The Word for the 23 rd Sunday of Ordinary Time : Wisdom 9:13 -18b Psalm 90:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 14-17 Philemon 1:9-10, 12-17 Luke 14:25 -33 Our first reading comes from the book of Wisdom. As the name of the book suggests, this work falls into the category of Wisdom literature. Although the authors attribute this “wisdom” to King Solomon (970 BCE), the book, originally written in Greek, actually dates to some 50 years before Christ. Like last week’s first reading from Sirach (dating about 200 years before Christ), the book of Wisdom not only acts as an early catechism for the Jewish people, but speaks very powerfully to the early Christian community, in part because it addresses a persecuted minority. While the book of Wisdom is fairly clear in its teachings, there are times, as with this week’s passage, where we can get lost in the language of the text, and find it difficult to discern what it is trying to teach… so don’t get di...
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