Thursday

25th Week of Ordinary Time

(I) 1st Reading: Haggai 1:1-8

Rebuilding of the temple
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[1] In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of
the month, the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the
son of She-alti-el, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the
high priest, [2] "Thus says the Lord of hosts: This people say the time has not
yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord." [3] Then the word of the Lord came
by Haggai the prophet, [4] "Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your pa-
neled houses, while this house lies in ruins? [5] Now therefore thus says the
Lord of hosts: Consider how you have fared. [6] You have sown much, and har-
vested little; you eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have
your fill; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and he who earns wages
earns wages to put them into a bag with holes.

[7] "Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider how you have fared. [8] Go up to the
hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that
I may appear in my glory, says the Lord.

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Commentary: 

1:1. The text appears to be following the Persian calendar, which was based on
the lunar month, with regular adjustments to keep it in line with the solar year. 
The date mentioned here would be 29 April 520 BC. References to dates in 
Haggai can be checked against dates found in Chronicles, Ezra and Zechariah.

The prophecy is addressed to Zerubbabel and Joshua, the two senior admini-
strators, civil and religious (cf. Ezra 3:2, 8; 4:2, 3). Zerubbabel was a grandson
of Jehoiachin, the king exiled to Babylon (cf. 1 Chron 3:16-19). St Matthew (cf.
Mt 1:12-13) includes him among the ancestors of Jesus.

1:2-15. The first oracle includes the message communicated by Haggai (vv. 2-
11) and the positive response of his audience (vv. 12-15). The words of the pro-
phet are addressed to the leaders of the people mentioned in 1:1 and also to the 
"remnant" of the people (v. 14). In his oracle, the prophet plays with three ideas
-- "the time", the "house" and an invitation to "consider". The whole line of argu-
ment is based on what the people are saying: "the time has not come to rebuild
the house of the Lord" (v. 2). The prophet pokes fun at their saying this, given
that the time has come for them to build comfortable houses for themselves
and leave the temple rebuilding for later (the "House" of the Lord: vv. 2, 4, 8, 9).
Therefore, he twice (vv. 5, 9) invites them to consider the matter; they will find
that they have worked a lot but nothing has come of it (vv. 6, 9). This leads to
the conclusion of the message: the earth withholds its produce because the
people have shown such distrust in God; he is the Lord of nature; he can make
the land fruitful -- or barren.

This rallying of the people to get them to rebuild the temple may seem a minor
matter compared with the high moral tone found in the prophetical books gene-
rally. However, it derives from a profound faith: the people, whom God "created",
will never have a proper sense of their identity unless they can see God in their
midst. This idea comes across clearly in the middle of the oracle: "build the
house . . . that I may take pleasure in it and that I may appear in my glory" (v.
8). This should be read in the context of other biblical passages that assert how
good God is to reach down to his people: "For the Lord has chosen Zion; he 
has desired it for his habitation: 'This is my resting place for ever'" (Ps 132:13-
14). A logical consequence of this is that God should be offered the best that
we can give him, and that offering should also be seen in the beauty of church
decoration, for the arts, "by their very nature, are oriented towards the infinite
beauty of God which they attempt in some way to portray by the work of hu-
man hands; they achieve their purpose of redounding to God's praise and glory
in proportion as they are directed the more exclusively to the single aim of tur-
ning men's minds devoutly toward God" (Vatican II, Sacrosanctum Concilium,
122).

Verses 12-15 report the people's response. The text describes an interesting
chain of events: Haggai's listeners "obeyed" the oracle and were filled with fear
of the Lord (v. 12); God then hastens to comfort them, assuring them, as he 
always did the leaders of Israel, "I am with you" (v. 13; Gen 26:3; 31:3; Ex 4:12; 
Josh 1:5; etc.); and he encourages them to set out to work with a will (v. 14).
Twenty-four days have passed (v. 15; cf. v 1) since Haggai first addressed them,
but the Lord has achieved his objective. Drawing on her great experience of
friendship with God, St Teresa of Avila said something that would fit in here:
"Since he does not want to force our will, he takes whatever he is given; but he
does not give everything of himself until he sees that we have given everything
of ourselves to him" (Way of Perfection, 48, 4).


(II) 1st Reading: Ecclesiastes 1:2-11

All is Vanity
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[2] Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,
vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
[3] What does man gain by all the toil
at which he toils under the sun?
[4] A generation goes, and a generation comes,
but the earth remains for ever.
[5] The sun rises and the sun goes down.
and hastens to the place where it rises.
[6] The wind blows to the south, 
and goes round to the north;
round and round goes the wind,
and on its circuits the wind returns.
[7] All streams run to the sea,
but the sea is not full;
to the place where the streams flow,
there they flow again.
[8] All things are full of weariness; 
a man cannot utter it;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
nor the ear filled with hearing.
[9] What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done;
and there is nothing new under the sun.
[10] Is there a thing of which it is said,
“See, this is new”?
It has been already,
in the ages before us.
[11] There is no remembrance of former things, 
nor will there be any remembrance
of later things yet to happen
among those who come after.

