Catholic lectionary for 2 November 2024

King James Version (en)

King James Version (en)

1 Corinthians, Chapter 15, verses 12, 16-20

¹² he proveth the necessity of our resurrection, against all such as deny the resurrection of the body

¹²Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?
...

¹⁶For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised:

¹⁷And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.

¹⁸Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.

¹⁹If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.

²⁰But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.

Read more:1 Corinthians, Chapter 15

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15

15:12 How say some - Who probably had been heathen philosophers.

Mark, Chapter 10, verses 28-30

²⁸ promiseth rewards to them that forsake any thing for the gospel

²⁸Then Peter began to say unto him, Lo, we have left all, and have followed thee.

²⁹And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel's,

³⁰But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life.

Read more:Mark, Chapter 10

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10

10:28 Lo, we have left all - Though the young man would not.

10:30 He shall receive a hundred fold, houses, etc - Not in the same kind: for it will generally be with persecutions: but in value: a hundred fold more happiness than any or all of these did or could afford. But let it be observed, none is entitled to this happiness, but he that will accept it with persecutions.

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NOTES

For Paul, Christ's resurrection from the dead is the cornerstone of Christianity as a whole. Indeed, Christianity in every age has been founded precisely on faith in the resurrection of every person from the dead, and on the belief that this process began with the Savior's resurrection. And the point is not merely that...

For Paul, Christ's resurrection from the dead is the cornerstone of Christianity as a whole. Indeed, Christianity in every age has been founded precisely on faith in the resurrection of every person from the dead, and on the belief that this process began with the Savior's resurrection. And the point is not merely that without life after death, a person's earthly life proves largely meaningless.

In ancient times, belief in the immortality of the soul and in recompense after death was characteristic of the Egyptians, to some extent of the Greeks, and of certain other peoples. But the Bible speaks of something else. It is not saying that some part of the human person, however important, is preserved after death and that this allows a person to go on living, remembering and remaining conscious of themselves. The Bible speaks of something greater: it speaks of resurrection, of the whole person returning to life—and to a full life, not the partial and limited life that the soul alone would inevitably have. For all its importance, the soul is only a part of the human person, not the entire person.

But for human resurrection to become possible, the world had to change. Death and the evil that gave rise to it had to be driven out of the world they entered after the Fall. The world had to become God's Kingdom once again, as it had been on the first day of creation: on that first day there was neither darkness nor evil in the world; it was entirely permeated by the light of God's presence, which made it the Kingdom of the living and utterly real God. This is exactly how God wants to see the world, and He will accept nothing less. According to His design, the human person must become an inhabitant of this world and attain in it a fullness of life that is unimaginable today.

Christ's resurrection from the dead became the center of this process. Human salvation consists in joining the universal resurrection; otherwise, a person will have to forget about the Kingdom. The apostle understands all this perfectly and never tires of reminding others, for to remain outside what is happening means losing everything. Christianity itself then loses all meaning, turning into a religion, a doctrine—in short, into something that cannot by itself bring anyone into the life of the Kingdom. And to live on talk about a Kingdom toward which one is not journeying truly means being the most pitiable of all people.

Believing Jews knew about the universal resurrection long before Christ came. They knew that the day of Judgment would come, and that everyone who had ever lived on earth would have to return to life, stand before God, and give an account of...

Believing Jews knew about the universal resurrection long before Christ came. They knew that the day of Judgment would come, and that everyone who had ever lived on earth would have to return to life, stand before God, and give an account of the life they had lived. They also knew about the messianic Kingdom, where those raised from the dead would become neighbors of those who were still alive when the Messiah came. In Paul's day, the messianic Kingdom was regarded as the Kingdom of God, in which the earthly and the heavenly were joined so that the righteous, raised from the dead and miraculously restored to life by God, would live alongside those who entered it without having died.

In those days, however, the Messiah was not regarded as the bearer of the Kingdom. He was merely its King, while the Kingdom itself was established by God according to His will. The Messiah was considered an ordinary human being by nature, given a special vocation: messianic ministry. One did not necessarily have to be born the Messiah; one could become the Messiah just as others became prophets. God called a person to ministry, and the prophet became what he was meant to be.

Paul, however, speaks of a different Messiah, the One who revealed Himself to him on the road to Damascus. This Messiah was not merely the King of a Kingdom established by God: He Himself bore that Kingdom within Himself and had borne it from His own birth, which was itself extraordinary. A Messiah who contains within Himself the entire fullness of the Kingdom is a new image; nothing like it existed in the traditional Judaism of the Gospel era.

The image of such a Messiah and such a Kingdom compelled people to look differently at familiar things. The Kingdom entered the world not simply as an external force, like the breath of God, originally foreign both to the fallen world and to fallen human nature. It entered the world through a Man who differs from each of us only in that His humanity is entirely free from the dominion of sin.

And the bonds of love established with this Man open the fullness of the Kingdom to each of us: they open it in a human way, just as these bonds of love unite us with Him in a human way. Human relationships themselves become the spiritual foundation of the Kingdom, and God enters into them, making them divine-human. Thus the life of the Kingdom becomes our life, its history becomes a fact of our spiritual biography, and its triumph becomes our salvation.

