Wednesday in the Thirteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 2 2025

Matthew 8, 28-34

When Jesus came to the territory of the Gadarenes, two demoniacs who were coming from the tombs met him. They were so savage that no one could travel by that road. They cried out, “What have you to do with us, Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the appointed time?” Some distance away a herd of many swine was feeding. The demons pleaded with him, “If you drive us out, send us into the herd of swine.” And he said to them, “Go then!” They came out and entered the swine, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea where they drowned. The swineherds ran away, and when they came to the town they reported everything, including what had happened to the demoniacs. Thereupon the whole town came out to meet Jesus, and when they saw him they begged him to leave their district.

St. Matthew’s account of this exorcism differs from that of St. Mark (in Mark 5, 1-17).  Mark, writing for Christians converted from pagan worship, emphasizes displays of the divine power in Jesus Christ.  These appealed to men and women who had little knowledge of the Jewish Scriptures, and Mark is careful to include every detail which his master, St. Peter, told of this particular event.  St. Matthew, by contrast, was writing for converts to the Faith from Judaism — in fact, the earliest members of the Church who lived mostly in Galilee.  Some of them had even seen and heard Jesus for themselves.  Matthew is writing his Gospel for them during a savage persecution launched by the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem.  His Gospel is meant to reassure these Christians of the truth about Jesus, and to this end Matthew emphasizes what appealed to them: instances in which Jesus fulfilled the Law and the Prophets.  While providing examples of the Lord’s power, he does so in order to show they his miracles validated his teachings.  For this reason, he tends not to include as much detail as, say, Mark often offers.

Because of this, Matthew’s account of the exorcism in today’s Gospel Reading is much more direct.  He also does recall certain details differently from Mark’s report, most notably, that demons possessed two men, not one.  It may be that Peter only saw one possessed man and that Matthew saw two.  It was dark and the Apostles were still recovering from the ferocious storm on the sea.  The discrepancy does not affect the sequence of events or the meaning of the exorcism.

“Two demoniacs who were coming from the tombs met him.”  Matthew phrases this statement in a way that suggests the possessed men meant to attack Jesus and the Apostles. “What have you to do with us, Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the appointed time?”  The demons, speaking through the men, act as though they saw that Jesus had come to attack them, which he had.  “Before the appointed time.”  At the end of the world, the devil and his angels will cease to tempt and possess.  Such power as they had in the world, after having been severely curtailed by the victory of Christ on the Cross, now vanishes utterly.  In addition, following the great judgment, the demons will bring the condemned sinners into hell with them, where their torments are increased.  The demons fear this appointed time with great intensity.

“If you drive us out, send us into the herd of swine.”  They do not want to return to hell.  It would be far better for them to inhabit the unclean swine, the lowest of the animals according to the Law.  “Go then!”  Whether speaking in Hebrew or Greek, the Lord conveyed his order with a single harsh word, and they depart.  “They came out and entered the swine, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea where they drowned.”  The violence and horror of this scene would be hard to convey in language.  Matthew’s simple, single line gives a good example of how the Evangelists, far from exaggerating the Lord’s miracles, understate their effects, allowing the reader to keep his mind on Jesus.

“The swineherds ran away.”  It is St. Mark who relates that a multitude of demons, “Legion”, were cast out, implying the great number of swine who were drowned.  The swineherds were thrown into a panic and ran in the darkness for the town and safety.

“They begged him to leave their district.”  The townspeople parallel the demoniacs:  the first beg Jesus to leave them; the second beg Jesus to let them flee to the swine and to leave them there.  Jesus grants both requests.  But if the demons were sent back to hell with the drowning of the swine, we are left with the question of what happened to the townspeople?  It would seem that they preferred the company of the demoniacs to that of Jesus.  

Some people are attracted to evil, and others become comfortable with it.  The Christian remains vigilant so that he may recognize it for what it is and to resist it with all his strength.

Tuesday in the Thirteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 1, 2025

Matthew 8, 23-27

As Jesus got into a boat, his disciples followed him. Suddenly a violent storm came up on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by waves; but he was asleep. They came and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!” He said to them, “Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?” Then he got up, rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was great calm. The men were amazed and said, “What sort of man is this, whom even the winds and the sea obey?”

How quickly the time passes!  The year is now half over!

