The Catholic Calendar
and Daily Meditation
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Thursday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
St. Elizabeth of Hungary, religious
Scripture from today's Liturgy of the Word:
http://new.usccb.org/bible/readings/111711.cfm
1 Maccabees 2:15-29
Psalm 50:1b-2, 5-6, 14-15
Luke 19:41-44
A reflection on today's Sacred Scripture:
Mattathias was a respected leader of his people, a man of zeal and courage.
In today's first reading, Mattathias shows true heroism in choosing to live his faith. When the king's officers try to entice him to sacrifice to false idols and abandon his religious beliefs, Mattathias adamantly refuses. Speaking for himself and for his family, he answers, "We . . . will not . . . depart from our religion in the slightest degree" (1 Maccabees 2:22). Next, Mattathias sees a fellow Jew who did cave in to the King's pressure and, in a fit of righteous anger and zeal, he springs upon the man and kills him. Mattathias kills the king's messenger as well. After that, he rallies his family and like-minded Jews and they flee into the desert to live, leaving all their worldly possessions behind.
Wow - talk about drama!
If you were faced with a similar situation, what would you do?
Our choices may be less clear-cut, in a culture that is often insidious in its encroachment upon our Christian values and way of life. Like the proverbial "frog in the kettle," secularism, materialism, greed, and attacks on human life may sometimes be hard to recognize, yet they are just as dangerous to our faith as Mattathias' foes were to his.
O Lord,
Are there ways that my faith is being gradually eroded and threatened?
Show me today the dangers to my precious faith in You, and give me the wisdom and courage to deal with them.
Amen.
::: Mary Nadeau | marynadeau(at)verizon(dot)net