Tuesday in the second Week of Lent, March 3, 2026

Matthew 23, 1-12

Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying, “The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens hard to carry and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them. All their works are performed to be seen. They widen their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels. They love places of honor at banquets, seats of honor in synagogues, greetings in marketplaces, and the salutation ‘Rabbi.’ As for you, do not be called ‘Rabbi.’ You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers. Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven. Do not be called ‘Master’; you have but one master, the Christ. The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

“The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses.”  The Lord does not say, The scribes and the Pharisees have been appointed to the chair of Moses, but “have taken their seat” there.  That is, they usurped the “chair of Moses” with a galling presumption.  After the time of the Patriarchs, the Hebrews, the descendants of Abraham through Issac and Jacob and his sons, were led by Moses, appointed by God, and after him, Joshua, whom Moses appointed.  With the settling of the Promised Land, the various tribes would go to a local leader whom God would raise up to defend his people and decide their problems.  These were known as the Judges.  In a time of great crisis, the people went to the Prophet Samuel to ask God to give them a king, and he anointed Saul, and later, David, to rule over them.  Leadership did not come from the priests even after they were established in the Temple in Jerusalem.  Their primary work was the offering of sacrifice.  A guild of prophets, more or less centered in Jerusalem, would answer questions put to them by the people as to personal or familial problems.  To provide spiritual leadership, which the kings did mot do, in contrast to what the Patriarchs, Moses, and Judges did,  God raised up a series of Prophets, of which we might say the first was Samuel, though he is also counted as a Judge.  Following him came figures such as Elijah and Elisha, and then Isaiah, Jeremiah, and a number of others.  These spoke tirelessly and without fear, calling the people to repentance from their many sins, especially that of idolatry.  These Prophets, appointed by God and recognized as such by the kings and the people of the time, did fill the “chair of Moses”.  After the death of the Prophet Malachi some four hundred years before the Birth of Christ. the Greeks came and forced many Jews to abandon the ways of their fathers and to adopt Greek cultural practices.  The sect of the Pharisees formed at this time and forced their way to the chair of Moses to act as Israel’s new teachers.  But they had not been appointed by God to do this.  They took it on themselves to announce their own interpretation of the Law as the only authentic teaching.  

The Lord clearly reveals their illegitimacy but says to the people, “Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you.”  That is, the people will not commit sin by obeying the teachings of the Pharisees, though they will not grow in holiness from doing so.  In time, the Lord will fully reveal the Law and its meaning, but until that time, the people should follow what the Pharisees taught.  At the same time, he cautioned them, “Do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice.”  The sign of authentic teaching is that the teacher follows his own counsel in private and in public.  The teacher who does not only shows their own faithlessness.  They may know what leads to salvation and they may be able to explain it to others, but they will not profit by what they know for it means nothing to them.  It is only something they know.  But salvation is much more than words, and the best teaching of all consists not in words but in works, especially the Death of our Lord on the Cross, the consistent lives of those consecrated to his Name in Holy religion, and the deaths of the martyrs who suffer in and for their God.

“Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven.”  The Lord here emphasizes that Christians have one Father, and those who act as their fathers on earth share in this divine Fatherhood by caring for their children as gifts entrusted to them for a time.  

“The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”  The Lord came to serve, and so those who seek to serve him must lower themselves even more than the Lord did.  All service is for the sake of serving the Lord Jesus so that we seek the good of others, especially through prayer.  The greatest servants are those who are never seen, who stand in the background and do the hard work that is never seen or imagined though the results of the hard work are.  This what the work we do when we dedicate ourselves to prayer, without which no one is saved, and through which God is glorified.

Personal Note: I realized yesterday after Mass that I haven’t had trouble seeing straight lines since the injection in my eye a week and a half ago. What drove me to the ophthalmologist in the first place came about through my looking at straight lines and edges and seeing curves in them. I couldn’t see “straight”, so to speak. I still have trouble seeing and reading, but my eyesight is much better than before. I have another appointment with the retina specialist this Thursday. Than you for your prayers!

Monday in the Second Week of Lent, March 2, 2026

Luke 6, 36-38

Jesus said to his disciples: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.  Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.”

“Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”  Our Father in heaven abounds in mercy for us, but we do not benefit from it because of the hardness of our hearts.  It is the same case as during a drought when the ground dries up completely.  If the rain that finally comes is a hard one, the water will flow off the ground without sinking in.  The ground does not benefit from the rain and the aquifers do not refill due to its own hardness, not to any fault of the rain.  We ought not to pray that God temper his mercy so that we can receive it a little at a time, but that our hearts may be prepared properly for the deluge of his mercy.  Likewise, we ought to be merciful to others as well, even if they do not benefit from our forgiveness because of their own hard-heartedness.  And it is a fact that while knowledge of having been forgiven may change a person for the better, the giving of mercy always does this for us when we forgive.  And to the extent that we become merciful, to that extent we make ourselves capable of receiving mercy.

“Stop judging and you will not be judged.”  The Greek verb translated here as “judging” has a wide range of meanings.  We often confuse the English word with having an opinion, but this is not what it means, and to give up having opinions would be dangerous even were it possible.  The Greek word has among its meanings, “to condemn” and “to accuse”.  The Fathers understood the Lord’s command here as concerning our usurping of his prerogative on the Last Day by condemning people to hell here and now.  That is, to consider another person, through the scarce evidence available to us in this passing world, as irrevocably lost.  We can think of this command as forbidding us to falsely accuse or condemn someone in our minds or in conversation with others.  We do this when we do not have all the facts as to a situation or a behavior and are motivated by malice.  This is different from, say, when St. Paul excommunicated a woman and her son living together as though married.  He confirmed that the pair were sinners who could not approach the altar for the sacraments in order to prevent scandal to others and to bring the man and woman to their senses.  He acts as a proper judge, appointed by God as an Apostle, dispensing justice.

“Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap.”  God does this for us.  He gives us life and breath, faith, hope, and love.  His gifts so abound in our lives that we cannot count all of them.  As with mercy and forgiveness, the condition for receiving these gifts is for us to give.  That is, to give alms to the needy but also time and attention to those who are in need of these things.  A smile or a kind word can be a gift to someone who does not need money or food.  And we can always do great good by giving example of Christian life.  “For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.”  If we love God without measure and serve him to the fullest of our ability, then we will receive life without measure in its extent and in its ecstasy.

The Second Sunday of Lent, March 1, 2026

Matthew 17, 1–9

Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them; his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, conversing with him. Then Peter said to Jesus in reply, “Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud cast a shadow over them, then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” When the disciples heard this, they fell prostrate and were very much afraid. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and do not be afraid.” And when the disciples raised their eyes, they saw no one else but Jesus alone.  As they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, “Do not tell the vision to anyone until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

“Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves.”  

Mount Tabor, onto which the Lord led Peter, James, and John, is a Mount shaped hill less than two thousand feet high.  It is covered with trees and foliage, although clearings appear on it here and there.  It lies a dozen miles to the west of the Sea of Galilee.  Although not an enormous mountain in comparison with others, it dominates the country in which it is set and provides a wide, majestic view of the land.  It takes about an hour and a half to climb, from its base to its top.  

Since the Lord often prayed on hills and mountains, in order to have solitude, it would not have surprised the Apostles for him to have decided to go up this particular mountain.  Taking Peter, James, and John with him, he would have given the other Apostles some work to do until he returned.  It might have been to teach the people who had been following along.  The three Apostles he chose to go with him had distinguished themselves from the rest by their zeal and energy.  In any group of volunteers there are those who are committed to the cause but prefer to listen and think through, and there are those who grasp or seem to grasp things more quickly and are more active.  Peter, James, and John would be of this type.  We have hints at the zeal of James and John through the nickname Jesus gives them, according to St. Mark, who had it from St. Peter: the Boanerges, “the sons of thunder” (Mark 3, 17).  We see several examples of Peter’s zeal or impulsiveness throughout the Gospels: his attempting to walk on the water; his speaking before the other Apostles in naming Jesus the Son of God; his rebuking of Jesus when the Lord spoke of his coming Passion and Death; his eagerness at the Last Supper to know who the traitor was; his attacking the high priest’s slave with his sword; his leaping up and running to the tomb when Mary Magdalene announced the Resurrection; his leaping into the sea when John told him that the unknown man on the shore was Jesus; and many others.  It is also Peter who preaches to the Jews on Pentecost.

