32B21.    1 Kings 17:10-16.  During the time of a great drought, Elijah, the great prophet, went into pagan territory and called on a poverty stricken widow, first to give him “a small cupful of water,” and then “a bit of bread.” She told Elijah that she had only enough for her and her son’s last meal and then they would die.  Elijah assured her that “the jar of flour shall not go empty, nor the jug of oil run dry,” until the drought ended.  In her simplicity she put herself in hands of Lord and the Lord provided.

Mark 12:38-44.  Jesus condemns the scribes for whom religion was all about what they could get for themselves but he commends the poor widow who gave all she could to the Lord in whom she put her trust.  She was virtually giving herself to the Lord.  She and the widow in the first reading lived their lives in hands of the Lord.

Hebrews 9:24-26.  Jesus is the eternal high priest who offered up himself to give us the opportunity to gain heaven and still appears before God the Father on our behalf.  He “will appear a second time” “to bring salvation to those who eagerly await him.”  Jesus still lives for us who live for him.

32B18.   1 Kings 17:10-16.   What a heart-wrenching account!  “Just now I was collecting a couple of sticks, to go in and prepare something for myself and my son; when we have eaten it, we shall die.”  Elijah was able to bring the life–sustaining power of God to her aid, saying, “For the Lord, the God of Israel, says, ‘The jar of flour shall not go empty, nor the jug of oil run dry, until the day when the Lord sends rain upon the earth.’” The Lord provided in her dire need.  In Luke 1:53, Mary says, “The hungry he has filled with good things; the rich he has sent away empty.”

Mark 12:38-44.  Jesus calling his disciples to himself, saying, “This poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury.  For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood.” God judges us individually on how much we do with how much we have.  Judgment is based not on a competition, one against the other but rather on our own individual effort.  When we are giving to God, we only give what God has given us.  He knows well what we are capable of. God is perfectly just, true to himself as a Father loving each of us, his children fairly.  He also condemns the scribes because they are only working for their self-interest and esteem.  “They will receive a very severe condemnation.”  This Sundays’ Psalm 146 says, “The fatherless and the widow he sustains, but the way of the wicked he thwarts.”

Hebrews 9:24-28.  Christ, who died for our benefit on the cross, ascends to heaven to “appear before God on our behalf.”  In John 14:6 Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”  Infinitely superior to the priests of the Old Testament who had to offer sacrifices continuously, Christ offers himself only once on the cross to take away the sins of many.  He will come “a second time, not to take away sins but to bring salvation to those who eagerly await him.”  Christ suffered and died so that we may be his holy people, sinners made by the Lord into saints, prepared to enter heaven to adore him forever.

31B21.       Deuteronomy 6:2-6.    “Fear the Lord, your God, and keep” “all his statues and commandments.”  This means that we must treat God as God, the infinitely Almighty, and do everything he tells us to do without exception.   The Hebrews of that time did not believe in an afterlife.  Their reward was to be in this life by having an exceptionally long life.  Also the reward for their fidelity to God was a prosperous life in this world.  To be God’s People meant to have him as the one and only Lord of their lives to whom they gave themselves totally and to no other in any way.  He was everything for them and nothing else was anything.  This is true for us too as Christians.

Mark 12:28b-34.   “Hear, O Israel! The Lord God is Lord alone!” Give God the place he deserves in our lives!  May our God be the Almighty Gracious One of every moment we live in the here and hereafter!  Life is all God; death is everything else!  All the external rituals, both Hebrew and Christian, must be permeated with the presence of God and never just actions that are just external and are not filled with the giving over of ourselves to God.  To love God is to belong to God from the very depths of our beings.  Our bodies, the world around us and the devil lay claim to us every of moment of our lives.  We can never rest from the struggle that is required to belong to God and God alone.

Hebrews 7:23-28.  Jesus “is always able to save those who approach God through him, since he lives forever to make intercession for them.”  Jesus offered sacrifice for sins “once for all when he offered himself” on the cross.  Jesus is at once and at the same time, the priest who offers the sacrifice, the sacrifice itself which is he himself and the altar upon which the sacrifice is offered.  Through Jesus’ humanity, God has redeemed us in his suffering and death on the cross.   Jesus continues his heavenly priestly work daily in each and every one of us.

31B18.   Deuteronomy 6:2-6.  Moses gives the Hebrew Law or Torah to the Hebrews with its hundreds of commands and prohibitions. From my personal point of view this regime of training and discipline is like what a loving parent gives to their little children.  In the New Testament this same loving God expects that his sons and daughters will have developed to point where He then only has to give only far fewer commands that are far broader in the scope in what they demand of us. The best example of this is Matthew 5:48 where Jesus simply says: “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” In the Old Testament Law, God promises that observance will lead to a long life and to “a land flowing with milk and honey” as a reward.  I believe that observance of the Law in the proper spirit was given to the Hebrew people as the sure way to help them to grow in that all-consuming love of the Lord that is demanded by the first of the two great commandments.

