Breaking the Word

33^rd Week in Ord. Time, Thursday – 23^rd November 2023 – 1 Macc 2,15-29; Lk 19,41-44

Rebellious Antagonist

The first reading describes the difficult choices Mattathias and his family and friends make in being faithful to God rather than giving into the enticements and demands of the Hellenist oppressors. Mattathias was a noble man of the town of Modein. In that town, a decree had been proclaimed demanding all people under the Hellenistic rule to forsake their native religion and worship the king. While many of the Israelites complied with the government order and joined in the sacrifices, Mattathias and his sons stood apart. Jewish opposition to Hellenism took the form of physical violence, passive resistance, and ultimately a war of religion under the leadership of Mattathias. Being filled with a holy rage, he not only kills a Jew who starts to follow the royal command, but also slays an official who was enforcing the decree. He destroys the altar set up to worship the king. He then invites the faithful Jews to join him in a rebellion by first leaving everything behind and then escaping to the south to the barren hill country. Indeed, Mattathias is to be admired for his zeal, his courage and his total dedication to God’s Law and in leading others to follow the same. Although he is an outlaw according to the Hellenists, yet he lived firmly in the law of God until the end of his life.

33^rd Week in Ord. Time, Wednesday – 22^nd November 2023 – 2 Macc 7,1.20-31; Lk 19,11-28

Brave Mother

The first reading presents another famous story of fidelity under excruciating and inhuman torture, of the seven brothers in the sight of their unnamed mother, for the cause of religious freedom. The celebrated mother, who acts with a woman’s reasoning and a man’s courage, bore the deaths of her sons because of her hope in the Lord. She is the focus of the story as “especially admirable and worthy of honourable memory” (7,20). She maintained an extraordinary dignity and fidelity to God at all cost. She encouraged each of her sons to face death, who expressed the words of defiance for the king. In a vibrant declaration, the Maccabean mother linked her faith in the Creator, who “in his mercy give life and breath back to you again, since you now forget yourselves for the sake of his laws” (7,23). Creation, pregnancy and rebirth are linked together in her thought. Faith in the resurrection cancels all fears of earthly death for her seven sons.  In fact, she was very proud of her sons, whom she raised up as godly and God-fearing men, for their loyalty to God and their Jewish beliefs and their readiness to sacrifice their lives.