The question of possessions has periodically become central in Christian history, if not for all, then for many Christians. People appeared who asserted that a Christian not only...

The question of possessions has periodically become central in Christian history, if not for all, then for many Christians. People appeared who asserted that a Christian not only can, but absolutely must, be poor, completely and absolutely poor; otherwise he will have to forget about salvation and the Kingdom.

Some of the stories told by the evangelists can indeed lead to such thoughts, especially at first glance. Meanwhile, Jesus Himself was not completely destitute: in the community of disciples that He headed there was a common purse, which is mentioned in one way or another in all four Gospels. That purse, admittedly, was managed by Judas Iscariot, which has undoubtedly served at all times as an additional argument for supporters of complete and absolute poverty. Yet the apostles themselves reacted to the Savior's words about the difficulty of salvation for the rich, and in such a way as if all of them were rich men. If the matter were material wealth, money, or possessions in general, they would have had nothing to worry about; but, as is clear, the disciples understood that the Teacher meant something more.

The young man who was speaking with Jesus was indeed materially rich, but the matter was not material wealth as such. Jesus simply answers the question asked: what do I lack for the Kingdom? This is precisely the question the young man asks Jesus, expecting an answer like the one learned rabbis and teachers of the Torah often gave then. He thought that, like them, Jesus would offer him some special means: a prayer, for example, or a special ascetic exercise, or some secret connected with observing the norms and rules of ritual purity - in short, something that would allow him to enter the Kingdom. He did not expect the simple answer about the commandments: "All these I have kept from my youth." There was nothing special in that; most observant Jews could say the same about themselves. The young man, however, is seeking something precisely special; he wants to receive the key to the Kingdom, and he is looking for it as he goes from one spiritual teacher to another.

Jesus can offer him only one thing: complete poverty. Not poverty in the literal sense, but poverty as readiness to give up what one considers one's own. In the Kingdom no one has anything of their own. Each person uses everything he needs, but does not appropriate what he uses. He does not cling to it with his heart, which remains free. This task is harder than completely renouncing possessions, and this time the disciples understood their Teacher very well. Such poverty is not so much a human matter as God's, as Jesus tells them.

FAQ

I wonder: the Gospel of Luke 18:18-27 says, "How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!" Why? Why must one be poor to enter? In general, what is the Bible's attitude toward commerce and money?

In the Gospels, the words "how hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God" are also repeated in the Gospel of Mark in the form "how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God." This is an important addition that helps us understand the mind of the Lord Jesus Christ...

In the Gospels, the words "how hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God" are also repeated in the Gospel of Mark in the form "how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God." This is an important addition that helps us understand the mind of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is nothing inherently bad about money in and of itself; what is bad is that we so easily become slaves to it. We begin to think about how to acquire more and more, which easily becomes a passion, a kind of obsession. And then a person lives only for themselves and their money, which is far too little for a fulfilling life. Furthermore, earning money gradually consumes all of one's time and strength, leaving none for God, for love, for people, or for anything else... Moreover, a person imperceptibly begins to focus entirely on what they can do for themselves with their wealth: I will buy this, and then another... However, you cannot take any of this to the grave. In several places, the Gospel tells us that money is good as a means to do good works, and not only for oneself. In short, having enough money to live a dignified life and to do good for others is not bad at all. But it is important that money does not become the meaning and ultimate goal of life. As a means, however, why not?

It is understandable that if one has very little money, such spiritual problems, if they arise at all, do so on a much smaller scale. We must admit that one can be destitute and yet think only about money (this is often complicated by murmuring: "I am so good, yet I have been deprived of what I deserve"). This, obviously, is no better. Happiness is not found in money (nor in its quantity), but in being generous without murmuring. Perhaps generosity is precisely the key word in defining the Christian attitude toward wealth. Generosity sanctifies the one who has money, while greed defiles even the poor.

Poverty that is not fixated on itself and its meager resources has, perhaps, one significant advantage: one can truly and firmly put their hope in God. In prosperity, this hope gives way to gratitude to God for giving you the strength and ability to earn a living. Gratitude to God ("bundled," so to speak, with generosity) also strips wealth of the taint of sin. And to be grateful in poverty is a mark of true spiritual maturity.

Undoubtedly, poverty is a heavy burden. And every hardship in life can be an opportunity for a person to draw closer to Christ, who voluntarily impoverished Himself for our sake and became a poor man.

Finally, for a Christian, any condition in life is valuable only when God Himself calls them to it. Some (and they are the majority) He calls to be poor and to bear all the burdens of life with gratitude and generosity (even with small means). To others, the Lord directly says: "sell all that you have, and follow Me." And a third group is called to earn much money, and to help the first and the second... It is crucial to find your place and to answer your specific calling. Otherwise, neither poverty nor wealth will bring any spiritual benefit.

As for commerce... The Word of God looks favorably upon any honest human endeavor that is not coupled with sin, that brings benefit to others, and that causes no harm to anyone. Thus, the circle of forbidden occupations is quite limited: banditry, prostitution... Of course, commerce, like politics, can struggle to be entirely honest (especially in certain "exotic" countries, such as ours). But difficult does not mean impossible. I have even encountered honest and believing traffic police officers (admittedly, in the remote provinces and a long time ago, but the roads there were wonderful).

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