Revelation part 1

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xMlmPQd8_6YsQ0AuDLVfsUkKBEBfIytp/view?usp=drivesdk

Here is the link to the first Bible Study Session on the Book of Revelation.

Wednesday in the Fourteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 8, 2026

Matthew 10, 1-7

Jesus summoned his Twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness. The names of the Twelve Apostles are these: first, Simon called Peter, and his brother Andrew; James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus; Simon the Cananean, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus.  Jesus sent out these Twelve after instructing them thus, “Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town. Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

S. Matthew gives his list of the Apostles about a third of the way through his Gospel.  St. Mark gives his list very early in his Gospel.  St. Luke presents his about a quarter of the way through the Gospel he authored.  St. John does not present such a list at all but mentions the names of specific Apostles only when they are acting or speaking.  The purpose of listing the Apostles seems to be establishing authority within the Church.  The Lord Jesus had many disciples, but these twelve were those authorized to preach and to govern.  Perhaps St. John does not feel the need to provide such a list because he is writing for the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, and he and St. Peter and St. James, the son of Alphaeus, are very much present there at that time, if not some of the others.  St. Mark seems to simply insert his list into his Gospel, but St. Luke reports the naming of the Twelve Apostles as a solemn act that Jesus performs after spending the previous night in prayer on a mountain.  St. Matthew does not mention this, but may allude to this when he says that Jesus “summoned” the twelve disciples.  Matthew refers to the Apostles is different ways.  For him, “the Apostles”, “the Twelve”, and “the disciples” are interchangeable terms, though the Lord Jesus was followed by a group separate from the Apostles whom the Evangelists also call “the disciples”.  These followed the Lord as students, but the Twelve were each called by Jesus on a particular occasion.

“Jesus summoned his Twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out.”  Before he gives them the command to preach the Gospel to the nations, he gives them the authority to drive out demons.  This tells us of the importance of this ministry and also of the grave need for it.  He also gives them the authority “to cure every disease and every illness.”  The Lord Jesus excludes no disease or condition.  He shares his own power with them that they may perform the same deeds he has been performing.  These Apostles are not subordinates but partners and true representatives.  

“The names of the Twelve Apostles are these.”  It is noteworthy that the three Evangelists who provide lists of the Apostles generally have their names in the same order.  The few exceptions are interesting.  St. Mark, for instance, names St. Peter first, as do the others, but then lists St. James and St. John before listing Peter’s brother Andrew, whereas Matthew and Luke list Peter and Andrew together, presumably since they were brothers, but possibly also because Andrew was called first by Jesus, but Peter is listed first because he is older than Andrew but most importantly because he was the recognized leader of the Apostles.  Mark seems to list Peter, James and John together and then Andrew because the Lord often treated the first three as a group separate from the others.

“Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town. Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  The Lord begins first with the Jews and then, after they have largely rejected him, to the world.  But first, the Jews receive every possible chance to believe in him.  He says “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” on account of their abandonment by the priests who were commanded by the Lord to teach the Law to the people: “That you may teach the children of Israel all my ordinances which the Lord has spoken to them by the hand of Moses” (Leviticus 10, 11).

We rejoice in belonging to the one, holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church which the Son of God established to teach and to sanctify us so that we may enter into eternal life.

Personal Note: We have begun reading and studying the Book of Revelation in our parish Bible Study. I am recording these roughly hour-long sessions and I will be posting them on this blog for those who wish to learn more about this important but unfamiliar book. I hope to post later today or tomorrow.

Tuesday in the Fourteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 7, 2026

Matthew 9, 32-38

A demoniac who could not speak was brought to Jesus, and when the demon was driven out the mute man spoke. The crowds were amazed and said, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.” But the Pharisees said, “He drives out demons by the prince of demons.”  Jesus went around to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom, and curing every disease and illness. At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.”

Following the miracles that confirmed the Lord’s previous preaching on faith and grace Matthew gives us a third, in that a possessed man was brought to Jesus for exorcism.  The Lord, seeing their faith, did as they asked.  Linked to this incident is the lack of faith by the Pharisees which is contrasted with the faith of the crowds, the “little ones” of Matthew 11, 25.  These have been neglected by the Pharisees who see no benefit to them in teaching the crowds about God.  The Lord, at the end of today’s Gospel Reading, tells the Apostles to pray for “laborers” to tend to the harvest.

