This year, the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time coincides with All Souls’ Day. The Gospel selection is taken from The Bread of Life Discourse in John 6. The liturgy for the day combines it with a passage from Wisdom and the letter to the Romans. The intent of the liturgy is that we commemorate in worthy manner the Church Suffering.
Relevant Links
Guide For Reading
The selection from John 6:37-40 is best understood within the context formed by vv. 35-50. Raymond Brown calls it the sapiential theme of the Bread of Life discourse. It is followed by the sacramental theme. This two-fold division reflects the two parts of the Mass, the liturgy of the Word and the liturgy of the Eucharist.1 The sapiential theme focuses on Jesus, the Word who, like the Torah, is real food to those who hear it. But the food that Jesus is nourishes for eternal life those whom the Father gives to Him.
- Make your sentence flow based on vv. 35-40 and mark the following
- the words “Father” and “the one who sent me”
- the verbs “come”, “see”, “believe”
- the phrase “eternal life” and “I will raise him up”
- See how the above words and phrases are related with the rest of the Bread of Life Discourse
- See also the following references in the Catechism of the Catholic Church
|
Comparing the Readings
The selection from Wisdom does not yet reflect the Christian belief in the “souls of the departed” although it already points to it. The passage considered in its historical background reflects the Jewish hope in the vindication of the just who suffers in the hands of the impious. To this latter, he may appear dead, but in reality — which is all that matters for the devotee — the just are “in the hands of God”. The phrase “yet is their hope full of immortality” echoes Job 19:25-27 as reflected in the LXX
For I know that he is eternal who is about to deliver me,
and to raise up upon the earth my skin that endures these sufferings:
for these things have been accomplished to me of the Lord;
which (things) I am conscious of in myself,
which mine eye has seen, and not another,
but all have been fulfilled to me in my bosom.
Christian reflection on the passage and others like 2 Maccabees 12 envisage the need to pray for those who have passed away. And we pray for them in the hope that we will be rejoined with them in God’s presence.
That hope is described in the letter of Paul to the Romans. It is a hope that does not disappoint because rooted in the resurrection of Christ.
Suggestions for the Lesson
In the footnotes of the article found here I have indicated some ways by which the Gospel selection can be integrated with the Rite for the Burial of the Dead. One would do well to reflect on these sample prayers.
The Sunday Thoughts for the 31st Sunday, some suggestions are also given for integrating the day’s liturgy with Pope Benedict XVI’s “Spe salvi” and the teaching about the Church Suffering.
If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit who dwells in you.
For the Lord himself will descend from heaven, with a cry of command, with the archangel's call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.
- Luke 24′s the Journey to Emmaus also reflects this two-fold division.↩
