27th Week, Saturday, Oct 11; Saint John XXIII
Joel 4:12-21 / Luke 11:27-28
God reassures the people; What you can’t see now, you will see later.
An ancient story describes a saintly woman being severely tempted by the devil. The woman prays and prays for help, but God doesn’t seem to hear her prayers. At last, the temptation passes. Then God appears, and the saintly woman asks, “Lord, where were you when the devil was tormenting me?” God replies, “I was where I am now—right at your side.” The people of Israel felt abandoned, too, when they were being trampled underfoot by hostile nations. They too wondered, “Lord, where are you?” The prophet Joel reassured them that God is with them. But God’s presence will not be revealed fully until the day of reckoning comes.
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Do we sometimes feel abandoned by God? Do we feel God doesn’t answer our prayers? Jesus said, “I am with you always, until the end of the age.” Matthew 28:20
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Joel's theme is the Day of Yahweh, the day of judgment. All the people of the world will march into the valley of Jehoshaphat. There is no such place known to geography. The word means: Yahweh judges. Like heaven and earth, it is not a physical entity. It expresses just the fact that God judges all and everyone. Even Jerusalem, Zion, and Israel, have a meaning: Jerusalem is the city of God, Zion is the place where God dwells and Israel is the people of God.
Joel says: All inhabitants of Jerusalem will be just and will last forever. A source of water flowing from the temple will make the whole land fertile. God will then be known and accepted by all.
He describes in apocalyptic colours this last day. It will be a day of horror for the wicked. But the just will find Jerusalem a refuge and a stronghold. They will have peace and security. From the temple, a fountain will spring and bring fertility to the land, Jerusalem will be holy, a city of peace, a place of prosperity and joy, because God dwells there.
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The prophets, like Joel today, do not speak of the day of judgment as an unqualified day of vengeance and punishment; hope is there, for the prophecy is a warning to seek conversion. If God’s people change their ways, God will be merciful and restore them.
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As much as we see so much sin and evil happening around us, yet the great consolation is that the world has not become like hell. And it won't! Certainly not. That is because the good that is created in every human being will keep resisting evil and keep it from being overwhelming. So though evil may be widespread, yet it can never conquer all and have the last triumph.
Evil may win a battle, but that does not mean that it has won the war. God gave His people a promise through the prophet Joel in the 1st reading. The Lord will be a shelter for His people, a stronghold for the sons of Israel (Joel 4:16)
So, in the face of evil, we have to stand on God's promises, otherwise we will not stand at all. We can only remain standing in the fight against evil when we listen to the Word of God and keep it. The Word of God urges us to love our enemies and to do good to those who persecute us. When we keep God's Word and live it out in our lives, then evil will lose its power and its sting. Indeed, blessed are those who hear the Word of God and keep it, for they will bring love and peace into the world.
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In the gospel, a woman admires Jesus, and with perhaps a hint of jealousy, she exclaims that indeed the mother of Jesus must be a fortunate woman to have such a son. Jesus’ answer goes deeper, to a deeper motherhood, for those who bear Jesus, the Word of God in their hearts and their lives: those therefore who bring forth Jesus in faith.
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A woman is so captivated by the personality and the words of Jesus, that she bursts spontaneously into praise for the mother of Jesus. The praise of the mother is really meant for her son as it is in the veneration of Mary as we have it today. The remark of Jesus: "Still happier are those who hear the word of God and keep it" (verse 28). Mary heard the word of God's annunciation and kept it, as the handmaid of the Lord. When the shepherds came to her in Bethlehem and told her what they had heard from the angels, she treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart (Luke 2.19). And when Jesus told her in the temple that he was to be found in his Father's house, she did not understand his words, but pondered over them. Words she spoke to Elizabeth have been proved true, throughout history and in every part of the world: From now onwards all generations will call me blessed.
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Prayer: Lord our God, your Son was born into this world from the Blessed Virgin Mary. We praise you for your goodness but we also ask this of you: Let your Son be born in us in faith, in our lives: in our words, our thoughts, our attitudes and all we do. And then, out of the fullness in us, may we share him with those around us as the Lord who belongs to all now and forever. Amen
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Saint John XXIII
Feast Day October 11
The twentieth century was an amazing century. Life changed dramatically during those years, mostly for the good. Diseases like polio and smallpox were conquered. People could travel across the world in a day on airplanes and communicate with each other in seconds on the Internet and the telephone.
But not everything was great in the twentieth century. It was a century filled with horrible wars that killed millions and with evil leaders—like Stalin in Russia, Mao in China, and Hitler in Germany—who slaughtered tens of millions of people, too. Technology brought us wonderful inventions that made life easier and more fun, but it also brought us weapons that could wipe out half the earth, if they were ever used.
