for August 12
Wednesday of the Nineteenth Week of Ordinary Time

Ezekiel was a prophet during the Babylonian exile. Today’s first reading comes from his vision of the destruction of Jerusalem and presents it—as all the prophets of the time do—as God’s punishment on the Jews for their failure to follow the Mosaic Law and faithfully worship the Lord. Abominations (idol worship and immoral behavior) are being practiced in the city and God is abandoning his Temple, which would in fact eventually also be destroyed. However, God’s purpose is not to destroy his covenant with the people but to regenerate it. Those who descried the transgressions are to be spared. Though they will suffer from the judgment on their nation, they will ultimately return to rebuild their city, including the Temple. To that end, God’s emissary, “a man dressed in linen,” places a mysterious “mark of Thau” on their foreheads so the destroyers will know whom to save. 

Thau (or tav) is a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Why was this the mark used? No one knows. Its significance might be that it’s the last letter of the alphabet, thus denoting completeness of a process or the last people remaining. On the other hand, it is also the first letter of the Torah and so could refer to an obedience to the Law. Alternatively, it might refer to the shape of the letter, which at the time was formed like a cross (+). This symbol was used as a general distinguishing mark. Given the shape, some early Christian commentators saw it as prefiguring Jesus’s cross, which is clearly not the case. The important thing—common to all suggestions—is that the mark identifies those who continue to be faithful to the covenant, who themselves still identify as God’s people. The mark is a seal of their belonging to the Lord.

In the early church the seal was an image commonly used to denote belonging to Christ. But this sort of seal was not simply a mark. It was the kind used to secure letters and documents. Such a seal was carved and pressed into hot wax on the surface of the document or the edges enclosing the letter so it couldn’t be read without breaking the seal. It was important to press the seal all the way through the wax so that no one could scrape the impression away and pass it off as someone else’s or tamper with the contents. It was said that in the same way a Christian should be so sealed with Christ that no matter how deeply one probed him or her, the mark remained. Whatever the challenges, a Christian would remain true to their identity. This seal of Christ was displayed in the victims of the early persecutions.

But our fidelity is not just tested in the face of suffering. Jesus’s advice in today’s Gospel passage shows us a more central component of the seal that marks us as Christians. Jesus desires reconciliation and harmony, not punishment. Thus, a sin is to be addressed as discreetly as possible, first one-on-one, then in the presence of a trusted group, and then before the whole Church. It is only if the sinner still refuses to repent of his sin that the treatment changes. That’s because Jesus’s focus is less on the individual sinner and more on the wholeness of the community. A sinner disrupts the peace and unity of the community that the Eucharist is all about. If someone refuses all efforts to bring them back into union, they have broken with the communion of the members and are then to be treated like an outsider, as one who no longer belongs. For Jesus, the loving fidelity of the community expresses the glory of the Lord of which the psalm sings.
—Christine Szczepanowski

The readings can be found on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops website.