Saturday, 5/21/16
If you look at the Table of Contents for the Old Testament,
you will see that the books fall into three categories. They were Historical books,
Prophetic books, or Wisdom books. I mention this to point out that in the New Testament
this Letter of James is the only Wisdom book.
Let me point out another oddity. We old timers who were raised
on basic Catholic teachings, were not familiar with the Bible except in cases
like this when the Letter of James mentioned calling in the priests to pray
over the sick person.
Turning to the Gospel, we Americans love children so much
that we are surprised that Jesus had to give the world this lesson on the need
to love children. However, it hasn’t been that way with older nations. Their
cultures were geared toward honoring old age. With us, a person in his fifties
finds it hard to land a job, but in Chinese tradition such a one was not yet a
full person.
I don’t know how it is now, but fifty years ago when I was
in Korea, the only birthday they celebrated was the sixtieth. One wasn’t seen to
be a complete person until then. So, the people thought it a strange thing when
I had a full funeral for a twenty-four year old girl.
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