Saturday in the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time, August 1, 2020

The Feast of St. Alphonsus Liguori

Jeremiah 26:11-16, 24

The priests and prophets said to the princes and to all the people, “This man deserves death; he has prophesied against this city, as you have heard with your own ears.” Jeremiah gave this answer to the princes and all the people: “It was the Lord who sent me to prophesy against this house and city all that you have heard. Now, therefore, reform your ways and your deeds; listen to the voice of the Lord your God, so that the Lord will repent of the evil with which he threatens you. As for me, I am in your hands; do with me what you think good and right. But mark well: if you put me to death, it is innocent blood you bring on yourselves, on this city and its citizens. For in truth it was the Lord who sent me to you, to speak all these things for you to hear.”  Thereupon the princes and all the people said to the priests and the prophets, “This man does not deserve death; it is in the name of the Lord, our God, that he speaks to us.”  So Ahikam, son of Shaphan, protected Jeremiah, so that he was not handed over to the people to be put to death.

“The priests and prophets said to the princes and to all the people, ‘This man deserves death.’ ”  If we did not already know that these words occur in the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, we could reasonably assume that they were taken from one of the Gospels.  Now, while Isaiah prophesied much about the Messiah through his words, Jeremiah did so in his deeds, in his virtues, and in his sufferings.  Paying close attention to Jeremiah helps us to see the Lord as he was seen by many of his contemporaries, who thought that he was Jeremiah come again (cf. Matthew 16, 14): the brazen outsider who ceaselessly preached repentance and who challenged the corrupt authorities in Jerusalem; the prophet hunted, mocked, and slandered by those same authorities; the man of God who taught about the coming of God’s wrath.  There are those today who would see the Lord Jesus as a traveling folk singer, as a gentle story teller, but that was not how the people of his own time saw him.  Jeremiah helps is to see this.

“It was the Lord who sent me to prophesy against this house and city all that you have heard.”  Jeremiah defends himself here, just as Jesus defended himself against the Sanhedrin on the night of his arrest, protesting that he has acted merely as the voice God was using to warn his people to repent.  Jeremiah is declaring that he seeks nothing for himself in this, and is making no personal threats.  He is doing the work the legitimate prophets had always done, and which Moses himself had done.  “Now, therefore, reform your ways and your deeds; listen to the voice of the Lord your God.”  The ministry of Jesus largely consists in this message: “Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4, 17).  As if to say, Do penance, for the kingdom of this world is ending and the kingdom of heaven has approached.

“As for me, I am in your hands; do with me what you think good and right.”  We see here the utter surrender of Jeremiah before the priests and the people.  He is able to make it because he long ago surrendered himself completely to God, and had continuously renewed that surrender throughout his life.  This public giving up of his life is convincing proof to the crowd that his words are the words of God.  This is the authentic life to which we are called as Christians: to live as Christ lived so that people may believe in Christ through us.  “If you put me to death, it is innocent blood you bring on yourselves, on this city and its citizens.”  The Lord Jesus might have replied in the same way when the descendants of these same priests cried out for his crucifixion.  To which they would have responded, “Let his Blood be upon us and on our children.”  

“For in truth it was the Lord who sent me to you, to speak all these things for you to hear.”  St. John in his Gospel quotes Jesus as essentially saying this several times.  And as the Lord Jesus said to his Apostles, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (John 20, 21), so these should be our words as well.  Our lives are to be lived as witnesses to the Father.

“This man does not deserve death; it is in the name of the Lord, our God, that he speaks to us.”  This reminds us of how even members of the Sanhedrin struggled amongst themselves to form an opinion about Jesus (cf. John 7, 50-52).  “So Ahikam, son of Shaphan, protected Jeremiah, so that he was not handed over to the people to be put to death.”  The princes and the people took Jeremiah’s side against the priests and the prophets, prefiguring how the Jews would be split on Jesus: “There arose a dissension among the people because of him” (John 7, 43), and, “They [the Pharisees]  feared the multitudes, because they held him as a prophet” Matthew 22, 46).  Note that the people supported Jeremiah even though he had spoken God’s warning to them, on the principle that he had spoken “in the name of the Lord”.  Even in their sin, they recognized God’s voice.  In the end, Jeremiah was protected and housed by a man named Ahikam, whose father had been a scribe, therefore a prominent official, in the court of the devout King Josiah some years before.  While from an important family, Ahikam’s intervention entailed a certain personal risk, and this helps us to understand the Lord’s words: “He who receives a prophet because he is a prophet, receives a prophet’s rewards” (Matthew 10, 41).  A prophet will always be persecuted, and those who assist him share in his future glory.  If we receive the Lord of the prophets in our hearts and defend him against his enemies, then we shall share his his eternal glory.

