23 February 2027 · Syro-Malabar Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Latin Rite · Syro-Malankara Rite · മലയാളം
“So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall.” 1 Corinthians 10:12
Paul looks back at Israel in the desert and sees a mirror of the baptised. “Our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink.” He even says of the water from the rock: “the rock was Christ.” Every privilege was theirs, and yet “God was not pleased with most of them, and they were struck down in the wilderness.” They craved, they turned to idols, they tested God, they grumbled. Paul does not tell the story to frighten the Corinthians but to wake them: “These things happened to them to serve as an example, and they were written down to instruct us, on whom the ends of the ages have come.” We too have passed through the water of baptism and eat the spiritual food of the Holy Qurbana. These gifts do not make us safe if we stop watching. Hence the sober line: “So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall.” But Paul never leaves a warning without a promise: “No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.” In the third week of the fast, when we too are tempted to grumble in the desert, that promise is worth learning by heart.
In the Gospel Jesus points to the fig tree: when it puts out leaves, everyone knows summer is near. The signs of God's kingdom are just as plain for those who look. “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” Then comes a very practical warning: “Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day does not catch you unexpectedly, like a trap.” Three things make the heart heavy: too much pleasure, too much drink, too much worry. The Church in Kerala has long urged the faithful to keep the Great Fast free of alcohol, and many men who drink keep these fifty days dry; for some it has been the beginning of freedom. Jesus' last word is a programme for the whole fast: “Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.” The Latin calendar remembers today St Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna and disciple of the apostle John, who after eighty-six years of serving Christ refused to deny him and was put to death. He was able to stand at the end because he had watched and prayed all his life.
Theme: “So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall.”
Israel in the desert as a lesson for us, the faithfulness of God in temptation, and the watchfulness Jesus asks.
“For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. O that today you would listen to his voice! Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,” Psalm 95:7–8
“These things happened to them to serve as an example, and they were written down to instruct us, on whom the ends of the ages have come.” 1 Corinthians 10:11
Apply: Notice when you grumble today, and turn each complaint into a short prayer.
“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.” Isaiah 43:2
“No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.” 1 Corinthians 10:13
Apply: Decide now what your way out will be when your usual temptation comes.
“my soul waits for the LORD more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning.” Psalm 130:6
“Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”” Luke 21:36
Apply: Keep the fifty days free of alcohol, or of whatever most weighs your heart down.
The baptised are not safe because they once crossed the water, but because they keep watching.
God is faithful: watch, pray, and take the way out he provides.
Take-home resolution: Name your heaviest burden of pleasure, drink or worry, and give it up for the rest of the Great Fast.
Dear friends, Paul reminds us of Israel in the desert. They passed through the sea, they ate bread from heaven and drank from the rock, and the rock was Christ (1 Corinthians 10:4). Yet many of them fell, because they grumbled and turned away.
We too have been baptised and fed at the altar. These gifts are not a guarantee if we stop watching. So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall (1 Corinthians 10:12).
But Paul gives us comfort: God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, and with the testing he will provide the way out (1 Corinthians 10:13). There is always a way out, if we look for it.
Jesus warns us not to let our hearts be weighed down with too much pleasure, drink and worry. Be alert at all times, praying (Luke 21:36). Like St Polycarp, who served Christ for eighty-six years, may we watch and pray, and stand firm to the end. Amen.
Children, Jesus asks us to stay awake inside, like a watchman at night. When something wrong tempts you, remember: God always gives you a way out. Ask him for it!
Lord Jesus Christ, you are the rock that followed your people in the desert, and you feed us with spiritual food. Keep us from grumbling and from false security; do not let our hearts grow heavy with pleasure, drink or worry. When we are tested, show us the way out, and through the prayers of St Polycarp give us strength to stand before you at the end. Amen.
Two warnings, both from people who love their hearers. Paul tells Christians who feel secure in their baptism and their Eucharist that Israel, too, was blessed and yet fell in the desert. In Luke, Jesus teaches that the day of the Son of Man can come like a trap on a heart made heavy with pleasure or worry. Each warning ends in hope: God is faithful and gives a way out, and prayer gives the strength to stand. Watchfulness is the work of the Fast.
Setting.
Paul writes to Corinth from Ephesus (16:8) in the mid-50s. Chapters 8–10 deal with food offered to idols and with meals in pagan temples. Some Corinthians feel safe: they have “knowledge” (8:1), they are baptized, and they share the Lord’s table. Paul answers from the story of the Exodus: our ancestors had their gifts too, and that did not keep them from falling.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.” (10:4)
Israel drank water from the rock in Exodus 17 and Numbers 20. Later Jewish tradition told of a rock or well that travelled with the people, and Paul may be drawing on this. His claim is bolder: Christ was already there, giving life to his people in the desert.
“We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by serpents.” (10:9)
A note on the text: the ancient manuscripts differ here. Some read “Christ”, as the NRSV does; others read “the Lord”, as the Malayalam POC does. In v. 8, Paul’s “twenty-three thousand” differs from the twenty-four thousand of Numbers 25:9, perhaps quoted from memory. His lesson is the same in either case.
“So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall.” (10:12)
This is the centre of the passage. The danger is not only sin but the feeling of being beyond it.
“God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.” (10:13)
The last word belongs to God’s faithfulness. The way out is not always an escape: Paul says that it comes so that we may be able to endure.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism uses this chapter to show how the Church reads the Old Testament in the light of Christ: the crossing of the sea is a type of baptism (CCC 117), and the water from the rock is a figure of Christ’s spiritual gifts (CCC 1094). Its teaching on “lead us not into temptation” asks for this same vigilance (CCC 2846–2849). St Augustine, preaching on the Psalms, says that our pilgrimage cannot be without temptation, for we make progress through it, and no one knows himself unless he is tried (Expositions on the Psalms 60; in substance).
Setting.
These are the last words of the discourse that Jesus gives in the Temple (21:5–36), on the destruction of Jerusalem and the coming of the Son of Man. Many scholars think that Luke wrote after the city fell in AD 70, and his account distinguishes that event from the end of all things. After the frightening signs he has said, “your redemption is drawing near” (21:28). Now he tells his hearers how to live in the meantime.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” (21:33)
Isaiah said this of God’s word: “the word of our God will stand forever” (Isaiah 40:8). Jesus says it of his own.
“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life,” (21:34)
The danger is a sleepy heart more than a dramatic sin. This is why the Fast touches food, drink and the crowded mind.
“Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.” (21:36)
To stand is the opposite of being crushed and of falling. Prayer is what gives the strength, and to stand before him is the goal.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism counts this text among those where Jesus calls his hearers to watchfulness in prayer (CCC 2612). Since the Ascension, it says, Christ’s coming has been “imminent”, even though it is not for us to know the times (CCC 673). So each Holy Qurbana is offered in expectation: we proclaim the Lord’s death “until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26).
Was Jesus mistaken when he said “this generation will not pass away”?
The verse has been explained in more than one way. Some scholars take “generation” to be those who saw the fall of Jerusalem, one great sign of the things Jesus foretold. Others take it to mean humanity, or the people of faith, who will last to the end. Jesus himself says that no one but the Father knows the day or the hour (Mark 13:32), so he gives no date. The Church’s teaching on watchfulness does not depend on any one of these explanations.