2020년 11월 21일 연중 제33주간 토요일
복되신 동정 마리아의 자헌 기념일
오늘의 복음 : http://info.catholic.or.kr/missa/default.asp
제1독서
요한 묵시록. 11,4-12
나 요한에게 이런 말씀이 들려왔습니다. “여기 나의 두 증인이 있다.” 4 그들은 땅의 주님 앞에 서 있는 두 올리브 나무이며, 두 등잔대입니다. 5 누가 그들을 해치려고 하면, 그들의 입에서 불이 나와 그 원수들을 삼켜 버립니다. 누가 그들을 해치려고 하면, 그는 반드시 이렇게 죽임을 당하고 맙니다. 6 그들은 자기들이 예언하는 동안 비가 내리지 않게 하늘을 닫는 권한을 가지고 있습니다. 또한 물을 피로 변하게 하고, 원할 때마다 온갖 재앙으로 이 땅을 치는 권한을 가지고 있습니다.
7 그러나 그들이 증언을 끝내면, 지하에서 올라오는 짐승이 그들과 싸워 이기고서는 그들을 죽일 것입니다.
8 그들의 주검은 그 큰 도성의 한길에 내버려질 것입니다. 그 도성은 영적으로 소돔이라고도 하고 이집트라고도 하는데, 그곳에서 그들의 주님도 십자가에 못 박히셨습니다. 9 모든 백성과 종족과 언어와 민족에 속한 사람들이 사흘 반 동안 그들의 주검을 바라보면서, 무덤에 묻히지 못하게 할 것입니다. 10 땅의 주민들은 죽은 그들 때문에 기뻐하고 즐거워하며 서로 선물을 보낼 것입니다. 그 두 예언자가 땅의 주민들을 괴롭혔기 때문입니다.
11 그러나 사흘 반이 지난 뒤에 하느님에게서 생명의 숨이 나와 그들에게 들어가니, 그들이 제 발로 일어섰습니다. 그들을 쳐다본 사람들은 큰 두려움에 사로잡혔습니다.
12 그 두 예언자는 하늘에서부터, “이리 올라오너라.” 하고 외치는 큰 목소리를 들었습니다. 그리하여 그들은 원수들이 쳐다보고 있는 가운데, 구름을 타고 하늘로 올라갔습니다.
복음
루카 20,27-40
그때에 27 부활이 없다고 주장하는 사두가이 몇 사람이 예수님께 다가와 물었다. 28 “스승님, 모세는 ‘어떤 사람의 형제가 자식 없이’ 아내를 남기고 ‘죽으면, 그 사람이 죽은 이의 아내를 맞아들여 형제의 후사를 일으켜 주어야 한다.’고 저희를 위하여 기록해 놓았습니다.
29 그런데 일곱 형제가 있었습니다. 맏이가 아내를 맞아들였는데, 자식 없이 죽었습니다. 30 그래서 둘째가, 31 그다음에는 셋째가 그 여자를 맞아들였습니다. 그렇게 일곱이 모두 자식을 남기지 못하고 죽었습니다.
32 마침내 그 부인도 죽었습니다. 33 그러면 부활 때에 그 여자는 그들 가운데 누구의 아내가 되겠습니까? 일곱이 다 그 여자를 아내로 맞아들였으니 말입니다.”
34 예수님께서 그들에게 이르셨다. “이 세상 사람들은 장가도 들고 시집도 간다. 35 그러나 저세상에 참여하고 또 죽은 이들의 부활에 참여할 자격이 있다고 판단받는 이들은 더 이상 장가드는 일도, 시집가는 일도 없을 것이다.
36 천사들과 같아져서 더 이상 죽는 일도 없다. 그들은 또한 부활에 동참하여 하느님의 자녀가 된다.
37 그리고 죽은 이들이 되살아난다는 사실은, 모세도 떨기나무 대목에서 ‘주님은 아브라함의 하느님, 이사악의 하느님, 야곱의 하느님’이라는 말로 이미 밝혀 주었다. 38 그분은 죽은 이들의 하느님이 아니라, 산 이들의 하느님이시다. 사실 하느님께는 모든 사람이 살아 있는 것이다.”
