Daily Gospel Reflection – Monday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time
October 16, 2023
Monday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time
Gospel: Lk 11:29-32
While still more people gathered in the crowd, Jesus said to them,
"This generation is an evil generation;
it seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it,
except the sign of Jonah.
Just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites,
so will the Son of Man be to this generation.
At the judgment
the queen of the south will rise with the men of this generation
and she will condemn them,
because she came from the ends of the earth
to hear the wisdom of Solomon,
and there is something greater than Solomon here.
At the judgment the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation
and condemn it,
because at the preaching of Jonah they repented,
and there is something greater than Jonah here."
*United States Conference of Catholic
Bishop Robert Barron
Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus tells the crowd that no sign will be given except the sign of Jonah, a vague hint of his Resurrection. The Resurrection means that Jesus of Nazareth, who claimed throughout his public life to be speaking and acting in the very person of God, and who was brutally put to death by Roman executioners, rose bodily from the dead.
One implication of the Resurrection is that we have a real advocate in heaven. The biblical imagination on this score is not Greek—that is to say, not marked by sharp dualisms of matter and spirit. The great hope of Israel is not a jailbreak, not an escape from this world, but precisely the coming together of heaven and earth.
The bodily Resurrection of Jesus—as the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep—is the great sign that the two orders are coming together. A body that can be touched and that can consume baked fish has found its way into the realm of heaven. And thus bodies are not finally alien to God. We have indeed an advocate in the heavenly places.
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