 

Immediately following the Sermon on the Mount, St. Matthew presents several miracles in quick succession, each of which showing a different aspect of the Law-giver’s power, and together which validate his teachings in the three preceding chapters of this Gospel.  So far we have seen him heal a leper, which shows his power to heal.  Next, he heal’s the centurion’s slave, which makes clear that the Lord can heal from a distance.  Following that, he heals Peter’s mother-in-law and then a large number of the sick.  This reveals that his power cannot be exhausted.  In the reading for today, we see the Lord Jesus calming a storm, and here we see particularly his power over the forces of nature.  

“Suddenly a violent storm came up on the sea.”  The Sea of Galilee is about 13 miles long by 8 miles wide, and is a freshwater lake.  At its deepest point, it is about 140 feet in depth, almost half the length of an American football field.  The boat in which the Apostles and Jesus were traveling would have been about twenty feet long.  A storm coming upon a fishing boat in the middle of the lake poses a mortal threat to all aboard.  There would not have been enough time to get to shore.  As it was, “the boat was being swamped by waves.”

“But he was asleep.”  Amidst the fury of the storm and the cries and frantic bailing of the Apostles, Jesus slept.  This shows the extent to which his physical condition was reduced by his nonstop work since the day before.  It also shows an absolute trust in his Father that he could rest safely anywhere.  Matthew presents quite a scene.  Jesus and the Apostles had embarked while it was still daylight.  Enormous dark clouds fill the sky as though at a moment’s notice.  The heaving lake casts the boat up in the air and down nearly to the lake bottom.  The Apostles bail out the water, but not quite fast enough.  They can hardly hear each other’s shouts and cries, and they can only see when the lightning blasts at them.  Somewhere, in the midst of the hurling chaos, the Lord Jesus sleeps.  The rain pours onto him and runs down his face, but it does not disturb his peace.  

“They came and woke him, saying, ‘Lord, save us! We are perishing!’ ”  Perhaps the storm and its violence had raged for only five or ten minutes.  It does not take long for a really bad storm to destroy a boat.  But the Apostles pray like they have never prayed before.  Their prayer, though, is not confident but despairing.  The fact that they did not dream that Jesus could command the weather is shown by their wondering afterwards, “What sort of man is this, whom even the winds and the sea obeys?”  They say to him, “Lord, save us!” not because they believe he can, but because there was nothing left to do.  They had tried everything else first, and they were going to die.

“Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?”  They could not have predicted this response.  He is not terrified at their predicament; he is perturbed at them.  We ought to think about this.  It is as though he were saying that their own fear, a fear that characterized their lives, had brought the storm about.  The Lord seems to blame them for the storm.  Jesus says to them, in the Greek text, Why are you δειλοί [deloi].  The Greek word is a substantive adjective in the plural, describing “you”, which is plural.  Literally, the Greek means, Why are you cowards? or even, Why are you unmanly men?  The English translation we have in the reading turns the Greek adjective into a verb and so warps the actual meaning somewhat. With the question, Why are you cowards? in the present tense, Jesus is not asking why they are frightened at this particular moment, but why are they fearful in an abiding sense.  He is saying to them, You have always been cowards.  This is who you are.  Jesus does not speak to them in this way in order to gratuitously humiliate them, but to teach them a very necessary lesson.  Now is he disgusted with them, as though finding out for the first time that they were cowards.  If this were true, he would have let the boat sink and then calmly walked across the water to the opposite shore.

“Then he got up, rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was great calm.”  First, he rebukes his disciples, then the winds and the sea.  Both men and sea were acting according to their natures, but Jesus is not satisfied with their present weaknesses.  By calming the storm so that there is “great calm”, Jesus is showing the Apostles the faith he desires for them.  That is, we can understand the sea storm as a manifestation of the fear, the trepidation, the tumult within the hearts of the Apostles.  Jesus quiets it and shows them the state for which they must strive, the perfect peace that comes with perfect faith and trust.  Indeed, the trust in his Father that Jesus showed in his sleeping.  One day, the Apostles would face down their persecutors and rejoice in their suffering for Christ.  This is their beginning, when they see themselves as they are.

“What sort of man is this, whom even the winds and the sea obey?”  Whether we want to admit it or not, we live in fear, too.  Only the saints do not.  Fear controls us so much that we hardly notice it is there.  Only love and faith drive out fear.  Let us pray for the grace to live as the Apostles came to live, really living life as free men and women, living life filled and transformed by our faith in Christ, in “the great calm” of God.

Monday in the Thirteenth Week of Ordinary Time, June 30, 2025

Matthew 8, 18-22

When Jesus saw a crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other shore. A scribe approached and said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus answered him, “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.” Another of his disciples said to him, “Lord, let me go first and bury my father.” But Jesus answered him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead.”

