Thursday in the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 30, 2026

Matthew 13, 47-53

Jesus said to the disciples: “The Kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea, which collects fish of every kind. When it is full they haul it ashore and sit down to put what is good into buckets. What is bad they throw away. Thus it will be at the end of the age. The angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.  Do you understand all these things?” They answered, “Yes.” And he replied, “Then every scribe who has been instructed in the Kingdom of heaven is like the head of a household who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old.” When Jesus finished these parables, he went away from there.

“The Kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea, which collects fish of every kind.”  The Apostles Peter, Andrew, James, and John would have especially paid attention to this parable as they had made their living from fishing before Jesus called them.  Jesus had even promised to make them “fishers of men”.  Here, they might pick up a clue as to what he had meant.  The net the Lord speaks of is indifferent to the kinds of fish that go into it: a fish of any size and any condition might be naught in it.  “When it is full they haul it ashore and sit down to put what is good into buckets.”  When we read “buckets” we should think “baskets”.  The hard work of fishing is not finished when the boat returns, but continues with the sifting of the catch.  This would be done with the sunrise.  “What is bad they throw away.”  The Greek word translated here as “bad” actually means “rotten” and “useless”.  Something “bad” might still be salvaged, but not something rotten.  

“Thus it will be at the end of the age.”  The Jews believed that the world passed through six ages, and that the seventh brought an eternal Sabbath.  Jesus taught that the people of his generation lived in the sixth age, and that at its end would come the great judgment.  We know that this age began with the Lord’s Incarnation and will end with his Second Coming.  

“The angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous.”  The Lord repeated a number of times in his preaching that the good and the wicked — the “rotten” — would be together until the end, at which point it would be the task of the angels to separate them.  See also Matthew 13, 24-30.  The angels, always an important part of our lives, have this responsibility as well.  “And throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”  The rotten are not merely set aside but are burned into eternity.  We see from this that those deemed rotten are punished for having made themselves so, and by mixing with the good, threaten to cause them to go rotten as well.  This may remind us of the wheat and the weeds, where the weeds are wicked because they steal nutrition from the wheat.  Their punishment is eternal because they have permanently fixed their malice in their hearts through the evil they have committed repeatedly during their lives on earth.

“ ‘Then every scribe who has been instructed in the Kingdom of heaven is like the head of a household who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old.’ When Jesus finished these parables, he went away from there.”  The Lord commends the scribe who understands the Gospel well enough to teach it using the works of the Prophets and also the words of Jesus and, later, his Apostles.  The Lord may be addressing whatever scribes were present, or he may have been looking to the future when Matthew and John, among those present at that time, would write their Gospels, and when James, Jude, and Peter would write their epistles.

We strive to be the good fish which the Lord puts in his baskets and we strive to recognize the dead, rotten fish  around us so that we may preserve ourselves from them.

 Revelation part 4:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FBfNklhDXGBqcZFXUDKeId1vObIUzapy/view?usp=drivesdk

Wednesday in the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 29, 2026

The Feast of Saints Martha, Mary, and Lazarus

John 11, 19-27

Many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother [Lazarus, who had died]. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him; but Mary sat at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise.” Martha said to him, “I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever zbelieves in me, even if he dies, will live, and anyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.”

Formerly, St. Martha alone was celebrated on this day, but recently the feast was expanded to include her brother St. Lazarus, and her sister, St. Mary, who lived in Bethany, near Jerusalem.  The St. Mary celebrated today is not St. Mary Magdalene, who stood at the Lord’s Cross and was the first to see the Risen Lord after his Resurrection, but “Mary of Bethany”.  St. Gregory the Great seems to have been the first to conflate these two distinct women.  

From the three accounts in the Gospels which involve Lazarus, Martha, and Mary, we can see their close connection to the Lord.  In Luke 10, 38-42, Jesus enters “Martha’s house” and talks to an enraptured Mary while Martha struggles to prepare dinner.  It would seem from this that either Martha owned the house outright or that it was the house of Lazarus, whom Luke did not know about, and that Martha lived there.  We are not told that Martha was married, so if the house was hers, she might have been a widow.  It could also be the case that Luke does not mention spouses or Lazarus in order to keep his story simple, because the presence or absence of anyone except Martha, Mary, and Jesus does not affect the main point.  