39 그러자 율법 학자 몇 사람이 “스승님, 잘 말씀하셨습니다.” 하였다. 40 사람들은 감히 그분께 더 이상 묻지 못하였다.
November 21, 2020
Memorial of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Daily Mass : http://www.catholictv.com/shows/daily-mass
Reading 1
I, John, heard a voice from heaven speak to me:
Here are my two witnesses:
These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands
that stand before the Lord of the earth.
If anyone wants to harm them, fire comes out of their mouths
and devours their enemies.
In this way, anyone wanting to harm them is sure to be slain.
They have the power to close up the sky
so that no rain can fall during the time of their prophesying.
They also have power to turn water into blood
and to afflict the earth with any plague as often as they wish.
When they have finished their testimony,
the beast that comes up from the abyss
will wage war against them and conquer them and kill them.
Their corpses will lie in the main street of the great city,
which has the symbolic names “Sodom” and “Egypt,”
where indeed their Lord was crucified.
Those from every people, tribe, tongue, and nation
will gaze on their corpses for three and a half days,
and they will not allow their corpses to be buried.
The inhabitants of the earth will gloat over them
and be glad and exchange gifts
because these two prophets tormented the inhabitants of the earth.
But after the three and a half days,
a breath of life from God entered them.
When they stood on their feet, great fear fell on those who saw them.
Then they heard a loud voice from heaven say to them, “Come up here.”
So they went up to heaven in a cloud as their enemies looked on.
Responsorial Psalm
R. (1b) Blessed be the Lord, my Rock!
Blessed be the LORD, my rock,
who trains my hands for battle, my fingers for war.
R. Blessed be the Lord, my Rock!
My mercy and my fortress,
my stronghold, my deliverer,
My shield, in whom I trust,
who subdues my people under me.
R. Blessed be the Lord, my Rock!
O God, I will sing a new song to you;
with a ten?stringed lyre I will chant your praise,
You who give victory to kings,
and deliver David, your servant from the evil sword.
R. Blessed be the Lord, my Rock!
Gospel
Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection,
came forward and put this question to Jesus, saying,
“Teacher, Moses wrote for us,
If someone’s brother dies leaving a wife but no child,
his brother must take the wife
and raise up descendants for his brother.
Now there were seven brothers;
the first married a woman but died childless.
Then the second and the third married her,
and likewise all the seven died childless.
Finally the woman also died.
Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be?
For all seven had been married to her.”
Jesus said to them,
“The children of this age marry and remarry;
but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age
and to the resurrection of the dead
neither marry nor are given in marriage.
They can no longer die,
for they are like angels;
and they are the children of God
because they are the ones who will rise.
That the dead will rise
even Moses made known in the passage about the bush,
when he called ‘Lord’
the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob;
and he is not God of the dead, but of the living,
for to him all are alive.”
Some of the scribes said in reply,
“Teacher, you have answered well.”
And they no longer dared to ask him anything.
http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/daily.html
The Liturgy of the Church today offers some very complex and almost obscure ways to try and focus our prayer. An ancient liturgical memorial of the Church which honors Mary’s human generosity of a pure heart rendered over to God is the first focus. This Liturgical celebration is based on a spiritual text of the 3rd Century whose stories are not found or even alluded to in Scripture. The story about Mary’s presentation in the Temple (her parents’ act of dedicating her to God when she was a toddler) invites the reader to see Mary as totally pure of heart from early childhood. The Eastern Church in turn dedicated a feast to Mary based on this story and Mary’s role in the Incarnation. The Feast came into the West in the 7th Century and has been part of the Marian cycle of feasts in Roman liturgy since.
The regular lectionary readings of the day do not seem to have any relevance to each other or to the Marian Feast. The first reading, from the apocalyptic Book of Revelations, focuses on the glory of those so dedicated to God that they proclaim his word in the face of persecution, are brutally martyred (for their pure-hearted witness) and then taken into eternal life at a command that comes from God after three days. The Purity of Heart of the martyr unto death is the centerpiece of this highly symbolic text.
