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From: Colossians 3:12-21

Progress in the Spiritual Life

[12] Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness,
lowliness, meekness, and patience, [13] forbearing one another and, if one has a
complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so
you also must forgive. [14] And above all these put on love, which binds everything
together in perfect harmony. [15] And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to
which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. [16] Let the word
of Christ dwell in you richly, as you teach and admonish one another in all wisdom,
and as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your
hearts to God. [17] And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the
name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Morals in Family Life

[18] Wives, be subject to your husband as is fitting in the Lord. [19] Husbands,
love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. [20] Children, obey your parents
in everything, for this pleases the Lord. [21] Fathers, do not provoke your children,
lest they become discouraged.

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Commentary:

12-13. Putting on the new nature is not just an external action, like putting on
different clothes. It is a transfiguration involving the whole person — soul and body,
mind and will. This interior change begins to operate when one makes a firm re-
solution to lead a fully Christian life; but it calls for an on-going effort, day in day
out, to practice all the virtues. “Conversion is something momentary; sanctifica-
tion is the work of a lifetime. The divine seed of charity, which God has sown in
our souls, wants to grow, to express itself in action, to yield results which con-
tinually coincide with what God wants. Therefore, we must be ready to begin
again, to find again — in new situations — the light and the stimulus of our first
conversion” (St. J. Escriva, “Christ Is Passing By”, 58).

The virtues which the Apostle lists here as characteristic of the new man are all
expressions, in one way or another, of charity, which “binds everything together
in total harmony” (v. 14). Meekness, patience, forgiveness and gratefulness all
reflect an essential virtue — humility. Only a humble person can be forgiving and
truly appreciative, because only he realizes that everything he has comes from
God. This realization leads him to be understanding towards his neighbor, forgi-
ving him as often as needs be; by acting in this way he is proving the genuine-
ness of his faith and love.

See the note on Eph 4:20-24.

14. The comparison of the new nature to a new outfit is extended here by a furt-
her metaphor: charity is the belt which keeps everything together. Without it the
other virtues would fall apart: supernatural virtue could not survive (cf. 1 Cor 13:1-
3). St Francis de Sales uses simple examples to explain this truth: “Without ce-
ment and mortar, which knits the bricks together and strengthens the walls, the
entire building is bound to collapse; a human body would simply disintegrate un-
less it had nerves, muscles and tendons; and if charity were absent, virtues sim-
ply could not stay together” (St Francis de Sales, “Treatise on the Love of God”,
11, 9).

“Love, as the bond of perfection and fullness of the law (cf. Col 3:14; Rom 13:10),
governs, imbues, and perfects all the means of sanctification” (Vatican II, “Lumen
Gentium”, 42). Therefore, “if we want to achieve holiness — in spite of personal
shortcomings and miseries which will last as long as we live — we must make an
effort, with God’s grace, to practice charity, which is the fullness of the law and
the bond of perfection. Charity is not something abstract, it entails a real, com-
plete, self-giving to the service of God and all men — to the service of that God
who speaks to us in the silence of prayer and in the hubbub of the world and of
those people whose existence is interwoven with our own. By living charity —
Love — we live all the human and supernatural virtues required of a Christian” (St.
J. Escriva, “Conversations”, 62).

15. The “peace of Christ” is that which flows from the new order of grace which
he has established; grace gives man direct access to God and therefore to that
peace he so much yearns for. “Thou has made us for thyself and our hearts are
restless till they rest in thee” (St Augustine, “Confessions”, 1, 1). This is not a
peace the world can give (cf. Jn 14:27), because it is not a function of purely ma-
terial progress or well-being, nor does it derive from the sort of peace that should
obtain among nations. “Peace on earth, which men of every era have most eage-
rly yearned for, can be firmly established only if the order laid down by God is
dutifully observed” (Bl. John XXIII, “Pacem In Terris”, 1).

The peace of Christ, then, is “a peace that comes from knowing that our Father
God loves us, and that we are made one with Christ. It results from being under
the protection of the Virgin, our Lady, and assisted by St Joseph. This is the
great light that illuminates our lives. In the midst of difficulties and of our personal
failings, it encourages us to keep up our effort” (St. J. Escriva, “Christ Is Passing
By”, 22).

