The 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 10, 2023

Matthew 18, 15–20

Jesus said to his disciples: “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother. If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that ‘every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church. If he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector. Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again, amen, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

The Lord refers to his “Church” as such exactly twice in the Gospels: in Matthew 16, 18, where Jesus tells Simon the son of John that he is “rock” and upon this rock he will build his Church, and here, where he provides guidance for church order.  It would be interesting to know whether the Lord used the Hebrew word keneseth, meaning “assembly”, which the Greeks translated with their word synagoge or whether he used the Greek word ekklesia, another Greek word meaning “assembly” that the early Christians, including the Apostles, preferred, as it distinguished the Christians from the Jews.  The fact that Jesus spoke of his Church during his lifetime indicates that he meant for his first followers to think of themselves as distinct from the Jews, though they themselves were  originally Jews.

“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.”  The Greek text is stronger: If your brother wins against you, depart and rebuke him between yourselves only.  The Lord’s counsel seeks to avoid the scandal among non-believers of a dispute between Christians.  St. Paul was already dealing with this problem among the Gentile Christians in the early 50’s: “But brother goes to law with brother: and that before unbelievers” (1 Corinthians 6, 6).  The Lord says, in the Greek, “Depart”: Do not remain where you are being wronged or hurt, as long as it is between you and the other and does not directly involve others.  “And rebuke him between yourselves only.”  That is, not only tell him that he has sinned and what his sin consists of, but how it has caused personal distress or harm.  Now, how one goes about doing this depends on several factors.  We have to act prudentially and choose the right time, place, and words for this rebuke.  It is best delivered in a calm though firm manner.  And the purpose of the rebuke is “to win over your brother”, not to avenge oneself on him.

“If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.”  The stipulation for the number of witnesses goes back to Mosaic Law.  This next step depends upon there having been present at the offense at least two or three other people.   Their presence would be to cause the offender to admit to his action, to seek forgiveness, and to make amends when he might dismiss or make light of what the offended or harmed person says.  “If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church.”  That is, the local Christian community.  This was practical to do in the early years of the Church when individual churches were small and might contain a dozen or a few dozen people.  It is done now only in cases of a member of the clergy who causes harm to a parish through embezzlement, for example, or to a family or individual.  The matter should be reported to the local bishop, or, if it involves a bishop, the papal envoy may be contacted or the local archbishop.  “If he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.”  The term for this action is excommunication, which St. Paul applied to the woman and her son who were living as husband and wife yet claiming to be Christians in 1 Corinthians 5, 1-5.  

“Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”  This saying may have been given at a different time than the preceding counsel but Matthew was reminded of it when he recounted Jesus speaking of witnesses.  On the other hand, it may be that the Lord simply went onto a related but different subject st this point.  He is speaking though not of the general members of a local church but of the Apostles.  He had already granted Peter the power of binding and loosing but now he gives it to the Apostles as a group.  This power relates primarily to the sacramental absolution or withholding of absolution of sin.  It is the basis for the Apostolic Pardon which a priest gives to a dying Catholic.  The Pardon, presupposing the recipient is sorry for his sins and is detached from the desire to sin, not only forgives sins but also remits punishment due to sin in this world and in the next, meaning purgatory.

“Again, amen, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father.”  If one person who believes in the Lord and asks for something in his name receives what he has asked for, how much more those who are joined together to ask for a certain thing!  What we ask for pertains to needed graces, conversions, and that which is necessary to do God’s will.  “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”  The Lord is present in the believer’s heart through grace and is present in the midst of several believers to a stronger degree: “The Kingdom of God is in your midst” (Luke 17, 21).

We see how the Lord does not leave us as scattered individual Christians but has bound us together not only through baptism but through the society of the Holy Church.  It is as members of his Church that he desires us to live out our lives in his service as we await his return, aided, comforted, and, when necessary, rebuked by other members.