The Gospel passage from Luke tells of a group of Sadducees (who do not believe in resurrection from the dead) challenging Jesus with an old dilemma based in the law of Moses that requires a widow to marry her husband’s brother if she hasn’t produced a male child by the time of her husband’s death. The story is clearly a test case of Jesus’ response to the law of Moses that raises a seemingly unsolvable dilemma about belief in human resurrection.
The case posed here is full of symbols: a woman does not give birth to a male heir (the heritage of a good life that her husband’s family would expect) at the time of his death, so she is required by law to marry an unmarried brother and try again to bring forth a male child. The second brother dies without enabling his wife to conceive so she is handed over to the third brother and so on until they get to the symbol of the total, complete or infinite symbolized in the number 7. She marries each brother down to the seventh and then (thank God) herself dies. The question is, who is she married to in eternity? The case is intended to trip Jesus up and cause him to speak against the code of the law or to produce an absurd answer which would cause him to lose any authority for his teachings. Jesus sidesteps the dilemma by teaching that those who are pure hearted enough to enter the Reign of God after death will not marry nor be given in marriage because the focus of their eternal life will be God alone. There are many political and theological ramifications of Jesus’ assertion that have fascinated historians, lawyers and bible scholars for centuries. By juxtaposing the text with the first reading about the pure hearted martyrs who are called into heaven, and the total self donation of others who enter heaven we can perhaps find a golden thread with the feast itself. In another passage from Luke the Evangelist quotes Jesus as saying: “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God. To “see” in this context is to discern the will of God and live it out. Those who are pure of heart aren’t naïve; they are wisely knowledgeable – they understand their choices as human persons, and always choose God first. To see God is to know and do God’s will. The Will of God for a pure hearted (blessed) person, as Jesus points out in John’s gospel, is the daily bread of real life. Life to the full is the fruit of purity of heart, that is the commitment to God’s desires in all things.
Mary’s feast of the Presentation is one of the Liturgical diptych feasts, partnering Jesus’ presentation in the temple on the 40th day after birth. In that feast Jesus’ Mission of salvation is revealed to those who can see. Those of us who have been Baptized have been presented to God in the new Temple (the Church) at our Baptism – our new birth. In that presentation we have received, as Mary did, the fullness of God’s Spirit to guide her seeing, her discernment of God’s presence and God’s great desire for her.
The invitation of the feast to us, it seems to me, is to accept our presentation and claim the gift of the Spirit in order to be blessed by the ability to “See God.” It is God’s invitation to us to stand on the First Principle of the Spiritual life: to know that GOD is God, . . . and I am not God.
“Grant, O Lord, through the intercession of Mary, that we may receive the fullness of Grace” . . .
(From the Collect prayer of the Mass on the Memorial of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.)
http://www.presentationministries.com/obob/obob.asp
THE TRUE CHURCH
“The earth’s inhabitants gloat over them and in their merriment exchange gifts, because these two prophets harassed everyone on earth.” —Revelation 11:10
The two witnesses, two olive trees, and two lampstands represent the Church (Rv 11:3-4; see also Rv 1:20). The Church has such power that fire comes out of her mouth to devour her enemies (Rv 11:5). The Lord has given the Church “the keys of the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 16:19). She is “the pillar and bulwark of truth” (1 Tm 3:15). Because the Church is the Body of the almighty Christ (see 1 Cor 12:27), she is very powerful.
The Church is so powerful that the world is threatened by her and tries to destroy her (Rv 11:7). The Church is such a threat that “the earth’s inhabitants gloat over” (Rv 11:10) the supposed death of the Church. They feel so pleased to see the Church seemingly dead that “in their merriment [they] exchange gifts” (Rv 11:10), because they think the Church harasses “everyone on earth” (Rv 11:10).
How does this description of the Church in Revelation compare with the Church today? Is the Church exercising her authority and power? How much would today’s world delight in the supposed death of the Church? Would the people of the world be so excited as to exchange gifts? Let us love the Church (Eph 5:25) and be living stones in the Church (1 Pt 2:5).
