THIRTY-FIRST SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Year A

Readings

First Reading
Mal 1:14b—2:2b, 8–10

Responsorial Psalm
Ps 131:1, 2, 3

Second Reading
1 Thes 2:7b–9, 13

Gospel
Mt 23:1–12

Meditation on Today’s Readings

Taken from the Vatican II Sunday and Weekday Missal
Written by Celia Sirois

Both Malachi and Jesus in today’s readings concern themselves with abuses of power and privilege among the leaders of their respective communities. In Malachi, the priests are condemned for failing to live up to the priestly ideal, the “covenant of Levi,” causing the people to falter by their teaching. The last verse invokes the Sinai covenant, which constituted Israel as one family with one Father, as the basis for both priests and people to act with integrity toward one another. In the Gospel Jesus cautions his followers against the honorific titles and trappings used by religious leaders, mainly priests in his day, but “scribes and Pharisees” by Matthew’s time. It is not religious authority that Jesus condemns but its abuse as a means of self-promotion.

Paul suggests an interesting alternative to Jesus’ “Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven,” when he calls himself “a nursing mother” as regards the Thessalonians. In this way, he evokes the power of the parental image but avoids the privilege that fatherhood claimed in a patriarchal world.

The copyright for the Sunday Missal Introductions is:
Copyright (c) 2001, Daughters of St. Paul
The copyright for the Weekday Missal Introduction is:
Copyright (c) 2002, Daughters of St. Paul