In John 11, 1, the Evangelist tells us, “Now, there was a certain man sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, of the town of Mary and of Martha her sister.”  The implication here is that the three siblings did not live together, but separately.  A further implication is that these three were well-known to the Jewish Christian community in Jerusalem to whom John was writing his Gospel, for the names of those for whom Jesus performs miracles are almost never given.  John also here identifies Mary of Bethany, sister of Lazarus, as “she that anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair”.  He mentions this even before he tells the story how she did this (which he would do in the chapter following the raising of Lazarus) leading us to believe that the story was very well-known at the time of his writing.

The Lord loved these three, as is clear from the story of his raising Lazarus from the dead.  Indeed, when Mary notifies the Lord that her brother is in need of healing, she says, “Lord, behold, he whom you love is sick.”  And John comments, “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister Mary and Lazarus.”  They firmly believed in him as the Messiah, and as one with great power.  When the Lord arrives in Bethany, Martha says to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But now also I know that whatsoever you will ask of God, God will give to you.”  And Mary will say to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  Mary’s faith and her gratitude for the Lord raising up her brother bring her to anoint his feet with a very expensive perfume, and to wipe his feet with her hair.  (This is anointing is distinct, though similar, from that done by the sinful woman in Luke 7, 36-50, which took place in Simon the Leper’s house, not in that of Lazarus.)  

“Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.”  This profession of faith spoken by Martha, reflected the faith of her brother and sister as well.  No one but Peter would make such a profession before the Lord’s Resurrection.  We pray to Saint Martha, that she might obtain for us the grace to be filled with such faith as hers; to her sister Mary, that we may become as dedicated to the Word of God as she; and to Lazarus, that we may hear the Lord saying to us at the moment of our deaths, “Come forth!”, summoning us into his life in heaven.

Personal Note:  The fourth part of the Bible Atidy on the Book of Revelation has been recorded and the link for it will be posted on the right-hand sidebar sometime today (Wednesday). Feel free to let me know if you found it helpful!

Tuesday in the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 28, 2020

Matthew 13:36-43

Jesus dismissed the crowds and went into the house. His disciples approached him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.” He said in reply, “He who sows good seed is the Son of Man, the field is the world, the good seed the children of the Kingdom. The weeds are the children of the Evil One, and the enemy who sows them is the Devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. Just as weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his Kingdom all who cause others to sin and all evildoers. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears ought to hear.”

To begin with, Jesus speaks of “the end of the age” as a “harvest”.  The harvest is a very active time on a farm when the mature crop is brought into the barns as quickly as possible before it over-ripens or before it rains, making the field a muddy mess that is harder to work in.  For the modern farmer, a big rain just before or in the middle of the harvest means he cannot use his machinery because of the condition of the soil.  The end of the age, then, will involve great urgency and speed.  The world has ended.  No deeds remain to be done.  The destiny of each person has been decided.  At this point, too, we are speaking of resurrected bodies, which move with incredible swiftness.  The angels will reintegrate the bodies of the deceased so that they may live again, and the souls of those bodies rejoin them so that soul and body may together share in the joys of the blessed or the torments of the damned.

The wicked will be placed away from the just at the last judgment so that each group may hear its sentence with the members together.  The just will rejoice at seeing the great saints in their company, saints to whom they prayed during their lives and whose virtues they imitated.  On the other hand, the wicked will look upon the faces of their fellows with alarm and growing horror.  They will recognize the most evil men in history who thought nothing of the slaughter and massacre of innocent humans.  The instant the judgment on each group is pronounced, the just are brought into heaven, where “they will shine like the sun”,  and the wicked will be thrown by the angels into “the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”  Here is how St. John the Apostle saw the final judgment in a vision he himself recorded: “And I saw the dead, great and small, standing in the presence of the throne. And the books were opened: and another book was opened, which was the book of life. And the dead were judged by those things which were written in the books, according to their works” (Revelation 20, 12).

