Thursday in the Sixteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 23, 2026

Matthew 13, 10-17

The disciples approached Jesus and said, “Why do you speak to the crowd in parables?” He said to them in reply, “Because knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom of heaven has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted. To anyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand. Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled in them, which says: ‘You shall indeed hear but not understand, you shall indeed look but never see. Gross is the heart of this people, they will hardly hear with their ears, they have closed their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and be converted and I heal them.’  But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear. Amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.”

Jesus reveals the Kingdom of heaven to the crowds, but he teaches the mysteries of the Kingdom of heaven only to his closest followers, who have spent some time with him and are devoted to him.  They are thus the best prepared for learning of the mysteries of the Kingdom.  On this occasion, the Apostles ask him why he speaks to them about the Kingdom in the form of parables that they are not easily going to understand.  The Lord tells the parables for everyone, casual listener and devoted follower alike.  Each will take something away from hearing them.  The Apostles will ask questions about them, but the people in the crowds do not.  They certainly could ask questions, but they choose not to do so.  Is this because their pride tells them that they do understand what the Lord has said, or because their pride will not allow them to appear ignorant?  Is it because they have gathered together for a show, not to learn about eternal things, and hang around until they realize there will be nothing of the kind?  Or do they like to listen to him and ponder his words but do not feel capable of asking questions.  It is easy to imagine folks walking home after hearing the Prodigal Son parable, considering it in very literal terms, and arguing over the characters and their actions.  But the people do not ask the Lord what he means.

The Lord goes on to speak of these people who “look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand.”  Here is One who has shown himself to be the Son of God by curing the sick, casting out demons, and raising the dead.  They themselves say that nothing like what he has done has ever happened before.  And yet when he tells them of heaven and the life of grace and how they might be saved, they do not listen to what he says.  They listen instead for what they want to hear.  They hear the words that they must repent of their sins, but they do not take them to heart.  It is as though each person thought he was talking about someone else.  We recall how the Lord reproached Capharnaum, a town in which he had spent much time: “If the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day” (Matthew 11, 23).  

It is necessary for us to study and contemplate our Lord’s words, and just as necessary for us to take them personally.

The Feast of St, Mary Magdalene, Wednesday, July 22, 2026

John 20, 1-2, 11-18

On the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him.”  Mary stayed outside the tomb weeping. And as she wept, she bent over into the tomb and saw two angels in white sitting there, one at the head and one at the feet where the Body of Jesus had been. And they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken my Lord, and I don’t know where they laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there, but did not know it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” She thought it was the gardener and said to him, “Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni,” which means Teacher. Jesus said to her, “Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and then reported what he told her.

Very little is said of St. Mary Magdalene in the Gospels.  They drop hints, as though expecting us to know what they meant, but they are rather circumspect regarding her.  Both St. Mark and St. Luke tell us that Jesus cast seven demons out of her, and we also know that she stood beneath the Cross with the Blessed Virgin and St. John.  The Gospels further tell us that she was one of the women who followed the Lord and provided for him out of their own means (cf. Luke 8, 3).  These facts speak of her passion for the Lord Jesus as her Savior.  Of all the people the Lord had healed, of all the people the Lord had called to follow him, she came to be with him as he hung on the Cross.  Who else was there?  His Mother, who loved him beyond all telling, and the disciple whom Jesus loved.  Shame and humiliation meant nothing to them as they looked up into the face of the one who was everything to them.  They hardly heard the scorn, the sneers, the mockery of the high priests and the others who gathered like vultures around the one dying on the Cross.

Mary Magdalene stayed at the Cross the entire time the Lord suffered there, and she saw him die.  She experienced the earthquake that marked his Death, and she saw the centurion shove his spear into the Lord’s side.  The horror of that afternoon did not drive her away in sickness and fear.  She only saw the Lord who had saved her.  She remained at Golgotha even as Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus took his Body down from the Cross, and she followed them to the tomb where they laid it.  She took note of the place so that she could find it again.  And then, a practical woman, she went to one of the shops in Jerusalem that was still open as the sun was going down and the Sabbath was beginning, and she bought “sweet spices” with which to anoint the Body of the Lord after the Sabbath had passed.  She did this in company with at least a couple of other women with whom she had followed the Lord.

St. John focuses on Mary Magdalene in his recounting of the first appearance of the Lord after his Resurrection, and he shows the fullness of her love in how early she came to the tomb, how her anxiety to care for his precious Body overrode waiting until later in the day to rally some of the men to move the heavy stone that covered the mouth of the tomb, and in how she remained at the tomb even after she had discovered that it was empty, as if to say, Where else can I go?  