Personal Note: I need to re-record the Bible Study discussion on the Hebrew language from this past Tuesday and will do so as soon as I can,

Saturday in the 22nd Week of Ordinary Time, September 5, 2026

Luke 6, 1-5

While Jesus was going through a field of grain on a Sabbath, his disciples were picking the heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands, and eating them. Some Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?” Jesus said to them in reply, “Have you not read what David did when he and those who were with him were hungry? How he went into the house of God, took the bread of offering, which only the priests could lawfully eat, ate of it, and shared it with his companions?” Then he said to them, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

At the Wedding of Cana, the Lord Jesus performed a miracle that was known only by the wedding servants, the Apostles, and the Lord’s Mother.  St. John tells us that this was the first of his “signs”.  He later performed miracles at various places in Galilee as he preached the Gospel.  But it was at Nazareth that he announced that he was the long-awaited Messiah, though not using that politically loaded term.  Then at Capernaum a demon Jesus exorcised cried out that he was “the Holy One of God”, while other demons called him “the Son of God”.  The miracles the Lord was performing acted as signs pointing to his identity as something much greater than a mere man or even a prophet.  The local Pharisees had heard about him and perhaps had sent to Nazareth to find out his background and what he had said and done there.  In today’s Gospel Reading we see them walking with the Lord and his Apostles.  We should see how curious this is.  Jesus is leading his Apostles to a particular destination and the Pharisees are simply tagging along with no other purpose than to watch the Lord with a critical eye.

“His disciples were picking the heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands, and eating them.”  Due to the Lord’s ceaseless activity and his zeal to preach, he and the Apostles often slept out of doors, eating sparely.  For instance, on the occasions when Jesus fed the large crowds, the twelve Apostles between them were found to have just a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish — hardly enough for a filling meal for thirteen grown men.  The Apostles took advantage of a Jewish Law that allowed them to take and eat grain heads they could reach as they walked along a path.  Then they rubbed these in their hands, as though to bake them, and then they ate them.  The Pharisees were aghast.  “Why are you doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”  They objected to the action of the rubbing of the grain heads.   The only thing in the Law that might be found behind their claim is from Exodus 16, 22, in which God tells the Israelites to gather enough manna on Fridays to last them into the Sabbath so that they would not break the law regarding resting on the Sabbath by preparing food.  For the Pharisees, rubbing the grain heads meant the preparation of food, and in the days of Moses, people were put to death for anything approaching the breach of the Sabbath (cf. Numbers 15, 32-36).

“Have you not read what David did when he and those who were with him were hungry?”  The Lord refers to an incident recounted in 1 Samuel 21, 1-6.  It may not be apparent at first sight what this passage has to do with what the Apostles are doing, though both involve the actual or apparent breaching of the Law.  But David, in this passage, is fleeing from King Saul, who is trying to kill him though he is innocent of any crime or treachery.  And after David and his men had eaten, David lead them into the land of the Philistines, who recognized him as the king of Israel (v. 11).  Here, the Lord was indeed fleeing — not from an earthly enemy but to the Passion and Death he longed for in order to redeem the human race.  And as he went along he would be recognized for who he was: the Son of God, the King of Israel.  

In the moment, Jesus explains to the Pharisees that in case of dire necessity, exceptions should be made in the practice of the Law: if a person is famished, let him eat even if it means some minimal preparation of food on the Sabbath. By doing this, Jesus shows his compassion to the Apostles and thus equates himself to Ahimelech, the high priest who allowed David and his men to eat the consecrated bread.  The Pharisees may have noted that and the strong claim he was now making for himself.  His next claim stunned them.

“The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”  Even if they had not heard that he had announced himself in Nazareth as the Messiah, the words of John the Baptist, the unprecedented gushing forth of miracles and even the cries of the demons identified this man as one who was beyond men.  His seeing himself in terms of the high priest would have further alarmed them.  But now he takes for himself the title of the Son of Man by which the Messiah was known by the Prophets and even in their own teachings.  And he assumed for himself the divine prerogative of Lawgiver in declaring that he, the Son of Man, was “Lord of the Sabbath”.  

The Evangelists do not tell us how the Pharisees responded.  Most likely they could not speak and stayed put for a while after the Lord and his Apostles resumed their passage through the wheat.  Perhaps they did not follow.  They had much to consider.

Today we celebrate the feast day of St. Teresa of Calcutta. I met her on a couple of occasions. Once at the Gift of Peace where I served as a live-in volunteer in the mid 1980’s when the Missionaries of Charity used it as a hospice for indigent AIDS patients. She came once or twice a year as sisters preparing for their final vows lived and worked there. I also met her (and shook her hand) after a Mass in which I served during which a number of younger sisters made their final vows. She came up to my third short button in height. I found her very child-like, very humble. When two newly ordained priests came by, hoping to give her their first blessing, her eyes lit up and she positively glowed at the prospect. When they entered the room she dropped to her knees and was as happy as a little girl at her birthday party. She now enjoys the eternal presence of the God for whom she worked so hard here on earth.