“And he was transfigured before them; his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light.”  St. Matthew’s description of the transfigured Lord is not nearly as dramatic as St. Mark’s, but Mark received his information from Peter, who had been present.  His face “shone like the sun”.  We are not told if the Apostles were unable to look directly at his face as a result, or if they could, as this was not a physical brightness but his glorification by the Father, and so a spiritual brightness.  The transfiguration seems to have occurred instantly so that one moment Jesus and the Apostles are standing together, possibly catching their breaths after the climb, and the next it is all changed.  Or, perhaps the Lord had begun to pray a little distance away and the Apostles were looking on.

“Behold, a bright cloud cast a shadow over them, then from the cloud came a voice.”  From the time of the Fathers, this cloud has been understood as the Holy Spirit, who conceals even as he reveals.  That is, he signifies that which we are not able to see in this present life.  With the audible words of the Father, we are presented with a display of the Most Holy Trinity.

“And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, conversing with him.”  It would seem that the conversation lasted some time.  The Apostles recognized Moses and Elijah in some way, perhaps through intuition or perhaps through the Lord’s telling them as they returned down the mountain.  And while St. Matthew reports that they heard these three conversing together, he does not quote them.  Indeed, he does not tell us even what they discussed, though Mark does in his Gospel: the Lord’s coming Passion and Death.

“When the disciples heard this, they fell prostrate and were very much afraid.”  The Greek text gives a stronger picture: “They fell upon their faces and were exceedingly terrified.”  The Apostles had experienced Almighty God to the very limits of their capacity to do so.  The experience might have destroyed the Apostles down below who were less ready for it.  In heaven we shall see God face to face and know the full torment of his love for us, but at that time we shall be completely purified from sin and will have attained sanctity through the good works which grace enables us to perform.  Here and now, very few of us are ready, and we should be glad that God gives us time to repent, do penance, and progress in holiness.

“This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”  In the Hebrew, the verb “to listen” can also mean “to obey”, and this is what the Apostles heard the Father say.  This is what we need to understand him to say directly to us this moment.  

“Rise, and do not be afraid.”  We do not know how long the vision lasted.  It may have continued for an hour or more.  While the Apostles were certainly intended to witness it, it was not necessarily primarily for them.  The Lord Jesus, in his glory, spoke with Moses and Elijah, evidently informing them of what was to be.  He had summoned them from the limbo where they had waited for their Savior.  Adam and Eve were there.  So too were Cain, Abel, and Seth.  Abraham, Sarah, Lot, his wife, and the souls of those who died in Sodom and Gomorrah.  After his Death, the Savior would preach to them and those who delighted in his words would follow him to heaven and those who rejoiced only in their vile sins would fall into eternal hell.  Possibly the Lord Jesus is instructing Moses and Elijah to return to limbo and prepare the people for his preaching, so that when he came, they would understand who he was.

When the Apostles finally picked themselves up from the ground, they saw Jesus as they had always known him, but from that moment when they looked at him they knew that divinity hid within his mortal frame, out of sight so that he could be present to us on earth, yet clear in his miracles and his preaching to anyone with faith.  Let us be more and more aware of how near divinity is to us, whether under the thin surface of a host, in the words of the Gospels, and in our hearts through grace.

Saturday in the First Week of Lent, February 28, 2026

Matthew 5, 43-48

Jesus said to his disciples: “You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers and sisters only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same? So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

To close out the first week of Lent, the Holy Church presents as the Gospel Reading for today’s Mass this passage from the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount.  In it, the Lord Jesus teaches about the love with which we ought to love even our enemies.  As we carefully read this passage we should recollect how our Lord loved his enemies and prayed for those who persecuted him.

“You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.”  The Lord seems to be quoting an oral admonition by the Pharisees, for it is not in the Scriptures.  In that case, he is challenging them and their pretended authority on “the seat of Moses” as well as taking on a natural human response: that of hating one’s enemies.  The Lord also sums up the attitude in an intriguing way, equating one’s neighbors with those to be loved, thus making one’s enemies outsiders, non-neighbors.  These would seem to be, especially from a Pharisaic point of view, “tax collectors and sinners”, as well as Herod and his supporters.  In this way, the Pharisees could control who was to be loved and who was to be hated: those whom the Pharisees counted as enemies.  However, the Lord says to the crowd: “But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you”, meaning that an enemy could potentially live nearby and be anyone at all.  And if we love our enemies, we love them as we love our friends.  How can we do what seems so unnatural?  We do it as we see our Father doing it: “For he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.”  

