Word of the Week

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Hear: Shema (Hb.): meaning “listen”, or “hear and to accept”

The word “hear” is not found explicitly in the Catechism, but there are numerous paragraphs that contain the word ‘hear’ drawing us into the deeper sense of what the word shema represents. Most of these paragraphs deal with prayer, notably contemplative prayer. “Contemplative prayer is hearing the Word of God” (CCC 2716). It is a participation in Christ’s own obedience of faith (cf. Rom.1:5) in his loving commitment to the Father and the “Fiat of God’s lowly handmaid” (CCC 2716, 2718). Contemplative prayer is a simple gaze of faith (2724).

The Hebrew term, shema, can be found two times in Sacred Scripture: 1 in the Old Testament and 1 in the New Testament.  The term shema, meaning ‘hear’, is collectively synonymous with the passage “Hear, O’Israel, the Lord our God is one” (Deut.6:4), which accounts for the summary or creed of the Israelite faith in the one God of the universe.  In Israelite antiquity, this confession of faith was prayed twice a day commemorating the law of the Ten Commandments. The lone NT usage of ‘hear’, in this context, can be found in the Gospel of Mark as the precursor to Christ’s beginning exhortation in the promulgation of the two great commandments: “Love your God with your whole heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Mk.12:30) and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mk.12:31). These two injunctions together are the transformative underpinning in the NT to the 613 mosaic laws rooted in the Ten Commandments of the OT (cf. Mt.22:37; Lk.10;27) (Hahn and Minch, 41). Furthermore, there are two additional illusions or reworkings to the shema in the NT. Christ, in his response to whether or not he is the anointed one responds “I and the Father are one” (Jn.10:30). Lastly, Paul reshapes the wording of the shema creed in his letter to Corinth: "yet for us there is one God, the Father, from who are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through who are all things and through whom we exist" (1 Cor.8:6).

The Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time affords us an opportunity to examine the two great commandments of love in light of faith. Recall that the Israelite shema is an expression of faith. Furthermore, consider that this involves acceptance (see opening definition). Acceptance is a point of conversion that involves both submission and humility. Moreover, it is an expression of faith that is not a sign of weakness, rather a sign of strength. A strength that is rooted in the obedience of faith (Rom.1:5). Obedience in its Latin root means, “to listen”. In addition, to this need to hear (as spoken to above); we must also acquire that habit of listening in our time of prayer, our time of contemplation. Thus, it could be said, that our expression of faith, which is relational, is caught up in the hearing and listening to Christ, who is the perfect model and teacher of these two great commandments.

Primary Texts Consulted

•  Catholic Bible. Suggested trans. Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition.
•  Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd Edition, 1997.
•  Hahn, Scott and Minch , Curtis. Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: The Gospel of Mark , RSV, 2nd ed. San Francisco : Ignatius Press, 2001.

 

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