Thursday in the Nineteenth Week of Ordinary Time, August 13, 2026

Matthew 18, 21–19:1

Peter approached Jesus and asked him, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times. That is why the Kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who decided to settle accounts with his servants. When he began the accounting, a debtor was brought before him who owed him a huge amount. Since he had no way of paying it back, his master ordered him to be sold, along with his wife, his children, and all his property, in payment of the debt. At that, the servant fell down, did him homage, and said, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.’ Moved with compassion the master of that servant let him go and forgave him the loan. When that servant had left, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a much smaller amount. He seized him and started to choke him, demanding, ‘Pay back what you owe.’ Falling to his knees, his fellow servant begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’ But he refused. Instead, he had the fellow servant put in prison until he paid back the debt. Now when his fellow servants saw what had happened, they were deeply disturbed, and went to their master and reported the whole affair. His master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to. Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?’ Then in anger his master handed him over to the torturers until he should pay back the whole debt. So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives his brother from his heart.” When Jesus finished these words, he left Galilee and went to the district of Judea across the Jordan.

In yesterday’s reading, the Lord Jesus explained to his Apostles what they are to do when one believer sins against another.  The Lord details a process by which the offender might reflect and then ask forgiveness.  St. Peter follows this with a question: “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?”  Peter asks a good question.  His concern is that someone may take advantage of another believer’s willingness to forgive by continuously wronging him, as in stealing from him.  Jesus seldom gives yes or no answers to the questions posed him and he does not do so here.  He answers with a parable.  He wants the Apostles to understand forgiveness, which has its source in the forgiveness God offers.

The king in the parable is settling accounts with his servants, ministers of his court.  He finds that one servant owes him “a huge amount”.  St. Matthew actually records the amount Jesus gave, but the translator chose not to give this, which is unfortunate.  According to the Greek text, the servant owed “10,000 talents”.  Now, a talent was a weight of silver — approximately 125 pounds.  Checking the newspapers today we can see that silver trades for about $28 an ounce.  If we calculate from this the sum owed by the servant, we arrive at the stupendous figure of $560,000,000.  That is, over half a billion dollars.  We can imagine Peter’s jaw dropping upon hearing this.  Jesus includes a bizarre element  in his parables, and this is one.  It is, in fact a ludicrous amount of money because even if a king could have possessed it at that time, he would hardly have loaned it to a servant.  And if he had, what could the servant have possibly bought with it?  He would hardly have remained a servant.  But Jesus is making a point here.  A king had loaned an impossible amount of money to a servant and now he wanted it back, with interest.  The servant cannot repay it.  Has he wasted the money?  He seems to have lost it all, at any rate.  In such a case, the king quite lawfully ordered “him to be sold, along with his wife, his children, and all his property, in payment of the debt.”  

“The servant fell down, did him homage, and said, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.’ ”  In a panic, the servant cried out for mercy.  We do not feel sympathetic towards the servant because of his foolishness, although we do for his innocent wife and children.  And we would not expect the king to have compassion on him, but the king does.  Jesus here features a second bizarre element: by forgiving this foolish servant his debt, the king seems to show himself foolish — he has just written off half a billion dollars.  Other servants, looking on, perhaps would have felt encouraged to seek large loans from this king as well.

This king, of course, is God, who is ever ready to forgive us our sins.  Our sins are enormous debts we incur — enormous because of their number and also because of the majesty of the One against whom we sin.  No acts we might undertake, no deeds we can do, can pay off this debt.  It only is forgiven if God forgives it.  If he does not forgive it, then in effect he hands the offender “to the torturers until he should pay back the whole debt”, which is to say, never.  Now, the servant’s wife and children, that is, the sinner’s friends and associates, would not have joined him in prison in this event, but would have remained free to raise money for him.  In this case, however, their efforts would have been fruitless.  This is why prayers do not avail for the damned: those in hell did not approach the king for forgiveness while there was still time.  

Let us note what the servant does so that the king forgives his debt: he pleads earnestly for mercy, and he promises to make up for it.  Now, all is dependent on the merciful disposition of the king, but if we know that we have a merciful king, then we can hope for forgiveness if we apply to his mercy: we beg forgiveness from our heart, and we promise to make up for the harm we have caused as best as we can.  Implicit in this promise is one to never offend again in any way.

