Numbers 26:2-7, 15-17 / Matthew 21:23-27
Balaam prophesies: A star shall advance from Jacob.
Douglas Hyde was an English journalist who disliked the Catholic Church. One day he bought an anti-Catholic book to use in his attacks against the Church. The book had just the opposite effect on him. It led him into the Church. Something similar to this happened to Balaam in today’s reading. He set out to curse Israel, but ended up blessing her instead. Early church writers considered the words about the star in today’s reading as a prophetic reference to the star that directed the Magi to Jesus.
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How open are we to changing our minds when truth reveals
itself to us? “God, give us the courage to accept with serenity the things that
cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the
wisdom to distinguish One from the
Other.” Reinhold
Niebuhr
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We
know what a dilemma is. It is a perplexing situation in which a choice has to
be made between alternatives that are equally undesirable. Going by that
definition, if I may put it simply, it is a choice of the best among the worst.
In
today's gospel, that was the situation that the chief priests and the elders
found themselves in. They challenged Jesus' authority but in turn found
themselves being challenged and, in a dilemma, as to how to answer that
question of Jesus. So they ended up choosing the worst of the worst
alternatives with that reply: We do not know. Or in simple terms: No comment.
In the 1st reading, we hear of
another dilemma. The pagan prophet Balaam was tasked to curse Israel, but when
the Spirit of God came upon him, he faced a dilemma but made the choice to
revoke his curse and instead bless Israel. Whenever we face a dilemma, we think
of the worst-case scenarios and try to choose the one that will result in the
least problems and difficulties.
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A STAR FROM JACOB
“We want to be liberated from those illusions, frustrations, injustices and
repression to which the modern world has subjected us in violation of its
promises – this is what the young are saying, the disinherited, the automatons
of modern technology: we want to be free persons, real persons, people rescued
from hunger and from the spiral of incurable inferiority. Yes, answers the Man
of people: come to me all of you who are in tribulation and I will console you.
I am with you, with the power of the Spirit, not with violence and “but with
passion.” Wisdom alone liberates the world.” Paul VI, Christmas Message, Dec.
25, 1970.
Let us pray:
Lord, our
God, in a world of injustice, war and exploitation, in
which more and more people have the means to live but
not many reasons to live for, you promise us a star to
follow, Jesus, your Son. God, keep in us the hope alive, that
he will come today and that, if we are willing to
take the demands of the Gospel seriously, we can become indeed a
new people completely renewed in him, Christ
our Savior, for ever and ever.