But how do we do this?  The Lord says, “Pray for those who persecute you.”  By praying for both our enemies and on those who love us, we also “cause rain to fall” on both as the Father does.  And praying for a person — for their health and total conversion to Christ — is the greatest act we can perform for a person.  We may do some other things for people who love us that we might not do for those who do not, but this comes out of prudence.  Prayer, though, comes as the one great action that love compels from us.  This does not necessarily make it easy to do, either, but we look at how our Lord forgave even those who were crucifying him and we do it, for his sake.  

“For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have?”  Here, the Lord appeals to the people’s desire for salvation.  He is saying, If you cannot love your enemies by praying for your persecutors because it is right to do so, and if you struggle to pray for them for my sake, then at least pray for them so that you may attain everlasting life.  The Lord also shows that a distinctive mark of the Christian is in praying for those who hate and persecute us.

“So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  If we were to take this verse out of context and study it, we would despair because the Father is infinite and omnipotent.  He is perfect in every possible way.  There are no limits to his presence, his power, or his knowledge.  No human can be perfect like this.  But the verse has to be read in context.  The perfection the Lord Jesus speaks of is in terms of love, and in this we can be perfect.  That is, we can love to the extent that we have the ability to love, just as the Father loves without limits.  We humans love as much as we can and God loves as much as he can.  The “amount” of love differs greatly between what God can do and what we can, but that is because we are mortals and are necessarily proscribed by limitations.  And at the same time we can love perfectly.  By his grace, we can love our neighbors (as defined by Christ and not by the Pharisees) as ourselves and we can love God with all our mind and soul.  

We should not overlook the fact that the Lord specifically speaks of those who persecute us.  At the time he said this, he was still largely unhindered by the Pharisees and Sanhedrin.  He had certainly faced some criticism and opposition from them, but not what we would call “persecution”.  This might indicate that he is speaking here primarily to his Apostles, whom he had already warned about coming persecutions; or that the Lord originally spoke these words nearer to the time of his Passion and Death, or even after his Resurrection, and that St. Matthew transposed them to the beginning of his Gospel.  At the same time, we should recognize that, as St. Thomas Aquinas points out, most of the events in the first three Gospels take place in the last year or even the last few months of the Lord’s life on earth, and so the Sermon on the Mount, in which we find them, took place towards the end of his ministry, not at its beginning, as it may appear to us.

Only with grace we can become perfect, so let us pray for this grace and pray for those who hate and persecute us and our Church.

Personal Note: My vision is maintaining itself. My next retina specialist appointment comes next Thursday. My week of duty is almost over. I have made several trips to the hospital over the last few days, starting last Sunday night, all for Last Rites. Thank you for your prayers!

Friday in the First Week of Lent, February 27, 2026

Matthew 5, 20-26

Jesus said to his disciples: “I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven. You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment. But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment, and whoever says to his brother, Raqa, will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna. Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Settle with your opponent quickly while on the way to court. Otherwise your opponent will hand you over to the judge, and the judge will hand you over to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. Amen, I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny.”

The Holy Church concludes the Gospel Readings for the first weekdays of Lent with this exhortation to righteousness.  Thus, in an orderly way, the Lord teaches us of the necessity for our salvation to give alms and to fast as a preparation for the equally necessary work of praying, which he commands us to do.  In the present Reading, the Lord warns us to surpass the righteousness even of the Pharisees.

Now, the Pharisees had begun as a group which set itself apart from the other Jews in order to practice the strictest possible righteousness.  To this end, they adopted and then tried to enforce on others the purity laws which the Temple priests had to follow.  In this they went way beyond what the Law actually called for, and they wound up obsessing over washings and rituals to the detriment of their worship of God through good works, as proclaimed of the just man in Psalm 112, 9 for instance: “He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures for ever.”  The Lord, in saying, “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven”, announces that the Pharisaic project has failed.  It failed because it centered itself not on God but on what St. Paul called “works” — mindlessly following instructions without looking up to the One who gave them.  The Lord does not condemn the works themselves, for he said to the Pharisees, “Woe to you . . . hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith; these you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.”  We might ask how they could have lost sight of the God whom they seemed to serve.  St. Paul has the answer: “Israel . . . pursued the righteousness which is based on the Law did not succeed in fulfilling that Law. Why? Because they did not pursue it through faith, but as if it were based on works” (Romans 9, 31-32).  The Pharisees put all their trust for their salvation in their exact performance of the commandments of the Law — and of their own customs, rather than in faith in God.  But the Lord taught that works of charity done out of love for God — through faith — is what makes a person righteous.  It is another way in which we are taught that if we rely on ourselves we shall fail, but if we have faith in Almighty God, we shall gain life.