16. “The word of Christ”: the whole corpus of our Lord’s teachings, of which the
Apostles are accredited witnesses. This should be ever-present to the Christian’s
soul and “dwell...richly” in him, imbuing everything he does: the word of Christ is
the best nourishment of one’s life of prayer and an inexhaustible source of practi-
cal teaching; and it is to be found in the first instance in the books of the New
Testament. St John Chrysostom says that these writings “are teachers which
never cease to instruct us [...]. Open these books. What a treasury of good re-
medies they contain! [...]. All you need do is look at the book, read it and re-
member well the wise teachings therein. The source of all our evils is our igno-
rance of the sacred books” (”Hom. on Col, ad loc.”).

St Paul also reminds us that our appreciation should lead us to glorify the Lord
with songs of joy and gratitude. We can use ready-made hymns for this purpose,
and also the Psalms, which the Church has always used in its liturgy to praise
God and to nourish the spiritual life. “Just as the mouth savors good food, so
does the heart savor the Psalms” (St Bernard, “Sermons on the Song of Songs”,
7, 5).

See the note on Eph 5:19.

17. All genuinely human things can and should be sanctified (cf. 1 Cor 10:31),
by being done perfectly and for love of God.

The Second Vatican Council has recalled this teaching: “Lay people [...], while
meeting their human obligations in the ordinary conditions of life, should not se-
parate their union with Christ from their ordinary life; through the very performance
of their tasks, which are God’s will for them, they actually promote the growth of
their union with him. This is the path along which lay people must advance, fer-
vently, joyfully” (”Apostolicam Actuositatem”, 4).

This teaching was very much part of the message and life of the founder of Opus
Dei: “I assure you, my children, that when a Christian carries out with love the
most insignificant everyday action, that action overflows with the transcendence
of God. That is why I have told you repeatedly, and hammered away once and
again on the idea, that the Christian vocation consists in making heroic verse
out of the prose of each day. Heaven and earth seem to merge, my children, on
the horizon. But where they really meet is in your hearts, when you sanctify your
everyday lives” (”Conversations”, 116).

The Second Vatican Council also sees in this passage of Colossians a basis for
ecumenical dialogue with non-Catholics: “And if in moral matters there are many
Christians who do not always understand the Gospel in the same way as Catho-
lics, and do not admit the same solutions for the more difficult problems of mo-
dern society, they nevertheless want to cling to Christ’s word as the source of
Christian virtue and to obey the command of the Apostle: [Col 3:17 follows]”
(”Unitatis Redintegratio”, 23).

18-19. In the period when this epistle was written, especially in the East, women
were regarded as inferior to men. St Paul does not make a direct attack on the
customs of his time, but the way he focuses the question of the role of women
provides the elements of an answer to it. He identifies what a woman’s role in the
family should be: it is true that the husband has an important part to play, but the
wife also has a role to perform and one which is non-transferable. The wife is not
the husband’s slave: she is his equal in dignity and must be treated by him with
respect and sincere love. It is taken for granted that the family needs a center
of authority, and that this authority belongs to the husband, in accordance with
God’s design (cf. 1 Cor 11:3, 12-14). “The place and task of the father in and for
the family is of unique and irreplaceable importance [...]. In revealing and in re-
living on earth the very fatherhood of God (cf. Eph 3:15), a man is called upon to
ensure the harmonious and united development of all the members of the family”
(Bl. John Paul II, “Familiaris Consortio”, 25).

God gave Eve to Adam as his inseparable companion and complement (cf. Gen
2:18); she was therefore duty-bound to live in peace with him. Man and woman
have different, though complementary, roles in family life; they are equal in digni-
ty, by virtue of the fact that they are human persons: “The unity of marriage, dis-
tinctly recognized by our Lord, is made clear in the equal personal dignity which
must be accorded to man and woman in mutual and unreserved affection” (Vati-
can II, “Gaudium Et Spes”, 49).

Therefore, a husband should make a special effort to love and respect his wife:
“You are not her master”, writes Saint Ambrose, “but her husband; she was not
given to you to be your slave, but your wife [...]. Reciprocate her attentiveness
to you and be grateful to her for her love” (”Exameron”, 5, 7, 19 quoted in “Fami-
liaris Consortio”, 25).

See the note on Eph 5:22-24 and 5:25-33.

20-21. Children should obey their parents in everything, as God has commanded
(cf. Ex 20:12; Sir 3:8ff) — a commandment which shows that this is something
which is part of human nature. Obviously for a child’s obedience to “please the
Lord” it must not involve doing anything that is opposed to God’s will, for Jesus
taught that “he who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me”
(Mt 10:37).