Mark 12:28b-34.  We always hear and read the command: “You shall love the Lord our God.” Unfortunately it can easily give the impression that love begins with us.  1 John 4:19 clearly states: “We love because he first loved us.”  We go next to 1 John 4:9-10 which says, “In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him.  In this is love: not we have loved God, but that he has loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.” As we daily grow in the love that God has for us, we become more capable in turn, of loving God with all our heart, with all our mind, and with all our strength.  We cannot give what we do not have.  The only way to have a genuine life of love is to get it as a gift from God himself.  God is the ultimate source or root of all goodness.  Jesus says in John 15:5: “I am the vine, you are the branches.  Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.”

Secondly, we cannot love what we do not properly respect.  To respect God means to hold God in our hearts and minds for the person God truly is:  all-knowing; all-powerful; all present; all-loving.  However, we cannot truly and fully grasp who God is because he is infinite and we are finite.  Because he is “the Lord our God” and we are not God, we must live in total submission to his Will.  God is love; his Will is love.  To live in anything else but a total submission to the Will of God is not to live in his love.  In John 14:21 Jesus says: “Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.”  In John 14:23, “Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.”  If God does not give us the love with which to love we can have no true love for God.  To truly love God or neighbor means that God himself must live within us as the source of our life and love.

Hebrews 7:23-28.    “Jesus, because he remains forever, has a priesthood that does not pass away.   Therefore, he is always able to save those who approach God through him, since he lives forever to make intercession for them.”  Jesus, “who has been made perfect forever,” is the perfect priest to appeal to God for us.  In John 14:6, “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.’”  Jesus who loved us so much that he died on the cross for us is the sure way to heaven for us.  He is the sure way for us to live with our becoming love as he is love.

30B21.       Jeremiah 31:7-9.    “Shout with joy for Jacob,” “the Lord has delivered his people, the remnant of Israel.”  The Hebrew people had been taken into captivity by the conquering Babylonians.  The Lord promised that he would restore his people, “for I am a father to Israel.”

Psalm 126.   “The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.”  “Although they go forth weeping,” “they shall come back rejoicing” from captivity.

Mark 10:46-52.   Bartimaeus, crying out, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me,” showed that he put his faith and trust in Jesus.  In his position as a blind beggar on the side of the road many regarded him as to have no position or stature to have Jesus recognize his presence.    When he heard that Jesus was responding to his plea, he threw off his cloak, his only worthwhile possession, to open himself to the goodness of Jesus.  “Jesus told him, ‘Go your way; your faith has saved you.’  Immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way.”  Unlike the rich man who held on to riches, Bartimaeus gave up what little he had, to gain the greatest riches anyone can possess.

Hebrews 5:1-6.      “Every high priest is taken from among men and made their representative before God, to offer gifts and sacrifice for sins.  He is able to deal patiently with the ignorant and erring, for he himself is beset by weakness and so, for this reason, must make sin offerings for himself as well as for the people.”  God called Jesus to be high priest.  “In the days when he was in the flesh, he offered prayers and supplications.” “Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered; and was made perfect, he became the source of salvation for all who obey him.” (Hebrews 5:7a & 8-9)  Jesus in his humanity grew in holiness as we are all called to do.  Not only is he a model for what we ought to be doing but even more importantly he stands before his Father to plead for us to be forgiven our sins and to grow in sanctity.  “The Lord has done” and is doing “great things for us; we are filled with joy.”

30B18.   Jeremiah 31:7-9.  “The Lord has delivered his people, the remnant of Israel.”  “They departed in tears, but I will console them and guide them.” “For I am a father to Israel.”  As the psalm response for Psalm 126 says, “The Lord had done great things for us; we are filled with joy.”  For their disobedience Israel had been led off to captivity by the Babylonians.  They had served their time in reparation.  The God of Israel loves his People and with paternal care leads them back to their homeland.

