Wisdom 18:14-16; 19:6-9
Psalm 105:2-3, 26-37, 42-43
Luke 18:1-8
Summary
Today's readings explore and confirm the inevitability of God's
justice in a world permeated with oppressive forces.
Reflection
Remembrance and imaginative wonder are two of the original gifts that marked
humanity's emergence as a differentiated species. The poet writing the Old Tes-
tament Book of Wisdom mixes both to recall the Exodus of the Children of Israel
through the nights of death in Egypt and the Red Sea with dramatic language that
ties both to the earlier tradition of the great flood of Noah. The implication of uni-
versal cleansing, regeneration, deliverance, and new hope are at the core of this
and most other biblical messages. Life and death are reconciled for the whole
earth at the agency of a single "word…from heaven's all powerful throne." As the
Pagan metaphor of the Phoenix tries to unwind the quandary of an individual, this
passage attempts to unfold the mystery of an entire nation beloved and protected
by its creator.
In today's Gospel, Jesus
tells a funny story to his
friends as a way of
breathing some encour-
agement into them in
preparation for the long
haul. He plays off their
familiarity with the situa-
tion of the Hebrews a
step earlier in the Exodus
narrative, where Yahweh
hears the long suffering
cries of His people in