September 23, 2025
Memorial of Saint Pius of Pietrelcina, Priest
Lectionary: 450
Reading 1
King Darius issued an order to the officials
of West-of-Euphrates:
"Let the governor and the elders of the Jews
continue the work on that house of God;
they are to rebuild it on its former site.
I also issue this decree
concerning your dealing with these elders of the Jews
in the rebuilding of that house of God:
From the royal revenue, the taxes of West-of-Euphrates,
let these men be repaid for their expenses, in full and without delay.
I, Darius, have issued this decree;
let it be carefully executed."
The elders of the Jews continued to make progress in the building,
supported by the message of the prophets,
Haggai and Zechariah, son of Iddo.
They finished the building according to the command
of the God of Israel
and the decrees of Cyrus and Darius
and of Artaxerxes, king of Persia.
They completed this house on the third day of the month Adar,
in the sixth year of the reign of King Darius.
The children of Israel–priests, Levites,
and the other returned exiles–
celebrated the dedication of this house of God with joy.
For the dedication of this house of God,
they offered one hundred bulls,
two hundred rams, and four hundred lambs,
together with twelve he-goats as a sin-offering for all Israel,
in keeping with the number of the tribes of Israel.
Finally, they set up the priests in their classes
and the Levites in their divisions
for the service of God in Jerusalem,
as is prescribed in the book of Moses.
The exiles kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month.
The Levites, every one of whom had purified himself for the occasion,
sacrificed the Passover for the rest of the exiles,
for their brethren the priests, and for themselves.
Responsorial Psalm
R. (1) Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.
I rejoiced because they said to me,
"We will go up to the house of the LORD."
And now we have set foot
within your gates, O Jerusalem.
R. Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.
Jerusalem, built as a city
with compact unity.
To it the tribes go up,
the tribes of the LORD.
R. Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.
According to the decree for Israel,
to give thanks to the name of the LORD.
In it are set up judgment seats,
seats for the house of David.
R. Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Blessed are those who hear the word of God
and observe it.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
The mother of Jesus and his brothers came to him
but were unable to join him because of the crowd.
He was told, "Your mother and your brothers are standing outside
and they wish to see you."
He said to them in reply, "My mother and my brothers
are those who hear the word of God and act on it."
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/092325.cfm
Commentary on Ezra
6:7-8,12,14-20
In spite of the proclamation which King Cyrus had made about
the return of the Jews to Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the Temple, they met
with many difficulties, especially from the Samaritans who were living there.
Today we find ourselves in chapter 6. Cyrus has been
replaced by another great Persian king, Darius. He orders a search for a
document deposited in the treasuries of Babylon which confirms an order that
had been given by Cyrus for work to begin on the Temple.
It includes some instructions on the design of the temple
building; the cost of building is to come from the royal treasury; and the gold
and silver articles which King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had taken were to be
returned. Then the governor of Transeuphrates (that is, the part of the Persian
Empire to the west of the River Euphrates) and his assistants are told to stay
away from the site and (our reading begins at this point).
King Darius ordered:
…let the work on this house of God alone; let the
governor of the Jews and the elders of the Jews rebuild this house of God on
its site.
The Jews have full permission to rebuild the Temple on its
original site. But the central government will provide help. In fact, the cost
of the construction is to be paid in full from the royal revenue, from taxes
collected in Transeuphrates and without interruption.
It was a consistent policy of Persian kings to help restore
sanctuaries in their empire. For example, a memorandum concerning the
rebuilding of the Jewish temple at Elephantine was written by the Persian
governors of Judah and Samaria. Also from non-Biblical sources we learn that
Cyrus repaired temples at Uruk (now Warka, Iraq) and that Cambyses, successor
to Cyrus, gave funds for the temple at Sais in Egypt. The temple of Amun in the
Khargah Oasis was rebuilt by order of Darius.
Darius then pledges in the name of the God who lives in
Jerusalem (not his god) that he will overthrow the king of any people who dares
to defy this decree and destroy that Temple of God in Jerusalem.