For their part, parents must do everything they can to bring up their children well.
In every family there should be an “educational exchange between parents and
children (cf. Eph 6:1-4; Col 3:20f) in which each gives and receives. By means of
love, respect and obedience towards their parents, children offer their specific and
irreplaceable contribution to the construction of an authentically human and Chris-
tian family (cf. “Gaudium Et Spes”, 48). They will be aided in this if parents exer-
cise their unrenounceable authority as a true and proper ‘ministry’, that is, as a
service to the human and Christian well-being of their children, and in particular
as a service aimed at helping them acquire a truly responsible freedom” (”Fami-
liaris Consortio”, 21).

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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: Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23

The Flight Into Egypt

[13] Now when they (the Magi) had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord ap-
peared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the Child and His mother,
and flee to Egypt, and remain there till I tell you; for Herod is about to search for
the Child, to destroy Him.” [14] And he rose and took the Child and His mother
by night, and departed to Egypt, [15] and remained there until the death of Herod.
This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt have
I called My Son.”

The Return to Nazareth

[19] But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to
Joseph in Egypt, saying, [20] “Rise, take the child and his mother, and go to the
land of Israel, for those who sought the child’s life are dead.” [21] And he rose
and took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. [22] But when
he heard that Archelaus reigned over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was
afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream he withdrew to the district of Ga-
lilee. [23] And he went and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that what was spoken
by the prophets might be fulfilled, “He shall be called a Nazarene.”

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Commentary:

14. St. John Chrysostom, commenting on this passage, draws a particular at-
tention to Joseph’s faithfulness and obedience: “On hearing this, Joseph was not
scandalized, nor did he say, ‘This is hard to understand. You yourself told me not
long ago that He would save His people, and not He is not able to save even Him-
self. Indeed, we have to flee and undertake a journey and be away for a long time
...’. But he does not say any of these things, because Joseph is a faithful man.
Neither does he ask when they will be coming back, even though the angel had
left it open when he said ‘and remain there till I tell you.’ This does not hold him
back: on the contrary, he obeys, believes and endures all trials with joy” (”Hom.
on St. Matthew”, 8).

It is worth noting also how God’s way of dealing with His chosen ones contains
light and shade: they have to put up with intense sufferings side by side with
great joy: “It can be clearly seen that God, who is full of love for man, mixes plea-
sant things with unpleasant ones, as He did with all the Saints. He gives us nei-
ther dangers nor consolations in a continual way, but rather He makes the lives
of the just a mixture of both. This was what He did with Joseph” (ibid.).

15. The text of Hosea 11:1 speaks of a child who comes out of Egypt and is a
son of God. This refers in the first place to the people of Israel whom God brought
out of Egypt under Moses’ leadership. But this event was a symbol or prefigura-
tion of Jesus, the Head of the Church, the New People of God. It is in Him that
this prophecy is principally fulfilled. The sacred text gives a quotation from the
Old Testament in the light of its fulfillment in Jesus Christ. The Old Testament
achieves its full meaning in Christ, and, in the words of St. Paul, to read it with-
out keeping in mind Jesus is to have one’s face covered by a veil (cf. 2 Cor 3:12-
18),

22. History tells us that Archelaus was ambitious and cruel like his father. By
the time Joseph returned from Egypt, the new king was quite notorious.

“In the different circumstances of his life, St. Joseph never refuses to think, never
neglects his responsibilities. On the contrary, he puts his human experience at
the service of faith. When he returns from Egypt, learning ‘that Archelaus reigned
over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there.’ In other words,
he had learned to work within the Divine Plan. And to confirm that he was doing
the right thing, Joseph received an instruction to return to Galilee” St. J. Escriva,
“Christ Is Passing By”, 42).

23. Nazareth, where the Annunciation had taken place (Luke 1:26), was a tiny
and insignificant Palestinian village. It was located in Galilee, the most northerly
part of the country. The term “Nazarene” refers to Jesus’ geographic origin, but
His critics used it as term of abuse when He began His mission (John 1:46). E-
ven in the time of St. Paul the Jews tried to humiliate the Christians by calling
them Nazarenes (Acts 24:5). Many prophets predicted that the Messiah would
suffer poverty and contempt (Isaiah 52:2ff.; Jeremiah 11:19; Psalm 22), but the
words “He shall be called a Nazarene” are not to be found as such in any pro-
phetic text. They are, as St. Jerome points out, a summary of the prophets’ tea-
ching in a short and expressive phrase. However, St. Jerome himself (cf. “Comm.
on Isaiah”, 11:1) says that the name “Nazarene” fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah
11:1: Christ is the “shoot” (”nezer”, in Hebrew) of the entire race of Abraham
and David.

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