Friday in the 22nd Week of Ordinary Time, September 4, 2026

Luke 5, 33-39

The scribes and Pharisees said to Jesus, “The disciples of John the Baptist fast often and offer prayers, and the disciples of the Pharisees do the same; but yours eat and drink.” Jesus answered them, “Can you make the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come, and when the bridegroom is taken away from them, then they will fast in those days.” And he also told them a parable. “No one tears a piece from a new cloak to patch an old one. Otherwise, he will tear the new and the piece from it will not match the old cloak. Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins, and it will be spilled, and the skins will be ruined. Rather, new wine must be poured into fresh wineskins. And no one who has been drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’ ”

In the first part of today’s Gospel reading, we learn, through the mouth of a Pharisee, something of the structured lifestyle that characterized the Pharisees and their disciples and John the Baptist and his.  They had this in common: they fasted on certain days and they prayed certain prayers, probably at set hours of the day in imitation of the schedule of prayers in the Temple.  The Pharisee’s question reveals at least his perception that the Lord’s disciples did not follow something similar.  And we know that the disciples themselves felt they needed the Lord to teach them to pray “as John taught his disciples” (Luke 11, 1).  Regarding prayer, Jesus wanted the disciples to ask him to pray so that they might understand that prayer is itself a gift of God, as well as knowing how to pray.  The question of fasting gives him the opportunity to reassert that he is the Bridegroom who has come to lead his Bride to his home in heaven.  The time for fasting will come, he says, but it is not now when he is still among us: this should be a time of feasting and rejoicing. 

“No one tears a piece from a new cloak to patch an old one.”  The meaning of this parable is not easily discerned.  With some thought, the Lord appears to be saying that only those baptized and made anew can receive infusions of grace that enable the perfect following of God’s commandments.  However, if we grant that, then what are we to do with the the Lord’s observation that, “no one who has been drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’ ”?  The Lord is in fact observing what people say who will not try the new wine and remain with the old even when it has turned into vinegar.  St. Augustine says that the Lord is speaking specifically of the Apostles here, for at this time as “an old cloak” or “old skins”, the new wine of the Holy Spirit would burst them and overflow, but after the Lord’s Death and Resurrection they would be made new in order for him to fill them.  This is an apt interpretation because in the Acts of the Apostles 2, 13, when the Holy Spirit has filled them at Pentecost, the people hear them speaking other languages and praising God and they respond, “These men are full of new wine” (Acts 2, 13).  Peter, under the influence of the new wine of the Holy Spirit thereupon delivers an exhortation to the crowd that is so persuasive that “there were added in that day about three thousand souls” (Acts 2, 41) to the ranks of the Church.

The Holy Spirit acts within a person and causes the person to change inwardly (as with wine) and outwardly (a new cloak) so that we are disposed to doing the good which the Lord would have us do.  Through the ages, earthly wine has been used for many purposes: for cleaning wounds, as a restorative and medicine, and to bolster courage, among others.  May the Holy Spirit heal the wounds of our sins and hurts, help us to recover and to persevere in times of tribulation, and to be bold in proclaiming the Gospel is the words, actions, and prayers of our everyday lives. 

Thursday in the 22nd Week of Ordinary Time, September 3, 2026

Luke 5, 1-11

While the crowd was pressing in on Jesus and listening to the word of God, he was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret. He saw two boats there alongside the lake; the fishermen had disembarked and were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, he asked him to put out a short distance from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. After he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.” Simon said in reply, “Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing, but at your command I will lower the nets.” When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish and their nets were tearing. They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come to help them. They came and filled both boats so that the boats were in danger of sinking. When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at the knees of Jesus and said, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” For astonishment at the catch of fish they had made seized him and all those with him, and likewise James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners of Simon. Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” When they brought their boats to the shore, they left everything and followed him.

The events presented in today’s Gospel Reading are found only in the Gospel according to St. Luke.  Both St. Matthew and St. Mark, eager to quickly tell of the call of the first Apostles and then move on to the Lord’s teachings and his more spectacular miracles, summarize.  St. Luke, however, writing for the Gentiles, wants to point out to them the Lord’s mercy and forgiveness, which form the basis for his miracles.  In this account, we see how a miracle leads to an act of mercy that changes a life — and history.

