Reflections
Sacred Scripture: Essential to our daily spiritual diet Readings Between the Lines Father Glenn LeCompte
“The Third Sunday in Ordinary Time is to be devoted to the celebration, study and dissemination of the word of God,” says Pope Francis in his Sept. 30, 2019, apostolic letter, Aperuit Illis. This year the Sunday of the Word of God is January 23. Pope Francis highlights the importance of God’s word in our lives. St. Jerome, on whose feast day Pope Francis promulgated Aperuit Illis, once said “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.” The Sunday of the Word of God is a day for us to appreciate more deeply the importance of the Liturgy of the Word (the first part of Mass) and the role of Sacred Scripture in providing guidance for daily Christian living. This year, the Scriptures on the Third Sunday of Ordinary Time lend themselves quite well to a more intense consideration of the importance of God’s word in our lives. The first reading is from a biblical book, Nehemiah, from which we read only once in the three cycles of the Sunday Scriptures. I recommend that you read the reading before continuing to read this article. The scene depicted in the reading is historically situated in either the mid5th or very early 4th century B.C. The people of Israel, now known as “Jews” or “Judeans” have been back in their homeland for a significant amount of time since the Babylonian Exile ended in 539 B.C. The local governor of the sub-province of Judea, Nehemiah was under the regional governor (satrap), who in turn was the representative of the king of the Persian Empire. Ezra, the reading’s central figure, was a priest and “scribe of the law of the God of heaven” (Ezra 7:10). Thus,
“he was a sort of secretary for Jewish affairs, empowered (Ezra 7:12-26) by Persian authorities to teach and enforce the law among the Jews in the province “‘Beyond the River’” (A.G. Wright, S.S., R.E. Murphy, O. Carm., J.A. Fitzmyer, S.J., “A History of Israel,” in New Jerome Biblical Commentary, p. 1238). The scene depicted in the reading is that of a liturgical assembly of Jews to hear a reading of “the book of the Law of Moses,” which could refer to what we know as the first five books of the Christian Bible, or a portion of it. With the people of Israel captive in Babylon (587-539 B.C.) and the Temple in Jerusalem having been destroyed, the codification of Israel’s religious laws became important. Jewish priests during the exile collected various legal codes from Israel’s history and codified many of the worship laws, as well as some moral laws. The efforts of the exilic priests were very important because they preserved the essence of Judaism in a time when its existence was threatened. Once the exiles returned to Palestine, Cyrus, the Persian king who liberated the Jews, ordered that the Temple be rebuilt, and the second Temple was completed ca. 515 B.C. Although sacrifice could again be practiced, the Israelite legal traditions collected by the priests shared prominence with the sacrificial system.
14 • Bayou Catholic • Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux • January 2022
Several details in the reading underscore the importance of the Law from which Ezra reads. A stand, which Ezra ceremoniously mounts to do the reading, is built specially for the occasion (8:4). Before reading, Ezra holds the scroll of the Law for all to see (8:5), and the people reverentially dispose themselves to hear the reading by declaring “Amen! Amen!” and bowing before the Lord with their faces to the ground (8:6). The audience is significant: “The whole people” (Nehemiah 8:1), “the men, the women, and those children old enough to understand,” who listen attentively as Ezra reads at length, for half of a day (8:3). The people’s response likewise indicates the magnitude of the text from which Ezra reads. They weep when they hear the words of the Law (8:9). The reason they do so is most likely that they realize that it was the failure to heed God’s word that led to Israel’s exile and near annihilation as a people in Babylon. Nevertheless, the people are urged not to weep, but rather to return home and indulge in a feast of rich food and drink, not forgetting those who do not have the means to do so (8:910). They are told to celebrate because their focus should be on the fact that their very presence in their homeland is evidence of God’s mercy shown them as a people, despite their
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