October 16, 2025
Thursday of the Twenty-eighth
Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 470
Reading
1
Brothers and
sisters:
Now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law,
though testified to by the law and the prophets,
the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ
for all who believe.
For there is no distinction;
all have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God.
They are justified freely by his grace
through the redemption in Christ Jesus,
whom God set forth as an expiation,
through faith, by his Blood, to prove his righteousness
because of the forgiveness of sins previously committed,
through the forbearance of God–
to prove his righteousness in the present time,
that he might be righteous
and justify the one who has faith in Jesus.
What occasion is there then for boasting? It is ruled out.
On what principle, that of works?
No, rather on the principle of faith.
For we consider that a person is justified by faith
apart from works of the law.
Does God belong to Jews alone?
Does he not belong to Gentiles, too?
Yes, also to Gentiles, for God is one
and will justify the circumcised on the basis of faith
and the uncircumcised through faith.
Responsorial
Psalm
R. (7) With
the Lord there is mercy, and fullness of redemption.
Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD;
LORD, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to my voice in supplication.
R. With the Lord there is mercy, and fullness of redemption.
If you, O LORD, mark iniquities,
Lord, who can stand?
But with you is forgiveness,
that you may be revered.
R. With the Lord there is mercy, and fullness of redemption.
I trust in the LORD;
my soul trusts in his word.
My soul waits for the LORD
more than sentinels wait for the dawn.
R. With the Lord there is mercy, and fullness of redemption.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia,
alleluia.
I am the way and the truth and the life, says the Lord;
no one comes to the Father except through me.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
The Lord said:
"Woe to you who build the memorials of the prophets
whom your fathers killed.
Consequently, you bear witness and give consent
to the deeds of your ancestors,
for they killed them and you do the building.
Therefore, the wisdom of God said,
'I will send to them prophets and Apostles;
some of them they will kill and persecute'
in order that this generation might be charged
with the blood of all the prophets
shed since the foundation of the world,
from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah
who died between the altar and the temple building.
Yes, I tell you, this generation will be charged with their blood!
Woe to you, scholars of the law!
You have taken away the key of knowledge.
You yourselves did not enter and you stopped those trying to enter."
When Jesus left, the scribes and Pharisees
began to act with hostility toward him
and to interrogate him about many things,
for they were plotting to catch him at something he might say.
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/101625.cfm
Commentary on Romans 3:21-29
In this
beautiful passage we come to the very heart of Paul’s letter. Here, as in the
letter to the Galatians, Paul discusses how a person is made “righteous” or is
“justified” in God’s eyes: he explains that salvation comes solely through
faith in Christ.
In order
to understand what Paul is saying, we need to remember the context in which he
spoke. In some of the Christian communities, there were Jewish Christians who
were agitating for the return of the Mosaic Law as the basis for a life in and
with God. They were urging that every Christian, including Gentiles, be
circumcised. Paul, himself a circumcised Jew and formerly a Pharisee, is
totally opposed to this movement, as it compromises his claim that salvation is
through Christ alone.
He begins
by conceding that the “righteousness of God” was formerly made known through
the Law and the Prophets, in other words, through the whole Jewish tradition of
the Old Testament. ‘Righteousness’ or ‘justice’ refers to God’s inherent
goodness and infinite love extended to every single human being. In the Old
Testament understanding, we are ‘just’ (righteous) when we are totally in
harmony with God’s justice as revealed in the Law. But now he says, with the
coming of Jesus Christ, God’s “righteousness” is to be seen in a completely new
light and as no longer dependent on the Law. Now “righteousness” is given
through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe in him as Lord and Saviour
sent by the Father.
