Monday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time
October 16, 2023
Today’s Readings:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/101623.cfm
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we begin about a month of readings from Paul’s letter to the Romans. We will also continue with Luke’s Gospel all the way up to Advent.
In my 2019 reflections on these passages, to help me understand Romans, I used a book by Scott W. Hahn, Father Michael Scanlan Chair of Biblical Theology at Steubenville University. I decided to return to that opening reflection as we meet Romans again today.
In his introduction, Hahn says this:
Today’s reading offered me these elements to ponder and pray with:
- Paul calls himself a “slave” of Jesus Christ
- He invokes his call as an Apostle
- He sets himself in the company of the prophets
- He appeals to Jews who revere David
- but proclaims Christ, through his Resurrection, as Messiah beyond human lineage
- He proclaims his mission to the Gentiles
- to bring about “the obedience of faith”
I’ll be honest with you. I’ve read or heard this passage maybe fifty times in my lifetime, and it has meant little or nothing to me. At best, it has sounded like a formal introduction such as those we hear from government “whereas” type decrees.
But I took Dr. Hahn’s advice, studying the passage, and reading it slowly and prayerfully. Here’s what I received:
- Paul’s Apostolic call, to which he willingly enslaved his heart, was to preach the Good News of our redemption in Jesus Christ – to preach it to Jews, Romans, Gentiles, and all people.
- It is an awesome and incredible message that can be received only through the gift of faith.
- It is a message rooted in the scripture stories we love, and where we look to find a reflection of our own stories.
- Learning from these realities will help us come to a faith which expresses itself in action and gives glory to God in our own time.
Luke gives us one such story today. Jesus reminds the crowd of two familiar passages – that of Jonah and the “Queen of the South” (the Queen of Sheba, 1 Kings 10). He indicates that the people in these stories believed without a sign.
Jesus tells the people gathered around him to learn from this. The crowd demands a sign, but Jesus says the sign is right in front of you – it is only your open heart that is lacking.
In his introduction, Paul prays for such open hearts in the Romans:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ.
By that same grace, may we receive faith’s blessing as well.
Poetry: Love Constraining to Obedience – William Cowper (1731-1800)
Cowper’s poem captures the interior transformation that occurs when our obedience is motivated by love rather than simply by duty.
No strength of nature can suffice
To serve the Lord aright:
And what she has she misapplies,
For want of clearer light.
How long beneath the Law I lay
In bondage and distress;
I toiled the precept to obey,
But toiled without success.
Then, to abstain from outward sin
Was more than I could do;
Now, if I feel its power within,
I feel I hate it too.
Then all my servile works were done
A righteousness to raise;
Now, freely chosen in the Son,
I freely choose His ways.
‘What shall I do,’ was then the word,
‘That I may worthier grow?’
‘What shall I render to the Lord?’
Is my inquiry now.
To see the law by Christ fulfilled
And hear His pardoning voice,
Changes a slave into a child,
And duty into choice.
Music: Grace and Peace – Fernando Ortega
Lavish Mercy 
The Obedience of Faith—— I like the part that says the crowd demanded a sign, but Jesus said the sign is right in front of you—it is only your open heart that is lacking.
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