Mark 10:46-52.  Bartimaeus hears that Jesus of Nazareth is passing by but, probably because he has heard that Jesus has done miraculous things that only the Messiah could do, he calls out to him addressing him with the messianic title, son of David, instead of Jesus of Nazareth, which was his secular name.  Bartimaeus, in crying out, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me,” is saying what we say at the beginning of Mass: ‘Jesus, have mercy; Christ, have mercy’.  It was his way, and now our way, of requesting: ‘Make me physically whole; make me spiritually holy’ or ‘do great things for me’.  As Jesus’ Father led Israel out of the dark times of slavery, Jesus leads a son of Israel out of the darkness of his blindness.  When the disciples said to Bartimaeus, “‘Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you,’ he threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus.” Traditionally Bartimaeus’ response to the invitation of Jesus is looked upon as his way of saying by his actions that he has abandoned seeking his strength from his own personal resources but is now totally dependent on, i.e. put his faith, in Jesus.  Jesus told him, ‘Go your way; your ‘faith has saved you.’ Immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way.”  As with the remnant of Israel in Jeremiah, the Lord has done great things for Bartimaeus and he follows the Lord with great joy.  In the darkness of his blindness his faith opened him to be filled with the power of God.  Our weaknesses invite us to no longer be dependent on our own resources but rather to put our faith in the strength of the Lord.  Life is journey of having the sight to see Jesus leading us on the way to heaven and not be lost in the blindness of an earthly life.

Hebrews 5:1-6.  Every high priest in the Old Testament was just a human being but chosen by God.  Being human even the high priest “is beset by weakness and so, for this reason, must make sin offerings for himself as well as for the people.  No one takes this honor upon himself but only when called by God.”  Jesus too was called by God his Father to be the high priest.  It was the Father who glorified the Jesus, saying to him: “You are my son: this day I have begotten you!”  The God sets up the scenario for Jesus to be the high priest who opens up the gates of heaven by offering himself on the cross so that we may be delivered from captivity to sin to live in the promised land of heaven.  Now we can say: “The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.”

29B21.     Isaiah 53:10-11.  “The Lord was pleased to crush him in infirmity.”  “If he gives his life as an offering for sin,” “the will of the Lord shall be accomplished through him.”  “Through his suffering, my servant shall justify many, and their guilt he shall bear.”  We do not know about whom this was originally written.  However, clearly the Church places this selection here as a prophetic reference to the suffering Jesus.   Christianity places a positive value on suffering in our redemptive plan.

Mark 10:35-45.  “James and John, the sons of Zebedee,” said to Jesus, “Grant that in your glory we may sit one at your right and the other at your left.”  Jesus makes it clear that to sit with him in his glory requires that one drinks the cup of suffering or undergoes the baptism of the fire of painful hardship.  Jesus assures them that one day they would have to endure the pain that he would later suffer.  The other Apostles were indignant that James and John were attempting to make a ‘power grab’.  Jesus makes it clear to them all that he was not about seeking worldly power but rather in bringing us to be servants of the God who is love.  “For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”  Loving is to love “in the good times and in the bad” and never to “lord it over”others.  Greatness means to be holy in the eyes of God which often means to be lowly in the eyes of this world.

Hebrews 4:14-16. Jesus in his humanity was as vulnerable as we are, so that life was just as much a test, trial or challenge as it is for us.  For that reason in Jesus we have a mediator between us and God the Father who can truly “sympathize with our weaknesses.” “So let us confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help.”  Accepting that we are weak so that we may live in the power of God will enable us to arrive to heaven.

29B18.    Isiah 53:10-11.  Suffering for the sins of others because God wishes it of him, God’s servant will be rewarded abundantly.

Mark 10:35-45.   The brothers, James and John, ask of Jesus that, when he comes into glory and power, they want to be closest to the center of power which would mean that the other ten would be in lower and lesser positions than they.  Of course, the other ten became indignant on hearing the boldness of their request.  Jesus denied their request saying that that was not his to give.  However, much more important to Jesus was that seeking power over others was not his goal but rather serving others.  “Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to first among you will be the slave of all.”  God is love and he is the model of what we should be.  Though all-powerful he did not impose himself on us because he wished us to be loving as he is loving.  He created us with free will so that we could make the choice on our own be loving or to reject love.  To be loving means that we must be lowly when to be lowly is what love requires as when Jesus chose to be a helpless infant; to suffer as when he suffered for us; to die as when he died for us.  He made God’s almighty divine power subject to his desire to be loving rather than overwhelming us with might.   For God love lords it over power and might, making power and might the servant of love.  “For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”  Paul writes in Philippians 2: 5-8: “Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus, ‘Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.  Rather he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found to be human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross’”

Hebrews 4:14-16.  Jesus, always remaining God, nonetheless became human so to become the great high priest who offered up himself on the cross to redeem us from our sins.  In his humanness Jesus came to “sympathize with our weaknesses,” being “tested in every way yet without sin.”  As the song says, “We have a friend in Jesus.” We can live with confidence and without fear knowing that his infinite love for us  drew him from the heavens so to be close to our side by embracing humanity into his very being.  His humanity and his human life on this earth assures us that he can sympathize with us so to help us when we need it and be merciful to us.

Psalm 33.   The last verses of this Sunday’s psalm say: “Our soul waits for the Lord who is our help and our shield.  May your kindness, O Lord, be upon us who have put our hope in you.”

