2019 12 17 Reflection 730 (Fr. Rajen Lakra OP on Mt. 1:1-17)

Like us on facebook at   / dominicanministriesgoa   write to us: [email protected] Website: www.dominicans.in Today we have the reading of genealogy from St. Mathew’s Gospel. Various messages can be drawn from this particular passage. However, I will talk about it from the perspective that Jesus had come to the world to save; not just one particular group of people, but whole of the human race. If we glance through Luke’s genealogy account, not a single woman’s name is mentioned there. However, Matthew’s genealogy mentions four women besides Mary. Tamar, Ruth, Rahab, and Bathsheba. Tamar is identified by Matthew as the woman through whom Judah the son of Jacob generated Perez and Zerah. Rahab is identified as the woman with whom Salmon fathered Boaz the father of Jesse who subsequently fathered David. Ruth is mentioned in the genealogy as the woman with whom Boaz the son of Rahab fathered Obed the father of Jesse. Matthew identifies the woman with whom David fathered Solomon as ‘the wife of Uriah’. He does not give her name but the woman known in the Old Testament as the wife of Uriah and mother of Solomon is called Bathsheba (2 Sam 11:3 & 12:24). A question can be raised here, why Mathew mentions these names? There are various reasons that can be developed here, and three important reasons can be: 1. Firstly, all four women except Mary; Tamar, Ruth, Rahab, and Bathsheba were gentiles. Thus, Matthew wants to show that God’s plan of salvation includes gentiles from the very beginning. 2. Secondly, there was something extraordinary about their union with their partners. 3. Lastly, these women played an important role in God’s plan and became instruments of God’s providence. Through this Matthew probably wants to show, that God wants all to be saved. The women that are mentioned here from the Old Testament were not as pure as Mary but Matthew wants to show that how God can take this combination of scandalous and irregular union and with divine intervention can become a channel of grace towards others. John Henry Newman said: to live is to change and to be perfect is to have changed often. The season of Advent is a call to be perfect rather than just living. Thus one can become perfect by becoming instruments of grace towards others so that not only we are saved but the entire human race. Amen.