Thursday in the 10th Week of Ordinary Time, June 12, 2025

Matthew 5, 20-26

Jesus said to his disciples: “I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven.  You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment. But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment, and whoever says to his brother, Raqa, will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna. Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Settle with your opponent quickly while on the way to court. Otherwise your opponent will hand you over to the judge, and the judge will hand you over to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. Amen, I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny.”

The Lord Jesus did not offer himself to the Jews as merely an alternative to the Pharisees, in terms of his teaching, but as one who came to restore the Mosaic Law to what it actually said.  The Pharisees had interpreted the Law through the prism of the Temple and the purity and other precepts governing it.  They also brought the Law “up to date” to a population that was no longer mainly nomadic by extrapolating from the original law, thus creating the “precepts of men” that the Lord so much opposed.  In effect, the Pharisees made it very hard to carry out Jewish duties.  At the same time, they did not teach much on the moral laws, as distinct from the laws regarding ritual purity and things of this kind.  Part of the appeal of Jesus as a teacher came from his stripping away this accretions that the Pharisees held up as the true meaning of the Law.

When the Lord Jesus says to the crowd, “I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven”, he is insisting that the people need to follow the Law as God gave it to Moses, and as Moses gave it to the people.  They could hear it — and the Prophets — read out in the synagogues so that they could know it, and they were to follow it without falling into the ways of the Pharisees.  Their teachings on righteousness made righteousness nearly impossible for the average Jew and for anyone but themselves, but their teachings were wrong.  Righteousness was within the grasp of any Jew who carried out the Law in his life — the righteousness that was possible for the Jews before the time of grace, at any rate.  And the Lord prepares them to receive grace by instructing them correctly on how to follow the Law.  He has established by his miracles, which were only possible by the power of God, that he has the authority to teach the Law, whereas the Pharisees have no real standing to do this.  They were not appointed by the high priests to teach, nor did they have anything to do with the Temple authorities and the governance of the Jews.  Indeed, their sect only arose in Israel a couple of hundred years before.  It was certainly not inaugurated by Moses.  It is, in fact, just another emperor without his clothes on.

There are many cultural forces and self-important persons which strive to tell us how to live in society, and even as Christians.  They attempt to foist their pathologies on us and to call these “normal” or normative.  But there is only one Christ, and he calls us to a salvation that cannot be surpassed.  We, his sheep, know his shepherd’s voice, for it rings out through the Church.  These forces and people are the new Pharisees whose moral code sometimes uses Christian terms, but in ways at odds with their true meaning.  They would have us think that theirs is the only ethics, the only morality, but it benefits only themselves.  The difficulty in following their shifting code makes life and even language impossible, but the new Pharisees mock and try to destroy those who fail.  Let us, for our part, listen to and follow the Lord Jesus, who is the only Way, the only Truth, and the only Life.

Wednesday in the Tenth Week of Ordinary Time, June 11, 2025

Matthew 5, 17-19

Jesus said to his disciples: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do so will be called least in the Kingdom of heaven. But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.”

I want to apologize for uploading the wrong blog article for Monday.  I had written a few articles ahead of time because I anticipated an especially busy week, and I lost track of what day it was.

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.  I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”  The Lord does not do away with the Law which he gave through Moses, nor with the words of the Prophets, whose very mouths he opened and filled with his message.  Instead, he has fulfilled it and in so doing has transformed it.  The old Law was but the sign of the new.  The sacrifices commanded in the old Law could not take away sin or offer suitable thanksgiving to God, but were a sign of the Sacrifice of our Lord on the Cross, which fulfilled them and which now is continually offered in the Holy Mass.  The commandments against killing and adultery were fulfilled by the Lord in this very Sermon on the Mount, with the Lord showing that they were signs of commandments against hatred and lust.  The sign of circumcision was fulfilled by the reality of baptism.  The sign of the sabbath, likewise, was fulfilled by the reality of the weekly celebration of the Lord’s Resurrection on Sunday.

