Sep-5 Liturgical Study Twenty-third Sunday
Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary time In Biblical stories, like in literature, underdog accounts with fortune reversals satisfy our thirst for poetic justice. In today's 4 liturgical passages: Isaiah 35 alongside Psalm 146, James 1 and Mark 7: all depict dramatic reversals that heal and sustain. Psalm 146, like Isaiah 35, imagines God executing justice for the oppressed, feeding the hungry, setting prisoners free, opening blind eyes, and lifting those bowed down. Mark 7 depicts Jesus healing a man who was mute, and allowing his own eyes to be opened by a distressed foreign woman. James 2 counsels favouring the lowly over the influential, and commends deeds over pious sentiments. Reading 1 Isaiah 35:4-25 Underlying the dramatic imagery of divine action, hope proceeds not simply from God’s expected (Hebrew naqam) 'restorative justice', but from those the prophet seeks to inspire, from a small band of exiled Judeans who return to a war-torn land and recultivate it. Who throug...