The just will enter “the Kingdom of their Father”.  These are very sweet words.  We can think of how the father of the prodigal son watched for the coming of his son day after day, night after night, and when he finally saw him afar off, ran out to meet him, tears of relief and joy streaming from his eyes.  We can think of how tightly the father held him, and then led him home to a great feast.  Our Father watches for us, waits for us, and will finally embrace us on our entrance into heaven.  We might think of the words of the Song of Songs: “For, behold, the winter is now past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers have appeared in our land, the time of pruning is come: the voice of the turtle-dove is heard in our land: The fig tree has put forth her green figs: the vines in flower yield their sweet smell. Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come” (Song of Songs 2, 11-13).

Terrible and unrelenting punishment awaits those “who cause others to sin and all evildoers”.  These shall “suffer eternal punishment in destruction, from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his power” (2 Thessalonians 1, 9).  That is, their punishment shall be both external and internal.  External in “destruction”.  Jesus gives us a hint of this in the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man.  In hell, the rich man cried out, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water to cool my tongue: for I am tormented in this flame” (Luke 16, 24).  The internal punishment is indicated by the words “wailing and grinding of teeth”.  This punishment is the awareness by the damned that they are away “from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his power”.  They will suffer from the knowledge that they are permanently cut off from the face of God by their own choice, by their own works.  The words of the afflicted Job allow us some insight into their hearts: “Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said: A man child is conceived. Let that day be turned into darkness, let not God regard it from above, and let not the light shine upon it. Let darkness, and the shadow of death, cover it, let a mist overspread it, and let it be wrapped up in bitterness” (Job 3, 3-5).

“Whoever has ears ought to hear.”  This is an idiom that means the same as, “a word to the wise”.  Let us pray for wisdom so that every day we might know how to firm up our place with the just by an unshakable faith and a bounty of good works.  

Monday in the 17th Week of Ordinary Time, July 27, 2026

Matthew 13, 31-35

Jesus proposed a parable to the crowds. “The Kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a person took and sowed in a field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, yet when full-grown it is the largest of plants. It becomes a large bush, and the birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches.” He spoke to them another parable. “The Kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch was leavened.” All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables. He spoke to them only in parables, to fulfill what had been said through the prophet: I will open my mouth in parables, I will announce what has lain hidden from the foundation of the world.

The weekend was hard but I am continuing to feel a little stronger each day.  I did have some confusion late in the afternoon and faintness in the evening but not as much as previously.  Thank you for your prayers!

Jesus tells the parable of the mustard seed to explain something of the kingdom of heaven.  He explains in a vivid and — to the Jews — astounding way in order to reveal that the kingdom of heaven was not going to be a victorious army of soldiers going forth to do battle with the Gentiles; it was not going to feature a restoration of the dynasty of David.  He uses the work of nature to describe it and does not issue a call to arms.  The people of the time struggle with this, as Matthew subsequently shows the Apostles doing when they ask Jesus to explain for them the parables that he had taught during the day.  His plain exposition did not satisfy them since it did not go along with what the Pharisees had taught them and their parents all their lives.  They simply took in his words and set them beside what they had been taught as children and waited for further elucidation.  Rather than showing their weakness in doing so, the strength of their faith truly shines: they did not fully understand, but they loved and trusted Jesus and continued to stake their destinies with his.

The real wonder of the parable lies in the fact that the birds of the air choose to gather in the branches of the mustard bush, which could grow to about a man’s height, eschewing the mighty cedars of Lebanon and even the olive trees of Galilee and Judah.  Jesus teaches that it was to this issue of the tiniest seeds that attracted the birds, that is, those searching for salvation.  Certainly their were greater trees in which they could be safer, but they chose the humbler mustard tree.  This is a sign of grace, that though the world is full of religions and philosophies and the false promises of the devil, those who yearn for the Way, the Truth, and the Life, come to the Holy Church and find refreshment there.  We can also see the mustard tree as Jesus himself, the Son of God who descends from heaven to be born of a humble Virgin in a stable and who grew up in the shadow of the false teachings of the world, offering not power but peace to all who came to him.