“Not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter, etc.” In the Greek, the text literally reads, “not an iota nor the smallest part of a letter”.  “Iota” is the smallest letter in the Greek alphabet.  It is transliterated as “i” in English.  The iota is smaller than the English letter “i”, being barely a mark between the other letters in a word.  It has a long “e” sound.  Very likely, Jesus would have said, in Hebrew, “not a yod, etc.”  The Hebrew letter yod looks a bit like a curved single quotation mark ( ’ ) and can act as a consonant or as a vowel marker.  As a consonant it sounds like the English “y”, as in “young”.  As a vowel marker it usually sounds like a long “e”.  It is a critical letter for writing God’s name in Hebrew, which is done only with consonants.  Without the yod, the name of  “God” becomes the word for “a living thing”, a creature rather than the Creator.  The scribes, at least, would have understood this deeper meaning.  To remove the yod would completely invalidate the Law because it would remove “God” from its center and replace him with a creature.  But the Law came from God, and had service to him at its core.  Jesus says that no part of the Law will pass away until “all things have taken place”, that is, until the end of the world: “until heaven and earth pass away”.

“Whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.”  These are the commandments of which those in the old Law were but signs.  Note, the one who “obeys and teaches”.  The believer must learn to obey first and then teach.  The example of obedience is itself the best way to teach.  The one, on the other hand, who breaks “even the least of these commandments” and teachers others to do so by word or example, shall be called “least” in the kingdom of heaven, which is to say, he will not be found there.

Jesus announces his commitment to “fulfill” the Law at the beginning of his Sermon on the Mount.  Next he will show what he means by this.  No one had ever spoken like this before, not the Prophets, not the Pharisees, not even John the Baptist.  This is because only the One who instituted the Law could fulfill it, could complete it.

Tuesday in the Tenth Week of Ordinary Time, June 10, 2025

Matthew 5, 13-16

Jesus said to his disciples: “You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lamp stand, where it gives light to all in the house. Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.”

Jesus continues his Sermon on the Mount with these words, having just taught the beatitudes, an epitome of how they are to live, by telling his disciples that they are salt.  Jesus does not use a simile here.  He says, “You are the salt”, not You are like salt.  That is, “salt” is a figure that has its fulfillment in the disciples of the Lord.

Throughout history we find people using it to prepare as well as preserve food, to cleanse wounds, and to melt ice, among other things.  There is also a story in the Holy Scriptures that tells how the Prophet Elijah healed the waters of Jericho: “And the men of the city said to Elijah: ‘Behold the situation of this city is very good, as you, my lord, sees: but the waters are very bad, and the ground barren.’ And he said: ‘Bring me a new vessel, and put salt into it.’ And when they had brought it, he went out to the spring of the waters, and cast the salt into it, and said: ‘Thus says the Lord: I have healed these waters, and there shall be no more in them death or barrenness.’  And the waters were healed unto this day, according to the word of Elijah, which he spoke” (2 Kings 19-22).  It seems to me that the Lord Jesus was referring to the salt in these verses when he spoke to his disciples.  We can understand the “new vessel” here as signifying the Church of the new covenant made in the Blood of Christ.  The salt, that is, the disciples, are contained in the Church.  The members of the Church are then cast into the deadly “water”, and by the grace of God they make it healthful.  The deadly water is the souls of worldly people which are dead without grace, and which cause death by luring others to their way of life.

We can also understand the “salt” as the believer strengthened by the Lord’s teaching and preserving the souls of sinners by aiding in their conversion.  The “salt” also cleanses the wounds caused by sin, as the Good Samaritan cleansed the wounds of the man who was attacked by robbers.  And “salt”, the compassionate believer, melts the heart of the obstinate sinner with his or her examples of kindness.  We see in this last a way to understand the light on the lamp stand and the city set on the mountain.  Faith is given to us that we might render it to others so that they might come alive, be healed, preserved, enlightened, and defended against the assaults of the devil.

Monday in Tenth Week of Ordinary Time, June 9, 2025

Matthew 5, 13-16

Jesus said to his disciples: “You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house. Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.”

The Gospel of St. Matthew can be read in light of the persecution the Galilean Christians were suffering at the time the Gospel was written, and of the Evangelist’s intention to strengthen their faith with recollections of the Lord Jesus.  The regular references made to the coming judgment at the end of the age tell us that this, too, was very much in the minds of the Evangelist and his original readers.  The Sermon on the Mount in chapters 5-7 of this Gospel contains numerous promises and assurances of the Lord both in regards to persecution and to the end times.  This is true of the well-known Beatitudes, and of the verses which form the Gospel reading for today’s Mass.