Formerly,
the Jews regarded themselves as being on a different level before God because
of the adherence to the Law, but now:
…there
is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
“Glory”
has many meanings, but basically it refers to the importance of God. So to fall
short of God’s glory means that we do not adequately recognise the importance
of God. Although God is present to human beings and is communicating himself to
them more and more, this process can reach its climax only when the importance
of God is fully revealed in Jesus. He proclaims his Father’s importance in all
he does and suffers, and so gives the Father the fullness of glory:
…I
always do what is pleasing to him. (John
8:29)
Then comes
Paul’s key sentence:
…all [Jews and Gentiles alike] who
believe…are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that
is in Christ Jesus…
So much
theological blood has been spilt over this one sentence! For our purposes we
will try to keep it simple. The key words are ‘justified’ and ‘grace’ and
‘redemption’.
For
‘justified’, other translations use ‘made righteous’. In either case, we
are speaking of being put in a state of total harmony with God, the opposite of
the alienation that comes from sin.
And this
happens “by his grace as a gift”. The Greek word translated as ‘grace’
is charis. The word means something which is given freely and
is unearned or unmerited, and this is the meaning which predominates in the New
Testament. Paul uses the word to describe the way God saves us through
Jesus—it is a work of spontaneous love to which none of us has any claim.
It is interesting that John uses the word agape in the same
sense. Agape is the love that pours out from God on to
all his creation, and it is the love that we are called on to pass on to
others:
In this
is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the
atoning sacrifice for our sins.
(1 John 4:10)
This is
exactly the same as what Paul is saying to the Romans.
It was,
then, an act of ‘grace’—an act of love emanating totally and only from God—for
Jesus to come on earth, to suffer and die, for his Father to give him up as a
gift to us:
…as a
sacrifice of atonement…
The only
condition on our part is our surrendering to him in total faith and trust.
Salvation, then, is total gift: nothing good that we can do independently of
God—even our dutiful performing of the works of the Law—can ‘earn’ it. God is
never, ever in our debt. We see this in the scene of the two men praying in the
Temple. The tax collector is bowed humbly at the back begging God’s forgiveness
for his many sins; the Pharisee is standing up in front, telling God how good
he has been in his keeping of the Law, with the implication that God is obliged
to reward him accordingly. And it is the tax collector who goes away
‘justified’ (see Luke 18:9-14).
So Paul
says:
…through
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of
atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to demonstrate his
righteousness… [i.e.
his total union with the Father]
On the Day
of Atonement (Yom Kippur), the ‘throne of mercy’ was sprinkled with the
blood of a sacrificed goat. But now the blood of Christ has done what the
ancient ritual could only symbolise—purified us from sin.
We are
told that God:
in his
divine forbearance had passed over the sins previously committed…
This
implies that total forgiveness and reconciliation were to follow, and that the
complete destruction of man’s sin was accomplished through the saving death of
Christ.
And the
same applies “at the present time” to show how God is just and makes just
everyone who has faith in Jesus as Lord and Saviour.
Then Paul
says:
…what
becomes of boasting? It is excluded.
He is
clearly addressing those Jews in the community who are going back to strict
observance of the Law as the way to God. The word Paul uses here expresses the
attitude of one who boasts of their own achievements, relies on them, and
claims to accomplish their supernatural destiny by their own strength. This
attitude is ruled out, since one does not receive God’s acquittal by superior
strength—one receives it as a gift. The act of faith excludes self-sufficiency
because in it, human beings explicitly attest their radical insufficiency.
But he
says:
Through
what kind of law? That of works [i.e.
actions]? No, rather through the law of faith.
Faith in
Christ is what counts, not adherence to a set of man-made rules. And he repeats
what he has already said:
For we
hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works [behaviors or actions] prescribed
by the law.
And that
‘person’ is any person:
Or is
God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of gentiles also? Yes, of gentiles
also…
There were
those who believed that only the Jews were God’s Chosen People and that
salvation for the Gentiles was out of the question (remember the story of Jonah
we had recently).
Summing
up, then, it is the “law’ of faith”, that total giving and surrendering of the
self to God in Christ, that saves and not the ‘law’ of works’. Salvation is not
based on self-initiated acts, but on entering into an intimate relationship
with a God who reaches out in love (agape) to me and calls me to share
his life. That reaching out in spontaneous love is called here ‘grace’. My good
works are not the down payment by which I ‘buy’ salvation; rather they are the
sign of God’s love working in and through me.
