HOPE: JOY BEHIND AND BEYOND TEARS
Catholic Homily / Sunday Reflection on the Liturgy
3 rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (C) January 24, 2010
“Preaching as an act of interpretation is in our time demanding, daring and dangerous.”
(M. Brueggemann)
A curious detail catches our attention as we reflect on the first reading. The people of Israel were then fresh from their bitter exile in Babylon. Ezra leads the whole community (take note: “men, women, and those children old enough to understand” ). One would reasonably expect people to be in a celebrative mood given the fact that the Lord made good His promise to deliver them from their Babylonian oppressors. But “the people were weeping as they heard the words of the law,” the passage from Nehemiah tells us!
Weeping and tears are two things our culture would rather not see in others nor show to others. Ordinarily, people feel uneasy seeing others cry. People feel odd to be seen c...