“She turned around and saw Jesus there, but did not know it was Jesus.”  This has been interpreted as teaching that the glorified bodies of the saints will differ in appearance from how their bodies looked during their life on earth.  While that is no doubt true, there seems to be more to her not recognizing the Lord than this.  Was it that her tears marred her vision, or that the grim reality of his Death had so impressed itself on her mind that she simply could not recognize him as alive and conversing with her?  But it also seems that her question to him is phrased awkwardly, and is a little strange.  It is almost as if she is attempting to get him to speak some more so that she can listen to the sound of his voice.  “Mary!”  The Lord calling her name is one of the most moving moments in all of the Scriptures, and in all of human history.  She recognized the way he spoke her name.  It was the way only Jesus had spoken it, with his heavy Galilean accent and the sheer love of her in his voice.  She answered him at once, and John gives us the exact Aramaic name she called him, translating it into the Greek for his readers: “Teacher!” although there is more to what she called him than how we think of “teacher”, which we see today as merely a profession.  For her, the Lord taught how she should live, and who God was, and how much God loved her.  He taught her about the beauty of the world God had created, and that he had created it for her.  Before the Lord had cast out the evil spirits that had possessed her and used her, she had endured a miserable existence.  We can think of other examples of the possessed in the Gospel: of the man possessed by Legion, who took him over so that he “had his dwelling in the tombs, and no man now could bind him, not even with chains. For having been often bound with fetters and chains, he had burst the chains, and broken the fetters in pieces, and no one could tame him.  And he was always day and night in the tombs and in the mountains, crying and cutting himself with stones” (Mark 5, 3-5). Or of the little boy from whom the Lord cast out demons after his Transfiguration: “I have brought my son to you, who has a dumb spirit, who, whenever he seizes him, dashes him down, and he foams at the mouth and gnashes his teeth and grieves” (Mark 9, 16-17).  Jesus had saved her, and she never forgot it.  He had given her her life.  And now, after losing him to death, she had him again.

“Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.”  The Greek has, “Stop touching me.”  In her wonder and love, she had embraced him, and he had held her.  But only in heaven could she embrace him forever.  In the meantime, the Lord sends her on a mission to tell his Apostles of his rising from the dead.  To be given a commission by her Lord was her fervent dream, and so she carries it out energetically.  We do not know if she saw him again on earth after that, but her love for him only grew in intensity during the remainder of her life, and now she beholds him forever in heaven, an example of how we ought to yearn for the Lord, setting all else beside, and an intercessor  for us as well.

Tuesday in the Sixteenth week of Ordinary Time, July 21, 2020

Matthew 12, 46-50

While Jesus was speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brothers appeared outside, wishing to speak with him. Someone told him, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, asking to speak with you.” But he said in reply to the one who told him, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother.”

“While Jesus was speaking to the crowds.” As we consider the incident reported by St. Matthew in his Gospel we should keep in mind that it occurred while Jesus was teaching. It can be inferred that he was seated in a house or in the house’s courtyard and that the crowd was very large. Matthew does not say so explicitly but it seems as though this is Peter’s house in Capernaum, which Jesus used as a base when he ministered in Galilee. Since the crowd here is large, the time might have been around that of the midday meal when men and women ceased their work and ate and rested before going out to finish up for the day.

“His Mother and his brothers appeared outside, wishing to speak with him.” St. Albert the Great, in his commentary on this Gospel, sees their arrival and their attempts to speak with him as interruptions of a holy work.  Now, let us imagine someone giving a public lecture at a university or other public place and the lecturer’s relatives pounding on the door of the hall and calling out for the lecturer to stop what he is doing and attend to their needs. What the relatives do here goes beyond that importunity because the Lord is teaching the crowds about God and the Kingdom of Heaven.  

“Your Mother and your brothers are standing outside, asking to speak with you.” The name of the person who says this to the Lord is not given. Clearly, he is interrupting Jesus, who might have been in the middle of a parable or some other words revealing divine mysteries. Jesus did not waste a word and every word he spoke is precious, except perhaps to the man who burst out with information the Lord could not have been ignorant of. The persistent rudeness of his relatives would have agitated those who had come to listen to the Son of God, causing them to talk. St. Albert sees this as a dilemma or even as a temptation posed by the man: what is more important, family, worldly affairs, or the work of religion?

“Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” The Lord, as he so often does, refuses to give a direct answer according to the framing of the situation presented to him. Instead, He ignores this and points out the deeper truth. He begins with a simple but unusual question, for surely he knew who his mother and relatives were. His answer would have come both as a surprise but also as the truth: “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother.” Jesus reveals that his call to preach and to teach came before all else and that those who belonged to him were to be identified not through the accident of biology but through imitating him in the perfect dedication to God’s holy will. The most sacred duty, then, is to God, and all other duties must be ordered to that.