Prayer: Father, use me as You will to build up the Church. I am all Yours.
Promise: “God is not the God of the dead but of the living. All are alive for Him.” —Lk 20:38
Praise: According to pious tradition, Sts. Joachim & Anne, parents of the Virgin Mary, consecrated her to God’s service at an early age. “I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be done to me as you say” (Lk 1:38).
http://dailyscripture.servantsoftheword.org/readings/
Is your life earth-bound or heaven-bound? The Sadducees had one big problem - they could not conceive of heaven beyond what they could see with their naked eyes! Aren't we often like them? We don't recognize spiritual realities because we try to make heaven into an earthly image. The Sadducees came to Jesus with a test question to make the resurrection look ridiculous. The Sadducees, unlike the Pharisees, did not believe in immortality, nor in angels or evil spirits. Their religion was literally grounded in an earthly image of heaven.
The Scriptures give witness - we will rise again to immortal life
Jesus retorts by dealing with the fact of the resurrection. The scriptures give proof of it. In Exodus 3:6, when God manifests his presence to Moses in the burning bush, the Lord tells him that he is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He shows that the patriarchs who died hundreds of years previously were still alive in God. Jesus defeats their arguments by showing that God is a living God of a living people. God was the friend of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when they lived. That friendship could not cease with death. As Psalm 73:23-24 states: "I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory."
The ultimate proof of the resurrection is the Lord Jesus and his victory over death when he rose from the tomb. Before Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, he exclaimed: "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?" (John 11:25). Jesus asks us the same question. Do you believe in the resurrection and in the promise of eternal life with God?
Jesus came to restore Paradise and everlasting life for us
The Holy Spirit reveals to us the eternal truths of God's unending love and the life he desires to share with us for all eternity. Paul the Apostle, quoting from the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 64:4; 65:17) states: "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him," God has revealed to us through the Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:9-10). The promise of paradise - heavenly bliss and unending life with an all-loving God - is beyond human reckoning. We have only begun to taste the first-fruits! Do you live now in the joy and hope of the life of the age to come?
May the Lord Jesus put his hands on our eyes also, for then we too shall begin to look not at what is seen but at what is not seen. May he open the eyes that are concerned not with the present but with what is yet to come, may he unseal the heart's vision, that we may gaze on God in the Spirit, through the same Lord, Jesus Christ, whose glory and power will endure throughout the unending succession of ages. (Prayer of Origen, 185-254 AD)
Psalm 19:1-6,15,18
I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart; I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.
2 I will be glad and exult in you, I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.
3 When my enemies turned back, they stumbled and perished before you.
4 For you have maintained my just cause; you have sat on the throne giving righteous judgment.
5 You have rebuked the nations, you have destroyed the wicked; you have blotted out their name for ever and ever.
6 The enemies have vanished in everlasting ruins; their cities you have rooted out; the very memory of them has perished.
15 The nations have sunk in the pit which they made; in the net which they hid has their own foot been caught.
18 For the needy shall not always be forgotten, and the hope of the poor shall not perish for ever.
Daily Quote from the Early Church Fathers: Jesus cites Moses to affirm the resurrection, by Cyril of Alexandria (376-444 AD)
"The Savior also demonstrated the great ignorance of the Sadducees by bringing forward their own leader Moses, who was clearly acquainted with the resurrection of the dead. He set God before us saying in the bush, 'I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob' (Exodus 3:6). Of whom is he God, if, according to their argument, these have ceased to live? He is the God of the living. They certainly will rise when his almighty right hand brings them and all that are on the earth there. For people not to believe that this will happen is worthy perhaps of the ignorance of the Sadducees, but it is altogether unworthy of those who love Christ. We believe in him who says, 'I am the resurrection and the life' (John 11:25). He will raise the dead suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, and at the last trumpet. It shall sound, the dead in Christ shall rise incorruptible, and we shall be changed (1 Corinthians 15:52). For Christ our common Savior will transfer us into incorruption, glory and to an incorruptible life."(excerpt from COMMENTARY ON LUKE, HOMILY 136)
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