“A demoniac who could not speak was brought to Jesus, and when the demon was driven out the mute man spoke.”   A demon who possesses a person can force the person’s body to behave in certain ways.  Here, the demon causes the man to not be able to speak.  The man retains the ability to speak but the demon does not allow him to use this ability.  For the ancient peoples, to say a person was mute also meant that he could not hear, either.  The exorcism of the demon especially impressed the crowd because Jesus spoke to the demon directly and not through the man’s ears, and commanded him to depart, which it did.  

“Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.”  The Jews did not have the authority to drive out demons.  It did happen, though, that a demon manifesting itself within a person would go quiet during an attempted exorcism by a rabbi and seem to be cast out.  But the Lord’s exorcisms are clearly successful, often with the demon or demons crying out as they exited the person whom they had possessed.  The crowds were duly astounded at these signs of divine power and they professed it as such.  “He drives out demons by the prince of demons.”  The Pharisees, however, tie themselves in knots trying to explain away the Lord’s exorcisms by resorting to absurdities, only making themselves look ridiculous.  

“Jesus went around to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom, and curing every disease and illness.”  This verse summarizes all that the Lord did during the three years of his Public Life up the the time of the Passion.  Matthew seems to mean not only all the towns and villages of Galilee but also Judea.  He did this in order to offer salvation to all the Jews present in the Holy Land and also to offer an example to the Apostles of how zealous they also must be when he sends them out into the world.  We note that according to the verse, Jesus left out no town or village, no matter how small or otherwise insignificant.  

“At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.”  For centuries the Israelites had been led by charismatic figures like Moses, Joshua, and the Judges.  Then there were kings, and when the kings failed there were the Prophets.  Under the Maccabees they had regained their land from the Greeks, but with the decay of that family no one stepped forth to lead them against the Romans.  The priests had never done much more than officiate in the Temple, and the Pharisaic sect did not arise to teach and lead so much as to insulate its members from the corruption of the religion which they perceived.  When John the Baptist arose, his role was limited to preparing the people for the Messiah, not to lead them as the Judges had done over a thousand years before.  Abandoned by the priests, despised by the Pharisees, the people were indeed sheep without a shepherd.  The Lord Jesus grieved at this and provided the solution: “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.”  That is, to teach the Faith and to administer the Sacraments.  The Apostles themselves, filled with the Holy Spirit after Pentecost, as the laborers, would begin to gather the harvest.  When the Lord tells us about a problem, he means for us to do something about it.  And so not only should all the members of the faithful pray that those whom God has chosen for his laborers do his will, but that we ourselves might take our part in the harvest.  There are many kinds of work involved in harvesting, and everyone of us can do something.

Monday in the Fourteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 6, 2026

Matthew 9, 18-31

While Jesus was speaking, an official came forward, knelt down before him, and said, “My daughter has just died. But come, lay your hand on her, and she will live.” Jesus rose and followed him, and so did his disciples. A woman suffering hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the tassel on his cloak. She said to herself, “If only I can touch his cloak, I shall be cured.” Jesus turned around and saw her, and said, “Courage, daughter! Your faith has saved you.” And from that hour the woman was cured.  When Jesus arrived at the official’s house and saw the flute players and the crowd who were making a commotion, he said, “Go away! The girl is not dead but sleeping.” And they ridiculed him. When the crowd was put out, he came and took her by the hand, and the little girl arose. And news of this spread throughout all that land.

“While Jesus was speaking.”  St. Matthew clearly wishes to connect the incidents he is about to relate with what the Lord has been saying, replying to the disciples of John the Baptist that he is the “bridegroom” of whom their master spoke, and teaching an important lesson about grace and the need to be prepared for it with faith.  As we read through this Gospel Reading we should keep in mind that Matthew’s method is to underline his teachings with his reports of the Lord’s miracles, which reflect back on the teachings.