The Lord shows through this parable that if God graciously extends his mercy to us even though we can never pay him what we owe, that is, we cannot “make up” for our sins on our own, how gladly we ought to forgive one another.  The relief we should experience in the forgiveness of our sins by Almighty God should be so great that we hardly notice the sins others commit against us.

“Unless each of you forgives his brother from his heart.”  The Lord does not tell us to insist on an apology as a condition for our offering forgiveness, and in this way he tells us that the forgiveness does not necessarily affect the sinner, but always the one who is sinned against.  To forgive is to renounce revenge against one who has caused harm, and frees the one who forgives from the slavery to which vengeance always leads.  Significantly, Matthew points out that just after Jesus teaches this lesson, he embarks for Judea in order to die there for the forgiveness of our sins, and where he will give the greatest example of forgiveness: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23, 24), which he prayed as men crucified him.

If we meditate deeply on the forgiveness tendered by the Son, we will more readily forgive as well, and conform ourselves to him more and more.

Revelation Part 6, Conclusion

 Revelation part 6, conclusion:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sidrRUkoF85-Rxk15lUGuYD34qPpjPdV/view?usp=drivesdk

Wednesday in the Nineteenth Week of Ordinary Time, August 12, 2026

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.” 

We see here the Lord Jesus promulgating laws regarding the functioning of his Church.  Previously we saw him refining or strengthening laws that involved virtue and sin.  In this reading he gives laws for the proper functioning of the organized body of his followers.  This tells us that after three years of public ministry, his followers have coalesced into a fairly consistent and fairly large group of men and women out of the enormous crowds which heard his preaching and witnessed his miracles earlier.  It is now necessary to establish rules for order, especially as the Lord directs his flock towards the future.

It is interesting to hear our Lord speak on procedural matters, and to compare what he says here with, say, God’s instructions to Moses on how a person may become ritually impure and then how he may purify himself again.  Jesus begins his instruction on the lowest level of contact between the sinner and the person against whom he sinned.  If the person who committed the sin expresses sorrow for the sin, having come to his senses, then the matter closes.  If not, it can gradually become a matter for Church leadership.  This would include sins committed directly against a person or persons as well as the sin of scandal.  For the latter, we have an example of how St. Paul acted.  In 1 Corinthians 5, 1, Paul speaks of a man professing Christianity while living with his mother as though she were his wife.  The sin is not directed against him, but it is a scandal, and Paul takes action, and has judged “to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh” (1 Corinthians 5, 5).  This is completely in line with the final sentence that Jesus commands to take in the face of an unrepentant sinner: “treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.”  That is, have nothing to do with this person.  Do not even talk to him.  This is done to show the sinner the seriousness of what he has done in order to bring him back to he fold, but also as a matter of justice as well as to protect other believers from him.

“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 must have stunned the Apostles, and they probably did not understand this at the time.  Jesus will say this again to them after his Resurrection but only with the Descent of the Holy Spirit will they begin to appreciate what this means.  In short, it means that they will stand in for Christ among his followers after the Ascension and speak with the same authority with which he spoke.

“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.”  In the context of the Lord’s words, we must understand that he is speaking of praying for spiritual necessities such as graces and that which will lead to the conversion of souls and the glory of God.  “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”  The Lord reminds us here that following him is a social activity, not a solitary one.  We members of his Body walk towards him, making progress day by day, and we walk together, helping one another, consoling and correcting, as needed.

Tuesday in the Nineteenth Week of Ordinary Time, August 11, 2026

The Feast of St. Clare

Matthew 1, :1-5, 10, 12-14

The disciples approached Jesus and said, “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?” He called a child over, placed it in their midst, and said, “Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven. And whoever receives one child such as this in my name receives me. 

“See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father. What is your opinion? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray? And if he finds it, amen, I say to you, he rejoices more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not stray. In just the same way, it is not the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost.”

In the the question posed by the disciples, we see that a certain tension among them has come to a head.  A little time before, Jesus had announced to Peter that he would be the rock on which he would build his Church.  Then came the event of the Transfiguration, in which the Lord had taken only Peter, James, and John with him.  Following this, the nine Apostles had failed to exorcise a demon from a child.  And then came the episode in which Jesus told Peter to take a coin from the mouth of a fish he had caught and to pay the temple tax with it for them both.  It would have seemed that Jesus favored some followers over others, or that some possessed powers or authority others did not.  The question arises for them: “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”  To their credit, they do not ask, Who is the greatest in this world? which would reveal a preoccupation with power and glory that did not belong to a follower of the Lord Jesus.

