Catholic lectionary for 18 February 2008

New American Standard Bible (en)

New American Standard Bible (en)

Daniel, Chapter 9, verses 4-10

¹ Daniel’s Prayer for His People

⁴ I prayed to the LORD my God and confessed and said, “Alas, O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and lovingkindness for those who love Him and keep His commandments, ⁵ we have sinned, committed iniquity, acted wickedly and rebelled, even turning aside from Your commandments and ordinances. ⁶ Moreover, we have not listened to Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings, our princes, our fathers and all the people of the land.

4

Deu 7:21 Neh 9:32 Deu 7:9

5

Ki1 8:48 Neh 9:33 Psa 106:6 Isa 64:5-7 Jer 14:7 Ljr 1:18 Ljr 1:20 Psa 119:176 Isa 53:6 Dan 9:11

6

Ch2 36:16 Jer 44:4 Jer 44:5

⁷ “Righteousness belongs to You, O Lord, but to us^bopen shame, as it is this day—to the men of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, those who are nearby and those who are far away in all the countries to which You have driven them, because of their unfaithful deeds which they have committed against You. ⁸ ^cOpen shame belongs to us, O Lord, to our kings, our princes and our fathers, because we have sinned against You. ⁹ To the Lord our God belong compassion and forgiveness,^dfor we have rebelled against Him; ¹⁰ nor have we obeyed the voice of the LORD our God, to walk in His^eteachings which He set before us through His servants the prophets.

7

Jer 23:6 Jer 33:16 Dan 9:18 Psa 44:15 Jer 2:26 Jer 2:27 Jer 3:25 Deu 4:27

9

Neh 9:17 Psa 130:4 Psa 106:43 Jer 14:7 Dan 9:5 Dan 9:6

10

Ki2 17:13-15 Ki2 18:12

Read more:Daniel, Chapter 9

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9 Daniel's prayer for the restoration of Israel, Dan 9:1-23.
The answer sent him by an angel, Dan 9:24-27.
This is the clearest prophecy of the Messiah in all the Old Testament.

Luke, Chapter 6, verses 36-38

²⁰ The Beatitudes

³⁶ ^u Or BecomeBe merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
³⁷ “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; and do not condemn, and you will not be condemned;^v Lit releasepardon, and you will be pardoned. ³⁸ Give, and it will be given to you. They will^w Lit givepour into your lap a good measure—pressed down, shaken together, and running over. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return.”	37 Luk 6:37-42 Mat 6:14 Luk 23:16 Act 3:13 38 Mar 4:24 Psa 79:12 Isa 65:6 Isa 65:7 Jer 32:18

Read more:Luke, Chapter 6

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6

6:37 Mat 7:1.

6:38 Into your bosom - Alluding to the mantles the Jews wore, into which a large quantity of corn might be received. With the same measure that ye mete with, it shall be measured to you again - Amazing goodness! So we are permitted even to carve forourselves! We ourselves are, as it were, to tell God how much mercy he shall show us! And can we be content with less than the very largest measure? Give then to man, what thou designest to receive of God.

NOTES

Comparing the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew and Luke makes it clear that Luke generally presents it in less detail. Of course, hardly any of the evangelists transmitted Jesus' words verbatim. At that time it was customary to compile the sayings of teachers and preachers, shaping them into...

Comparing the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew and Luke makes it clear that Luke generally presents it in less detail. Of course, hardly any of the evangelists transmitted Jesus' words verbatim. At that time it was customary to compile the sayings of teachers and preachers, shaping them into a special kind of literary text and sometimes into entire collections. Even taking this fact into account, however, it is obvious that Luke singled out what he considered most important in Jesus' sermon. For the evangelist, the most important thing is the absence of condemnation. “Judge not, and ye shall not be judged”—these are the Savior's words that Luke considers most important in the whole Sermon on the Mount. Why these particular words? Matthew, for example, has many other themes that are no less important.

Yet the absence of condemnation really can be considered a measure of the quality of a person's inner life. This is not about making an assessment, of course, but precisely about condemning. It is entirely natural to assess a person's particular action in a given situation. Condemnation is another matter: it concerns not the action but the person himself. A person thus becomes the judge of another person, although God never appointed him to be such a judge. A person's path, its outcome, and its evaluation are the prerogative of God and God alone. Even if someone is clearly heading straight for the lake of fire, only God can sentence him to that lake.

Any human being can only state the fact that a sinner is moving in that direction. Why, then, do we pronounce judgment so readily where no one has given us the right to do so? Evidently because we do not see the situation as God sees it and do not use the same criteria—not absolute criteria but relative ones. We see a person not in the fullness of the life God has given him, but only in his particular present condition. We apply certain formal criteria, usually moral and religious, to this condition and naturally obtain a completely distorted picture of reality. But this is no surprise: as long as our life is determined not by the breath of life God has given us but by our own nature, nothing else can be expected.

If, however, we live the life of the Kingdom, such a distortion of reality simply cannot occur. If it does occur, it means that we are still far from the Kingdom, as the evangelist bears witness to us.

These words seem deliberately to contradict ordinary human ideas. Why are the poor and hungry, the weeping and rejected, suddenly blessed, while woe is pronounced upon the rich, the full, and those who laugh? One might think that...

Every person has moments when he realizes that he is sinful. Daniel speaks of common guilt, without denying it and without excusing himself by saying that he was not the only one who sinned....

Every person has moments when he realizes that he is sinful. Daniel speaks of common guilt, without denying it and without excusing himself by saying that he was not the only one who sinned....

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