Bishop Barron's Gospel Reflection February 17, 2019

Sunday, February 17, 2019

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Luke 6:17, 20-26

Friends, our Gospel for today is Luke’s version of the Beatitudes, less well known than Matthew’s but actually punchier, more to the point. It all hinges on that decisively important spiritual attitude of detachment—apatheia in the Greek fathers, indifferencia in Ignatius of Loyola. It means that I am unattached to worldly values that become a substitute for the ultimate good of God. How bluntly Luke’s Jesus puts things. Look at Luke’s first beatitude, a model for all: “Blessed are you poor; the reign of God is yours.” What if we translated this as, “How lucky you are if you are not addicted to material things.” When we place material things in the center of our concerns, we find ourselves caught in an addictive pattern. Because material goods don’t satisfy the hunger in my soul, I convince myself that I need more of them. So I strive and work to get more nice things—cars, homes, TVs, clothes—and then I find that those don’t satisfy me. So I strive and strive, and the rhythm continues. Therefore, how lucky I would be if I were poor, unattached to material goods, finally indifferent to them. Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Lectionary: 78 Reading 1 Jer 17:5-8 Thus says the LORD: Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings, who seeks his strength in flesh, whose heart turns away from the LORD. He is like a barren bush in the desert that enjoys no change of season, but stands in a lava waste, a salt and empty earth. Blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD, whose hope is the LORD. He is like a tree planted beside the waters that stretches out its roots to the stream: it fears not the heat when it comes; its leaves stay green; in the year of drought it shows no distress, but still bears fruit. Reading 2 1 Cor 15:12, 16-20 Brothers and sisters: If Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain; you are still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all. But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. Gospel Lk 6:17, 20-26 Jesus came down with the twelve and stood on a stretch of level ground with a great crowd of his disciples and a large number of the people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon. And raising his eyes toward his disciples he said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours. Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who are now weeping, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude and insult you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice and leap for joy on that day! Behold, your reward will be great in heaven. For their ancestors treated the prophets in the same way. But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will grieve and weep. Woe to you when all speak well of you, for their ancestors treated the false prophets in this way.”