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Tuesday of the Twenty Third week in Ordinary Time
1 Corinthians 6:1-11
Psalm 149:1B-2, 3-4, 5-6A & 9B
Luke 6:12-19
S
UMMARY
Corinthians is a bit of a mystery as to its purpose. It poses the question:
Do you not know that the holy ones will judge the world?; Can it be that
there is not one among you wise enough to be able to settle a case be-
tween brothers? The psalmist sings a song of praise and gladness to the
Lord, with the refrain: "The Lord takes delight in his people". In the Gospel,
Luke begins this story with a statement: "Jesus departed to the mountain
to pray, and he spent the night in prayer to God". Jesus then comes down
with his newly-named disciples and "stood on a stretch of level ground".
Luke concludes: "Everyone in the crowd sought to touch him because
power came forth from him and healed them all".
R
EFLECTION
I'm not sure whether it is Brother Cadfael or Richard Rohr who speaks per-
suasively about the power that flows from being silent in the presence of
the Lord. All of us who experience this silence in God's presence, whether
at Mass or away, know the clarity of vision that we receive as well as the
power that comes of this clarity.
Note that Jesus goes a place set apart, a mountain, and he spends time
with God in utter darkness. At first we think: oh, okay, that is literally what
we are to choose to do. But let's go a step further. What if, instead of
choosing to go to a place set apart, we are driven there by calamity? We
do not choose, but are pushed. And what if the darkness also is not of our
own choosing, but rather is when we have lost all hope in the familiar, in
what we know? What if this "darkness" is total lostness, total absence of
"light", a sense of profound despair?