The Transeuphrates governor followed the king’s instructions
to the letter and:
…the elders of the Jews built and prospered, through the
prophesying of the prophet Haggai and Zechariah son of Iddo. They finished
their building by command of the God of Israel and by decree of Cyrus, Darius,
and King Artaxerxes of Persia…
In fact, work on the Temple had made little progress, not
only because of opposition from people like the neighbouring Samaritans, but
also because of the preoccupation of the returnees with building their own homes.
Because they were placing their own interests first, God sent them famine as a
judgment. However, spurred on by the preaching of the prophets Haggai and
Zechariah, and under the leadership of Zerubbabel, governor of Jerusalem, and
Joshua, the high priest, a new effort was begun.
The reference to Artaxerxes seems out of place, because he
did not contribute to the rebuilding of the Temple at this time. He may have
been inserted here since he contributed to the work of the Temple at a later
date under Ezra (7:21-24).
The Temple was finally completed on the 23rd day of the
month of Adar, in the sixth year of the reign of King Darius. By our calendar
that would be April 1, 515 BC. This Temple, remodelled by Herod the Great (see
John 2:20), was in use for 585 years and was destroyed by the Romans under the
rule of Titus in 70 AD, never again to be rebuilt.
The New International Version Study Bible makes
the following observation about the ‘new’ Temple:
“Almost 70 years after its destruction, the renewed work on
the Temple had begun on Sept 21, 520 (Hag 1:15), and sustained effort had
continued for almost three and a half years. According to Haggai (2:3), the
older members who could remember the splendour of Solomon’s temple were
disappointed when they saw the smaller size of Zerubbabel’s temple (see Ezr
3:12). Yet in the long run the second temple, though not as grand as the first,
enjoyed a much longer life. The general plan of the second temple was similar
to that of Solomon’s, but the Most Holy Place was left empty because the Ark of
the Covenant had been lost through the Babylonian conquest. According to
Josephus, on the Day of Atonement the high priest placed his censer on the slab
of stone that marked the former location of the ark. The Holy Place was
furnished with a table for the bread of the Presence, the incense altar, and
one [seven-branched] lampstand (see 1 Macc 1:21-22; 4:49-51) instead of
Solomon’s ten [lampstands] (1 Kings 7:49).”
After the construction was complete:
The people of Israel, the priests and the Levites, and
the rest of the returned exiles celebrated the dedication of this house of God
with joy.
The ‘rest of the returned exiles’ is the Remnant spared by
God and now returned from exile. It was the leaders of those who had returned
from exile that were responsible for the completion of the Temple. “Dedication”
translates the Aramaic word hanukkah. The Jewish holiday in
December that celebrates the recapture of the Temple from the Seleucid kings
and its re-dedication (165 BC) is also known as ‘Hanukkah’, but is the
celebration of a different dedication from Ezra’s.
The dedication of the Temple was celebrated with a
spectacular sacrifice of animals:
They offered at the dedication of this house of God one
hundred bulls, two hundred rams, four hundred lambs, and as a sin offering for
all Israel, twelve male goats, according to the number of the tribes of Israel.
The numbers seem huge yet pale in comparison with services
in the reign of Solomon, Hezekiah and Josiah, when the animals were numbered in
thousands rather than hundreds.
The priests were then installed in their orders and the
Levites in their positions for ministry in the Temple, following the
instructions of Moses (e.g. Exod 9; Lev 8). The priests were divided into 24
divisions, each of which served at the Temple for a week at a time (see also in
Luke 1:8, how the angel spoke to Zechariah in the Temple announcing the birth
of John the Baptist, when it was the turn of his ‘order’ to function). In 1962
fragments of a synagogue inscription listing the 24 divisions were found at
Caesarea.
The returned exiles also celebrated their first Passover
after 70 years on the traditional date, 14th day of the first month (Nisan). It
would have been about April 21, 516 BC. And, in preparation for this
celebration, the Levites had all purified themselves so that they could make
the Passover sacrifice for their brothers, the priests, and for themselves.
This also explains why the priest and the Levite passed by on the other side in
Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 25-37). They were on their way
to the Temple in Jerusalem and their ritual purity took priority over their
helping a brother lying injured (and bleeding) on the roadside. For Jesus the
needs of the brother are the first priority. That is why the stranger and
outsider, the Samaritan, is the ‘neighbour’. He is “the one who showed him
mercy”.