“You are the salt of the earth.”  Salt has always been used in small quantities and is sprinkled on food.  Too much of it can make any food inedible, but just the right amount can render it tasty.  It is not only most often found in the form of tiny particles, but these dissolve in water and tend to disappear in food.  The Lord calls his disciples “salt” because while they are not numerous and not prominent, yet their “flavor”, their “saltiness” changes the “taste” of everything it touches.  Salt is best used when it is used subtly.  It disappears, but is known to be present through its taste.  The disciples of Christ, through prayer and by the example of their virtues, influence non-believers.  This is especially true in giving example of virtues rarely seen today, such as modesty and honesty, which quietly challenge the status quo.  The disciples are the salt “of the earth”.  That is, to the people of the world.  They can “flavor” these people.  “But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned?”  The disciples must persevere in the world despite persecution.  They must continue in their faith, even growing in it during difficult times.  We maintain our “taste” in this way.  “But to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.”  The fate of the person who believed for a time but then gave up because of the cares of the world or tribulation, is to be “thrown out” at the time of death and then to be “trampled underfoot” by the demons.

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden.” It is Christ which causes the “saltiness” in the salt, the “light” in the sun, and is the mountain on which the “city” is set.  Without him, the salt is worthless, the sun is dark, and the city is lost.  He gives saltiness, light, and visibility to the works of his disciples so that he might make more disciples through them.  “Your light must shine before others.”  That is, we do not show off our light as though it announced our own importance.  In truth, if our light burns brightly enough, unbelievers will see not us but the light itself and will want it for themselves. “They may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.”  That is, they will see our heavenly Father in the deeds and glorify him.  

There is much for the Christian to do in this adverse age.  There are so many people to convert.  But we cast a wide net with our ordinary daily living in which Christ is enthroned in our hearts.

The Solemnity of Pentecost, June 8, 2025

John 20, 19–23

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you.” As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” 

“On the evening”.  The Greek says, “late in the day”, which would mean the mid-afternoon, if John is speaking according to the Hebrew way of reckoning the days.  Otherwise, he could have meant “after dark”.  “The doors were locked”.  The Greek tells us that the doors were “shut”, as opposed to “locked”.  Now, the Lord had appeared very early in the morning to Mary Magdalene, who had gone to the tomb.  If that appearance occurred around dawn, then he appeared to his Apostles about twelve hours later.  While this may seem strange, we can look at it in a broader way: The Lord came to earth a little more than two thousand years ago, and he suffered, died, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven, promising that he would come again at the end of the age to judge the living and the dead.  The Church has waited now all this time for his return, and she will continue to wait in patience until he does return.  The Apostles were in this position after Mary Magdalene announced that the Lord Jesus had risen.  They waited and prayed.  Certainly, they kept the doors shut “out of fear of the Jews” just as the Church has always existed under the threat or the reality of persecution and protects herself and her members with prayer.  When the Lord did come, it was without warning.  One moment he was not there, and the next he was.  It is just as he had told them before he was arrested: “For as lightning comes out of the east and appears even into the west: so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matthew 24, 27).  The Lord found them waiting for him, just as we are to wait for his coming: “Watch ye therefore, because you know not at what hour your Lord will come” (Matthew 24, 42).  And to those who wait for him, he will say, “Peace be with you.”  The Son of God’s words, unlike ours, are effectual: they cause actions.  Thus, he put his Apostles at peace.  And so the just, at the end of time, will be at peace, seeing that their Lord has come.  The wicked, on the other hand, will react differently.  They will be as the guards of the Lord’s tomb when they saw the Angel: “And for fear of him, the guards were struck with terror and became as dead men” (Matthew 28, 4).

On the last day, the Lord will tell his faithful, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25, 34).  But it is not yet the end.  To help bring about the end, the Lord says to the Apostles, here: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  The Gospel must be preached to the ends of the earth before the Lord comes again.  Jesus did not leave the Apostles powerless to accomplish this, but he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”  The Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son came upon them and made them capable of carrying out the Lord’s command.  The Apostles do, in fact, receive the Holy Spirit at this time, but in a way that also points to the full reception of the Holy Spirit and his gifts on the Jewish feast of Pentecost.

While we await the second coming of the Lord, we who belong to him in the Church are united together and we work to spread the Gospel with great zeal, and pray that the great day of the Lord may come soon.

Saturday in the Seventh Week of Easter, June 7, 2025

John 21, 20-25

Peter turned and saw the disciple following whom Jesus loved, the one who had also reclined upon his chest during the supper and had said, “Master, who is the one who will betray you?” When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about him?” Jesus said to him, “What if I want him to remain until I come? What concern is it of yours? You follow me.” So the word spread among the brothers that that disciple would not die. But Jesus had not told him that he would not die, just “What if I want him to remain until I come? What concern is it of yours?”  It is this disciple who testifies to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true. There are also many other things that Jesus did, but if these were to be described individually, I do not think the whole world would contain the books that would be written.