When Jesus saw a crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other shore. A scribe approached and said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus answered him, “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.” Another of his disciples said to him, “Lord, let me go first and bury my father.” But Jesus answered him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead.”

“When Jesus saw a crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other shore.”  As St. Matthew tells it, the Lord desired to cross to another shore after he had spent the better part of the preceding evening healing the sick.  The Lord is ever on the move, preaching and healing. 

“A scribe approached and said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”  This scribe, presumably a Pharisee, comes to the Lord and announces to him that he will follow him everywhere.  He does not need to tell the Lord this; he could simply do it.  It seems, though, that he wants praise from the Lord, or an invitation to join his Apostles, or merely the approval of the crowd.  The Lord warns him, “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.”  That is, even the animals have places to sleep, but he and his Apostles do not, so constant is their life on the move.  The life of preaching the Gospel requires the utmost sacrifices and eschews any worldly reward.  The Lord’s answer is wonderfully poetic in its imagery.  We can interpret it in many ways, as well, following the Fathers.  The “foxes” can be understood as thieves and robbers, while the “birds” can be understood as those who give up everything in order to live a life of prayer and contemplation: thus, even the thieves have a regular place to live, as do monks, nuns, and hermits, but not the Son of Man.

“Lord, let me go first and bury my father.”  One of those who was already a disciple says this.  According to Luke 9, 59, the disciple answers in this way after Jesus had told him, “Follow me.”  The disciple uses an idiom here, saying, in effect, I will follow you when my father dies and I have made arrangements for my family.  It is something like a refusal and reminds of the excuses offered by those invited to the great feast in the parable, such as, “I have bought a farm and I must needs go out and see it. I pray you, hold me excused” ( Luke 14, 18).  This brings a stinging rebuke from the Lord: “Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead.”  That is to say, those who will not follow him are the dead.  This disciple has life and death set before him.  To reject the invitation of the Lord is to reject true life.  The Lord Jesus was not calling him to be an Apostle, but simply to follow him steadfastly, rather than trying to follow him part-time or half-heartedly.

We need not leave our homes and families in order to follow the Lord Jesus.  We can follow him at home, within our families, and in our jobs.  We remember the practical way that Mother Teresa answered a young woman who wanted to join her order but could not because of her responsibilities: “Where I go, you cannot, but where you go, I cannot.  Together, we can do something beautiful for God.”  We can follow the Lord wherever we are if our heart is with him.

We celebrate today the Feast of the First Martyrs of the Church of Rome, particularly those who died during the persecution of Nero during which Saints Peter and Paul suffered death.  These men and women were the ones who followed the Lamb wherever he went even unto poverty and homelessness, and who left the dead to bury their dead.

The Solemnity of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Sunday, June 29, 2025

2 Timothy 4, 6–8; 17–18

I, Paul, am already being poured out like a libation, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith. From now on the crown of righteousness awaits me, which the Lord, the just judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but to all who have longed for his appearance. The Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so that through me the proclamation might be completed and all the Gentiles might hear it. And I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil threat and will bring me safe to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory forever and ever. Amen.

Although St. Paul wrote the above lines in his Second Letter to Timothy, St. Peter could have written them as well, for both Apostles worked zealously for the spread of the Gospel.  Both men passionately loved the Lord Jesus.  We see his love on his rash promise, on Holy Thursday, to die for the Lord (a promise he made good on about thirty years later) and in his running to the tomb after hearing that the Lord’s Body was not there.  We see Paul’s love for the Lord in deeply touching reflections such as, “For to me, to live is Christ: and to die is gain” (Philippians 1, 21).