Personal Note: Just a reminder: The first three parts of the ongoing  Bible Study on the Book of Revelation have been recorded and the links to the recordings are provided in the right hand side bar on this page.

The Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 26, 2026

Matthew 13:44–52

Jesus said to his disciples: “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field, which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls. When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea, which collects fish of every kind. When it is full they haul it ashore and sit down to put what is good into buckets. What is bad they throw away. Thus it will be at the end of the age. The angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth. Do you understand all these things?” They answered, “Yes.” And he replied, “Then every scribe who has been instructed in the kingdom of heaven is like the head of a household who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old.” 

Jesus preaches here to his disciples, who are familiar with his way of preaching and with his parables, and so are in a better position to understand him than the crowds.  He particularly preaches here regarding the kingdom of heaven, a term that does not occur in the prophets or in the apocryphal literature of the time.  It is worth noting that Jesus does not say, “the kingdom of Israel”, the re-establishing of which many Pharisees and scribes expected to be done by the Messiah.  Thus, in his healing and exorcising, the Lord acts, for the Jews, like the long-awaited Messiah, but his words do not lend to this interpretation.  

His parables on the kingdom of heaven do not contain references to uprisings, soldiers, fighting, or victories, either.  Clearly, his kingdom is “not of this world”.  Instead, the objects and occupations of ordinary daily life fill these parables, at once speaking to the common man, and at the same time showing them as signs of heavenly realities.

“The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field.”  Now, this treasure was not buried in the man’s own field, but in another’s.  It sounds like the finder happened to be in this field, perhaps on business, and found the treasure.  It sounds like the finder had a fairly easy time locating it.  He would hardly have taken to digging and excavating another man’s field without permission.  This implies that the owner of the field did not know his field very well.  He did not know what was on it.  This signifies the Gentiles, who found Christ among the Jews and “sold off” their former way of life in order to live as a Christian.  We can also understand this as a Christian man whose devotion is unremarkable suddenly realizing, in an inspiration of the Holy Spirit, how much Jesus loves him, and he completely gives himself over to the Lord.

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls.”  Now, we can understand this parable much as we understand the one above, but we can look at them in another way: It is The Son of God who is the merchant in this parable, and he is “looking for” those whom he has come down to earth  to save.  Out of joy in finding us, he sells all that he has — that is, he leaves heaven, becomes man, and endures his Passion and Death — in order to save us.  In his eyes, we are the “pearl of great price”.  As St. Paul reminds us, “You are bought with a great price” (1 Corinthians 6, 20).

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea, which collects fish of every kind.”  That is, everyone is invited into the kingdom of heaven: “Many are called” (Matthew 22, 14).  “Fish of every kind” are caught, that is, those who love Christ for himself, and those who give the appearance of following him for some benefit, such as power or money.  The net is haul ashore, the last judgment, and what is good is kept and what is bad is thrown away.  The Lord adds this explanatory phrase: “The angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous.”  Traditionally, it is understood that the mission of the angels on the day of judgment will be to wake the dead, reconstituting their bodies so that their souls can reunite with them.  The angels will then convey the resurrected humans to the place of judgment.  In the image our Lord furnishes here, it is the angels which will separate the “lambs” from the “goats” in the presence of the Lord.  After the judgment, the angels will take the wicked and “throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”  Perhaps the former guardian angels of the wicked will do this.  The “wailing and grinding of teeth” signifies both the agony of the wicked in their torments and of their regret at how easily they could have been saved if they had given themselves to Christ during the short time of their mortal lives.

Finally, Jesus compares the scribe instructed in the kingdom of heaven as the head of the household who brings out both the old and the new.  In the case of the head of the household, that might mean fresh food and aged wine.  In the case of the scribe, it can mean the ability to understand and preach both the Old and New Testaments, revealing how the Old is the sign of the New.  That can be any of us who love the Scriptures inspired by God and treat them as treasures and as pearls of great price.

Personal Note: For those who are interested, Part 3 of the Bible Study on the Book of Revelation is available through the link on the right sidebar. We have a few more parts ahead of us!

 Revelation Part 3

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bXju3cu8pbCi1sI16pPRQ__WAxPq6qVO/view?usp=drivesdk