28B21.      Wisdom 7:7-11.   “I prayed, and prudence was given me; I pleaded, and the spirit of wisdom came to me. I preferred her to scepter and throne.”  “Beyond health and comeliness I loved her.”    Wisdom perceives things as God does and not as the world, our bodies and the devil see things.

Mark 10:17-30.  The rich young man doubtlessly led a good superficial religious life but he felt the God-implanted desire for something far richer.  Jesus invited him to that richness when he said, “You are lacking in one thing. Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; come, follow me.”  The rich young man found that that was too much to ask of him, “for he had many possessions.”  His material possessions possessed him emotionally and bodily so that he was not free to walk away from them so to live with God and God’s love of him as the riches of his life.  “Jesus said to his disciples, ‘How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!’” Jesus continued that in order to be saved, “For human beings it is impossible, but not for God.  All things are possible for God.”  Then in response to Peter’s statement, “We have given up everything and followed you,” Jesus said that they will get far more than what they left for Jesus’ sake and the sake of the gospel, “with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come.”  God will not be outdone in generosity.

Hebrews 4:12-14.    Nothing is unseen or unknown to God.  God sees into the depths of our beings.  “Everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must render an account.”  To follow Jesus through the day each day requires that we life with him as the soul and source of our being.  Nothing else is life for us, only God.  We possess God; God possesses us.  (John 17:6 & 9)

28B18.   Wisdom 7:7-11.  “I prayed, and prudence was given me; I pleaded, and the spirit of wisdom came to me.  I preferred her to scepter and throne, and deemed riches nothing in comparison with her.”  As I see it, the wisdom that is sought is to see things as God sees them to the degree that we as finite beings are capable of grasping a part of the whole of things. This world seems to be willing to have an almost infinite number of its visions of what it wishes to call the truth: whatever one feels to be true whenever one wishes to feel a particular way.  Truth is not a personal choice or selection process.  There is only one truth or reality and only God is capable of seeing the whole of it.  However, God can, according to his will, give to whomever He wishes the wisdom to understand or grasp whatever that person needs to know for his salvation.  Without wisdom we will waste away our lives without achieving anything that has true lasting value.

Mark 10:17-30.   A man asks Jesus, “’Good teacher, what must I do to inherit everlasting life?” To ask this question he must have felt that he was not getting the job done by just being a faithful Jew.  Jesus answered him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.’”  Interestingly Jesus does answer him solely out of his humanness perhaps because that was all that the man could see in front of him, Jesus in his humanity; secondly, because he had not come to the point of recognizing Jesus’ divinity.  Jesus is saying that God is the root or radical source of all that is truly good.  For anyone else to have any goodness, they must draw it from God.  “Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him, ‘You are lacking in one thing, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come follow me.’ At that statement his face fell, and he went away sad, for he had many possessions.”  Jesus was calling on this man to let go of his earthly possessions so that, in turn, he would be free to take ahold of spiritual ones but he had not come to the point of having the wisdom to see the timeless value of the heavenly treasure and the passing value of the earthly ones.  Following Jesus daily we have, even here on earth, the greatest treasure that exists.  When Jesus looked at him with love, Jesus had given himself to him.  Not having the wisdom to recognize what he had been given, the gift that was Jesus himself, he rejected the greatest of all gifts.  The Holy Spirit works with everyone daily to mature gradually, growing more and more in the Lord so that our eyes of our hearts see more clearly and we are no longer blind fools. “For human beings it is impossible, but not for God. All things are possible for God.” To give up everything does not necessarily mean that we must dispossess ourselves of our material things, because, while still living in a material world, we need material things.  Rather we do need to develop spiritually so that, at the very root of our being because we live so deeply in Christ, we recognize that we belong to Christ, our very self and all that we own, even our bodies.  We have no need to have anything because we have the one and only thing that is necessary, Christ.  Jesus himself belongs to us because he has given himself to us and daily we grow in accepting that gift.  That is the true wisdom that lives in the one and only truth, Jesus who said ‘I am the truth’.

Hebrews 4:12-13.   “The word God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword.”  The word of God is the expression of God that comes from his heart of love for us to bring us to be love as he is love. God’s inner self does not want us to be just dreamy, affectionate, comfortable and lost in a painless world.  The word of God also wants us to bleed because pain and suffering should never stop us from loving as he loved, no matter the cost.  The divine love we are called to pierces through all obstacles.  His love cost him dearly to leave heaven and live as a helpless baby, cost him effable pain in his humiliating treatment, physical violence and excruciating death on the cross.  We read in 1 Corinthians 13:7-8a: “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never fails.”  The word of God, his wisdom given to us, does not allow us to live in the illusion that we have done enough to be heaven-bound, but pierces through our desire to feel comfortable by walling out the challenges of divine love.  Yet the word of God allows us also to feel confident in God’s hands because nothing is impossible for God.