The Levites are also represented as slaughtering the paschal
victims, because for a long time this had been done by ‘laymen’ (see Deut 16:2;
Exod 12:6). The urge to ‘clericalism’ is very strong!
Reading this passage we realise it is very difficult to put
a permanent end to God’s work. Our churches, too, have experienced and still
experience persecution, exile and the destruction of places of worship again
and again, only to see them restored. The truth, wherever it is, will always
prevail. It is the foundation of our faith and our hope.
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Commentary on Luke
8:19-21
The mother and brothers of Jesus come looking for him, but
they cannot get to him because of the crush of people in the house where he is
speaking. Jesus was in Capernaum at the time and Nazareth was about 50 km (30
miles) away. The mention of ‘brothers’ would commonly indicate cousins and not
just siblings. When the message is passed in to Jesus, he says to all:
My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of
God and do it.
The story is told in harsher terms in Mark. He has Jesus
say, for instance:
Who are my mother and my brothers? (Mark 3:33)
It is suggested there that their purpose was to take him
away. On the one hand, they thought he was mad and an embarrassment to the
family and, on the other hand, that he might get them into trouble with the
authorities because of the provocative things he was saying and doing such as
questioning traditional interpretations of the Law. We see a similar
embarrassment on the part of the parents of the man born blind in John’s
Gospel. They refuse to speak to the authorities about their son:
Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself. (John
9:21)
Luke’s account is softer and just focuses on the saying of
Jesus. In fact, Luke has taken this passage out of its context in Mark
(3:31-35) and turns it into a conclusion to his short section on the parables.
In doing so, he modifies Mark’s statement:
Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and
mother. (Mark 3:35)
This is done to match the end of Luke’s parable of the
sower:
But as for that [i.e. the seed which fell] in
the good soil, these are the ones who, when they hear the word, hold it fast in
an honest and good heart and bear fruit with endurance.
(Luke 8:15)
Luke has Jesus say:
My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of
God and do it. (Luke 8:21)
To a society which regarded itself as God’s chosen people
merely by birth and an external ritual like circumcision, Jesus asserts that
belonging to God has little to do with blood or race, but only with the
relationship one establishes with God.
There is a lot of meaning in the words of the message:
Your mother and your brothers are standing outside…
It was clear from their behaviour that they were not, like
the seed falling on fertile soil, ‘hearing’ him and so they were outsiders.
Those who really ‘hear’, no matter who they are or where they come from, are
‘insiders’ and belong to the family of Jesus.
Of course, we know from elsewhere, especially in Luke’s
Gospel, that Mary is not being condemned here. In fact, this is where her
greatness really lies. Clearly it partly lies in her being chosen to be the
mother of God’s Son. But perhaps it lies even more in her saying ‘Yes’ (“…let
it be with me according to your word”), in her unswerving faithfulness to that
‘Yes’ and in her standing by her Son to the very end when all the rest had
fled.
When, on another occasion, she was indirectly praised for
being the mother of such a Son, Jesus had spoken in words very similar to
today:
Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and
obey it! (Luke 11:28)
Our discipleship, too, is not determined by our being born
into a Catholic family or just by being baptised or by observing the external
requirements of our religion, but by our total commitment to the Gospel and to
an unconditional following of Jesus. Only then can we truly be said to be his
brother or sister.
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https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/o1253g/
Tuesday, September 23,
2025
Opening Prayer
Father, guide us, as you guide creation
according to your law of love. May we love one another and come to perfection
in the eternal life prepared for us.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
Gospel Reading - Luke 8: 19-21
Jesus’ mother and his brothers
came looking for him, but they could not get to him because of the crowd.
He was told, ‘Your mother and brothers are standing outside
and want to see you.’ But he said in answer, ‘My mother and my brothers are
those who hear the word of God and put it into practice.’
Reflection
The Gospel today presents the episode in which the
relatives of Jesus and also his Mother want to speak with him, but Jesus does
not pay attention to them. Jesus had problems with his family. Sometimes the
family helps one to live the Gospel and to participate in the community. Other
times, the family prevents this. This is what happened to Jesus and this is
what happens to us.
