Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (To the Greater Glory of God)
For: Saturday, September 24, 2011
25th Week in Ordinary Time
Optional Memorial: Our Lady’s Saturday
From: Zechariah 2:1-5, 10-11a (RSVCE; NAB = 2:5-9, 14-15a)
Third vision: the measurer
[10] Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion; for lo, I come and I will dwell in the
midst of you, says the Lord. [11a] And many nations shall join themselves to
the Lord in that day, and shall be my people; and I will dwell in the midst of you.
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Commentary:
2:1-13. What the prophet now sees and hears concerns the city of Jerusalem.
It is going to be remodeled as an open city, without walls; its defense will be
provided by God himself and therefore more people will be able to live there. The
man with the measuring line is an angel, as are the other two figures mentioned.
The idea of measuring the city in order to rebuild it is also found in Ezekiel 40-42
and Jeremiah 31:38-40 and, later, Revelation 11:1.
The vision is followed by an oracle (vv. 6-10) in which the Lord speaks through
the angel. He invites the Jews to leave Babylon and return to the holy land. This
is a call that is also found in Isaiah and Jeremiah (cf. Is 48:20; Jer 50:8; 51:6). It
could be that some were reluctant to move. God promises that in Judah they will
be safe from other nations because they are his beloved people, the “apple of his
eye” (v. 8), and his angel will defend them. Moreover, he will settle there, and
many nations will become his people (vv. 10-11).
Presence of the Lord, security against enemies and a way for the nations to be-
come people of God — these are the features that Judah and Jerusalem will have
following the return from exile. In this sense, they prefigure the Church. Com-
menting on v. 4, St Jerome points out: “Reading in a spiritual sense, all of these
things are to he found in the Church, which is “without walls”, or, as the Septua-
gint puts it, “katakarpos”; that is, filled with an abundance of fruit and a great
multitude of men and asses [...]. The men and the asses [cattle, animals] stand
for the two peoples, the Jews and the Gentiles; those who came to faith in Christ
through the fulfillment of the Law are called men; we, however, who were idola-
trous and lived as though in a wilderness, being far from the Law, and alone, be-
cause of our distance from the prophets who suffered, are the asses [...j. But
these animals hear the voice of the good shepherd, and know him, and they fol-
low him” (”Commentarii in Zachariam”, 2, 4).
2:10. This call for rejoicing, similar to that made by the prophet Zephaniah (cf.
Zeph 3:14) and one made later (9:9), is repeated in the angel Gabriel’s greeting
to the Blessed Virgin when he tells her that she is to conceive the Messiah (cf.
Lk 1:28). That event will truly bring about what is said here, for Mary is “the mo-
ther of him in whom ‘the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily’ (Col 2:9)” (Cate-
chism of the Catholic Church, 722). Bl. John Paul II sees Mary, the Mother of
the Redeemer, prefigured in the title “daughter of Zion” found here: “Her presence
in the midst of Israel — a presence so discreet as to pass almost unnoticed by
the eyes of her contemporaries — shone very clearly before the Eternal One, who
had associated this hidden ‘daughter of Sion’ (cf. Zeph 3:14: Zeph 2:10) with the
plan of salvation embracing the whole history of humanity” (”Redemptoris Mater,
3).
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (To the Greater Glory of God)
For: Saturday, September 24, 2011
25th Week in Ordinary Time
Optional Memorial: Our Lady’s Saturday
From: Luke 9:43b-45
Second Prophecy of the Passion
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Commentary:
44. Christ predicts His passion and death a number of times. Initially He does
so in veiled terms (John 2:19; Luke 5:35) to the crowd; and later, much more
explicitly, to His disciples (Luke 9:22), though they fail to understand His words,
not because what He says is not clear, but because they do not have the right
dispositions. St. John Chrysostom comments: “Let no one be scandalized by
this imperfection in the Apostles; for the Cross had not yet been reached nor
the grace of the Spirit given” (”Hom. on St. Matthew”, 65).
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.