October 13, 2016

Gospel: Lk 11:47-54
A curse is on you, for you build monuments to the prophets your ancestors killed. So you approve and agree with what your ancestors did. Is it not so? They got rid of the prophets, and you build monuments to them!
For that reason the wisdom of God also said: I will send prophets and apostles and these people will kill and persecute some of them. But the present generation will have to answer for the blood of all the prophets that has been shed since the foundation of the world, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was murdered between the altar and the Sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, the people of this time will have to answer for them all.
A curse is on you, teachers of the law, for you have taken the key of knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you prevented others from entering.”
As Jesus left that place, the teachers of the law and the Pharisees began to harass him, asking him endless questions, setting traps to catch him in something he might say.

REFLECTION:
One of the high points of a holiday like Thanksgiving Day or of a feast day like Christmas is when the extended family all gather together around the clan’s grandparents. When the latter see all their children and grandchildren united together in love and harmony, their joy knows no limit. And this is indeed the dream of all parents: to have their children gather around them in a circle of love.
Well, God our Father has the same dream, as we learn from today’s first reading, where we hear Paul say: “In Christ and under Christ, God wanted to unite, when the fullness of time had come, everything in heaven and on earth.” Yes, that is God’s dream.
And, if we look back on human­kind’s evolution over the past ten thousand years or so, we see a ­progressive formation of bigger and bigger groups of humans gathered ­together: towns becoming cities, cities becoming nations, nations ­becoming empires, empires ­becoming the United Nations. And, parallel to this movement, inventions help to unite us: printing press, steamship, loco­motive, telegraph, telephone, television, cellphone, etc. It looks like we will indeed eventually be united around Christ forever under the loving care of the Father…