Sunday 10thOctober 2021 (’00): 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time:B
1. Wis7:7-11
- Read6 :1-9 18! Impressive encomium of Wisdom! Both ecstatic&calculating!
- The ‘Her’ so movingly celebrated in this excerpt, what is She in my experience?
- Will women hear this troubadoring of ‘Wisdom’ differently from men?
- Who&what in my actual world do I intentionally esteem&embrace, as of greater worth than Titles&Power&Riches&PreciousMetals&Health&Beauty&Light?
- If this Reality were comprehended by adultChristians into praxix,wow!
2. THE PSALM: 89:12-17 (What? A mere thimbleful?)
- Read 89(90): 1-17 A poignant exploration of the dicey&unguaranteed nature of human life, vis-a-vis the smokey&moody vindictiveness of Yahweh?
- But even nowadays, will the realisation of life’s iffiness actually achieve anything?
- In practice, how is the ‘anger’ & ‘favour’ of Yahweh concretely experienced?
- And is it possible if only for a moment, to deprecate all this grovelling?
- ‘Cos where are we, if we’re dependent on the vagaries of a moody satrap?
3. HEB4: 12-13
- So it’s only a sentence or two! But, listen like a hawk to this ‘word-of-god!’ If it’s a really-dangerous scalpel, who is wielding it? &On-whom? How well trained, if at all, are readers expounders secreters of It?
- If it can slip-through and insinuate, am I utterly too innocent about it?
- &If it’s judging even my unconscious, why amn’t I myself more in-there-too?
- This all-seeing (& possibly all-devouring) eye, must I forever endure?
- Has this writer inadvertently alerted me to an anomalous oppression? ‘Cos, if this ‘word-of-god & my-own-free-wholeness are incompatible!’
4. MARK10:17-30
- Eternal/TheKingdomOfGod/TheWorld ToCome!’ The long-awaited LivingOut of Yahweh’sPriorities that is beginning now in the Words&Actions of Jesus!
- Why&how do Riches&Wealth frustrate the ‘KingdomOfGod’ in this sense?
- Was the emphasis on SellingAll&LeavingEverything&Giving TheLotToThePoor only a vagary&aberration of ‘TheEarlyChurch? Or is it wa-wa now?
- Listen! All this defeatist stuff’s anti-initiative! & undermines TheCelticTiger!!
- Unless it’s meant to be spiritualised! Or done by martyrs like oul’ Talbot…?
- Why was I never told ‘KeepingAllTheCommandments’ was only ‘ThePassPaper?’
5. The presence&action of the BlessedOne, is it like this?
Shame! & somewhat frustrated Piety! & billows upon billows of purest Relief! My father heard about my botched conversion only this morning, & immediately lit up with rage! ‘Ha! Bad enough turning our home into another Temple! But then consorting with those itinerant madmen beyond Jezreel! What luck for my hard-won goods that your touch-of-Saul was speedily aborted by actually meeting yon witless Balaam!’ TheMaster’s burning words however shimmered in the memory! ‘GiveToThePoor!’ Oh! TheShame! ‘MoreThanTheDecalogue!’ Oh, thePiety! ‘FollowMe!’ Oh, TheRelief! My father ranted unabated unremembering his age, his dignity, his weakness! But I held my peace, as Azazel&Raphael wrestled in the dawning of realisation… Who will be punished for this, TheMaster or TheFather?
6. Riddle What is the one thing necessary? EmbraceWisdom? WieldTheWord? GiveAllToThePoor?
Refections and comments can be emailed to adbi@chokmah.ie