“I, Paul, am already being poured out like a libation.”  A “libation” was a drink offering poured out to a god on an altar.  The wine or other drink was completely emptied out, with the priest or attendant shaking the vessel so that not a drop was missing.  Paul feels as though he has nothing left to give, that he is empty.  He has been poured out by God in service to God.  True sanctity is to give oneself to God even when there is nothing left to give — friends, family, health is gone.  There remains no reason to praise God or to thank him except for his own sake.  Peter and Paul, through their extensive travels, various persecutions, arrests, beatings, and their endless work of preaching and leading the churches they founded, had arrived at this point at the time of their final arrests.  “I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith. From now on the crown of righteousness awaits me.”  Paul says this to Timothy in order to give him an example to follow.  Paul saw his work as a competition, even as a race.  He ran, knowing that his eternal salvation depended on his “winning” the race, that is, in finishing all the work that God gave him.  He knew full well how great the work lay before him, for at the beginning of his conversion, God said to Ananias, a Christian of Damascus, “For I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake” (Acts 9, 16).  Likewise, Peter knew that suffering lay ahead of him in his service to the Lord: “When you shall be old, you shall stretch forth your hands, and another shall gird you and lead you where you would not” (John 21, 28).  “The Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so that through me the proclamation might be completed.”  Throughout the Acts of the Apostles we can see how the Lord strengthened both Peter and Paul so that they could rejoice that they had suffered for Christ.  Both men were on the point of being killed by mobs or the authorities multiple times, and both were rescued “from the lion’s mouth” in order to continue preaching.  

We know much from the Scriptures about the journeys of Paul throughout Syria, Asia Minor, and Rome.  Peter worked in Jerusalem for some years, while also preaching in cities and towns throughout Syria and Asia Minor, especially in Antioch, where he remained for a few years.  Afterwards he went to Rome, where he spent the rest of his life.  St. Jerome tells us that this occurred in the year 42.  We do not know whether Peter and Paul met in Rome, though legends circulating in subsequent centuries say that they preached together and engaged in debate with Simon Magus, the magician mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles.  According to the Fathers, such as Tertullian and Origen, Peter was crucified head downwards during the reign of Nero, and Paul, a Roman citizen, was accorded execution by beheading.  Both suffered in about the year 67.

The Feast today celebrates the faith and virtue of these great men but especially how God provides for his people in raising up for us shepherds like himself to lead us.  And throughout the millennia, despite everything, the leaders of the Church have preserved intact the teachings vouchsafed to them by the Lord Jesus Christ.

Saturday in the Twelfth Week of Ordinary Time, June 28, 2025

Matthew 8, 5-17

When Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion approached him and appealed to him, saying, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, suffering dreadfully.” He said to him, “I will come and cure him.” The centurion said in reply, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man subject to authority, with soldiers subject to me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come here,’ and he comes; and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith. I say to you, many will come from the east and the west, and will recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the banquet in the Kingdom of heaven, but the children of the Kingdom will be driven out into the outer darkness, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.” And Jesus said to the centurion, “You may go; as you have believed, let it be done for you.” And at that very hour his servant was healed. 

Jesus entered the house of Peter, and saw his mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever. He touched her hand, the fever left her, and she rose and waited on him. When it was evening, they brought him many who were possessed by demons, and he drove out the spirits by a word and cured all the sick, to fulfill what had been said by Isaiah the prophet: “He took away our infirmities and bore our diseases.”

In yesterday’s Gospel reading, a leper addressed Jesus as “Lord”.  Here, a centurion does so, a most remarkable act.  As an officer in a legion of the Roman army, the ordinary centurion had command of a unit of about a hundred men, although higher grades of centurion commanded larger numbers.  He was the equivalent of a captain through the rank of lieutenant colonel of today.  The ordinary centurion was promoted from the enlisted men.  As the lowest in rank of the Roman officers, he exercised his role as enforcer of discipline and so formed the backbone of the legion.  The fact that a centurion of the Roman army deigned not only to speak with one of the common people of an occupied land, but to call him “Lord”, and then to ask for his help must have have come as something of a shock to the people witnessing it.  The Roman soldiers, and especially their centurions, were hated and feared by the Jewish populace, and for good reason.  The centurion here probably did not come alone.  A small retinue would have attended him.  Presumably the centurion spoke Greek to Jesus, although he may have employed the services of an Aramaic interpreter on this occasion.  That he addressed Jesus as “Lord” could have gotten him into serious trouble if this became known to his higher-ups.  In any encounter with the general population, the centurion himself would have been addressed as “lord”, and treated with deference.  The centurion’s “lord” was Caesar.  Thus, this account, early in Matthew’s Gospel, shows how the Gentiles would convert in the years after Pentecost, and their courage in doing so.  

“Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, suffering dreadfully.”  Just as the leper humbly presented his need before his Lord, so does this centurion.  He does not attempt to persuade Jesus, he does not try to coerce him, he does not promise him money or favors.  The centurion comes before the One he acknowledges as the Lord who has care for him and simply states his need.  

