Thursday of the First Week of Lent
(Francis of Rome Religious)
Wednesday, March 08, 2006

On Prayer
http://www.usccb.org/nab/030906.shtml

Reflection:

Today we continue our Lenten journey with another exhortation to prayer. This time we hear a rare piece of scripture from the book of Esther. She prays with power, asking God to save her. The Psalm response; "Lord, on the day I called for help, you answered me." stands as a precursor to the Gospel, telling us that when we ask for God's help, he answers.

In the Gospel from St. Mathew, Jesus reminds us of the tremendous difference between the way our Hebrew ancestors viewed their relationship with the Lord and how that changed when he came as the New Covenant. Notice how Esther prays, assuming she must be worthy of Gods answer as she says;

"As a child I used to hear from the books of my forefathers that you, O LORD, always free those who are pleasing to you."

Now compare that with what Jesus tells us;

"If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him."

Christ came to change our relationship with God. He brought God to us as Father, loving, tender, and merciful. His gift of grace is something we do not earn by doing something pleasing to him but rather as a mark, indelible, given at the time of our baptism.

During lent we focus on three areas of our lives to draw closer to God our Father, through his Son. These three are Prayer, Fasting, and Alms Giving. Today we are reminded the first of these is Prayer and we are told that if our prayer is just, God will answer. There is another, more subtle inference here about who is listening to prayer (Satan listens too), but we'll save that for another day. Pax

Rather thank pasting in the biography of the saint whose day we celebrate, I am giving you this link to the information: http://www.catholic-forum.com/Saints/saintf10.htm
(Teach a person to fish and you feed them forever...)

If you wish to comment and are not registered on Myspace, you can email me at miles_jj@excite.com and I will post your response as a comment. Thanks.

Instead of putting up the Jerome Biblical Commentary[1]citation for today's readings I thought I'd give you the introduction of the commentary on the Book of Esther. I do this because Esther is so rarely used as part of the lectionary and it is part of our canon.

Esther - Introduction

29 (I) Text and Canonicity. Est has been preserved in two substantially different forms: a Hebr text, assumed by most scholars to be original; and a Gk text (also existing in two rather divergent forms-LXX and Lucian), which freely translates the Hebrew and adds to it six large (deuterocanonical) sections. When Jerome translated this book, he lumped the Gk sections together at the end of his work. In this commentary, they are restored to their proper places, where they are designated by capital letters. The Gk numbering (11:2-12:26; 13:1-7; 13:8-14:19; 15:1-16; 16:1-27) is adopted in many translations. The Greek additions to Est are the "deuterocanonical" portions, and they were, as usual, questioned by Jerome. But they were finally recognized as canonical by the Council of Trent.
(II) Author, Place, and Date of Composition. Est was written by an unknown Jew, either in Susa (Persia) or in Palestine, during the period between the late 5th and late 2nd cents. BC. The Gk translation and additions were probably prepared shortly before 114 (cf. F:11 [11 :1]).
30 (III) Literary Form. On this point, scholarly opinion ranges from pure myth to strict history. Most critics, however, favor a middle course of historical elements with more or less generous literary embellish­ments (thus J. Schildenberger, H. Gunkel, O. Eissfeldt, A. Barucq). The Gk additions in particular appear to be essentially literary creations. That neither author intended to write strict history seems obvious from the historical inaccuracies, unusual coincidences, and other traits characteristic of folklore (all of which will be pointed out in the commentary). On the other hand, there is no compelling reason for denying the possibility of an undetermined historical nucleus, and the author's generally accurate picture of Persian life tends to support this possibility. Several details of Est suggest a fictitious story.
The very fact of variations between the Hebrew and the deuterocanonical additions shows the book was freely embellished in the course of its history. Then there are the many difficulties concerning Mordecai's age, and the wife of Xerxes (Amestris). Moreover, the artificial symmetry suggests fiction: Gentiles against Jews; Vashti as opposed to Esther; the hanging of Haman and the appointment of Mordecai as the vizier; the anti­Semitic pogrom and the slaying of the Gentiles. A law of contrasts is obviously at work. On the other hand, one cannot dispute the possibility of Jewish pogroms during the Persian period, and the story of Esther and Mordecai may have some basis in fact. As it stands, it has been developed very freely as the "festal legend" of a Feast of Purim, which is itself otherwise unknown to us.
31 (IV) Doctrine. The Hebr author underscores the dramatic deliverance of the Jews from the power of a great empire that found them guilty of nonconformity. He thus emphasizes the inviolability of God's people in history. This thesis is made the theme of the already existing Feast of Purim, which the author wishes to explain and support. his deliberate avoidance of any explicit references to God is the result, some say, of later editors who did not wish God's name to be associated with the decidedly profane Purim festivities. Others attribute the absence of overt religious references to religious persecution. The Gk translator-author extends the theme of divine providence to the cosmic and apocalyptic arena: God's people, misunderstood but loyal, will be rescued from the apparent hopelessness of a human history dominated by secular power.
32 (V) Outline. The Book of Esther may be outlined as follows:
(I) Prologue: Mordecai's Dream and His Loyalty (A:1-17[11:2-
12:6])
(II) Esther Replaces Queen Vashti (1 :1-2 :23)
(III) Haman Plots To Destroy the Jews (3:1-15; B:l­7[13 :1-7])
(IV) Esther and Mordecai Appeal to God (4:1-16; C:l­30[13 :8-4:19])
(V) Divine Deliverance Is Prepared (D:I-16[15:1-16]; 5 :1-16)
(VI) The Lots Are Reversed (6:1-8:12; E:I-24[16:1-24]; 8 :13-9:19)
(VII) The Feast of Purim (9:20-10:3)
(VIII) Epilogue: Interpretation of Mordecai's Dream (F:1-11[10:4-
11:1])

[1] All references to Jerome Biblical Commentary, Prentice Hall, Inc. 1968