Rejoice in Hope

Homily for Tuesday of the Thirty-First Week In Ordinary Time

If you ever taught language arts on the elementary school level, I’m sure that you could name the four different types of sentences. There is the declaration, the question, the command, and the exclamation. A command is a sentence in which the subject of the sentence is usually understood and unstated. The text from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans which we proclaim today contains no fewer than 19 commands. 17 of these commands are expressed positively; two are expressed negatively.

In preparing this particular homily, I used a method called “Lectio Divina.” This method suggests that as we read a passage from Scripture, we should keep our ear tuned to a word or phrase that jumps out at us or otherwise attracts us. In this particular instance, I focused my attention on the line that reads “Rejoice in hope.” As I read these words, my memory shifted back to 1975 when I celebrated a Mass of Thanksgiving after my ordination. The parish choir prepared a special hymn to be sung during the communion rite of the Mass. “Rejoice in hope” was the title of that hymn.

However, after sitting with the phrase for some time, I realized that the end of each liturgical year holds up the theological virtue of hope as a hallmark for this season. For instance, the Gospel text for this particular Tuesday presents us with the story of a man who gives a great banquet and invites his friends and neighbors to sit at table with him. The image of a banquet points our minds in the direction of the heavenly banquet which we all hope to attend in heaven. God has invited us to come to the table where there will be no more hunger nor thirst.

No matter which of the 19 commands catches your attention, I am sure that spending some time in prayer with that word or phrase will lead you to the consideration of where you find yourself at this time of life. We could gain some benefit by using one or more of these lines as a mantra as we go through the day.

Until the day when we find ourselves at the banquet table of heaven, we know that we have the Eucharistic table to sustain us on our pilgrimage to heaven.