“While the crowd was pressing in on Jesus and listening to the word of God, he was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret.” The Greeks would have known the Sea of Galilee as the Lake of Gennesaret, from the oldest name for this body of water.  Numbers 34, 11.  “Galilee” comes from a Hebrew word meaning “the district”, that is, the district of the Gentiles, for that is what northern Israel became after it was conquered by the Assyrians in 721 B.C.  It only became Jewish again in the hundred and fifty years before Jesus was born.  The Sea was later called the Sea of Tiberias after the city built on its coast by Herod Antipas and named for the reigning Roman emperor.  St. Luke is telling us that Jesus was outside a town, almost certainly that of Capernaum.  He is standing in the wild grass.  “He saw two boats there alongside the lake; the fishermen had disembarked and were washing their nets.”  This tells us that it was the early morning, not long after daybreak.  The time may have been days, weeks, or months after Jesus had entered Capernaum and cured many people after sunset.  The mood of the fishermen who are washing their nets is dismal for they have nothing to show for a long night’s work.

“Getting into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, he asked him to put out a short distance from the shore.”  Simon, soaked to the skin and exhausted, does as Jesus says.  This is not some small act of obedience.  All Simon wanted at that time was to finish washing the nets, dry off, and go to bed.  Putting out again took work, too.  “Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat.”  He sat down, taking the posture of the teacher while his students stood attentively, and taught the crowds of the love of God, the need to repent, and about heaven.  “Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.”  Jesus asks an extraordinary thing of an already exhausted man.  In so doing, he acts like a carpenter from landlocked Nazareth who does not know anything about fishing.  Again, Simon shows remarkable patience in his obedience: “Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing, but at your command I will lower the nets.”  He and his brother Andrew load the nets into the boat and put out into the lake.  It would have taken them perhaps thirty minutes and to get out to the middle of the lake.  We might wonder if, while engaged in this, Simon realized that this was a turning point of some kind.  He was taking orders that seemed unreasonable and even risked the mockery of his neighbors for the apparently foolhardy effort he was making.  He would have done this for no one else.  What did it mean for him?  What was happening to him?

“When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish and their nets were tearing.”  Simon could not have reasonably expected anything to happen after he lowered the nets, and the Greek indicates that it happened as soon as the nets hit the water.  Simon was faced now with an emergency: his nets were tearing apart so that he stood to lose the nets and the haul of fish.  “They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come to help them. They came and filled both boats so that the boats were in danger of sinking.”  James and John had watched the spectacle from the coast along with their father Zebedee and the others.  At first it would have been difficult to tell what was going on, but when they saw the figure of Simon waving to them, silhouetted by the light of the rising sun, they hurried out. Rowing as hard as they could, they came alongside Simon’s boat and assisted with the nets, pulling as much of the catch into their boat as they could reach.  There was excitement and yelling and struggling with the nets and keeping the boats in position so that they did not crash into each other and yet remained near enough to work together.  And in the midst of all this, Simon caught sight of Jesus, calmly observing the scene.  He stopped what he was doing and “he fell at the knees of Jesus and said, ‘Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.’ ”  He had seen the Lord perform miracles before.  This one was different.  This one was for him, and he knew, deep in his heart, that he was undeserving of it.  He knew who Jesus was, better than the demons who had cried out, “You are the Son of God!”  And he knew himself and he knew that Jesus had done this for him.  “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.”  Do not be afraid that you are not good enough.  Do not be afraid of your sinful past.  Do not be afraid of temptations.  You will catch men.  Simon could not have understood much or anything of what this meant, but it did not stop him from giving up everything, then and there, to follow Jesus: “When they brought their boats to the shore, they left everything and followed him.”

If we examine our lives and consider the immense love of the Lord Jesus, perhaps gazing at a crucifix as we do so, we will feel the urge to say with Simon Peter: Leave me Lord, for I am a sinful human being.  But let us not let our past prevent us from following him and “catching men” for him through our prayers, words, and good deeds.  He is the Fisherman and we are the nets.