We might wonder what role did the Blessed Virgin have in the deeds of her relatives, for she was named among them. Since her will was fully aligned with God,  she would have had no part in interrupting her Son. She had come up from Nazareth, perhaps a three days walk in rough country, to see her Son and very likely to protect him from these relatives who not only did not believe in him but thought that he was mad: “They went out to lay hold on him. For they said: He is become mad” (Mark 3, 21).

Their attempt did not draw Jesus away from his work. Instead, the interruption became the occasion for a revelation: natural kinship with Christ is a great good, but the deepest kinship with him is formed by obedience to the Father. In this sense the Blessed Virgin was not displaced by the Lord’s words. She fulfilled them more perfectly than anyone else.

 Please click on link to hear Revelation part II from July 14, 2026 talk.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WdMm4dg9Ey2wD8OI1a5slUROtJcldy3T/view?usp=drivesdk

Tuesday in the Sixteenth week of Ordinary Time, July 21, 2026

Matthew 12, 46-50

While Jesus was speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brothers appeared outside, wishing to speak with him. Someone told him, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, asking to speak with you.” But he said in reply to the one who told him, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother.”

“While Jesus was speaking to the crowds.” As we consider the incident reported by St. Matthew in his Gospel we should keep in mind that it occurred while Jesus was teaching. It can be inferred that he was seated in a house or in the house’s courtyard and that the crowd was very large. Matthew does not say so explicitly but it seems as though this is Peter’s house in Capernaum, which Jesus used as a base when he ministered in Galilee. Since the crowd here is large, the time might have been around that of the midday meal when men and women ceased their work and ate and rested before going out to finish up for the day.

“His Mother and his brothers appeared outside, wishing to speak with him.” St. Albert the Great, in his commentary on this Gospel, sees their arrival and their attempts to speak with him as interruptions of a holy work.  Now, let us imagine someone giving a public lecture at a university or other public place and the lecturer’s relatives pounding on the door of the hall and calling out for the lecturer to stop what he is doing and attend to their needs. What the relatives do here goes beyond that importunity because the Lord is teaching the crowds about God and the Kingdom of Heaven.  

“Your Mother and your brothers are standing outside, asking to speak with you.” The name of the person who says this to the Lord is not given. Clearly, he is interrupting Jesus, who might have been in the middle of a parable or some other words revealing divine mysteries. Jesus did not waste a word and every word he spoke is precious, except perhaps to the man who burst out with information the Lord could not have been ignorant of. The persistent rudeness of his relatives would have agitated those who had come to listen to the Son of God, causing them to talk. St. Albert sees this as a dilemma or even as a temptation posed by the man: what is more important, family, worldly affairs, or the work of religion?

“Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” The Lord, as he so often does, refuses to give a direct answer according to the framing of the situation presented to him. Instead, He ignores this and points out the deeper truth. He begins with a simple but unusual question, for surely he knew who his mother and relatives were. His answer would have come both as a surprise but also as the truth: “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother.” Jesus reveals that his call to preach and to teach came before all else and that those who belonged to him were to be identified not through the accident of biology but through imitating him in the perfect dedication to God’s holy will. The most sacred duty, then, is to God, and all other duties must be ordered to that.

We might wonder what role did the Blessed Virgin have in the deeds of her relatives, for she was named among them. Since her will wasfully aligned with God,  she would have had no part in interrupting her Son. She had come up from Nazareth, perhaps a three days walk in rough country, to see her Son and very likely to protect him from these relatives who not only did not believe in him but thought that he was mad: “They went out to lay hold on him. For they said: He is become mad” (Mark 3, 21).

Their attempt did not draw Jesus away from his work. Instead, the interruption became the occasion for a revelation: natural kinship with Christ is a great good, but the deepest kinship with him is formed by obedience to the Father. In this sense the Blessed Virgin was not displaced by the Lord’s words. She fulfilled them more perfectly than anyone else.

Personal Note: The second part of the Bible Study on the Book of Revelation will be posted on this blog page by Tuesday afternoon!

Monday in the Sixteenth Week of Ordinary Time

Matthew 12:38-42

Some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Jesus, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” He said to them in reply, “An evil and unfaithful generation seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it except the sign of Jonah the Prophet. Just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights. At the judgment, the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and there is something greater than Jonah here. At the judgment the queen of the south will arise with this generation and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and there is something greater than Solomon here.”

“Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” The scribes and the Pharisees are not to be asking in good faith for the Lord to prove to the, who he claims to be. Rather, they are daring him to produce a sign from heaven. But even such a sign as they were asking for would not suffice for them to believe. Just as they had incredibly attempted to explain away his exorcisms of demons by saying that he did so by the power of the prince of demons, they would concoct some excuse or explanation for even a sign from heaven.

