistance or even hesitation on his part is strange. It should be noted, however, that in speaking to the woman, the serpent consistently used the plural form. This suggests that the man was all the time within ear’s reach of the conversation and was equally seduced by its persuasiveness. In fact, the Hebrew text here literally means, “She also gave to her husband with her (ꜥimmah),” suggesting that he was a full participant in the sin, thereby refuting in advance his later excuse.” (Nahum M. Sarna, JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2001. 978-0809149285)

Collect

As we celebrate anew
the Memorial of the Virgin
Saint Scholastica,
we pray, O Lord,
that, following her example,
we may serve You with pure love
and happily receive what comes from loving You.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 

Top

Thursday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time

“The man and his wife were both naked, yet they felt no shame.” (Genesis 2:25.)

Saint Gregory of Nyssa (part 2 of the background of Saint Gregory of Nyssa is found here) offers the following insight on this verses from today’s First Reading:

“The resurrection promises us nothing else than the restoration of the fallen to their ancient state; for the grace we look for is a certain return to the first life, bringing back again to paradise those who were cast out from it. If then the life of those restored is closely related to that of the angels, it is clear that the life before the transgression was a kind of angelic life, and hence also our return to the ancient condition of life is compared to the angels.” (On the Making of Man)

As the proclamation from Genesis continues at weekday Mass, insights from the distinguished Jewish Scripture scholar, Nahum M. Sarna, can offer an added perspective when reflecting on the living and enduring Word of God. In addition to his scholarly work on Genesis and Exodus, he has penned a most insight work on the Psalms, opening up the world of the Psalms to anyone who prays the Psalms especially the Liturgy of the Hours.

Nahum M. Sarna

“Insofar as the power of naming implies authority, the text voices the social reality of the ancient Near East. Yet the terminology used here differs from that employed in verse 20 for naming the animals. Here the man gives her a generic, not a personal, name, and that designation is understood to be derived from his own, which means he acknowledges woman to be his equal. Moreover, in naming her ʾishah, he simultaneously names himself. Hitherto he is consistently called ʾadam; he now calls himself ʾish for the first time. Thus he discovers his own manhood and fulfillment only when he faces the woman, the human being who is to be his partner in life.

This verse (2:25) forms the transition to the next episode by means of a word play on “naked” (Heb. ꜥarom, pl. ꜥarummim) and “shrewd” (Heb. ꜥarum). It also conveys an anticipatory hint at what is related in 3:7. The Hebrew expresses mutuality. So long as the harmony with God remained undisturbed, the pristine innocence and dignity of sexuality was not despoiled.” (Nahum M. Sarna,  JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2001. 978-0809149285)

Collect

Keep Your family safe, O Lord,
with unfailing care,
that, relying solely
on the hope of heavenly grace,
they may be defended always
by Your protection.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 

Top

Wednesday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time

“... then the LORD God formed the man out of the dust of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” (Genesis 2:7.)

Saint Gregory of Nyssa (part 2 of the background of Saint Gregory of Nyssa is found here) offers the following insight on this verses from today’s First Reading:

“God made the inner person; He molded the outer. “Molding” is suitable for clay, but “making” is [fitting] for an image. So on the one hand, he “molded” flesh, but on the other, he “made” the soul.

“God took of the dust of the earth and fashioned man.” In this world I have discovered the two affirmations that man is nothing and that man is great. If you consider nature alone, he is nothing and has no value; but if you regard the honor with which he has been treated, man is something great.

Others, on the contrary, marking the order of the making of man as stated by Moses, say that the soul is second to the body in order of time, since God first took dust from the earth and formed man, and then animated the being thus formed by his breath. By this argument they prove that the flesh is more noble than the soul, that which was previously formed [more noble] than that which was afterward infused into it…. Nor again are we in our doctrine to begin by making up man like a clay figure and to say that the soul came into being for the sake of this, for surely in that case the intellectual nature would be shown to be less precious than the clay figure. But as man is one, the being consisting of soul and body, we are to suppose that the beginning of his existence is one, common to both aspects, so that he should not be found to be antecedent and posterior to himself, as if the bodily element were first in point of time and the other were a later addition.” (On the Making of Man)

As the proclamation from Genesis continues at weekday Mass, insights from the distinguished Jewish Scripture scholar, Nahum M. Sarna, can offer an added perspective when reflecting on the living and enduring Word of God. In addition to his scholarly work on Genesis and Exodus, he has penned a most insight work on the Psalms, opening up the world of the Psalms to anyone who prays the Psalms especially the Liturgy of the Hours.