“I will come and cure him.”  Jesus receives the centurion’s recognition and simply and clearly declares that he will take care of the matter.  Notice how the words and manner of the Lord compare with that of the soldier.  Jesus speaks and acts towards him in a way this man can understand, in the way he is accustomed to be spoken to by those over him.  Also, notice the Lord’s willingness to defile himself by entering the house of a Gentile, so much like his willingness to touch the leper.  This shows the Lord’s own fervent desire to save us, to “bear” the disease of our sin.

“Lord, I am not worthy.”  The centurion makes a statement that must have astonished the crowd even more than when he addressed Jesus as “Lord”.  “Lord” is a statement of faith; “I am not worthy” is a sign of the depths of his faith.  We ought to pause here to consider this man’s attitude, his motivations, his hopes.  His concern for his servant shows an admirable side to him.  Even if the slave possessed particularly rare skills, it is too much to think that his potential loss would have brought the centurion to call Jesus “Lord”.  The man’s subsequent words, “I too am a man subject to authority, with soldiers subject to me”, tell us that here we have a man who understands himself, and others, in terms of his duty.  “Duty” for him means authority coupled with responsibility.  He is responsible for his slave, and Jesus, his Lord, is responsible for them both.  In addition, Jesus, as Lord, has the authority to heal whomever he wants.

Who is this slave?  The centurion describes his servant as a παῖς [pīs], not a δούλος [dūlos].  The latter is a menial slave, especially one that would work out of doors.  A παῖς, on the other hand, could mean “a boy”, “a girl”, “a child”, “a servant”, or, “a slave”.  In the Septuagint text of Isaiah 42, 1, which Matthew quotes in 12, 18, παῖς is to be understood as “servant”.  In his other usages of the word, it’s meaning as “little child” is understood, without any implications of servitude.  The parallel account in Luke 7, 2-9 describes the sick person as a δούλος, a slave of any age.  In addition, Luke provides the detail that the slave was “valuable” to the centurion, meaning that he was skilled.  It would seem most likely that the sick one is a slave of indeterminate age, but probably older than a child because he possessed valuable skills, and that the translator of Matthew’s Gospel from Hebrew into Greek simply used the two terms παῖς and δούλος interchangeably.  

Jesus registers amazement at the centurion’s faith, and he does this in order to point it up for the benefit of the onlookers: This uncircumcised man has more faith than any of you circumcised people who attend the synagogue and make pilgrimages to the Temple!  It would be on the same order of saying, This brick has more compassion than you do!  

“You may go; as you have believed, let it be done for you.”  Jesus dismisses the centurion with this assurance.  It is similar to the assurance the Lord gave to the leper: Jesus sent him to the Temple for the priests to examine him, and who will make his cure official — in this way the leper would have objective proof of his own healing, should any doubt linger.

In both accounts of the leper’s cure and that of the centurion’s slave, we see the eagerness of the Lord to save — there is no one whom he will not save, if only they would let him.

The Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Friday, June 27, 2025

Matthew 11, 25–30

At that time Jesus exclaimed: “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to little ones. Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him. Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”

The solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus was established for the world in 1856 by Pope Pius IX after it had earlier been established for the region of France.  Devotion to the wonderful love and mercy of Jesus Christ for us began to coalesce around devotion to his Heart in the Middle Ages.  At that time, it was believed that the heart was the seat of the mind, that is, the intellect and the will.  The devotion to the Lord’s “Heart”, then, is not to the physical organ but rather to this merciful love, which the Lord exposed in all his works and deeds for us, and which was dramatically exposed on the Cross, where his side was pierced by a lance.  We recall his words at the Last Supper: “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15, 13).  In the 17th century, the Visitation nun St. Margaret Mary received visions of the Lord in which he told her of the love of his Sacred Heart and encouraged devotion to it.  About a hundred years after the established of the Feast, Pope Pius XII wrote a magnificent tribute to it in his encyclical, Haureatis Aquas, named from Isaiah 12, 3: “You will draw water joyfully from the springs of the Savior” (according to the Vulgate, from the Septuagint).    

In the reading from St. Matthew’s Gospel, we hear the Lord pray to his Father, “You have hidden these things from the wise and the learned, you have revealed them to little ones.”  “These things” are the teachings of the Gospel.  The “wise and the learned”: St. Thomas Aquinas memorably comments that the Lord did not choose for his Apostles Plato and Aristotle, but rather Peter and Andrew.  “To little ones”: the Greek text uses a word that has the primary meaning of “infants”.  When applied to adults, it means something like “simpletons”, or “the weak-minded”, or merely, “the uneducated”.  It is not a word a person would like to be described with.  Jesus uses this word in order to emphasize the absolutely free nature of the gift the Father has given these Apostles, and to us as well.  We recall St. Paul’s words, “For see your vocation, brethren, that there are not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble. But the foolish things of the world had God chosen, that he may confound the wise” (1 Corinthians 26-27).