•
Luke 8: 19-20: The family looks for Jesus. The
relatives reach the house where Jesus was staying. Probably, they had come from
Nazareth. From there to Capernaum the distance is about 40 kilometers. His
Mother was with them. Probably, they did not enter because there were many
people, but they sent somebody to tell him: “Your Mother and your brothers are
outside and want to see you.” According to the Gospel of Mark, the relatives do
not want to see Jesus, they want to take him back home (Mk 3: 32). They thought
that Jesus had lost his head (Mk 3: 21). Probably, they were afraid, because
according to what history says, the Romans watched very closely all that he
did, in one way or other, with the people (cf. Ac 5: 36-39). In Nazareth, up on
the mountains he would have been safer than in Capernaum.
•
Luke 8: 21: The response of Jesus. The reaction
of Jesus is clear: “My mother and my brothers are those who listen to the Word
of God and put it into practice.” In Mark the reaction of Jesus is more
concrete. Mark says: Looking around at those who were sitting there he said:
“Look, my mother and my brothers! Anyone who does the will of God, he is my
brother, sister and mother (Mk 3: 34-35). Jesus extends his family! He does not
permit the family to draw him away from the mission: neither the family (Jn 7:
3-6), nor Peter (Mk 8: 33), nor the disciples (Mk 1: 36-38), nor Herod (Lk 13:
32), nor anybody else (Jn 10: 18).
•
It is the Word of God which creates a new family
around Jesus: “My mother and my brothers are those who listen to the Word of
God and put it into practice.” A good commentary on this episode is what the
Gospel of John says in the Prologue: “He was in the world that had come into
being through him and the world did not recognize him. He came to his own and
his own people did not accept him.” But to those who did accept him he gave
them power to become children of God: to those who believed in his name, who
were born not from human stock or human desire, or human will, but from God
himself. And the Word became flesh, he lived among us; and we saw his glory,
the glory that he has from the Father as only Son of the Father, full of grace
and truth. (Jn 1: 10-14). The family, the relatives, do not understand Jesus
(Jn 7: 3-5; Mk 3: 21), they do not form part of the new family. Only those who
receive the Word, that is, who believe in Jesus, form part of the new family.
These are born of God and form part of God’s Family.
•
The situation of the family at the time of
Jesus. In the time of Jesus, the political social and economic moment or the
religious ideology, everything conspired in favor of weakening the central
values of the clan, of the community. The concern for the problems of the
family prevented persons from being united in the community. Rather, in order
that the Kingdom of God could manifest itself anew, in the community life of
the people, persons had to go beyond, to pass the narrow limits of the small
family and open themselves to the large family, toward the Community. Jesus
gives the example. When his own family tried to take hold of him, Jesus reacted
and extended the family (Mk 3: 33-35). He created the Community.
•
The brothers and the sisters of Jesus. The
expression “brothers and sisters of Jesus” causes much polemics among Catholics
and Protestants. Basing themselves on this and on other texts, the Protestants
say that Jesus had more brothers and sisters, and that Mary had more sons! The
Catholics say that Mary did not have other sons. What should we think about
this? In the first place, both positions: that of the Catholics as well as that
of the Protestants, start from the arguments drawn from the Bible and from the
Traditions of their respective Churches. Because of this, it is not convenient
to discuss on this question with only intellectual arguments. Because here it
is a question of the convictions that they have, and which have to do with
faith and sentiments. The intellectual argument alone does not succeed in
changing a conviction of the heart! Rather, it irritates and draws away! And
even if I do not agree with the opinion of the other person, I must respect it.
In the second place, instead of discussing about texts, both we Catholics and
the Protestants, we should unite to fight in defense of life, created by God, a
life totally disfigured by poverty, injustice, by the lack of faith. We should
recall some phrase of Jesus: “I have come so that they may have life and life
in abundance” (Jn 10: 10). “So that all may be one so that the world will
believe that it was you who sent me” (Jn 17: 21). “Do not prevent them! Anyone
who is not against us is for us” (Mk 9: 39, 40).
Personal Questions
•
Does your family help or make it difficult for
you to participate in the Christian community?
•
How do you assume your commitment in the
Christian community without prejudice for the family or for the community?
Concluding Prayer
Teach me, Yahweh, the way of your will, and I will observe it.
Give me understanding and I will observe your Law, and keep it
wholeheartedly. (Ps 119: 33-34)
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