There have
been various interpretations over the centuries in regard to the relationship
between God and ourselves:
- One is the idea that we “get
to heaven” simply by the good works we do, by “keeping the Commandments”.
In this view, God owes us salvation, as an employer owes the workers their
wages. In reality, this misses out on the centrality of God’s overflowing
grace, and is called Pelagianism. There is a hint of this in most of us!
- Another gives the impression
that good works are irrelevant—all one needs to be saved is to “call on
the name of Jesus”. But a balanced view is summarised in the Letter of
James (2:14-26) which says: “Faith without good works is dead”. God does
not love me because I am good; I am good because God makes me good from my
creation, and so I am to be a carrier of goodness to others—this is to
build the Kingdom of God. By my closeness in faith to Jesus I try to live
by the gospel of love. I live in the light of God’s ongoing forgiveness.
- But the ideal of
“Justification by faith alone” tends to see no goodness at all in our
behaviour. In this view we are irrevocably sinful and only the blood of
Christ “covering over our sins” makes access to God possible. In essence,
this was Luther’s solution to his own very scrupulous conscience:
overwhelmed and riddled with guilt he felt that God could never forgive
his sins, but hoped that Jesus the Redeemer would turn a blind eye to
them. He would say that we are saved in spite of the sinfulness which
remains in us, whereas the Catholic position is that we are already
created in grace, and its lifelong effect is to bring our interior
transformation.
- Luther’s position on
‘interiority’ led to a Christian life which makes little accommodation for
what we would call an “interior” life. Classical Protestantism speaks
little of spirituality; it dropped what we call the “religious life” of
the monk, friar, nun. It did not include schools of prayer and
contemplation, or the making of retreats. It did not recognise saints.
Despite all of this, however, the lives of many Protestants are deeply
penetrated by the Spirit of Christ, and they often put to shame many of us
Catholics by the love and care they show for the poor and the needy.
- Some forms of extreme
Protestantism focus on ‘private salvation’ and seem to lack concern for
bringing God’s Kingdom on earth through the struggle for justice, freedom
and peace. The focus seems rather on personal salvation. For them, the
only task is that of calling on Christ in faith. With this thinking, there
will also be the exclusion of what Karl Rahner called the “anonymous
Christian” or the “Kingdom person”, that is, someone who, though not aware
of the Christian message, leads a life which reflects the deepest
attitudes of truth, love, justice, community sharing, respect for the
dignity and equality of every individual. But these are the values for
which Jesus lived and died.
- It is gratifying to know that
in recent times Catholics and Lutherans (as well as other Protestant
groups) have come together in dialogue and, freed from the polemics of an
earlier time, have learnt that there is really not so much disagreement as
before over the understanding of Paul’s words. Many churches, too, have
been taking back features of the Roman church whose absence were a loss to
their Christian life.
On our
part, we Catholics are getting a richer concept of faith which, in the past,
was often identified with the intellectual acceptance of the Church’s doctrines
and an obsession with orthodoxy as the test of a “good” Catholic. We are
becoming more aware that faith as trust and surrender to a loving Christ is of
primary importance. The Latin word credo literally means ‘I
give my heart to’. In praying the Creed we ‘give our hearts to God.’
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Commentary on Luke 11:47-54
There are
more strong words from Jesus against the Pharisaic mentality. Today the charge
is of hypocrisy:
Woe to
you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your ancestors killed.
The people
build monuments to remember the prophets of old, but those same prophets were
killed by their ancestors. On the one hand, they are building the monuments as
an act of atonement, while they themselves have exactly the same attitudes as
their ancestors. They do not listen to their own teaching.
Jesus
utters words which he identifies as “the Wisdom of God”:
I will
send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute…
It is not
a quotation from the Old Testament or any other book known to us. It could
refer to God speaking through Jesus (the Word, the Wisdom of God) or
presenting, in quotation form, God’s decision to send prophets and apostles,
even though they would be rejected.