Wednesday in the 22nd Week of Ordinary Time, September 2, 2026

Luke 4, 38-44

After Jesus left the synagogue, he entered the house of Simon. Simon’s mother-in-law was afflicted with a severe fever, and they interceded with him about her. He stood over her, rebuked the fever, and it left her. She got up immediately and waited on them.  At sunset, all who had people sick with various diseases brought them to him. He laid his hands on each of them and cured them. And demons also came out from many, shouting, “You are the Son of God.” But he rebuked them and did not allow them to speak because they knew that he was the Christ.  At daybreak, Jesus left and went to a deserted place. The crowds went looking for him, and when they came to him, they tried to prevent him from leaving them. But he said to them, “To the other towns also I must proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God, because for this purpose I have been sent.” And he was preaching in the synagogues of Judea.

“After Jesus left the synagogue, he entered the house of Simon.”  The events in the Gospel Reading for today’s Mass follow the Lord’s exorcism of a demon in the town’s synagogue.  We hear no more of the man whom the demon possessed nor of those who witnessed the exorcism.  Simon and Andrew certainly witnessed it.  St. Luke assumes that his readers know that Jesus is already acquainted in the two brothers, which St. John confirms in his Gospel.  Luke uses Peter’s original name, Simon, since Jesus has not yet changed it.  “Simon’s mother-in-law was afflicted with a severe fever, and they interceded with him about her.”  Here is early evidence of the intercession of the saints, for Peter and Andrew interceded for this woman.  It is no different today when we ask Peter and Andrew for their prayers for some cause.  She was afflicted with a severe fever from which she would die without divine help.  “He stood over her, rebuked the fever, and it left her. She got up immediately and waited on them.”  Luke is careful to show the Lord’s position over her, perhaps recalling the words of the Psalm: “The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not smite you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life” (Psalm 121, 5-7). (The “smiting” of the moon at night was thought to cause “lunacy” as the sun caused “sunburn”).  Luke reports that the Lord “rebuked” the fever as though it were sentient.  In this way he shows that he commands all things, and all things serve him.  The illness itself served to provide a sign of his power, even as did the death of Lazarus, as the Lord explained to the Apostles at the time.  “She got up immediately and waited on them.”  She got up and went to work without any period of convalescence such as she would have ordinarily needed.  Her work was to “wait” on them, reminding us that this is our work too, and we can do this when we are ill as well as when we are well.  

“At sunset, all who had people sick with various diseases brought them to him.”  Luke tells us that Simon’s mother-in-law waited on Jesus and the others which tells us the healing occurred around the time of the midday meal.  By sunset some hours had passed and the story of the exorcism as well as of the healing would have spread to the surrounding area.  Some of the sick would have walked hours.  Other would have had to be carried or dragged on mats.  “He laid his hands on each of them and cured them.”  The Lord could have cured them at one and the same time, but he chose the exhausting method of meeting each one, perhaps exchanging a few words with each, and healing them individually, standing for hours.  In this way he showed his love for each.  Looking back at this we can learn that the Lord would have died over and over again for us if he could have, and if this would have won for him the love and gratitude of each human.  Even so, the one Death he died overwhelmed him with a suffering that we can never imagine.  “And demons also came out from many, shouting, ‘You are the Son of God.’  But he rebuked them and did not allow them to speak because they knew that he was the Christ.”  The demons now cry out anything, tempting him to himself to reveal himself to them.  Since he had already publicly revealed at Nazareth that he was the Messiah, they did know this about him.  Jesus “did not allow them to speak”, that is, to do anymore than make a single cry which would prove the case of the possession as well as help indicate the success of the exorcism afterwards.  

“At daybreak, Jesus left and went to a deserted place.”  If the Lord slept, he could not have slept much.  St. Mark tells us that after this torrent of miracles, “rising very early, going out, he went into a desert place: and there he prayed” (Mark 1, 35).  Perhaps the wasteland resembled, to some extent, the world at the very beginning: “The earth was void and empty” (Genesis 1, 2).  Here is the Lord, as the sun’s rays only begin to light the sky, beginning his work of re-creation and redemption.  “To the other towns also I must proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God, because for this purpose I have been sent.”  For the first time, he teaches that he has been “sent” into the world, having preexisted it; he was outside the world and now he is inside it.  He also reveals his purpose for being sent: to proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God, that the redemption of the human race is now st hand.  “And he was preaching in the synagogues of Judea.”  If we read only Gospels of Matthew and Mark we would not know that Jesus preached in the towns of Judea, for they do not mention this.  Luke is careful to do so to show the Gentiles reading his Gospel that the whole Jewish nation had the opportunity to accept or reject him.

