Personal Notes
090719 Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, 107B
? 2009
Raymond J. Jirran
Readings
First Reading: Jeremiah 23:1-6
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 23:1-3, 3-4, 5, 6 (1)
Second Reading Ephesians 2:13-18
Alleluia John 10:27
Gospel: Mark 6:30-34
Commentary
The EWTN television program by Raymond Arroyo Sunday, May 24, 2009, intensified controversy in a disagreement among the bishops.[1] Arroyo embarrassed Bishop John M. D’Arcy. Arroyo insisted that the bishop discuss what penalty could and would be imposed on John J. Jenkins, C.S.C., the President of Notre Dame University. The reason Arroyo wanted the penalty was that Notre Dame awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree to the Democratic President, Barack Obama.
Arroyo pursues his own agenda. Arroyo acts like the Rush Limbaugh of the Catholic Church. In both Arroyo and Limbaugh, I miss love of the presence of God in our lives.
Arroyo mistakenly presents the contemporary week-by-week history of the Church as a history of scandal (for not meeting his personal sense of morality), rather than a history of the presence of the Holy Spirit among us. The readings for this Sunday are about the presence of the Spirit of God. The index for this Sunday contains a reference to Ephesians. The article is in Theological Studies and is described below the double line.
The article relates the Spirit in Ephesians to Isaac Newton (1643-1727) and Albert Einstein (1879-1955). When I used to explain the difference between Newton and Einstein to my students, I would say, “Newton said that whatever goes up has to come down; Einstein said that whatever goes up does not necessarily have to come down.” Newton considered the Spirit as that which held his universe together. Einstein also thought that a Spirit held his universe together in a rational order. Both Newton and Einstein redefined the latest interpretations of natural law.
Einstein did break the cause and effect assumptions that limited anticipating breaking the bounds of gravity for the space program. Cause and effect assumptions are fundamental both to theological and historical thinking. Recent theology avoids appealing to that relationship. The Faithful, then, may expect to do likewise.
In my former classroom, I thought I was doing well to understand that Newton was a theist, let alone that he constructed his theism on the Holy Spirit. Einstein also believed in a Spirit, with less of theological twist, in a type of pantheism. To include Ephesians, none of the three (Saint Paul, Newton, and Einstein) seemed to understand the three levels of abstraction found in Aristotle and Aquinas. The first level is qualitative reality. The second level abstracts from qualitative reality to quantitative reality. The third level abstracts from all qualities to consider being as being. God connects to everything through being. That “being” presence of God makes the presence of God possible for the Psalms.
The presence of God is fundamental to the Psalms and ought to be fundamental to any program on station EWTN. The presence of God is not necessarily some latest cockeyed notion of what now constitutes the natural law. Both the Books of Psalms and the New Testament, notions of the natural law notwithstanding, are about what happens to the righteous. The answer is that the righteous seek the presence of God.
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Annotated Bibliography
Material above the double line draws from material below the double line. Those uninterested in scholarly and tangential details should stop reading here. If they do, however, they may miss some interesting scholarly details.
Jeremiah 23:1-6
Jer 23:1-8
Daniel W. Ulrich, review of Joel Willitts, Matthew’s Messianic Shepherd-King: In Search of `The Lost Sheep of the House of Israel ’[2]
Willitts argues that Matthew models Jesus on the Good Shepherd of Jeremiah. The argument is unsuccessful.
Jer 23:1-6
Walter T. Wilson, review of Matthias Konradt, Israel , Kirche und die Volker im Matthausevangelium[3]
Konradt argues that the Church “understands itself not as the new Israel, but as the community to whom Jesus has entrusted the fulfillment of this mission [to Israel].” Wilson, the reviewer, is unimpressed with the scholarship.
Psalm 23:1-3, 3-4, 5, 6 (1 )
Codex Sinaiticus[4]
The continuing point of the exercise reaching into the original manuscripts is to accept some doubt and the resulting search for truth as part of Christian life. The Church chose Sacred Scripture from many competing original manuscripts. Development of the words of Sacred Scripture is an historical reality. These Notes try to include this reality as an act of humility against the self-righteousness pride required to lead a Christian life and the unacceptable non-academic dictates which cause interior conflicts within Christianity and the Catholic Church.
Since I have already checked this Psalm elsewhere and since there are no difficulties with the Greek elsewhere, I am taking some more about the significance of the Codex Sinaiticus from the web.[5]
By the middle of the fourth century there was wide but not complete agreement on which books should be considered authoritative for Christian communities. Codex Sinaiticus, one of the two earliest collections of such books, is essential for an understanding of the content and the arrangement of the Bible, as well as the uses made of it.
The Greek Septuagint in the Codex includes books not found in the Hebrew Bible and regarded in the Protestant tradition as apocryphal, such as 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, 1 & 4 Maccabees, Wisdom and Sirach. Appended to the New Testament are the Epistle of Barnabas and 'The Shepherd' of Hermas.
The idiosyncratic sequence of books is also remarkable: within the New Testament the Letter to the Hebrews is placed after Paul's Second Letter to the Thessalonians, and the Acts of the Apostles between the Pastoral and Catholic Epistles. The content and arrangement of the books in Codex Sinaiticus shed light on the history of the construction of the Christian Bible.
