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| Holy Pagans of the Old Testament |
Not heard a word from the Second Nocturn Reading but, for the purpose, went back to the Lectern. It was exciting to follow the seeming inverse of order of clues.
- Danielou -
- Holy Pagans of the Old Testament -
- Lot - Hospitality.
Danielou,
Jean (1905-1974) was born into a privileged family; his father being a
politician and his mother an
educationalist. He did
brilliantly at his studies, and in 1929 entered
the Society of Jesus, where he came
under the influence of de Lubac and got
to know Teilhard de Chard in. In 1940 he was chaplain
to students in Paris and
committed to the cause of resistance. Widely ecumenical
in his views, he was a peritus at
Vatican II under Pope John XXIII, and was
made a cardinal by Pope Paul VI. As an author
he was at home
in many fields of
erudition, including scripture, patristics, theology, and
spirituality.
+ + +
TWENTY-THIRD WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME
TUESDAY
Year
II
First Reading
2
Peter 2:1-8
Verse 2:7, "And he rescued righteous Lot ..." (AMB)
Verse 2:7, "And he rescued righteous Lot ..." (AMB)
Second Reading
From the writings of Cardinal Jean Danielou
(Holy Pagans of the Old Testament, 112-115)
Hospitality
Lot is a witness to the fact
that, in the natural order, certain men were able to know the true God and to
serve him, and he is one of the saints of the cosmic religion, of the first
covenant.
But, while the outstanding thing to
be observed in Henoch is knowledge of the true God, in Lot it is the practice of true virtue. God reveals himself in two ways in the natural order. On the one hand he reveals his existence
through his providence in the cosmos. But he makes known his law in another way, through the conscience. The sense of good and evil is written in the heart of man apart from all positive revelation. This is Saint Paul's teaching:
For when the Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature those things that are of the law, these having not the law are a law unto themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to them. And this law is a revelation from God,
for
there
is no purely human morality; there is only religious morality. Love of the good can have no other basis
but the infinitely holy will of a personal God.
Lot stands as the model of the man
who is
righteous
according
to this natural law written in the heart, and that in a twofold way. First of all
because of his hospitality; he gives a welcome to the two angels whom he takes
for travelers; he washes their feet and gives them unleavened bread. Hospitality is one of the
basic virtues of the natural
order.
It
signifies in effect that every man, for the very reason that he is a man, is to be treated with
respect. It is a sign that the biological variations of races and nations are overridden. This hospitality Lot practices to the point of heroism; he is persecuted because of it. He is the saint of hospitality.
Lot is also the model of purity
,
and
in this his example has a salutary value, for Sodom and Gomorrah have become symbols of sexual perversion. Lot bears witness to the truth
that the actualities of love are subject to the law of God. Moreover, Saint Paul teaches in the Letter to the
Romans
that
perversion of love was the result of the
abandonment of God. Lot's purity in the midst of an impure world is thus a testimony of his fidelity to God. And in a world
like ours, in which an insidious sensuality is corroding a certain
spiritual integrity, his example is a reminder that even before all positive law true
religion was always manifested by purity .
But what makes for Lot's
greatness is not only that he was a righteous man, but the fact that he
lived as such in the midst of a sinful world.
Being devoted to God
and to his law, he is afflicted at the sight of sin. This antipathy to
sin is
the
hallmark of a soul that loves God, for God detests sin. Yet Lot is willing to live among sinners. Not that he can do anything for them. He exemplifies a world in which witness alone is possible, and in this sense he witnesses to the impotence of natural holiness in the face of
the world's sin. But at least he can suffer, and that must often be the portion of the righteous one, accepting his loneliness in a world submerged by materialism and impurity .