One of the strongest proofs that John the Apostle wrote the fourth Gospel is how hard the author tries to hide himself when relating what he remembers Jesus saying and doing.  Ironically, as earnestly as the author tries to hide, throughout his Gospel he insists that what he relates is the memories of an eyewitness.  One would expect that he would give his testimony more authority simply by identifying himself by name at some point.  But he cannot, because he will not do anything to draw the slightest bit of attention away from Jesus.  He is everything.  And that is the sign of a true lover of the Lord: it is always and only about Jesus.  This takes humility too.  And humility meaning an honest appraisal of oneself in relation to others, John shows a thorough understanding of Jesus as the Son of the Father, the Word who was with the God who spoke him from all eternity.  It is breathtaking to read John’s Gospel, seeing Jesus through his eyes all the while knowing that this is the God who came down from heaven and who did so out of pure love.

And John knew that Jesus loved him for he referred to himself as “one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved” (John 13, 23).  Not that John thought he was the only disciple Jesus loved but that John experienced the love of Jesus more fully than the others did.  And it was this experience of the Lord’s love that enabled John to love him as passionately as he did — the only Apostle to stand under the Lord’s Cross, and the first to reach the empty tomb when Mary Magdalene brought her news to them.  And he was able to experience the Lord’s love so fully because he gave himself to the Lord so completely, beginning on the day when John the Baptist pointed to Jesus and said, “Behold the Lamb of God” (John 1, 36).

“We love God because he first loved us” (1 John 4, 19).  Let us not hesitate to pray for the gift to know God’s love and to be able to love him as he loves us — with our whole being.

Friday in the Seventh Week of Easter, June 6, 2025

John 21, 15-19

After Jesus had revealed himself to his disciples and eaten breakfast with them, he said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” Simon Peter answered him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” He then said to Simon Peter a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Simon Peter answered him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was distressed that he had said to him a third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” He said this signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God. And when he had said this, he said to him, “Follow me.”

“Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?”  The Lord is speaking to St. Peter during one of his appearances after his Resurrection from the dead.  They have just eaten a breakfast of the fish the Apostles have miraculously caught at the Lord’s direction.  The Lord Jesus asks Peter, Do you, Peter, love me more than the other Apostles do?  This is a very different Peter from the one who, multiple times at the Last Supper, asserted that he would die rather than deny his Master.  Jesus tries him three times, and Peter, formerly so impulsive and effusive, remains in his humility.  He is hurt by the Lord’s trying him a third time, for it reminds him of the denials he had so steadfastly made a few nights before.  But the Lord is pleased by his responses, by his hard-won humility.  The English translation here has the Lord saying to him, “Feed my lambs . . . Feed my sheep.”  The Greek tense, though, has the sense of “keep feeding my lambs, keep feeding my sheep.”  The “lambs” can be understood as “the little ones” in the Faith, those just beginning in the way of Jesus and for whom special care must be taken; the “sheep” are the Apostles and disciples who have known the Lord for the three years of his public ministry and whose faith is firmer and whose understanding is on a higher level. 

“When you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.”  The Fathers understood this statement of the Lord to refer to Peter’s eventual martyrdom.  Peter accepts this quietly in his humility, knowing full well that the Lord means that he will be crucified.  Again, we note how much changed he is from the exuberant and outspoken fisherman of not long before, the one who protested so vigorously when the Lord spoke for the first time of his own coming Passion.  The phrase “where you do not want to go” can be understood to mean that Peter would feel he had so much more work to do that he wanted to continue living awhile on the earth.  It could also refer to his expressed reluctance to die in the same manner as that by which his Lord was killed.  Apocryphal works also tell us that Peter’s followers in Rome tried to smuggle him out of Rome before he could be arrested, and that though at first he wanted to stay, he was persuaded to go, but then turned back upon seeing the Lord in a vision.

“Follow me.”  Again, the sense of the Greek word is, “Keep on following me.”  The understanding of the sense of the Greek imperative mood is important because it helps us see that the Lord did not see Peter’s denials as a cause for a permanent break in his following.  Peter had acted out of weakness in his denials, not out of the malice that motivated Judas.  We may take comfort from this for ourselves, that we may truly learn the humility necessary to love and obey the Lord Jesus, and that the sins we commit out of weakness do not permanently prevent us from continuing as his followers.