Nahum M. Sarna

“The poetic imagery evoked by the Genesis text is graphically explicit in the Book of Job: “Consider that You fashioned me like clay” (10:9); “You and I are the same before God; / I too was nipped from clay” (33:6). The human body is a “house of clay,” and human beings are described as “those who dwell in houses of clay, / Whose origin is dust” (4:19).

Here in Genesis, the image simultaneously expresses both the glory and the insignificance of man. Man occupies a special place in the hierarchy of Creation and enjoys a unique relationship with God by virtue of his being the work of God’s own hands and being directly animated by God’s own breath. At the same time, he is but dust taken from the earth, mere clay in the hands of the divine Potter, who exercises absolute mastery over His Creation.” (Nahum M. Sarna,  JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2001. 978-0809149285)

Collect

Keep Your family safe, O Lord,
with unfailing care,
that, relying solely
on the hope of heavenly grace,
they may be defended always
by Your protection.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 

Top

Tuesday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time

“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and the cattle, and over all the wild animals and all the creatures that crawl on the ground.” (Genesis 1:26.)

Saint Gregory of Nyssa (part 2 of the background of Saint Gregory of Nyssa is found here) offers the following insight on this verses from today’s First Reading:

“God creates man for no other reason than that God is good; and being such, and having this as his reason for entering upon the creation of our nature, he would not exhibit the power of this goodness in an imperfect form, giving our nature some one of the things at his disposal and grudging it a share in another: but the perfect form of goodness is here to be seen by his both bringing man into being from nothing and fully supplying him with all good gifts. But since the list of individual good gifts is a long one, it is out of the question to apprehend it numerically. The language of Scripture therefore expresses it concisely by a comprehensive phrase, in saying that man was made “in the image of God,” for this is the same as to say that he made human nature participant in all good; for if the Deity is the fullness of good, and this is his image, then the image finds its resemblance to the archetype in being filled with all good.

Let us add that [man’s] creation in the image of the nature that governs all demonstrates precisely that he has from the beginning a royal nature. Following common usage, painters of portraits of princes, as well as representing their features, express their royal dignity by garments of purple, and before this image one is accustomed to say “the king.” Thus human nature, created to rule the world because of his resemblance to the universal King, has been made like a living image that participates in the archetype by dignity and by name. He is not clothed in purple, scepter and diadem, for these do not signify his dignity (the archetype himself does not possess them). But in place of purple, he is clothed with virtue, the most royal of garments. Instead of a scepter, he is endowed with blessed immortality. Instead of a royal diadem, he bears the crown of justice, in such a way that everything about him manifests royal dignity, by his exact likeness to the beauty of the archetype.” (On the Making of Man)

Since Genesis is proclaimed at weekday Mass for the next few days, insights from the distinguished Jewish Scripture scholar, Nahum M. Sarna, can offer an added perspective when reflecting on the living and enduring Word of God. In addition to his scholarly work on Genesis and Exodus, he has penned a most insight work on the Psalms, opening up the world of the Psalms to anyone who prays the Psalms especially the Liturgy of the Hours.

Nahum M. Sarna

“The extraordinary use of the first person plural evokes the image of a heavenly court in which God is surrounded by His angelic host. Such a celestial scene is depicted in several biblical passages. This is the Israelite version of the polytheistic assemblies of the pantheon—monotheized and depaganized. It is noteworthy that this plural form of divine address is employed in Genesis on two other occasions, both involving the fate of humanity: in 3:22, in connection with the expulsion from Eden; and in 11:7, in reference to the dispersal of the human race after the building of the Tower of Babel.” (Nahum M. Sarna,  JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2001. 978-0809149285)

Collect

Keep Your family safe, O Lord,
with unfailing care, that,
relying solely on the hope of heavenly grace,
they may be defended always
by Your protection.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 

Top