Friday, 1/31/13
Our first reading
today tells such a full story that I am going to ask you to consider only the
passage’s opening clause.
The first reading
gives us the whole long story of how David had relations with the wife of
Uriah, going on then to covering up his sin by arranging for the death of Uriah.
Let’s leave that for another time, putting our attention now only on the
opening that spoke of “At the turn of the year when kings go out on campaign.”
In aancient
countries where all men were farmers, their field work called for their full attention
through the months when they prepared the land and planted the seed. Their
fields again required all their working days when the crops were ready for
harvest. But, in between those seasons there were a few months when, as the
Gospel tells us, God was taking over, giving growth to the seed. It was then
that they were free to follow their kings out on campaign.
In the early Middle
Ages there was one notable break in farming-fighting cycle. The Muslims had
taken over Spain, and were moving up into France, when Charles Martel
(Charlemagne’s grandfather) decided that the only way to save Europe for
Christianity was to train a year-round army. He fed his men on crops borrowed
from monasteries, while he drilled them to attack in disciplined phalanxes. With
them he drove the Muslims back at the Battle of Tours in 732.
That brought about
the birth of our standing army that take up more of our time and money than the
farming does.
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