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From: Isaiah 50:4-9a

Third Song of the Servant of the Lord

[4] The Lord God has given me
the tongue of those who are taught;
that I may know how to sustain with a word
him that is weary.
Morning by morning he wakens,
he wakens my ear to hear as those who are taught.
[5] The Lord God has opened my ear,
and I was not rebellious,
I turned not backward.
[6] I gave my back to the smiters,
and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard;
I hid not my face from shame and spitting.

[7] For the Lord God helps me;
therefore I have not been confounded;
therefore I have set my face like a flint,
and I know that I shall not be put to shame;
[8] he who vindicates me is near.
Who will contend with me?
Let us stand up together.
Who is my adversary?
Let him come near me.
[9] Behold, the Lord God helps me;
who will declare me guilty?

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Commentary:

50:4-9. The second song dealt with the servant’s mission (cf. 49:6); the third song
focuses on the servant himself. The term “servant” as such does not appear here,
and therefore some commentators read the passage as being a description of a
prophet and not part of the songs. Still, the context (cf. 50:10) does suggest that
the protagonist is the servant. The poem is neatly constructed in three stanzas,
each beginning with the words, “The Lord God” (vv. 4, 5, 7), and it has a conclu-
sion containing that same wording (v. 9). The first stanza emphasizes the ser-
vant’s docility to the word of God; that is, he is not depicted as a self-taught tea-
cher with original ideas, but as an obedient disciple. The second (vv. 5-6) speaks
of the suffering that that docility has brought him, without his uttering a word of
complaint. The third (vv. 7-8) shows how determined the servant is: if he suffers
in silence, it is not out of cowardice but because God helps him and makes him
stronger than his persecutors. The conclusion (v. 9) is like the verdict of a trial:
when all is said and done, the servant will stand tall, and all his ene- mies will be
struck down.

The evangelists saw the words of this song as finding fulfillment in Jesus — es-
pecially what the song has to say about the suffering and silent fortitude of the
servant. The Gospel of John, for example, quotes Nicodemus’ acknowledgment
of Christ’s wisdom: “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God; for
no one can do these signs that you do, unless God is with him” (Jn 3:21). But
the description of the servant’s sufferings was the part that most impressed the
early Christians; that part of the song was recalled when they meditated on the
passion of Jesus and how “they spat in his face; and struck him; and some
slapped him” (Mt 26:67) and later how the Roman soldiers “spat upon him, and
took the reed and struck him on the head” (Mt 27:30; cf. also Mk 15:19; Jn 19:3).
St Paul refers to v. 9 when applying to Christ Jesus the role of intercessor on be-
half of the elect in the suit pressed constantly against them by the enemies of
the soul: “Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect?” (Rom 8:33).

St Jerome sees the servant’s docility as a reference to Christ: “His self-discipline
and wisdom enabled him to communicate to us the knowledge of the Father. And
he was obedient onto death, death on the cross; he offered his body to the blows
they struck, his shoulders to the lash; and though he was wounded on the chest
and on his face, he did not try to turn away and escape their violence” (”Commen-
tarii In Isaiam”, 50, 4). This passage is used in the liturgy of Palm Sunday (along
with Psalm 22 and St Paul’s hymn in the Letter to the Philippians 2:6-11), before
the reading of our Lord’s passion.

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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.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.

From: James 2:14-18

Faith Without Good Works Is Dead

[14] What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not
works? Can this faith save him? [15] If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack
of daily food, [16] and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and
filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit?
[17] So faith, by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

[18] But some one will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your
faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith. [19] You
believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder.

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Commentary:

14-26. This passage forms the core of the letter. The sapiential method (often
used in the Old Testament) and pedagogical style of the passage help to engrave
the message on the readers’ minds: unless faith is accompanied by works, it is
barren, dead. This basic message, with different variances, is stated up to five
times (verses 14, 17, 18, 20, 26), in a cyclical, repetitive way.

