Monastic Lectionary of the Divine Office,
TWENTY-EIGHTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME
SUNDAY
First Reading
Zephaniah 3:8-20
Responsory Zep 2:3;
Ps 22:26
Seek the Lord all you in the land who live humbly, obeying
his commands. + Seek integrity, seek humility.
V. The poor shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek the Lord shall praise him. + Seek integrity ...
Second
Reading
From The Poor of Yahweh by Albert
Gelin
Israel, as it advances along the road of history, constantly
encounters God. "Days of the Lord" succeed one another; his
appearances are either beneficent or awe-inspiring, either a reward or a punishment,
depending on Israel's moral conduct.
This punishment, in the first perspective of the covenant, could
not fail to be medicinal and educational. However, after the eighth century, sins
multiplied and their gravity increased. Infringements of justice scandalized
Amos; Isaiah knew well that he lived in the midst of people of unclean lips;
Zephaniah rebuked Judah for faults of pride; Jeremiah was forced to the
conclusion that a state of sin existed that made conversion almost impossible.
Israel had to learn to accept the sanction of vindictive justice! Yet these
prophets, despite all their sombre predictions, never lost hope in God's plan
for the future. In their eyes the remnant theme safeguarded the theology of the
covenant. Henceforth, the task and promises which were once entrusted to the
people of Israel as a whole would belong to a small and select group of
Israelites. The Israel of tomorrow will be the remnant.
In the seventh century the remnant was given a special name that
was to last until the coming of Christ and that made them a people apart. The
prophet Zephaniah identified the people of the future as a people of "the
poor."
Zephaniah witnessed Judah's first great humiliation. At the end
of the eighth century Assyria cut the Promised Land in half as the result of
Sennacherib's victorious conquest. Jerusalem was saved by a miracle, but
Asshur's protective custody left the people little freedom. Perhaps it was this
humbling situation that inspired the prophet to choose the suggestive vocabulary
in which he formulated his spiritual synthesis. Israel's endemic poverty had
attracted the charitable pity of the Deuteronomist and the prophets. Amos had sympathized
with the stooped and emaciated people. Zephaniah borrowed these words and transfigured
them: they ceased to denote failure and became a claim for protection. People
must be poor before God, just as they were already poor in the presence of
Asshur. Specifically, this meant the rooting out of all pride. Zephaniah
invited his contemporaries to spiritual poverty, which is faith plus abandonment,
humility and absolute confidence. He insisted that poverty be substituted for
pride and made it the authentic spiritual attitude. This fundamental position
includes the rectitude of the whole moral life. Lastly, the covenant vocabulary
clarified the vocabulary of poverty and justice: the remnant is the people of
the future, to whom belong the messianic promises of security and abundance.
Responsory Lk 4:16-18; Mt
5:3
Jesus stood up to read and found the passage which says: The spirit of the Lord is upon me because + he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.
V. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.+ He has anointed ...
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