With so much possibility for good and evil, the twentieth century was a time that needed good leaders who could look at the past, present, and future and make good, prudent decisions. Even the church needed leaders like that. Just when we needed it most, God gave us a gift: Pope John XXIII, who was pope for only a short time (1959 to 1963) but who had an amazing impact on the church and the entire world.
Of course, John XXIII was not the name he was born with. His parents named him Angelo—Angelo Roncalli, born in 1881 in the northern part of Italy. His family farmed for a living, and Angelo was the oldest boy of twelve brothers and sisters.
When he was a teenager, Angelo decided he wanted to be a priest. He studied in the seminary, where he was most interested in the history of the church. After he was ordained a priest, Angelo expected nothing more out of the rest of his life than that of a normal parish priest back in the part of Italy where he’d grown up. It was what he knew and what he thought God was calling him to. But very soon, it became clear that God had other plans for Angelo.
Over the course of his career, Fr. Angelo held many jobs, some exciting, some difficult. He was a secretary to a bishop for 10 years. He served as a medical worker in battlefields during World War I, and he never forgot the suffering he witnessed there. He represented the church in countries like Bulgaria and Turkey, countries where there were hardly any Catholics, and it was really important to understand and get along with people of different religions.
Finally, when he was 71 years old, Fr. Angelo Roncalli came home. He was appointed to be the leader of the church in the city of Venice, Italy. Fr. Angelo—now archbishop—had come home and, for all he knew, would spend the rest of his life simply tending to the needs of the people of Venice.
But once again, God had something else in mind. In 1958, Pope Pius XII died, and, as always happens when a pope dies, all the cardinals of the church gathered to elect a replacement. Much to everyone’s surprise, they elected Angelo Roncalli of Venice. He was seventy-six years old.
Now, you would think that a seventy-six-year-old man would know his place. You’d think he would settle into the Vatican, sit comfortably in his chair, and just hold the fort until God called him home and a younger, more energetic man could get things going.
Not quite. Angelo—who was now Pope John XXIII—had plenty of energy and plenty of ideas. The time for action was now. The Spirit was calling, and Pope John XXIII, thinking of the past, present, and future, was going to answer
First of all, John XXIII knew that times had changed, and it was time for popes to stop acting like royalty, which they had been doing for too many years. John was supposed to wear a big, jeweled tiara on his head. He wore it twice. When he went from place to place, he was supposed to sit in a special chair that would be hoisted up onto the shoulders of men who would then carry him. Even though John was a large man and being carried would have been easier than walking, he usually preferred to walk.
Reporters had to interview the previous pope while on their knees in front of him. John stopped that right away. He was the bishop of Rome, so he acted like it, going into the city of Rome and mingling with people. The very first Christmas he was pope, John visited two children’s hospitals in Rome, spending time with sick children, something that people could remember no other pope doing before.
John knew that the Spirit had called him to serve the people of God, not to act like a prince among them. But that wasn’t the only thing he knew had to change.
When John XXIII was elected pope, the world was a very different place than it had been even 200 years before. In the past, the church had a lot of power in the world. That wasn’t the case anymore. Nations had much more power than the church and were sometimes using that power to hurt people. John believed that the church needed to speak with a stronger voice so that it could protect all people from war, violence, and poverty.
Other things had changed, too. There were new ways of thinking about the world, ways that had nothing to do with religion or the Bible. Many people had come to believe that the advances of science made faith in God unnecessary. John saw much good in new scientific discoveries, but he also knew that without God we are lost. He wanted to help people who had faith learn how to talk to people who did not have faith in ways they could understand and in ways that would help everyone see the truth of God’s love.
In other words, what John XXIII wanted was to open the church up to the world so that the church could spread the good news of Jesus’ love in a way that made sense to people of the new century. It wasn’t the Middle Ages anymore. It was the twentieth century. John wanted the whole world to be able to hear the Good News in twentieth-century words.
John XXIII had a vision and hope. He made a decision based on that hope and based on the virtue of prudence, a virtue that he spoke of a great deal. John—whom today we call Saint John XXIII—believed that Jesus’ love was for everybody in the world.
He wanted the church to be a strong voice proclaiming that love in modern times to modern people. He looked to the past, present, and future in making his decision to lead the church in that direction.
When we make prudent decisions, that’s exactly what we have to do, too: We should think about the past, understand how our choice will affect us in the future, and listen to God’s voice in our hearts in the present.
Popes and kids—we’re all called to be prudent. We’re all called to be wise!
