Twelfth Wednesday Ordinary Time (2 Kings 22:8-13; 23:1-3) “Liturgy Holds Us Together.”
Twelfth Wednesday Ordinary Time (2 Kings 22:8-13; 23:1-3) “Liturgy Holds Us Together.”
As we read through the stories concerning the Davidic Kings it is hard to keep all the players straight. It is hard because the Kingdom of Israel split in two after the time of King Solomon. The northern kingdom was called Israel. The southern kingdom was known as Judah.
The northern kingdom fell to the Assyrians. The southern kingdom of Judah was able to stay independent, at least for a while. A boy-king named Josiah managed to ascend to the thrown in the kingdom.
We read of Josiah again in this reading. He has grown into a man. Israel and Judah had a series of kings. A few were good, most were corrupt. Josiah was one of the good guys.
The people of Judah had fallen away from the one true God, the temple had been used to worship other Gods, so sacrilege had been committed. The episode we read today tells the story of the cleansing of the temple and the restoration of it and the worshiping of the God of Abraham.
A priest named Hilkiah finds a book in the temple. We can surmise it was a book about liturgy that had been lost when the temple fell into the hands of pagans. When Hilkiah reads the book, he realizes it is the key to restoring the original liturgy of the Hebrew people.
Josiah is told about the book, and being faithful to the one true God, he immediately moves toward restoring the liturgy to its original form. He goes so far as to have the liturgical book read to all the people.
We might wonder why all this was so important. We have liturgical controversies in our time. Is the Mass to be said in the Tridentine form or in the Mass of Paul the VI for example? Pope Francis has said that there should be one liturgy that is to be celebrated. Liturgy can unite or divide. As the old saying goes, “Everyone needs to be on the same page.”
Josiah realized this over two thousand years ago. When his subjects all worshiped with the same liturgy it united his kingdom and gave Judah new life.
Reflection Questions:
- Do I believe liturgy can unite the church? Have I heard from people who complain about the church’s rituals?
- How does ritual touch my life? Do I have a morning ritual that I follow so that I can get my day started off right?
Dear Parishioners,
We have our weekly construction meeting for our church addition today. There is good progress being made. The footings are going into the ground. Any construction has surprises that come up. Our hope is that these will be held to a minimum.
We hope to have a banister for the northwest door before long so those who have mobility issues can get into the church easier. The other bit of encouraging news is that the northwest door of the church could be available before the rest of the new building is finished. This means we could have another handicap entrance sooner than we thought. Asphalt work and concrete work could be done at the end of September. The building could be closed in, and insider work could be taking place.
Let’s keep asking for St. Damian to pray for the successful completion of our project.
Fr. Mark