“My daughter has just died. But come, lay your hand on her, and she will live.”  We know from St. Mark’s Gospel that this man’s name was Jairus.  He tells Jesus that his daughter has “just died” or “just now died”.  It is not sunset yet so she has not been buried: her body is in the house where she died.  According to Jewish tradition, the soul does not leave the body until it is buried or even until decay sets in.  Reaching Jesus at this point gives the man hope that his daughter can still be revived.  He thus feels safe to ask Jesus to lay his hand on her, which he would not do if her body was corrupt in any way or if it were about to be buried, on account of the laws regarding purity.  “She will live.”  That is, literally, according to the verb tense, She will be living — in a continual sense, as opposed to reviving and then dying again shortly thereafter.

“A woman suffering hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the tassel on his cloak.”  The interwoven stories of the little girl and the woman suffering from hemorrhages are very much compressed as compared to St. Mark’s account (thirteen verses in Matthew, twenty-one verses in Mark), but this is because of the way Matthew sees the miracles, as confirming the previous teachings rather than as actions to be admired in themselves.  Now, the father of the girl asks Jesus to lay his hand on the body of his dead daughter, not just to come and command her to be well.  The woman with the hemorrhages is unclean and dares to touch him through his cloak.  The Lord, by his power, cleanses all things which might be infected by even the smallest taint of impurity.  He does so boldly.  He does not recoil from the body of the dead girl or even from the unclean woman.  He takes their uncleanness away.  It is how he strides without hesitancy through our world and is eager to die so that he might take away the uncleanness of our sins.  

“If only I can touch his cloak, I shall be cured.”  Both the father and the woman show great faith in the Lord, bringing their fearful and desperate situations before him.  They do not draw back from asking, and the Lord does not make them wait before answering.  “Courage, daughter! Your faith has saved you.”  The Lord could also have said to the little girl after he raised her up: “Courage, daughter! Your father’s faith has saved you.”  Faith opens the way for grace.

“The flute players and the crowd who were making a commotion.”  The response to death for those who do not have faith is to make noise and otherwise to distract themselves from the reality of death.  The flute players were professional musicians who accompanied those in mourning.  These seem to have arrived very quickly after the girl’s death, signifying the desperation of the godless to start the process in which the body will be buried, in this way “hiding” death.  “The girl is not dead but sleeping.”  The Lord dismisses the flute players and the crowd whose interest is less in the girl and her family than in making a scene, drawing attention to themselves in their displays of mourning, as though to distract the Lord’s work, which the godless do in order to preserve their illusion that there is no God.  They then ridicule him for interrupting them, but with no real help to offer, they melt away.

“He came and took her by the hand, and the little girl arose.”  When the one who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life touches death, death flees in panic.  The Lord shows us in the raising up of this little girl from death what happened at the moment he himself died: he touched death then not from the outside, as he does here, but from the inside.  It attempted to swallow up the Lord of life and was itself dissolved so that we might have eternal life.  We pray that one day we may be touched by Jesus and raised.

The Fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, July 5, 2026

Matthew 11, 25–30

At that time Jesus exclaimed: “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to little ones. Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.  Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.” 

“At that time Jesus exclaimed.”  The context for this Gospel Reading is that the Lord is speaking after he has warned various cities he has visited that  they will be condemned at the end of the world because they have not repented despite his preaching and miracles.  He even compares them to Sodom, upon which God poured fire and brimstone for its sins.  Following this, the Lord praises his Father for revealing his mysteries to “little ones” while withholding them from “the wise and the learned”, by which he first of all meant the Pharisees.  But the Father does not hold his truth back from anyone: he simply accepts its rejection by those who nourish a high opinion of themselves.  These “little ones” of whom he speaks are the ordinary people, illiterate and not schooled in the intricacies of the Law so that they are dependent on the scribes and Pharisees to know what it means.  They follow Jesus when they hear his voice and his clear message of salvation because he loves them.

“I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth.”  The Son praises the Father for revealing his mysteries to “the little ones” while those great in their own estimation reject them.  The Father reveals these through his Son, and the Son delights in doing the Father’s work, and zealously performs it.  “Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will.”  That is, it is no accident of fate or alteration of the Father’s will to reveal these mysteries to the little ones after the great ones had rejected him: it is his purpose, for God’s glory is made more manifest through the little and the poor than through the wise, the powerful, and the rich, just as an artist shows the greatness of his skill through the use of poorer brushes, canvasses, and paints than if he had used the best that money could buy.