Jesus is
basically saying that the mission of the Church (his Apostles) is linked with
the mission of the Old Testament prophets, who, like Jesus’ disciples, suffered
and, in some cases, died at the hands of their contemporaries. Jesus, of
course, himself will be one of them, the last and greatest Prophet.
Jesus says
the scholars of the Law carry with them guilt for the killing of every good
person and every prophet since the murder of Abel down to that of Zechariah.
The murder of Abel by his brother Cain is recorded in Genesis (4:8), the
opening book of the Old Testament, and that of Zechariah, son of Jehoiada in 2
Chronicles (24:20-22). This latter book is regarded as the closing of the
Hebrew Testament by the Jews. It is like our describing the whole Bible in
terms of ‘from Genesis to Revelation’. Jesus was referring to the history of
martyrdom right through the whole of the Old Testament.
There is
one final attack against the scribes and their way of thinking and acting. They
interpret the Law in such a way that they make it inaccessible to the ordinary person.
And, what is worse, they do not observe it themselves:
For you
have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you
hindered those who were entering.
They kept
both themselves and the people in ignorance of the true way to salvation and
wholeness. As it is put in Matthew’s Gospel:
But woe
to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the
kingdom of heaven. (Matt
23:13)
One
wonders how many of our Church leaders, teachers and theological and moral
‘experts’ have not done exactly the same thing over the years and down to the
present day? How many Catholic parents and teachers have made the Christian
message basically inaccessible to the young, and then we wonder why they have
no interest in religion?
Not surprisingly,
all these attacks only increased the hostility of the Pharisees and the
religious leaders against Jesus. They were able to get him to speak on a
multitude of religious questions hoping that he would convict himself out of
his own mouth. As far as they were concerned, they were more than successful.
What they
did not realise was that Jesus was operating from a completely different vision
of what life is really about. His new wine could not fit into their old
wineskins. The questions for each one to ask are: Do I share the vision of
Jesus? What does ‘Christianity’ mean to me?
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https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/o1285g/
Thursday,
October 16, 2025
Ordinary Time
Opening Prayer
Lord,
our help and guide, make your
love the foundation of our lives. May our love for you express itself in our
eagerness to do good for others.
You live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one
God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Gospel Reading - Luke 11: 47-54
Jesus said: 'Alas for you because you build tombs for the
prophets, the people your ancestors killed! In this way you both witness to
what your ancestors did and approve it; they did the killing, you do the
building.
'And that is why the Wisdom of
God said, "I will send them prophets and apostles; some they will
slaughter and persecute, so that this generation will have to answer for every
prophet's blood that has been shed since the foundation of the world, from the
blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the
Temple." Yes, I tell you, this generation will have to answer for it all.
'Alas for you lawyers who have taken away the key of
knowledge! You have not gone in yourselves and have prevented others from going
in who wanted to.' When he left there, the scribes and the Pharisees began a
furious attack on him and tried to force answers from him on innumerable
questions, lying in wait to catch him out in something he might say.
Reflection
Once again for the one hundredth time, today’s Gospel speaks
about the conflict between Jesus and the religious authorities of that time.
•
Luke 11: 47-48: Alas for you because you build
tombs for the prophets. “Alas for you because you build tombs for the prophets,
the people your ancestors killed! In this way you both witness to what your
ancestors did and approve it; they did the killing, you do the building.”
Mathew says that these were the Scribes and the Pharisees (Mt 23: 19). Jesus’
reasoning is clear. If the ancestors killed the prophets and the sons built the
toms, it is because the sons approved the crime of their fathers; besides everybody
knows that the dead prophet does not disturb anybody. In this way the sons
become witnesses and accomplice of the same crime (cf. Mt 23: 29-32).