Friday in the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 31, 2020

The Feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola

Jeremiah 26:1-9

In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim, son of Josiah, king of Judah, this message came from the Lord: “Thus says the Lord: Stand in the court of the house of the Lord and speak to the people of all the cities of Judah who come to worship in the house of the Lord; whatever I command you, tell them, and omit nothing. Perhaps they will listen and turn back, each from his evil way, so that I may repent of the evil I have planned to inflict upon them for their evil deeds. Say to them: Thus says the Lord: If you disobey me, not living according to the law I placed before you and not listening to the words of my servants the prophets, whom I send you constantly though you do not obey them, I will treat this house like Shiloh, and make this the city to which all the nations of the earth shall refer when cursing another.”  Now the priests, the prophets, and all the people heard Jeremiah speak these words in the house of the Lord. When Jeremiah finished speaking all that the Lord bade him speak to all the people, the priests and prophets laid hold of him, crying, “You must be put to death! Why do you prophesy in the name of the Lord: ‘This house shall be like Shiloh,’ and ‘This city shall be desolate and deserted’?” And all the people gathered about Jeremiah in the house of the Lord.

In this reading from the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah we see once again how he may be understood as a figure for Christ, prefiguring the Lord’s own actions, especially those recalled by St. John in his Gospel. 

God tells Jeremiah to address “the people of all the cities of Judah”.  The message is not for the king or the corrupt ruling class, including the priests,  but for everyone who has come to worship God in the temple.  This is significant because these people have come on pilgrimage in fulfillment of the law of Moses.  It is to these that God says, through Jeremiah, “If you disobey me, not living according to the law . . . I will treat this house like Shiloh.”  While the people were obeying the law in this instance, they were also worshipping other gods in their cities.  It is also worth noting that God rebukes the people for not heeding the words of “my servants the prophets.”  The law of Moses does not speak of the need to obey prophets, although Moses does say on one occasion that God would send a prophet one day.  The prophets appeared irregularly in Israel after the time of Solomon until before the time of the Maccabees, a period of perhaps seven hundred years, and only Elijah and Elisha seem to have performed miracles, but these charismatic figures attracted followings and wielded a certain influence with the kings and people.

“I will treat this house like Shiloh.”  The Ark of the Covenant had been enshrined in the northern city of Shiloh for over three hundred years after the conquest of the Promised Land by Joshua and the twelve tribes.  For centuries, Shiloh was the holy city of the Israelites and they went there from all parts of the land to worship God.  The city seems to have been destroyed by the Philistines when they captured the Ark in the time of Saul.  Through Jeremiah, God warns his people that the holiness of the temple will not protect it if those who worship within it do not abandon their idols and follow the whole law.  This warning would have sounded most extreme, and people would have doubted that God could say such a thing.  

“The priests and the prophets laid hold of him.”  These “prophets” worked in the temple and its courtyard, primarily advising pilgrims on family and business matters, perhaps even venturing to speak of the future, but they had no official role in temple worship, nor did they interpret or teach the Scriptures, though they attempted to interpret dreams.  They were not divinely inspired.  We might be reminded here of how the Jewish leaders and the Pharisees tried to seize hold of Jesus when he preached in the temple.

“You must be put to death!”  The descendants of these priests and prophets would one day shout, “Crucify him, crucify him!”  Jeremiah does not himself lift a hand to harm the temple, nor does he call upon the people to destroy it.  He simply conveys God’s warning.  The people could have considered the warning and decided whether to act on it or not, and then continue about their business, but they must have Jeremiah’s blood.  Led by the priests and prophets, they “gathered about” Jeremiah, as though to kill him in God’s own house.  They will not hear that they need to convert.  They will not think whether they have been disobeying God by their idolatry.  His words remind them sharply of their guilt.

We should examine our own souls by this episode in the life of the Prophet.  We come to Mass, we worship God, we support his Church, but away from the church building do we carefully keep God’s law?  Do we excuse ourselves from inconvenient aspects of it or look for loopholes from it?  Inasmuch as we “are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Corinthians 3, 16), we ought to exercise vigilance lest we suffer the fate of Shiloh, and of the temple, which was destroyed twice.

We pray today for the return to the spirit of St. Ignatius of Loyola by the modern Jesuits.

Thursday in the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 30, 2020

Jeremiah 18:1-6

This word came to Jeremiah from the Lord: Rise up, be off to the potter’s house; there I will give you my message. I went down to the potter’s house and there he was, working at the wheel. Whenever the object of clay which he was making turned out badly in his hand, he tried again, making of the clay another object of whatever sort he pleased. Then the word of the Lord came to me: Can I not do to you, house of Israel, as this potter has done? says the Lord. Indeed, like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, house of Israel.

We continue with reflections on the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, whose words are used for the first reading at Mass for the next few days.  

I think one proof of the existence of God is how much sense he makes, how simple his wisdom is.  An example of this is found in the passage that makes up this morning’s first reading.  Speaking through the Prophet, God uses the experience of the potter to explain divine providence, a subject on which thick books and intricate treatises have been written.  Jeremiah tells how, following God’s command, he went down to the potter’s house, “and there he was, working at the wheel.”  Here we see the active and continuous action of God, conserving, forming, directing, correcting.  God reveals himself not as remote and uninterested, but as the One on whom the pot completely depends for its existence, its form, and its purpose.  