“All things have been handed over to me by my Father.”  Following his short prayer of praise to the Father, the Son speaks of his relationship with him.  These verses remind us very strongly of the language Jesus employs in doing this as recorded in the Gospel of St. John.  The Lord does not employ and figures of speech or memorable images to teach about this relationship.  Rather, he speaks about it very plainly.  He begins by teaching that the Father has handed “all things” over to him.  After his Resurrection he will say something similar: “All power is given to me in heaven and in earth” (Matthew 28, 18).  In this way the Son explains that he is equal to the Father. “No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.”  Here, Jesus speaks of himself explicitly as the Son of the Father.  Having established his equality with the Father, he goes on to teach that knowledge of the Son comes only through the grace provided by the Father, and that true knowledge of the Father comes through the Son.  The first part of the verse brings to mind words that the Lord spoke after feeding the crowd of five thousand: “No man can come to me, unless the Father, who has sent me, draw him” (John 6, 44).  The second part reminds us of John 14, 6: “No one comes to the Father except through me.”  The Father draws us to the Son through love of our Savior, which leads to faith; and the Son reveals God as Father to us.  At the end of time, it is the Son who calls the righteous into heaven to be in his Father’s Kingdom: “Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25, 34).

“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.”  These next verses also seem apart from what went before and may have been spoken by the Lord at another time, possibly after the Apostles returned from their first mission, but Matthew, recalling the words, did not recall the circumstances and place them here.  He is speaking this to “the little ones” of whom he spoke above, so it could be that Jesus has returned to this theme.  Those who labor and are burdened are those who strive to do God’s will in their lives in the face of opposition and temptation.  The “rest” Jesus promises that he himself will give is spiritual refreshment here, and eternal rest with him in heaven.  “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.”  The “yoke” of Jesus is his Cross, but the Lord does not give it to us to carry alone, for he Carrie’s it with us.  The fact that he takes up his Cross for our sake proves beyond any doubt that he is “meek and humble of heart”, and through his Cross we can be made thus too.  We “learn” from Jesus through reading the Gospels and through prayer.  We learn about him in the Gospels but we know him through prayer, especially before the Blessed Sacrament or the crucifix.

“For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.” His Cross — doing the will of the Father — is “easy” because he gives us both the example and the grace we need to do this.  His burden — the suffering we undergo in carrying his yoke — is “light” because of the reward he sets before us.

Saturday in the Thirteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 4, 2026

Matthew 9, 14-17

The disciples of John approached Jesus and said, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast much, but your disciples do not fast?” Jesus answered them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one patches an old cloak with a piece of unshrunken cloth, for its fullness pulls away from the cloak and the tear gets worse. People do not put new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise the skins burst, the wine spills out, and the skins are ruined. Rather, they pour new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.”

“The disciples of John approached Jesus.”  Jesus began his public ministry  after John the Baptist was arrested, according to Mark 1, 14-15.  If this is true, then the disciples of John, who remained together and continued his work, came to Jesus while John was lying in prison.  They came to him not at John’s request, as they did later, but on their own.  Their question seems genuine and their motive was curiosity.  They knew that John had pointed out Jesus as the Lamb of God and that some of John’s followers had joined with Jesus.  “Why do we and the Pharisees fast much, but your disciples do not fast?”  John’s disciples do not say why they and the Pharisees fast “much”.  The way the Lord answers the question, they fast in order to prepare for the coming of the Messiah or, as a component of their prayer that God send the Messiah.  The Lord’s answer, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?”, gently urges them to consider whether the Messiah has in fact come, and that it is he.  He does not make the claim to be the Messiah, the Bridegroom, but rather sets before them what is necessary for them to figure this out for themselves.

Jesus refers to himself as “the Bridegroom”, as John had already spoken of him to them: “He who  has the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices with joy because of the bridegroom’s voice. This my joy therefore is fulfilled” (John 3, 29).  We should notice that John and Jesus carefully avoid using the loaded term “messiah”.

“The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.”  That is, the present time is the time for feasting but a time will come when it is fitting to fast.  The bridegroom will be “taken away from them”, that is, he will die.  We, his”friends”, fast between the time of the Lord’s Death and his second coming.  This fasting is a means of preparation through penance as well as part of our prayer for God’s Kingdom to come.

