Suy Niệm Tin Mừng thứ Năm tuần 33 Thường Niên

Suy Niệm Tin Mừng thứ Năm tuần 33 Thường Niên

Trọng tâm của bài Tin Mừng hôm nay Chúa Giêsu đã cho chúng ta thấy rõ là Thiên Chúa đã ban cho mỗi người chúng ta những hồng ân của Thiên Chúa, đó là những món quá “tự do”.  Sự tự do có nghĩa là chúng ta được phép tự do chọn lựa cuộc sống của chúng ta như thế nào theo như ý muốn riêng của chúng ta. 

Chúng ta thấy Chúa Giêsu đã khóc, Ngài khóc vì Ngài biết được ngày mà Thành Jerusalem sẽ bị tàn phá vì dân Israel đã chọn lựa cuộc sống theo ý họ, một cuộc sống không có Thiên Chúa, và hướng theo tội lỗi họ sống với những sự ham muốn của cái vật chất, danh vọng, kêu ngạo và tự hào mà họ đã quên đi cái sứ điệp cứu độ mà Thiên Chúa đã đến để ban cho họ. Họ đã thiếu lòng tin tưởng nơi Thiên Chúa, Vì sự kêu ngạo mà nghĩ là không có gì sẽ có thể tàn phá được Thành Jerusalem, nhưng Chúa Giêsu không thể ngăn cản được những ước mơ riêng hay niềm tự hào của họ. Ngài đã để cho họ được tự do sống với cuộc sống mà họ đã lựa chọn cho chính họ, và vì thế mà họ cũng sẽ phải gánh chịu tất cả những hậu quả của cuộc sống sau này.

            Đây là bài học tuy có sự khắc nghiệt. Tuy nhiên, bài học này liên quan đến những sự lựa chọn mà chúng ta đã quyết định trong cuộc sống thường ngày của chúng ta. Có thể chúng ta không hề bị đòi hỏi là phải tranh chấp với chính quyền, nhưng chúng ta có thể có những sự đòi hỏi và phải thử thách về văn hóa, về tiện nghi hiện đại, với bạn bè, của chúng ta để làm theo những gì mà Thiên Chúa đã ban truyền cho chúng ta.

           Chắc chắn sẽ có một số người quay lưng ra đi và bỏ Thiên Chúa khi Chúa không can thiệp hay giải quyết vấn đề riêng của họ, hay khi Chúa không ban cho họ những gì mà họ mong muốn, hay khi họ gặp phải hậu quả nghiêm trọng mà họ không thích vì sự tự do lựa chọn theo ý thích riêng của họ. Thiên Chúa là một Thiên Chúa yêu thương, nhưng Ngài không phải là một Thiên Chúa dễ dãi, vô tư.  Ngài luôn đòi hỏi nơi chúng ta có sự vâng lời và lòng trung tín, nhưng Ngài cũng cho chúng ta có ý chí và sự tự do (để tuân theo hoặc không tuân theo ý Ngài). Nhưng những việc chúng ta làm theo như ý muốn riêng của chúng ta thì chúng ta sẽ phải gánh chịu những hậu quả mà tự chúng ta đã gây ra sau này.

            

REFLECTION

The focus of today's Gospel reading is on the gift of free will, which God has given us. It allows us to choose how we spend our life on earth and in eternity. We see Jesus weeping over Jerusalem. He knows the destruction that will come to the city because its people will choose their own greed and pride over the message of salvation which he has come to deliver. Their lack of faith will mean devastation, but Jesus cannot stop it. He must allow them to make the choice and then, live with the consequences.

These are harsh lessons. Yet they relate to many of the choices we must make every day in our own lives. We may not be asked to defy the government, but we may be challenged to defy popular culture or our friends or our boss in order to follow what God has commanded. How closely do we count the loss when we need to make such a choice? How well do we identify the consequences, in terms of our eternal life, when deciding what is important to us? Some people turn against God when God does not intervene to solve their problems or grant their desires or when the correct choice carries with it a serious consequence which is not to their liking. We may read the story of the persecution and death of Jesus and say that we would have been loyal to him to the end. Look back at the choices you have made in the past and see if any of them compromised God's mission for the sake of social acceptance or to keep peace in your family or to satisfy a personal hunger of yours. God is a loving God, but he is not an easy God. He requires obedience and loyalty and gives us free will to obey or not to obey. The consequence then becomes our own doing.

Thanks be to God that our God is not a vengeful God. In Jesus Christ we have a Savior who weeps over our misfortunes and whose blood, given on the cross, purchases each and every one of us for God on the condition

that we acknowledge our sinfulness and return to his loving embrace.