“You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment. But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.”  The Lord teaches this as an example of what he means.  It is not obedience of the law regarding murder that justifies, for every society forbids this; but it is obeying the prohibition against rage in the heart that makes a person righteous.  It is not the outward act but the inward movement of the heart that manifests in the exterior act (or, in this case, rejection of acting) that justifies.  Another way to look at this is that an adult may be baptized by the pope on Easter Sunday in St. Peter’s Basilica, but if that adult does not renounced sin in his heart, grace does not transform him into an adopted child of God.  The person merely simulates receiving the sacrament.  The heart must conform with the will of God in order to be made righteous.  We see this clearly when the Lord describes a person going to offer sacrifice: “Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar.”  (Incidentally, the inclusion by St. Matthew of this quote about the altar reveals to us that he wrote his Gospel before the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. and certainly before the Jewish rebellion that began in 66 A.D.). 

“Amen, I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny.”  The Lord here refers to a state in the afterlife in which “the last penny” may be paid.  We call this state “Purgatory”.  The Lord makes no enormous revelation here for traces of the doctrine already existed in popular Jewish books of the day, such as The Book of Enoch.

And so we give alms and fast so that we might pray and our prayers be heard, the chief of which ought to be that we grow in faith and in the good works that spring from faith for the greater glory of Almighty God.

Thursday in the First Week of Lent, February 26, 2026

Matthew 7, 7-12

Jesus said to his disciples: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Which one of you would hand his son a stone when he asked for a loaf of bread, or a snake when he asked for a fish? If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him.  Do to others whatever you would have them do to you. This is the law and the prophets.”

The Church presents a second Gospel Reading featuring the Lord’s teachings on prayer as though to reemphasize its necessity, as yesterday’s Gospel Reading was also about prayer.  Considering the Gospel Readings as a series during this first week of Lent, it is as though the Church were presenting almsgiving and fasting as the obligatory means by which we prepared for prayer.  

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”  The Lord Jesus does not say, “Let you ask”, or “If you ask”.  The Greek text shows him using the imperative mood.  He is making a command.  Because the imperative is in the present tense, the Lord is also commanding us to pray continually, not now and then.  This asking and seeking, then, calls for perseverance on our part.  Someone may point out that God knows what we need and so we do not have to ask for it.  He might cite Matthew 6, 8: “Your Father knows what is needful for you before you ask him.”  The Lord Jesus does not say this to discourage his followers from praying but rather to give them confidence that their Father in heaven will give them what they need.  At the same time, he commands them to ask for it.  The act of asking, especially when engaged in over time, conditions us to be good and grateful receivers.  It is an acknowledgment of God’s power and supremacy and of our insufficiency and weakness.  This in turn leads us to live more fully the life to which the Lord Jesus calls us, and will make us, through our virtuous actions, part of God’s answers to the prayers of our neighbors.  The Lord commands us to pray because he knows us well and he knows that our pride often kicks at us in resistance to calling upon God.  It says to us: You are intelligent and capable enough to take care of your own needs.  You do not need to pray.  Or, maybe pray, but only when you have run out of every other option.  Our pride tells us: You are self-sufficient, you are autonomous.  Every man is an island.  You need to help yourself and not depend on anyone else.  This kind of thinking always leads to disaster, and it always has, beginning in Eden.

We are given a command, but we are also issued a promise on which we can rely: “It will be opened to you.”  That is, it will be opened to us when we are best prepared for it to be opened to us, and so the necessity to give alms and to fast.  With the help of God’s grace, these prepare us spiritually even more than working out with our bodies prepares us physically.  “Which one of you would hand his son a stone when he asked for a loaf of bread, or a snake when he asked for a fish?”  And in the case that we fast, give alms, and persevere in prayer for something that would ultimately harm us, the Lord will answer our prayer with a great good that will help us.