Perhaps the Apostles were actually asking, Who, Lord, is the most important of us to you?  But they would have seen the foolishness of such a direct question.  The question that they do ask is well thought-out: Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?  They do not ask who is the greatest in heaven, or who is the greatest in Christ’s subjective opinion, but who is the greatest in the kingdom and what are his qualities.  Already, the Lord had told them: “Amen I say to you, there has not risen among them that are born of women a greater than John the Baptist: yet he that is the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” (Matthew 11:11).  So who could this be?  What did it take to be “the greatest” in the kingdom?

The answer Jesus gives has nothing to do with power, charisma, ability, or any particular talent.  Instead, it is about virtue and service: holiness.  Jesus called a little child (as per the meaning of the Greek word) and pointed him out as the model for this “greatness”.  This had nothing to do with the particular child’s goodness or lack thereof, but with the innocence we associate with children.  For instance, a little child does not lust, or desire to kill, or to enslave others.  A little child of seven or eight (according to the usage of the word) in ancient times was learning to obey and to help out in the family business.  Duty was impressed upon a child from a very young age in those days, out of dire necessity.  At the same time, a child of this age had no rights and his existence depended upon his parents as well as the absence of disease, famine, and civil strife.  Of these things the child was very much made aware.

And so, virtue and duty are the hallmarks of the true follower of Christ, of one who is “great” in the kingdom of heaven.  The awareness of one’s own lowliness is key to this because it fosters gratitude to Christ for every gift received and a desire to serve the Lord in others: “Whoever receives one child such as this in my name receives me.”

“If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray? And if he finds it, amen, I say to you, he rejoices more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not stray.”  Although this parable may sound straightforward to us, it is complicated by the fact that most owners of flocks would not in fact abandon their ninety-nine sheep to look for one.  To leave their sheep like this was to open up the chance for a wolf to scatter them and to kill a few.  We must suppose here that the owner had trustworthy shepherds working for him with whom they could leave the bulk of his animals.  In such a case they could hunt far and wide for the lost sheep without worrying that they would lose their flocks.  Such an owner rejoices to have found it alive and unhurt because of the sheep who were already safe, but it is true joy.

The “kingdom of heaven” and the “flock” both signify the Church.  Let us strive for holiness so that, in virtue and service, we may become “great” in the eyes of our Lord.

Monday in the Nineteenth Week of Ordinary Time, August 10, 2026

The Feast of St. Lawrence

John 12:24-26

Jesus said to his disciples: “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be. The Father will honor whoever serves me.”

The grain of wheat must die in order to achieve its end, the production of “much fruit”.  We hear the Lord speak in these and similar words throughout all four of the Gospels.  It is a way in which he prepares his disciples for his own Death and Resurrection.  It is also a way in which he prepares them for the life in him: we must also “die” in order to produce “much fruit”.  

We use the verb “to die” in many ways.  It was a favorite expression of my mother when I was a child, usually using it in reference to something I had done: “I could have died.”  Here, we see it meaning “experiencing mortification”.  We also speak of “dying” in terms of any kind of extreme experience.  A comedian may “die” on stage, or a person may be anxious to learn something, as in “I’m dying to hear”.  Jesus uses the word in two senses: the literal sense, as in “ceasing to live”, and the metaphoric sense of giving of oneself until one has nothing left.

The Lord Jesus accomplished the first dying on the Cross, and the fruit produced was the resurrection of the dead: “The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised” (Matthew 27, 52).  He accomplished the second from the instant of his Incarnation, when he “emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man . . . even to the death of the cross” (Philippians 2, 7-8).  By the fruit of his lifelong obedience we “are fellow citizens with the saints and the servants of God” (Ephesians 2, 19). 