Eventually in Capernaum the Lord’s miracles became commonplace.  The people took them and him for granted so that he rebuked them before his final journey to Jerusalem.  Let us look about us and see the many miracles and signs of love that he gives to us that our love for him may grow.

I’m afraid I wasn’t able to record our fourth Hebrew session last night but I will make a special recording containing everything that we did in it, which will be posted in a couple of days.

Tuesday in the 22nd Week of Ordinary Time, September 1, 2026

Luke 4, 31-37

Jesus went down to Capernaum, a town of Galilee. He taught them on the sabbath, and they were astonished at his teaching because he spoke with authority. In the synagogue there was a man with the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out in a loud voice, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are–the Holy One of God!” Jesus rebuked him and said, “Be quiet! Come out of him!”  Then the demon threw the man down in front of them and came out of him without doing him any harm.  They were all amazed and said to one another, “What is there about his word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out.” And news of him spread everywhere in the surrounding region.

In this Gospel Reading, St. Luke reports that the Lord Jesus went to the larger town of Capernaum beside the Sea of Galilee after he was rejected and nearly killed at his hometown of Nazareth.  The two towns were about twenty hilly miles apart, but were worlds apart in that Nazareth was landlocked and relatively isolated and Capernaum sat by the sea and on a trade route.  It was also situated within easy reach of other towns and cities.  And while at Nazareth “he wrought not many miracles there, because of their unbelief” (Matthew 13, 58), at Capernaum “all the city was gathered together at the door” (Mark 1, 33).

“They were astonished at his teaching because he spoke with authority.”  The Greek word translated here as the fairly mild “astonished” means the stronger “astounded” and “thunderstruck”.  When the Pharisees taught, they backed their teaching, however misguided, with quotes from the Scriptures.  The Lord preaches in a different way: “Matthew 5:27–28 (D-R): You have heard that it was said to them of old: You shall not commit adultery.  But I say to you, that whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5, 27-28).  He teaches on his own authority, for he himself is the Lawgiver.  This directness shocked the people, and the fact that he was “unlearned” in the Law and not a Pharisee added to this effect.  But they listened.

“In the synagogue there was a man with the spirit of an unclean demon.”  We can read this both as a historical fact and as Luke’s summary of the rejection of Jesus by the Jews: the unclean spirit of the Pharisees, the chief priests, and the elders dwelling within the Jewish world, resisting the Son of God who has come to cast them out and save the people.  We might ask how an unclean spirit would permit the individual it possessed to enter a synagogue or church.  Among other reasons for this, demons are driven towards that which will conquer them due to their self-destructive nature.

“What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are–the Holy One of God!”  The demon speaks in the first person plural as the spokesman for several demons that are present with it.  It claims to know who Jesus is and names him as “the Holy One of God”, indicating that all it knows is that Jesus does the works of God.  The devil did not know until quite late in the Lord’s life that he was the only-begotten Son of God.

“Be quiet! Come out of him!”  Elaborate rituals, often involving sacrifices, were used in ancient times to drive out demons.  Here, the Lord demonstrates his power with two brisk commands.  “Then the demon threw the man down in front of them and came out of him without doing him any harm.”. The Lord permits the demon to throw the man down in order to make manifest some token of the demon’s power, but the man is protected and is able to side up unhurt.  We should notice how cleanly Luke describes the scene and the dialogue.  He does this in order to keep the focus on the main point of the event: the Lord’s power over evil.  But we should think about how this actually played out, with the demon contorting the man and driving him back and forth through the synagogue, then hissing and crying out in turns.  The very appearance of the man during the demon’s encounter with the living God would have terrified any onlooker, the eyes bulging, foam dripping from the mouth, his whole visage wild.

“They were all amazed.”  Those who had witnessed the exorcism would never have seen or heard of anything like this before, and it happened very quickly.  “What is there about his word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out.”  The Lord commanded the demon to depart with his own words and by his own authority.  He did not resort to long prayers and involved rituals.  His word drove the demon out.  But where did the word’s power come from?  Where did his authority come from?  For this was the power and authority of God alone.  In Luke’s telling, this began a virtual torrent of miracles that day.  It was as if Jesus had barely restrained himself through his life until this moment to pour out his healing into the world.  This is a sign of how passionately he wished to die on the Cross for our redemption.  He waits until the moment ordained in his Father’s Providence, and then devours the work the Father appoints to him.