“You who are weary and burdened”: Jesus is speaking these words to his Apostles after they have returned from preaching in the towns and preparing the way for his own visit to them.  The Lord is here consoling his faithful ones who strive for his honor and glory, and for the salvation of souls.  “Take my yoke upon you . . . and you will find rest for yourselves.”  These words seem to present a contradiction.  A “yoke” implied pulling a plow.  How would this allow for rest?  Jesus here shows the contrast between his Law and all other laws.  The law of Jesus is love, and the “rest” is on his breast (cf. the Beloved Disciple reclining on the breast of Jesus in John 13, 23).  Further, this rest which the faithful will find is eternal, in heaven.  “For I am meek and humble of heart.”  The Greek πραύ̈ς, “prous”, is found again in Matthew 11, 29, which paraphrases Zechariah 9, 9: “Your King comes to you, gentle, and mounted on an ass,” and is applied to the Lord triumphantly entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.  And, ταπεινὸς, “tap-eh-nós”, “meek” or “humble” of heart, approachable and compassionate, One upon whose breast a weary disciple may indeed recline.

Thursday in the Twelfth Week of Ordinary Time, June 26, 2025

Matthew 7, 21-29

Jesus said to his disciples: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons in your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?’ Then I will declare to them solemnly, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers.’  Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. But it did not collapse; it had been set solidly on rock. And everyone who listens to these words of mine but does not act on them will be like a fool who built his house on sand. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. And it collapsed and was completely ruined.”  When Jesus finished these words, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.

With this reading from the Gospel of St. Matthew, we come to the end of the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount.  He has laid before us his moral teachings and will shortly confirm them through a series of powerful miracles.  Here, he speaks of the consequences of those who do not follow his teachings though pretending to be his followers.  And in the Sermon’s concluding words, the Lord teaches how following his laws provides his true followers a sure foundation for us to reach heaven.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of heaven.”  It is easy to call for help when we find ourselves in grave danger.  Likewise, it is easy to call Jesus “Lord” when he is about to judge us. But only those who served Jesus on earth as his servants will enter the Kingdom of heaven: “Only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.”  To enter heaven after we die we must serve the King of heaven while we live.  He will recognize us as his servants and will invite us in.  More than that, “He will gird himself and have them sit at table, and he will come and serve them” (Luke 12, 37).  “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons in your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?”  However, they did not.  Or, for personal gain some people fake their Christianity and act as go through the motions of prophesying — preaching — and performing good works, but these, coupled with immoral living — insult God and do him no honor at all.  Instead, “their god is their belly” (Philippians 3, 19).  

“I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers.”  That is, he never knew them as his followers, his servants.  They never came to him to learn of him.  In the end, they call upon him merely to stave off their condemnation: he is nothing more for them than a means to an end.  He calls them evildoers because he knows them for their godlessness.

“Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.”  This means that the builder sinks the principal beams that will hold his house together into the rock, the deeper the better.  He must use solid wood, preferably a hardwood, or even with such a rock as the foundation the house will not last long.  The “rock” is the Church, which preserves and advances the teachings of the Lord.  The “wood” the builder uses is his intellect and free-will.  Grounded in this rock, these beams will fixedly hold together the house of this man’s hope for heaven.  “A fool who built his house on sand.”  It is relatively easy and cheap to build a house on a foundation of sand, but it will not endure.  Sand does offer much in the way of stability but is quickly scattered by the wind and washed away by water.  In the spiritual life, “sand” signifies our neglect of prayer, the Sacraments, Holy Mass, and a perverse trust in our own abilities.  “The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house.”  Trials, tribulations, health failures, the weakness of old age do not trouble those who have given themselves entirely to God, but will mean disaster for those who have not: their house will collapse and be completely ruined.  

“When Jesus finished these words, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.”  Throughout his Sermon, the Lord declared to the people, “I say.”  Here is your understanding of the Law, or the understanding of the scribes, but I say to you, etc.  The Lord Jesus came to complete and to fulfill, and to reveal the deeper demands of the Laws given to the people through Moses, which can now be carried out with the help of God’s grace.Through our adherence to the commandments of Christ we build our house on rock, looking forward to the day when we will dwell in God’s eternal dwellings.