•
Luke 11: 49-51: To ask for an account of the
blood that has been shed since the foundation of the world. “That is why the
wisdom of God said: I will send them prophets and apostles; some they will
slaughter and persecute, so that this generation will have to answer for every
prophet’s blood that has been shed since the foundation of the world, from the
blood of Able to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the
Temple. Yes, I tell you, this generation lying in wait to catch him out in
something he might say.” Compared with the Gospel of Matthew, Luke usually
offers a brief version of Matthew’s text. But here he increases the
observations: “shed since the creation of the world, of the blood of Abel.” He
did the same thing with the genealogy of Jesus. Matthew, who wrote for the
converted Jews, begins with Abraham (Mt 1: 1, 2, 17), while Luke goes back to
Adam (Lk 3: 38). Luke universalizes and includes the Pagans, then he writes his
Gospel for the converted Pagans. The information about the murdering of
Zechariah in the
Temple is given in the Book of Chronicles: “The spirit of
God then invested Zechariah son of Jehoiada the priest. He stood up before the
people and said, ‘God says this, ‘Why transgress Yahweh’s commands to your
certain ruin?
•
For if you abandon Yahweh, he will abandon you.
Then they plotted against him and at the king’s order stoned him in the court
of the Temple of Yahweh” (2Cr 24: 20-21). Jesus knew the story of his people to
the minutest detail. He knew that he would be the next one on the list from
Abel to Zechariah; and up until now the list continues to be open. Many people
have died for the cause of justice and of truth.
•
Luke 11: 52: Alas for you Doctors of the Law.
“Alas for you lawyers who have taken away the key of knowledge. You have not
gone in yourselves and have prevented others from going in who wanted to.” How do
they close the Kingdom? They believe that they have the monopoly of knowledge
in regard to God and to God’s Law and they impose on others they own way,
without leaving a margin for a different idea. They present God as a severe
judge and in the name of God they impose laws and norms which have nothing to
do with the commandments of God, they falsify the image of the Kingdom and kill
in others the desire to serve God and the Kingdom. A community which organizes
itself around this false god “does not enter into the Kingdom”, neither is it
an expression of the Kingdom, and prevents its members from entering into the
Kingdom. It is important to notice the difference between Matthew and Luke.
Matthew speaks about the entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven and the phrase is
written in the verbal form in the present: "Alas for you, lawyers of the
Law and Pharisees, hypocrites, who close the Kingdom of Heaven before men,
because in this way you do not enter and you prevent others from going in who
wanted to enter. (Mt 23: 13). The expression to enter into the Kingdom of
Heaven could mean to enter in Heaven after death, but it is probable that it is
a question of entering into the community, around Jesus and in the communities
of the first Christians. Luke speaks about the key of knowledge and the phrase
is written in the verbal form in the past. Luke simply ascertains the
pretension of the Scribes to possess the key of knowledge in regard to God and
to the law of God prevents them from recognizing Jesus as Messiah and prevents
the Jewish people from recognizing Jesus as Messiah: You take possession of the
key of knowledge. You yourselves do not enter and you prevent others to enter.
•
Luke 11: 53-54: The reaction against Jesus. The
reaction of the religious authority against Jesus was immediate. “When he left
there, the Scribes and the Pharisees began a furious attack on him, and tried
to force answers from him on innumerable questions, lying in wait to catch him
out in something he might say.” Since they considered themselves the only true
interpreters of the Law of God, they tried to provoke Jesus on questions of
interpretation of the Bible so as to be able to surprise him in something which
he would say. Thus, the opposition against Jesus and the desire to eliminate it
continues to grow. (Lk 6: 11; 11: 53-54; 19: 48; 20: 19-20; 22: 2).
Personal Questions
•
Many persons who wanted to enter were prevented
from doing it and they no longer believed because of the anti-evangelical
attitude of the priests. Do you have any experience regarding this?
•
The Scribes began to criticize Jesus who thought
and acted in a different way. It is not difficult to find reasons for
criticizing anyone who thinks differently from me. Do you have any experience
regarding this?
Concluding Prayer
Yahweh has made known his saving
power, revealed his saving justice for the nations to see, mindful of his
faithful love
and his constancy to the House of Israel. (Ps 98: 2-3)
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