 

Thursday 33^rd Ordinary Time 2023

“For the days are coming upon you when your enemies will raise a palisade against you; they will encircle you and hem you in on all sides. They will smash you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another within you because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.” Luke 19:43–44

Jesus spoke these words as He looked at Jerusalem from a distance, preparing to enter that holy city for the last time in preparation for His passion and death. As He spoke these words, the Gospel says that Jesus wept over the city. Of course, it wasn’t primarily tears over the future physical destruction of the Temple and invasion by Roman forces. It was first and foremost tears over the lack of faith of so many which was the true destruction He mourned.

As mentioned above, the city of Jerusalem was indeed sieged by the military commander Titus in the year 70 A.D. Titus was acting under the authority of his father, the emperor, and destroyed not only the Temple but also much of the city itself, as well as the Jewish inhabitants. As Jesus approached the city of Jerusalem, so as to enter the Temple one last time to offer His life as the definitive Sacrificial Lamb for the salvation of the world, Jesus knew that many within this holy city would not accept His saving sacrifice. He knew that many within that city would become the instruments of His pending death and would have no remorse for killing the Savior of the World. And though this one point can easily be missed, it should be emphasized that Jesus’ reaction was not fear, it was not anger, it was not disgust. Rather, His reaction was holy sorrow. He wept over the city and its inhabitants despite what many of them would soon do to Him.

When you suffer injustice, how do you react? Do you lash out? Condemn? Get defensive? Or do you imitate our Lord and allow your soul to be filled with holy sorrow? Holy sorrow is an act of love and is the appropriate Christian response to persecution and injustice. Too often, however, our response is not holy sorrow but anger. The problem with this is that reacting in unholy anger does not accomplish anything good. It does not help us to imitate Jesus, and it doesn’t help those with whom we are angry. Though the passion of anger can be used for good at times, it becomes a sin when it is selfish and a reaction to some injustice done to us. Instead of this unholy anger, seek to foster holy sorrow in imitation of Jesus. This virtue will not only help your soul grow in love of those who have hurt you, it will also help them to see more clearly what they have done so that they can repent.

Reflect, today, upon your own approach to the evil you face in your life. Consider carefully your interior and exterior reaction. Do you mourn with love over sins you witness and experience? Do you mourn, with a holy sorrow, over your own sins and the sins of others? Work to foster this form of love within you and you will find that it can become a motivation for you to help transform the sins you commit and the sins of others you endure.

My sorrowful Lord, You endured the sins of many. You were treated with cruelty and injustice. To all of these sins, including those that you foresaw, You reacted with the love of holy sorrow. And that sorrow led you to true compassion and concern for all. Please give me the grace to imitate this same love of Yours so that I, too, may share in the holiness of Your sorrowful heart. Jesus, I trust in You.

 

Thursday 33 ordinary Time 2025

Opening Prayer: Lord God, instill your peace in my heart. Visit me in my lowliness. Do not let me succumb during times of trial and tribulation. You are my rock and my salvation. Whom shall I fear with you at my side?

Encountering the Word of God

1. Jesus Wept over Jerusalem: Jesus is drawing near to the city of Jerusalem and is riding on a colt to fulfill the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9. He comes as a peaceful king on a donkey and not as a despotic tyrant on a warhorse. Before entering the city, Jesus is brought to tears as he contemplates its future destruction. Jesus predicts that the religious leaders of Jerusalem will be unwilling to welcome him as the true king of peace and that God’s plan is hidden from them. He foretells how, within a generation (in 40 years), the Roman general Titus will build ramparts, encircle Jerusalem, and lay siege to the city. All this will take place because the people did not recognize the time of their visitation: “God is visiting Jerusalem through Jesus’ arrival to the city. The visitation is intended to bring redemption (Luke 1:68, 78; 7:16) but will instead bring judgment to those who do not welcome it” (Gadenz, The Gospel of Luke, 328).

2. Mattathias in the City of Modein: During this week, the First Reading deals with the period of Jewish history known as the Maccabean Revolt. The revolt was provoked by the actions of Antiochus IV, who desecrated the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem in 167 B.C. and tried to eliminate all Jewish practices. The center of resistance to Antiochus was found in Modein, a village some 17 miles northwest of Jerusalem. “In Modein, an aged priest named Mattathias and his five sons – John, Simon, Judas, Eleazar, and Jonathan – countered the king’s officers who had been sent there to force the inhabitants into apostasy” (Gray and Cavins, Walking with God, 236). When the village was summoned to a public assembly and commanded to offer the pagan sacrifice, Mattathias declared that even if every Gentile nation obeyed the king, he and his sons would not forsake the covenant of their fathers. When a Jewish man approached the pagan altar set up in Modein to offer sacrifice, Mattathias was spurred by zeal for the Torah and killed the man and the messenger of the king. His actions recall those of Phinehas in the book of Numbers (25:6-15) and Elijah in 1 Kings (18:40). 

