19th Sunday in Ordinary Time
WISDOM 18:6-9
That night had been foretold to our ancestors, so that, knowing with certainty the promise in which they trusted, they might be encouraged.
Your people awaited the salvation of the righteous and the destruction of the wicked. For by the same action with which you punished the adversaries, you glorified us by calling us to yourself.
The devout children of a righteous people offered sacrifices in secret and together took upon themselves this sacred law: that all the saints would share in the dangers and in the goods; and they began to chant the traditional hymns.
We know that this book was called “The Wisdom of Solomon,” and that it was probably written in Greek in Alexandria at the end of the 1st century BC or the beginning of the 1st century AD. Its “Wisdom,” like all the Wisdom of Israel, consists in interpreting and applying the Scriptures to daily life.
This fragment taken from the final part of the book offers an interpretation of the Exodus from Egypt. It presents the Egyptians as guilty of murder against Israel, and God’s action as just punishment of the oppressors and just protection of the “righteous” people.
This overly pious and overly Manichaean interpretation shows a strange conception of God’s action. I do not know why this text has been brought to today’s Eucharist, and I cannot find any acceptable application, not even in relation to the Gospel.
HEBREWS 11:1-2 and 8-19
Brothers and sisters: Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.
Because of it the ancients were commended: by faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was to go.
By faith he lived as a stranger in the promised land, dwelling in tents – and the same is true of Isaac and Jacob, heirs of the same promise – while he looked forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand on the seashore.
This famous hymn to the faith of the ancestors, which occupies the entire chapter 11, interprets the entire “history” of Israel, from Abel to the prophets, showing their unshakeable faith in God and, at the same time, the incompleteness of their hope, which only in Christ finds its fulfillment.
In reality, this entire long discourse is directed toward a conclusion, the beginning of chapter 12, but this will be the reading for next Sunday.
Once again, the fragmentation of the texts that we habitually perpetrate in the Eucharist makes them lose their meaning and leaves them incomplete and almost incomprehensible.
José Enrique Galarreta, S.J.