August 28, 2022 Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Welcome Father Martin Today’s Readings: Sir 3:17-18, 20, 28-29 | Heb 12:18-19, 22-24a | Lk 14:1, 7-14

„For one day in your halls is better than a thousand others.“ - Men desire a thousand days, a long life. But they should rather despise that and long for the one day that knows no morning and no evening, the one day, the eternal day, to which the previous one does not have to give way and which the next one does not replace. Let us long for this one day. What do we have to do with the thousand days? We move forward from the thousand days to the one day, just as we move with the many powers towards the one power.

“I would rather be the last to dwell in the house of God than in the tents of the wicked.” - He who sings thus has reached the valley of tears; he has reached the lowliness from which one can rise. He knows: he who wants to rise will fall, he who humbles himself will be exalted. He wants to be the last to ascend. But how many want to ascend outside this tent, outside the winepress of the Lord, that is, outside the Catholic Church. They love only their own honour, they do not want to know the truth. If only they had this verse in their hearts: “I would rather be the last to dwell in the house of God than in the tents of the wicked”! they would then reject all honour and hasten to the valley of tears. There they could begin the ascent in their hearts and thus move forward with renewed strength. This is a good word, a word that brings joy, a word to choose: “I would rather be the last to dwell in the house of God than in the tents of the wicked.” He wants to be the last in the house of the Lord. But when he chooses the last place, he who invites to the banquet calls him to a higher place and says to him, “Move up higher!” This guest only wants to be in the house of God, no matter in which place, the main thing is that he does not stay outside the door.

Source: St. Augustine’s commentary on Psalm 83 Image: ESUS MAFA. The poor invited to the feast, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48397 [retrieved August 27, 2022]. Original source: http://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr (contact page: https://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr/contact).