St. Paul gives us a very graphic summary of how he emptied himself for a Christ and in imitation of him: “Of the Jews five times did I receive forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods: once I was stoned: thrice I suffered shipwreck: a night and a day I was in the depth of the sea. In journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils from my own nation, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils from false brethren: In labour and painfulness, in much watchings, in hunger and thirst, fasting often, in cold and nakedness” (2 Corinthians 11:24–28).  The fruit of his dying to self in obedience to God is found in the conversion of crowds of people and the establishment of many churches, and this dying was crowned by his martyrdom.  Not many of us are called to this kind of suffering any more than we are called to his level of theologian, but we who profess to follow Christ must follow no one else and obey his holy will.  

We see this also in the case of the deacon St. Lawrence, whose feast we celebrate today.  We pray for his intercession, that by it we might fall ever deeper in love with our Lord, and knowing his unconditional love for us, serve him without ceasing.

Sunday in the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time, August 9, 2026

Matthew 14, 22-36

Jesus made the disciples get into a boat and precede him to the other side of the sea, while he dismissed the crowds. After doing so, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When it was evening he was there alone. Meanwhile the boat, already a few miles offshore, was being tossed about by the waves, for the wind was against it. During the fourth watch of the night, he came toward them, walking on the sea. When the disciples saw him walking on the sea they were terrified. “It is a ghost,” they said, and they cried out in fear. At once Jesus spoke to them, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.” Peter said to him in reply, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” Peter got out of the boat and began to walk on the water toward Jesus. But when he saw how strong the wind was he became frightened; and, beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught him, and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” After they got into the boat, the wind died down. Those who were in the boat did him homage, saying, “Truly, you are the Son of God.”  After making the crossing, they came to land at Gennesaret. When the men of that place recognized him, they sent word to all the surrounding country. People brought to him all those who were sick and begged him that they might touch only the tassel on his cloak, and as many as touched it were healed.

“Jesus made the disciples get into a boat and precede him to the other side of the sea.”  The events in today’s Gospel Reading take place just after Jesus has fed a crowd of five thousand people and leads up to his rebuke of the Pharisees and their customs that they have taught the people to be mandated by the Law.  In essence, the Lord contests their supposed authority with his own, which is clearly established as from heaven in the miraculous feeding and then in his walking on the sea.

“He went up on the mountain by himself to pray.”  How greatly the Lord Jesus must have treasured those moments when he could get away from the crowds and even from his Apostles in order to pray!  The Gospels mention only a few time when he does this which indicates that these marked special occasions.  He chooses mountains and wastelands for praying because they allow him to be alone, but also because he seems to have genuinely liked these places.  Perhaps he liked them for their raw beauty, undisturbed by the workings of sinful men and thus reminiscent of how the world had looked before the cataclysmic sin of Adam and Eve, which brought destruction even to the natural world.

“The boat, already a few miles offshore, was being tossed about by the waves, for the wind was against it.”  We should consider the situation of a boat at sea at night during this era.  There are no lights except for the stars and the moon, there is no navigation equipment, no life vests, no long distance communications, and no Coast Guard.  While fishermen went out at night to the sea, they tried to remain within sight of the coast and avoided stormy weather.  Squalls blew up frequently and without warning, and such a one is blowing up now.  

“During the fourth watch of the night, he came toward them, walking on the sea.”  We can imagine the peace the Lord Jesus felt in his prayer to his Father while the Apostles were struggling fiercely to keep from capsizing.  And he maintains his peace as he walks on the water.  And in doing so, the Lord shows himself the water’s Lord and its Creator.  We might think of the water smoothing itself before him even as it threatened to swamp the boat of the Apostles.  He is walking on the water at the fourth watch, the time when the dawn breaks.  Apart from the dramatic scene this would have made, Matthew is probably specific about the time because it has significance in the history of Israel, for Almighty God saved the Hebrews from the Egyptians at the Red Sea at that hour (cf. Exodus 14, 24-25). This is also the time Matthew gives for the Resurrection (cf. Matthew 28, 1).  The water or the sea also signified death for the ancient Israelites, and so the Lord’s walking upon it shows his domination of death.  We might recall that in ancient times a conquering army would trod over their prisoners as a way of impressing on them the totality of their victory over them.  Here, the Lord Jesus shows the Apostles a sign which frightens them now but which they will understand and take solace in later: “When the disciples saw him walking on the sea they were terrified.”  

“Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.”  The sight that scares them calls out for them to recognize him.  He calls out from the sign of death to remind them that he is alive and present with them.