“Do to others whatever you would have them do to you. This is the law and the prophets.”  This verse may seem not to fit the Gospel Reading to this point, but we are reminded by the Lord’s words here of the great importance of virtuous living if we are to gain the objects for which we pray.  The Lord God is not obliged to give us anything at all, but he does so out of his wonderful mercy.  But the wicked person who expects God to give him what he wants is a fool.  What good he gains in this life comes only as an indirect consequence of the good another does for another person, so that Jesus can say that the rain falls on the just and the unjust.  

Let us obey the Lord’s command to pray continuously, thereby gaining what we need to please him and at the same time learning the language of heaven.

Personal Note: I am feeling a little better overall although I still struggle in the mornings. Next Thursday I go back to the retina specialists to have them check the progress in my left eye, but today I will be able to take my day off. I try to sleep in on my day off, and to spend a few hours at the public library, translating. During this period of diminished eyesight translation takes more time and greater effort, but I find great joy in sitting at the feet of teachers like St. Albert the Great and learning about Jesus from them.

Wednesday in the First Week of Lent, February 25, 2026

Luke 11, 29-32

While still more people gathered in the crowd, Jesus said to them, “This generation is an evil generation; it seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it, except the sign of Jonah. Just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so will the Son of Man be to this generation. At the judgment the queen of the south will rise with the men of this generation and she will condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and there is something greater than Solomon here. At the judgment the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation and condemn it, because at the preaching of Jonah they repented, and there is something greater than Jonah here.”

The guesthouse where I am spending the week is quite large and lies on a wide property.  The chapel is quite beautiful, with an altar actually large enough to offer Mass on.  So many modern altars, like the one at my current assignment, are too small and oddly shaped.  The house does have internet, but it does not extend up to the bedrooms.  I’ll be able to post reflections as usual.  We got in late last night when our connecting flight was delayed a few times, and so I am only posting now.

Jesus seems to speak of the “sign of Jonah” more than once during the course of his public life.  On another occasion when he does, he points to the three days and nights during which Jonah resided within a great fish, eventually to be spewed onto the land.  Then, the Lord meant the sign to refer to his time among the dead before his Resurrection.  Here, he indicates Jonah as a sign to the Ninivites.  What did the Ninivites see?  What caused them to convert?  When Jonah came among them, he was a foreigner speaking a foreign language.  He came as an ordinary man, not as one who stood out in any way, except perhaps by his clothing.  As one man, though, he took upon himself the enormous task of going through the whole city of Nineveh, which took days to cross on foot, crying out to the people to repent, or the city would be destroyed.  Perhaps God enabled Jonah to speak Assyrian for this purpose.  At any rate, the people, and most importantly, the king, understood the message and took it to heart.  Indeed, they acted so quickly that it was almost as though they were predisposed to look for a prophet who would speak to them in this way.  Now, Nineveh was the capital of a great empire st the time.  It was girded by thick walls and filled with commerce of all kinds.  The people worshipped many gods and the king was thought to be semi-divine himself.  It was the Rome of its time. (The city of Rome was founded at about this time).  

Jesus compares himself, for the sake of the Jews, with Jonah.  Jesus, too, came amongst the people to whom he was sent as a foreigner — from heaven — but he appeared as one of them, even speaking their language.  He, too, preached repentance, but whereas the Ninivites repented st the word of a stranger who did not worship their gods, the Jews resisted repenting at the word of one of their own who did worship their God and claimed to speak for him.  And while a message of repentance would have sounded strange to the people of Nineveh, the Jews had a long history of prophets calling them back to their covenant with God.  Also, Jonah performed no miracles to underscore and confirm his message.  Jesus had performed many miracles, even raising the dead as signs that God had ratified his.  And yet the Jews resisted, rejected, and ultimately killed the Lord Jesus.  The Lord’s invoking Jonah is a striking indictment of the Jews of his time.  

The message for us is to be as the Ninivites, who acted as one would have expected the Jews to have done.  With the word of God ringing in our ears at the very least on Sunday at Mass, with the knowledge of our religion which most of us have learned from childhood, with truth about God fully revealed to us in Jesus Christ, we have far less excuse than the ancient Jews to resist the Lord’s urgent message for us to repent.  

Personal Note: My vision continues to maintain itself. My health in general is fairly good. The tumor causes problems, especially in the morning when the nausea and vertigo are strong. I am very grateful for your prayers!