“An evil and unfaithful generation seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it except the sign of Jonah the Prophet.”  Both the Greek and the Hebrew words that can be translation as “generation” also mean “age”, and this is what the Lord should be understood as saying: “an evil and unfaithful generation seeks a sign”. The “age” he means is the final age of human history which began with his Incarnation and will end with his Second Coming. We today live during this generation or age, and it does seek “a sign” because it is “evil and unfaithful.” It does not seek the reality, which it cannot deny but a sign which it can explain away. “But no sign will be given it” — because the time for signs is over: God has entered the world garbed in our flesh. “The sign of Jonah the Prophet.” Jesus instead points back to a sign given in the past, one very unlike the sign they scribes and Pharisees were daring him to produce for them. And yet Jonah is the greatest sign the Old Testament could offer for who Jesus was. Jonah was sent from Israel to a far country to preach repentance to an unbelieving people; during the storm on the boat on which he traveled he offered himself as a victim to save  foreigners; cast into the sea, he was swallowed by a great fish and after three days he was cast ashore onto dry land.  By pointing to this sign from Israel’s past the Lord Jesus taught about his life in heaven, his Incarnation, his mission, his sacrificial Death, and his Resurrection.

“At the judgment, the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah.” A sign, due to its nature, must be explained in order to be understood. But the scribes and Pharisees do not ask Jesus for an explanation. And yet, the sign to which Jesus directed them should have provoked protests and questions. The fact that it did not shows the bad faith in which the sign was demanded.

So many people today seek signs, but the faithful can give them more than that. Through words and deeds we can show them Christ within us and teach them to long for experiencing him fully in heaven.

The Sixteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, July 19, 2026

Matthew 13, 24–30

Jesus proposed another parable to the crowds, saying: “The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everyone was asleep his enemy came and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and then went off. When the crop grew and bore fruit, the weeds appeared as well. The slaves of the householder came to him and said, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where have the weeds come from?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ His slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ He replied, ‘No, if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them. Let them grow together until harvest; then at harvest time I will say to the harvesters, “First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning; but gather the wheat into my barn.’ ”

Matthew quotes Jesus as speaking often about the “kingdom of heaven”.  While we find these words here and there in the old rabbinical writings, we do not see them in the Old Testament.  Jesus proclaims this kingdom for the first time.  He does not define it in a precise way that would satisfy us modern people, but he often likens it to ordinary earthly experiences involving plants and merchants.  Perhaps the simplest way to think about what the term means is that it is the manifestation of God’s glory, or his righteousness.  The principle manifestation of God’s glory, of course, is the Lord Jesus himself.  Though we might prefer very simple, concise answers and definitions from our Lord, he is revealing eternal truths in human language, and the best way to do this is through parables, which present narratives that lead us to understand more than can be put into words.

The parables Jesus told nearly always included a grotesque  or even ludicrous element.  Here, that element takes the form of a man’s enemy going to extraordinary trouble to ruin the man’s crop.  The means he employs is not an efficient one and the risks the enemy takes in doing this do not seem worthwhile.  Still, this is what the enemy does, and his choices tell us much about him.  They speak of his desperation.

Jesus explains this parable in private to his Apostles: “He who sows good seed is the Son of Man, the field is the world, the good seed the children of the kingdom” (Matthew 13, 38).  By “the children of the kingdom” he means those who are to be saved.  They are set into the world in order to grow and to bear fruit.  They are not there as passive decorations.  This hearing of fruit means producing good works, particularly bringing others into the Church.  Conversely, “the weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil.”  The “children” of the evil one means temptations and wicked people who join themselves to the devil.  These threaten or do actual harm to the children of the kingdom, but their purpose is to turn the “wheat” into “weeds”, and they cannot do this.  At the end of time, the wicked will be taken out and burned in everlasting fire, and the just will rise into a glory that never fades.  The lesson for the wheat: Persevere.  James 1, 12: “Blessed is the man that endures temptation: for, when he has been proved, he shall receive the crown of life which God has promised to them that love him.”

Jesus here also addresses the question of why there is evil in the world.  Why does God allow people to do wicked things?  Why does he allow the wicked, for instance, to desecrate, burn, and blow up Catholic churches, as they are doing now all over the world, seemingly with impunity?  God, in his marvelous providence, created a wide range of creatures.  Among them is the human race.  A human is created in such a way as to know and love God.  Love, however, must be chosen, and so the human person possesses free-will.  Free-will allows for love of God, but it also allows for placing the love of other things above the love of God, effectively resulting in hatred for that which belongs to God.  In short, for a human to love, he must also be able to hate.  In addition, those who choose to love other things above God are especially liable to the temptations of the devil.  But God does not leave his children defenseless prey for the wicked: “The very hairs of your head are all numbered” (Matthew 10, 30), but renders them temporal assistance as well as that of grace.  Ultimately, the one who suffers as a result of evil men, whether directly or indirectly, must look up beyond the dissolving world around us to our eternal prospects, and see that even the devil helps us to heaven, to his frustration, by furnishing the temptations which make us strong in resisting them.