3. Teaching Children the Story of God: Mattathias rallied those who would join him and his sons in the resistance to the decrees of King Antiochus. They fled to the Gophna Hills. Among those who fled to the mountains with Mattathias were the Hasidim, meaning the “pious ones.” It is from these Hasidim that groups like Pharisees and the Essenes descend. “Before his death, Mattathias encouraged his sons to ‘remember the deeds of the fathers’ (1 Mc 2:51). He continued by recalling the deeds of great men throughout salvation history who, when faced with trial and testing, proved faithful to God and his covenant (1 Mc 2:51-64). Mattathias raised up the lives of these holy men before the eyes of his sons, stirring their hearts and rousing their courage. Mattathias knew well the stories of Israel’s great heroes and forefathers, and had taught them to his sons so that they could recall them often to strengthen their resolve to be faithful to God’s truth” (Gray and Cavins, Walking with God, 237). By teaching his children the story of God and his people in salvation history, Mattathias is a model for all parents, who need to encourage their children with the lives of holy men and women who have gone before them.

Conversing with Christ: Lord Jesus, you are the Son of David and the Son of God. Have mercy on me. Bring me to enjoy life in your divine family as your sibling. Fill me with your Spirit so that I may offer the Father an acceptable sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.

 

Thursday 33 ordinary Time 2024-

Opening Prayer: Lord God, instill your peace in my heart. Visit me in my lowliness. Do not let me succumb during times of trial and tribulation. You are my rock and my salvation. Whom shall I fear with you at my side?

Encountering the Word of God

1. Jesus Wept over Jerusalem: Jesus is drawing near to the city of Jerusalem and is riding on a colt to fulfill the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9. He comes as a peaceful king on a donkey and not as a despotic tyrant on a warhorse. Before entering the city, Jesus is brought to tears as he contemplates its future destruction. Jesus predicts that the religious leaders of Jerusalem will be unwilling to welcome him as the true king of peace and that God’s plan is hidden from them. He foretells how, within a generation (in 40 years), the Roman general Titus will build ramparts, encircle Jerusalem, and lay siege to the city. All this will take place because the people did not recognize the time of their visitation: “God is visiting Jerusalem through Jesus’ arrival to the city. The visitation is intended to bring redemption (Luke 1:68, 78; 7:16) but will instead bring judgment to those who do not welcome it” (Gadenz, The Gospel of Luke, 328).

2. Worthy is the Lamb: In Revelation 4, John narrated his vision of the heavenly liturgy of creation. In Revelation 5, he narrates his vision of the liturgy of redemption. In this vision, John contemplates Jesus as the Lion of the tribe of Judah and as the Lamb worthy to break open the seals of the scroll. The scroll Jesus breaks open represents the establishment of the New Covenant. One of the effects of the New Covenant is the royal priesthood given to believers. Another effect is that we are brought into the family of God as God’s adopted children. “Jesus’ ability to ‘open the scroll,’ that is, to fulfill God’s covenant promises, depends on His Davidic lineage […]. The covenants in the Old Testament reach their climax in God’s covenant promise to David to establish an everlasting kingdom through his son (2 Samuel 7:8-16)” (Barber, Coming Soon, 90). When John turns to see the Lion of Judah, he instead sees a slain Lamb. This means that Jesus, the Son of David, is victorious not through weapons and armies but through the sacrificial offering of his own life. In every mass and liturgy, we unite our prayer and worship to the new song of the New Exodus, sung by saints in heaven. We praise Jesus, for he has redeemed us with his blood and has brought us out of exile and into the restored Kingdom of David.

3. The Presentation and Consecrated Virginity of Mary: On this day, we celebrate the memorial of the presentation of Mary in the Temple. We do not have an account of her presentation in the Bible, but we do have one in the Protoevangelium of James. According to this tradition, Mary was consecrated to God and brought to the Temple at the age of three, and she remained in the Temple until the age of twelve when Joseph became her guardian. According to tradition, Mary’s father, Joachim, died when she was six, and her mother, Anne, died when she was eight. From Mary’s words to the angel (Luke 1:34) and Joseph’s abstinence after taking Mary as his wife (Matthew 1:24-25), we can deduce that Mary likely took a vow of virginity and abstinence (Numbers 30:13) and that Joseph accepted this vow at the time of their betrothal (see Pitre, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary, 103-115). Although the Bible does not speak about Mary’s presentation, it does speak about her virginity and consecration. She and her husband, Joseph, consecrated their bodies to God and began to live out the future life of the resurrection in the present world. Mary’s consecration and perpetual virginity point “us to the eternal life of the world to come, the resurrection, and the new creation, in which ordinary marital relations will pass away because death will be no more” (Pitre, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary, 130).

Conversing with Christ: Lord Jesus, you are the Son of David and the Son of God. Have mercy on me. Bring me to enjoy life in your divine family as your sibling. Fill me with your Spirit so that I may offer the Father an acceptable sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.