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Commentary:

1:1-2. The book begins and ends with the same words: “Vanity of vanities…”
(v. 2; cf. 12:8). The phrase sums up wonderfully well the central idea of the book
and is the sacred author’s assessment of the things of the world and the fruits of
human endeavour, included among the latter being the acquisition of a superficial
type of knowledge or wisdom that is clearly at odds with what we know from ex-
perience. The Hebrew root of the word translated as “vanity” means something
like the “vapour”, “air”, and conveys the idea of something with no consistency to 
it, illusion, unreality. Some scholars link it to another root that means “fleeting”,
“evanescent”, in the sense of something that man cannot grasp, and that is cer-
tainly an aspect of what the author is saying throughout the book. “Vanity of
vanities” is the Hebrew form of the superlative, as in “Song of Songs”, On the
Preacher, Qoheleth, see the “Introduction”, p. 257, above.

When reading this book it is useful to bear in mind that the author is a Jewish
teacher, very familiar with the Law and the wisdom tradition of Israel, which, in
reaction to the arrival in Judea of various currents of Greek thought, was asking
itself very seriously about the validity of its own answers about the value of hu-
man actions and the rewards or punishments that applied to them; could it be
that the hedonistic ideas (which took no account of God) being put forward by
Greek philosophers in the squares and streets – could these have some validity?
The Preacher takes issue with both traditional wisdom and the Greeks. With a
great deal of common sense, he questions all these teachings (which were wide-
ly accepted) and concludes that they are approaching the subject in the wrong
way. It is not that he is skeptical about the human mind’s ability to know reality;
what he objects to is the failure of seekers after wisdom to go to the root of the
problem: “The book of Ecclesiastes explains that exactly things are made of,
and shows and makes clear to us the vanity of many of the things of the world,
so that we might come to understand that the passing things of this life are not
worth hungering for, and that we should not devote our attention to useless things
or fix our desires on any creating thing” (St. Basil, In principium Proverbiorum,
1).

1:3-6:12. The first part of the book is devoted to showing that the type of wisdom
man is bent on acquiring is of no use at all. To do this, it points out that if one
looks around, one gets the impression that everything in the world forms part of
one continuous cyclical movement in which one can never expect anything new
to happen: things that seem new are not new at all (1:3-11). It goes on to argue,
from experience, that the search for wisdom serves no purpose, for the wise man’s
lot remains unchanged, no matter what he learns (1:12-2:26). To compound his
argument, the Preacher goes on to report what he has seen – fraud and loneliness
. . . And from his observation of things around him, he draws a similar conclusion: 
this, too, is vanity and a waste of effort (3:1-4:16). That being so, in a series of
counsels (5:1-12) he expounds the key lesson of the book: “Do you fear God”
(5:7). In other words, if one does not take God into account, even riches bring
only evils (5:13-6:7). That being the case, what advantages does wisdom offer
(6:8-12)? In this way the teacher of Israel, using a rhetoric similar to that of his
Hellenist adversaries, composes a diatribe to show that the reasonable thing to
do is to put one’s trust in God, for all the wisdom of this world is in vain.

Both of these notions – true wisdom and the fear of God – will be perfected in
the New Testament message. True wisdom is in “Christ, in whom are had all
the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col 2:2-3). And the fear of God should
be understood as love, not servile fear, because God is our Father. That convic-
tion should govern what we do: “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts
out fear. For fear has to do with punishment and he who fears is not perfected
in love (1 Jn 4:18). 

1:3-11. In this splendid poem, which acts as a lead-in to his argument, the Prea-
cher shows that if the elements of nature with their sometimes tedious movement
change nothing in the established order of things, man likewise will change noth-
ing in his life despite all his strivings (vv. 3-8). According to the Greek teachers,
the entire cosmos was made up of four basic elements -- earth, fire, air and water.
And the Preacher shows that, in fact, earth, sun, wind and waters always retain
the same form despite all their movement. Noting, perhaps, the new ideas about
the nature of the world that found their way into Judea at that time, the teacher of
Israel takes pleasure in pointing out that things do not change, despite appearan-
ces to the contrary. The same holds for man: try as he may, he can find nothing
new (vv. 8-11). 