“No one patches an old cloak with a piece of unshrunken cloth, for its fullness pulls away from the cloak and the tear gets worse.”  This saying seems separate from the verses that precede it.  The Lord uses a bit of common knowledge in order to make a point about grace.  The old cloak is a person not reborn in baptism, a person without faith.  The “unshrunken cloth” is grace.  Grace cannot help a person to understand a mystery of the Lord or to perform a virtuous act who is not baptized and have faith.  There is no capacity to receive grace.  Such a person is like someone without hands trying to catch a ball thrown to him.  “For its fullness pulls away from the cloak and the tear gets worse.”  The person who strives to understand a mystery of the Lord without grace or perform a virtuous work without it will find on frustration and misunderstanding.

“They pour new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.”  One who is baptized is a “new skin” capable of holding the new wine of grace and is capable of understanding and believing in the mysteries of our Faith, which the Lord has taught us.  An enormous difference exists between a person who is baptized and one who is not.  He can know and do that which is beyond the ability of the unbaptized.  He can know and please the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Feast of St. Thomas, Apostle, Friday, July 3, 2026

John 20, 24-29

Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” But Thomas said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nail marks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” Now a week later his disciples were again inside and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.” Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”

The key to understanding St. Thomas’ doubt comes by his total commitment to Jesus: “Thomas therefore, who is called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples: Let us also go, that we may die with him” (John 11, 16).  Here, Thomas shows the strength of his belief in Jesus, and that Jesus had the words of eternal life so that there was no one else to whom he could go (cf. John 6, 69).  Jesus had just arrived in Galilee after the Jews had tried to kill him in Judea, but his friend Lazarus had just died and he wanted to return there to console the dead man’s sisters.  

The doubting at the news of the Resurrection is the response of a full heart that has broken.  Thomas does not doubt that Jesus has risen because his faith was weak but because he had believed so utterly, and his faith was smashed by the Lord’s Death.  He must have felt it as almost a betrayal of his faith, for the Lord had not done anything to defend himself in the Garden of Gethsemane and had even stopped Peter from defending him during his arrest.  At the time of the Lord’s Death, Thomas did not go back to the house where the other Apostles had taken refuge.  Perhaps he wandered the streets of Jerusalem or even began to make his way back to Galilee.  His great hopes dashed, there seemed little reason for keeping company with those other men.  But he did return to the house, the house of Mary, the Mother of Mark, where the Last Supper had taken place a few nights before.  Perhaps he realized that he could not go back to his previous life.  He did not know what lay ahead, but he knew that he could not go back.  

The news of the Resurrection from the excited, ecstatic Apostles struck him as hysteria.  But he would not let his hopes blaze up again, not even a little, lest he be crushed again.  No, he would not believe unless he touched the Lord’s wounds.  (The fact that he knew the Lord had been pierced in the side points to a contact with an eyewitness after the Lord’s Death — perhaps St. John).  Still, Thomas remained with the Apostles the next long week, hope flickering in his heart despite his attempts to stifle it.

“Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.”  The Greek tense of the verb is the present, so the sense is, “Be believing”, Believe now and always.  The text does not tell us whether Thomas followed through with the Lord’s bidding him touch him.  We can imagine that Thomas, his mouth open and shaking slightly from his emotion, drew near enough to the Lord so as to touch him, and perhaps he did, his index finger reaching out haltingly to the wound in the side, which the Lord offered him, drawing aside his tunic.

Whether he touched his wound or not, Thomas’ response to the Lord’s word, “Believe”, is recorded for us: “My Lord and my God!”  Previously, he had believed in Jesus as the Messiah promised by the Pharisees; now he believes in him as his God.  

The Lord shows Thomas special love in his showing himself to him in this way.  Jesus could merely have appeared to the Apostles, this second time, as before, without making this offer to Thomas, or he could have rebuked Thomas for his lack of faith without showing his wounds to him.  Jesus appearing to Thomas as he did shows how much Jesus treasured him and the faith he had previously possessed.  It provided incentive and fortitude for Thomas throughout the long missionary journeys he would undertake on the Lord’s behalf in the future.  But it also gives testimony to us of the reality of the Lord’s Resurrection, Body and Soul.  He is a God who can be touched, and a God who will go to great extremes in his humility to prove himself worthy of our belief.