The initial rhetorical question (verse 14) and the simple, vivid example of a person
who is content with giving good advice to someone in urgent need of the bare es-
sentials (verses 15-16), catch the disciples’ attention and predispose them to ac-
cept the core message, which is couched in the form of a sapiential maxim
(verse 17).

The narrative retains its conventional tone, with a series of questions; we are
given three examples of faith: firstly (a negative example), the faith of demons,
which is of no avail (verses 18-19); contrasting with this, the faith of Abraham,
the model and father of believers (verses 20-23); and finally, the faith of a sinner
whose actions won her salvation, Rabah, the prostitute (verses 24-25). The last
sentence once again repeats the essential idea: “faith apart from works is dead”
(verse 26).

14. This teaching is perfectly in line with that of the Master: “Not every one who
says to Me, `Lord, Lord’, shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who does
the will of My Father who is in Heaven” (Matthew 7:21).

A faith without deeds cannot obtain salvation: “Even though incorporated into the
Church, one who does not however persevere in charity is not saved. He remains
indeed in the bosom of the Church, but `in body’ not `in heart’. All children of the
Church should nevertheless remember that their exalted condition results not
from their own merits but from the grace of Christ. If they fail to respond in
thought, word, and deed to that grace, not only shall they not be saved, but they
shall be the more severely judged” (Vatican II, “Lumen Gentium”, 14).

In the Christian life, therefore, there needs to be complete consistency between
the faith we profess and the deeds we do. “Unity of life”, one of the key features
of the spirituality of Opus Dei, tries to counter the danger of people leading a dou-
ble life, “on the one hand, an inner life, a life related to God; and on the other, as
something separate and distinct, their professional, social and family lives, made
up of small earthly realities [...]. There is only one life, made of flesh and spirit.
And it is that life which has to become, in both body and soul, holy and filled with
God: we discover the invisible God in the most visible and material things” (St. J.
Escriva, “In Love with the Church”, 52).

15-16. This very graphic example is similar to that in the First Letter of St. John:
“If any one has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his
heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?” (1 John 3:17); and the
conclusion is also along the same lines: “Little children, let us not love in word
or speech but in deed and in truth” (1 John 3:18). St. Paul gives the same tea-
ching: “the Kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power” (1 Corinthians
4:20). Actions, works, measure the genuineness of the Christian life; they show
whether our faith and charity are real.

Almsgiving, for example, so often praised and recommended in Scripture (cf.,
e.g., Deuteronomy 15:11; Tobias 4:7-11; Luke 12:33; Acts 9:36; 2 Corinthians 8:
9), is very often a duty. Christ “will count a kindness done or refused to the poor
as done or refused to Himself [...]. Whoever has received from the divine bounty
a large share of temporal blessings whether they be external or material, or gifts
of the mind, has received them for the purpose of using them for the perfecting
of his own nature, and, at the same time, that he may employ them, as the ste-
ward of God’s providence, for the benefit of others” (Leo XIII, “Rerum Novarum”,
24).

17. As well as involving firm adherence to revealed truth, faith must influence a
Christian’s ordinary life and be a standard against which he measures his con-
duct. When one’s works are not in accordance with one’s beliefs, then one’s
faith is dead.

Christian teaching also describes as “dead faith” the faith of a person in mortal
sin: because he is not in the grace of God he does not have charity, which is as
it were the soul of all the other virtues. “Faith without hope and charity neither
perfectly unites a man with Christ nor makes him a living member of His body.
Therefore it is said most truly that `faith apart from works is dead’ (James 2:17ff)
and useless” (Council of Trent, “De Iustificatione”, 7).

18. The Apostle makes it crystal clear that faith without work makes no sense at
all. “The truth of faith includes not only inner belief, but also outward profession,
which is expressed not only by declaration of one’s belief, but also by the actions
by which a person shows that he has faith” (St. Thomas, “Summa Theologiae”,
II-II, q. 124, a. 5).

*********************************************************************************************
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.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States. We encourage readers to purchase
The Navarre Bible for personal study. See Scepter Publishers for details.

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“Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.” — St Jerome

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Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (To the Greater Glory of God)

For: Sunday, September 13, 2015

24th Sunday in Ordinary Time