We should cultivate through prayer and meditation on the Cross this same zeal for doing the Father’s will so that we might become more and more like his Son.

Monday in the 22nd Week of Ordinary Time, August 31, 2026

Luke 4, 16-30

Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went according to his custom into the synagogue on the sabbath day. He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.”  Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him. He said to them, “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” And all spoke highly of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They also asked, “Is this not the son of Joseph?” He said to them, “Surely you will quote me this proverb, ‘Physician, cure yourself,’ and say, ‘Do here in your native place the things that we heard were done in Capernaum.’” And he said, “Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place. Indeed, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the sky was closed for three and a half years and a severe famine spread over the entire land. It was to none of these that Elijah was sent, but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon. Again, there were many lepers in Israel during the time of Elisha the prophet; yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” When the people in the synagogue heard this, they were all filled with fury. They rose up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong. But he passed through the midst of them and went away.

St. Luke puts events in their chronological order that are in thematic or some other order in other Gospels.  St. Matthew, for instance, shows Jesus moving to Capernaum before returning to Nazareth, but St. Luke shows that Jesus went back to Nazareth, was rejected there, and then moved to Capernaum.  The rejection was the cause for the move.  The move was the sign that the Lord accepted their rejection.  And it was a warning.

“Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went according to his custom into the synagogue on the sabbath day.”  Throughout his Gospel, St. Luke shows his Gentile readers that Jesus obeyed the Law on every respect and fulfilled the Scriptures pertaining to the Messiah: it is the high priests and Pharisees who do not obey the Law and falsely accuse Jesus.  He was rejected by his own people bot because he was a bad Jew but because they were.  

“He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah.”  Synagogue services did not include worship, which was restricted to the Temple in Jerusalem.  Rather, they were discussions on the Law and the Prophets.  Anyone could read on a given Sabbath and lead the discussion.  Jesus chooses to read from a scroll containing the Book of Isaiah.  Almost every synagogue in Israel at that time had a complete copy of the Law and the Prophets.  “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor.”  This was a text considered to speak of the Messiah.  “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”  The Lord identifies himself as the Messiah with these words.  We note that he does this not at Jerusalem or even in the town his Mary and Joseph’s family was from but at the town where he grew up.  He was according this insignificant out-of-the-way settlement an immense honor in which the inhabitants could have basked.  Instead of Capernaum, he could have drawn his first disciples from there, and used Nazareth as his base.

At first, the response proved favorable: “And all spoke highly of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.”  But as the talk continued, it turned negative.  How could this be the Messiah?  “Is this not the son of Joseph?”  According to the Pharisees, no one was supposed to know where the Messiah came from.  His claim contradicted this widely accepted idea.  Jesus seems to preempt another objection: “Physician, cure yourself.”  Some of the earliest Fathers, such as Clement of Alexandria, wrote that the Lord possessed some sort of deformity such as a bowed back, and this would seem to answer the proverb the Lord quotes and it would also make it less likely that he could be the Messiah.  “Do here in your native place the things that we heard were done in Capernaum.”  The crowd now realizes it has only heard of the miracles the Lord has performed; they have not seen any themselves.

“Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place.”  The Lord reminds the people of how the Prophets whom they now revere were themselves rejected and persecuted by their own people.  Then he cites how the two greatest of them accepted this rejection and went and performed miracles for others instead.  “When the people in the synagogue heard this, they were all filled with fury.”  The murderous nature of this fury, this riot, eludes us a little.  But the Lord’s comparing them to the ungrateful people at the time of the Prophets touched some deep feeling within them.  Perhaps they were of the mind of the Pharisees: “If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the Prophets” (Matthew 23, 30).  In this case they would have seen Jesus as telling them that they were no better than their ancestors, who persecuted the Prophets.  Ironically, they endeavor to fulfill this: “They rose up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong.”  The Lord shows his divine patience in not destroying the town but in simply slipping away: “But he passed through the midst of them and went away.” 

Nazareth would hear much more of the Lord’s miracles over the next few years but he would never return there.  They had rejected him and he accepted that rejection.  They will be accountable for it at the great judgment.  Let us grasp the Lord gratefully with our hearts and ever seek to obey his commandments of love so that he may his home in our hearts.