1,3-11. [이 책의 저자로 알려진] 코헬렛(Qoheleth, Preacher, 전도자)은, 자신의 논의
(argument) 쪽으로 한 개의 도입부(a lead-in)로서 역할을 하고 있는, 바로 이 커다란 
아름다움과 장려(壯麗)를 가진(splendid) 시(poem)에서, 때로는 지루한 움직임을 가지고 
있는 자연의 요소(the elements of nature)들이 사물들에 있어서의 [창조주 하느님에 의하여] 
제정된 질서/순서(the established order) 안에서 아무 것도 변경하지(change) 못한다면, 
사람(man)도 마찬가지로, 그의 분투(striving)에도 불구하고(제3-8절), 자신의 삶 안에서 
장차 아무 것도 변경하지 못할 것임을 보입니다/설명합니다(shows). 그리스의 선생
(teachers, 철학자)들에 따르면, 전체 우주(the entire cosmos)는, 다음과 같은, 네 개의 
기본 요소[즉, 4원소, the four elements]들로 구성되어 있었습니다: 흙(토, earth), 
불(화, fire), 바람(기, air) 그리고 물(수, water).(*) 그리고 코헬렛(Qoheleth, Preacher, 
전도자)은, 흙(토, earth), 태양(일, sun), 바람(기, wind), 그리고 물(수, water)은, 
그들의 움직임(movement) 모두에도 불구하고, 동일한 형태(form)를 항상 유지하고 있음을 
보입니다/설명합니다(shows). 아마도, 바로 그 시대에 이 세상의 자연(nature)에 관한 
새 관념(ideas)들이 유데아 지역(Judea) 안쪽으로 그들의 길을 발견하였음에 주목하면서, 
이스라엘의 이 선생[즉, 코헬렛]은, 사물들이, 비록 겉모습들은 그 반대로 보임에도 
불구하고, 변화하지(change) 않음을 지적함에 즐거움을 느낍니다. 사람(man)의 
경우에도 동일한 것이, 다음과 같이, 유지됩니다(holds): 그가 시도함에도 불구하고, 
그는 [하느님에 의하여 창조되지 않은] 새로운(new) 어떤 것도 전혀 발견할(find) 수 
없다(제8-11절). 

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(*) 번역자 주: 1583년부터 중국 본토에 선교사로 파견되었던 예수회 소속의 천주교 
신부들에 의하여 이들 4원소(the four elements)들과 이들의 움직임들에 관한 
그리스 철학이 16세기 초반에 "한문 문화권" 내에, 필자가 아는 한, 처음으로/최초로 
체계적으로 소개되었는데, 이에 대하여서는, 예를 들어, 다음의 주소에 접속하면 
읽을 수 있는, 1643년에 초간된 아담 샬 신부님(1592-1666년)의 한문본 저서인 
"주교연기"를 참조하라:
http://ch.catholic.or.kr/pundang/4/cb/1592-1666_아담_샬/1643_주교연기.htm 

특히, "주교연기"를 참조할 것을 필자가 권고하는 이유는, 당시의 중국 명나라 말기와 
청나라 초기에 역법에 대단히 밝아, "숭정역서"/"서양신법역서"/"시헌력"을 최종적으로 
완성하여, 중국 청나라의 역법으로 뿐만이 아니라, 1910년에 이르기까지 우리나라 
조선의 역법으로, 자리잡도록 제공한 분이, 바로 아담 샬 신부님(1592-1666년)이시기 
때문이다.
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Gospel Reading: Luke 9:7-9

Herod's Opinion of Jesus
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[7] Now Herod the tetrarch heard of all that was done, and he was perplexed,
because it was said by some that John had been raised from the dead, [8] by
some that Elijah had appeared, and by others that one of the old prophets had
risen. [9] Herod said, "John I beheaded; but who is this about whom I hear such
things?" And he sought to see Him.

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Commentary:

7-9. Except for the Sadducees, all Jews believed in the resurrection of the dead,
as revealed by God in Sacred Scripture (cf. Ezekiel 37:10; Daniel 12:2 and 2
Maccabees 7:9). It was also commonly believed by Jews at the time that Elijah
or some other prophet had to appear again (Deuteronomy 19:15). This may have
been why Herod began to think that perhaps John had come back to life (Mat-
thew 14:1-2 and Mark 6:14-16), particularly since Jesus worked miracles and
people thought this power was the prerogative of those who had risen from the
dead. And yet he was aware that Christ was working miracles even before John
died (cf. John 2:23); therefore, at first, he was disconcerted. Later, as the fame
of Christ's miracles spread, to have some sort of adequate explanation he deci-
ded, as the other Gospels tell us, that John must indeed have risen.
　

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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. We encourage readers to purchase
The Navarre Bible for personal study. See Scepter Publishers for details.

[참고: 이 파일은 저서명 "가톨릭 교회의 말씀 전례에 따른 성경공부 해설서"(엮은이: 소순태, 출판사: 가톨릭출판사)의 각주의 연장으로 마련되었습니다].