To return directly to the Sunday readings, Cycle B uses the Twenty-third Psalm only here; Cycle C does not use it; Cycle A uses it four times. Funeral Rites[6] uses it in four places: (1) Vigil for a Deceased Child; (2) Funerals for Adults, Responsorial 1, (3) Funerals for Baptized Children, Responsorial 1, and (4) Antiphons and Psalms 1. The Twenty-third Psalm is the famous Good Shepherd Psalm, available four times at Funerals,[7] as mentioned, and three times in Pastoral Care of the Sick.[8] My reason for capitalizing Twenty-Third is that psalm is the 22nd in the Codex.
Ps 23:1
Reed Lessing, review of Jerome F. D. Creach, The Destiny of the Righteous in the Psalms[9]
Creach successfully argues that the Psalms are about what happens to the righteous. This article is foundational for the comments above the double line. Lessing observes, “The righteous express their relationship with God most frequently by means of praise. … God makes it possible for the righteous to be near the deity through the divine gifts of David, Zion, and Torah.”
Ephesians 2:13-18
Eph 2:13-22
Richard J. Clifford, S.J., review of John Day (ed.), Temple and Worship in Biblical Israel[10]
This collection has an article on Ephesians 2:13-22., Larry J. Kreitzer, “The Messianic Man of Peace as Temple Builder: Solomonic Imagery in Ephesians 2:13-22” (pp. 484-512.)
Eph 2:18
John Paul Heil, "Ephesians 5:18b: `But Be Filled in the Spirit'"[11]
Ephesians is about the overflow of grace in the hearts of the Faithful, whether the far off Gentiles or the nearby believing Jews.
Eph 2:18
Wolfgang Vondey, “The Holy Spirit and the Physical Universe: The Impact of Scientific Paradigm Shifts on Contemporary Pneumatology” [12]
Vondey is a Pentecostal, with his degree from Marquette University, teaching at Regent University. His thoughts about Newton and Einstein are developed above the double line.
John 10:27
Mark 6:30-34
Mark 6:32-44
Harry Fleddermann, "`And He Wanted to Pass by Them’ (Mark 6:48C)”[13]
Fleddermann argues that after Jesus fed the five thousand, he expected the disciples to realize that he was God, but they did not. The First Testament uses to pass by to mean that humans cannot see God directly. That accounts for why Mark writes that Jesus meant to pass them by as he walked on the water.
Mark 6:30
Luis Sánchez-Navarro, review of R. E. Ederle, Discipulos y Apóstoles de Jesús: La relación entre los discipulos y los Doce según Marcos[14]
The basic argument is that disciples follow Jesus, but Apostles not only follow Jesus but are also sent out to preach the Gospel. All, both disciples and Apostles, are missionaries. The difference is that for disciples, “mission is a consequence of following Jesus and not their primordial purpose (p. 323).”
Mark 6:30-32
Dino Dozzi, "`Thus Says the Lord' The Gospel in the Writings of Saint Francis"[15]
I saw where Dozzi recognized this passage as one setting up the mission of the Faithful, but I did not find where Saint Francis used this passage in his First Rule. This passage, calling for a vacation on the part of the missionaries, seems to be in the gentle spirit of Francis.
For more on sources see the Appendix file. Personal Notes are on the web site at www.western-civilization.com/CBQ/Personal%20Notes
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[1] Raymond Arroyo, the Encore Presentation on ETWN, “The World Over,” Sunday, May 24, 2009. I do not own the technology required to record this program, and accept the risk associated therewith.
the Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Vol. 71, No. 2 (April 2009) 425.
[3] the Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Vol. 70, No. 2 (April 2008), 836.
[4] ex-sinaiticus.net/en/manuscript.aspx?book=26&chapter=22&inputControl=420&lid=en&side=r&zoomSlider=0 (accessed August 17, 2008). Psalm 22 in the Lectionary is Psalm 21 in the Codex.
[5] ex-sinaiticus.net/en/codex/significance.aspx (accessed May 24, 2009). This paragraph picks up where 035b 5th Sunday in Lent_a Catholic Bible study 090329.doc leaves off.
[6] International Commission on English in the Liturgy: A Joint Commission of Catholic Bishops’ Conferences, The Roman Ritual: Revised by Decree of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council and published by Authority of Pope Paul IV: Order of Christian Funerals: Including Appendix 2: Cremation: Approved for use in the Dioceses of the United States of America by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and Confirmed by the Apostolic See (New Jersey: Catholic Book Publishing Co., 1998)
[7] N.a., International Commission on English in the Liturgy: A Joint Commission of Catholic Bishops’ Conferences, The Roman Ritual: Revised by Decree of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council and published by Authority of Pope Paul IV: Order of Christian Funerals: Including Appendix 2: Cremation: Approved for use in the Dioceses of the United States of America by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and Confirmed by the Apostolic See (New Jersey: Catholic Book Publishing Co., 1998) 143, 223, 253, 267.
[8] The Roman Ritual: Revised by Decree of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council and Published by Authority of Pope Paul VI: Pastoral Care of the Sick: Rites of Anointing and Viaticum: Approved for use in the dioceses of the United States of America by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and Confirmed by the Apostolic See: Prepared by International Commission on English in the Liturgy: a Joint Commission of Catholic Bishops’ Conferences (New York: Catholic Book Publishing Co. 1983) 171, 188, 323.
[9] the Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Vol. 71, No. 2 (April 2009) 366.
[10] the Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Vol. 68, No. 3 (July 2006) 566.
[11] the Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Vol. 69, No. 3 (July 2007) 511-516.
[12] Theological Studies, Vol. 70, No. 1 (March 2009) 33.
[13] the Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Vol. 45, No. 3 (July 1983) 3 389.
the Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Vol. 71, No. 1 (January 2009) 165.
[15] Greyfriars Review, Vol. 18, Supplement (2004) 66.