“Peter got out of the boat and began to walk on the water toward Jesus.”  Peter also wishes to tread over death and he begins to do so.  The Lord gives him the grace to allow him to do this, but the paucity of his  faith results in his sinking.  That is not to criticize such faith as he had, for he will shortlyk confess his belief that Jesus is the divine Son of God.  But we see here how much faith is required if we are to tread death after this life and travel to heaven.  “Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught him.”  If we call to Jesus for help in this life or at the time of our death, he will help us readily.  But if we rely on our own efforts, we will sink into the abyss without a trace.  “After they got into the boat, the wind died down.”  The wind had blown against them but now dies down, as though acknowledging the arrival of its king and bowing solemnly.

“Truly, you are the Son of God.” None of the Prophets had commanded nature as Jesus does here. He appears to them out of the howling wind, its cause and its soother. And he stands before them as one who can command them to walk on the water too. All that holds them back is their paucity of faith. We pray that God will grant us the grace to follow his commands and to do his will with unwavering faith so that we might come to him and not sink into the abyss.

Saturday in the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time, August 8, 2026

The Feast of St. Dominic

Matthew 17:14-20

A man came up to Jesus, knelt down before him, and said, “Lord, have pity on my son, who is a lunatic and suffers severely; often he falls into fire, and often into water. I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him.” Jesus said in reply, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long will I be with you? How long will I endure you? Bring the boy here to me.” Jesus rebuked him and the demon came out of him, and from that hour the boy was cured. Then the disciples approached Jesus in private and said, “Why could we not drive it out?” He said to them, “Because of your little faith. Amen, I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

The events in the Gospel reading for today transpire immediately after the Lord and his Apostles Peter, James, and John return from Mount Tabor following the Transfiguration.  The exorcism Jesus performs here serves to validate the events on the mountain and the words heard by the Apostles just as the healing of the leper did when Jesus descended the mountain upon delivering the Sermon on the Mount.  One further descent and validation is to come: following the Last Supper and the inauguration of the Mass, Jesus will come down the Mount of Olives to die on the Cross.  In the healing of the leper, the Lord in sign enters our own sinfulness in order to heal us from our sins.  In the present exorcism, in sign he casts out the evil one who has dominated the human race to that point.  In his Death on the Cross, he will fulfill the signs of the healings and rescue us all, and destroy the power of the devil over all humans.

“He falls into fire, and often into water.”  The Church Father Origen makes an interesting comment on this verse.  Already in the mid third century some were saying that the boy was suffering from some physical ailment, attributable in Origen’s day to an upset of the balance of the four humors.  Origen points out that if so, the Lord would certainly have treated him differently than he did, and then would not have explained to his Apostles that prayer (and fasting) were necessary for casting out an evil spirit of this magnitude.  In the present day, many modernist scholars still echo the notion which Origen so soundly defeated.

“O faithless and perverse generation, how long will I be with you?“. This sounds like a rebuke of the Apostles, who failed to cast out the devil, but the Fathers, such as St. Jerome, are universal in seeing these words as applied to the boy and his father.  What is lacking is not want of power for a successful exorcism, but the faith necessary to be exorcised.  St. Mark, in his more detailed telling of the event, records: “And Jesus saith to him: ‘If you can believe, all things are possible to him that believes.’  And immediately the father of the boy crying out with tears said: ‘I do believe, Lord. Help my unbelief!’ ” (Mark 9, 22-23).  While Jesus does not always require faith on the part of the one he is to heal, he does so on several occasions, such as this one, in which a Jewish child and his father must renounce evil and believe in God’s mercy.

Later, in private, the Apostles ask the Lord how they could have failed: surely they had received power from him to cast out demons and cure diseases (Matthew 10, 1)?  They had exercised this power previously: “Even the demons were subject to us!” (Luke 10, 17).  Jesus explains, “Because of your little faith.”  That is, they had received the power, but the power required faith to be applied.  With Jesus on Mount Tabor, the faith of the nine remaining Apostles weakened enough that they could not accomplish this work.  Jesus continues, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”  We ought to consider the size and purity of our faith, and pray for more, so that we might move the mountain of our world to convert and to become a truly holy mountain.  In this way we could join in the work of St. Dominic, who won back to the True Faith those who had rejected it for a terrible heresy.