“Whenever the object of clay which he was making turned out badly in his hand,” that is, when the “clay” turns rebellious and tries to form itself without reference to the power and desire of the potter, it turns out “badly”.  The potter himself is skilled and is able to form the clay into “whatever shape he pleased”, but he chooses to respect his “material’s” choices.  All the same, he “tries again”, through warnings and promises to make the clay compliant.  The clay is “in the hand” of the potter.  The fingers, thumbs, and palms of the potter’s hands are the people, the places, the circumstances, and the spiritual inspirations which he gives to the vessel as it progresses to its final shape.

“Can I not do to you, house of Israel, as this potter has done?”  The Lord reveals that as the potter does with clay, so he does not only with an individual person, but with a society, with a whole nation.  He is able to form it into “whatever sort he pleased”.  But that society or nation must be compliant with God’s law and seek to do his will.  We notice here that God uses the sign of the lpotter”, as if to say, I take much trouble over you.  No exterior or interior cause compels God to take any trouble at all with Israel, but this is what he does, not to benefit himself, but to benefit Israel.  The Lord does not throw the clay aside when it becomes rebellious and use other clay.  He continues to model the clay, working it over and over in his hands.

“Indeed, like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, house of Israel.”  This strong statement reminds us off our position.  We do not form God, he forms us.  But he will form us if we will be formed by him.  If we do not yield to him it is we who will suffer eternal frustration, not the potter, who does not need the clay for his own infinite happiness.  While we can see the clay as individual humans or as societies or nations, we recall that in this passage, God addresses “Israel”, by which we understand the Church.  Although protected by certain of his promises from the threats of this world, the Church, both leadership and members, must comply with God’s law and inspirations into to properly fulfill the purpose for which she was created.  Toward this end, the Lord Jesus commanded us to pray, “Thy .will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”  That is, in the Church on earth as in the court of heaven.

Wednesday in the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 29, 2020

The Feast Day of St. Martha

Jeremiah 15:10, 16-21

Woe to me, mother, that you gave me birth! a man of strife and contention to all the land! I neither borrow nor lend, yet all curse me. When I found your words, I devoured them; they became my joy and the happiness of my heart.  Because I bore your name, O Lord, God of hosts, I did not sit celebrating in the circle of merrymakers; Under the weight of your hand I sat alone because you filled me with indignation. Why is my pain continuous, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed? You have indeed become for me a treacherous brook, whose waters do not abide! Thus the Lord answered me: If you repent, so that I restore you, in my presence you shall stand; If you bring forth the precious without the vile, you shall be my mouthpiece. Then it shall be they who turn to you, and you shall not turn to them; And I will make you toward this people a solid wall of brass. Though they fight against you, they shall not prevail, For I am with you, to deliver and rescue you, says the Lord. I will free you from the hand of the wicked, and rescue you from the grasp of the violent.

The reading above is the first reading for this day.  In it, the Prophet Jeremiah laments his vocation, which was to call the idolatrous and overconfident people of the Kingdom of Judah back to the Covenant established from of old between them and their God.  Called by God as a young man, Jeremiah experienced rejection, mockery, and persecution throughout his life.  Some viewed him as a traitor and as an agent of the Babylonians, who destroyed Jerusalem during his lifetime.  Thus, he is a sign of Jesus Christ, and some people during the Lord’s public life believed that he was Jeremiah, returned to earth (cf. Matthew 16, 14).

Jeremiah is also a sign for the Christian because, just as we bear the name of Christ and are baptized into his Body, so we share his vocation of calling people to conversion.

Jeremiah bewails his birth: “Woe to me, mother, that you gave me birth! a man of strife and contention to all the land!”  In the spiritual sense, the Christian recognizes that, in the Lord, he is a “sign of contradiction”, and he shows his natural aversion to a life of not-fitting-into society.  At the same time, he does not allow this to prevent him from carrying out the Lord’s will in his life.  “I neither borrow nor lend, yet all curse me.”  This might remind us of how the Lord quoted a children’s rhyme to describe how he was received by the people he came to save: “We have piped to you, and you have not danced: we have mourned, and you have not wept” (Luke 7, 32).  No matter how a Christian lives or speaks, the world will cry out against him.

“When I found your words, I devoured them; they became my joy and the happiness of my heart.”  All the joy in Jeremiah’s life centered on the word of God.  The Christian “devours” the word of God in the Holy Scriptures, learning about God and his teachings, praying to him while reading, and applying the holy words to his own life.  The “words” here also mean learning the will of God and then doing it with zeal.  “Because I bore your name, O Lord, God of hosts, I did not sit celebrating in the circle of merrymakers; under the weight of your hand I sat alone because you filled me with indignation.”  As St. Paul says, we Christians should keep in mind that “our citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3, 20).  And while we cannot avoid entirely the company of unbelievers, we ought to give preference to the company of those who share our Faith: “Bear not the yoke with unbelievers. For what share has justice with injustice? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? And what concord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has the faithful with the unbeliever?“ (2 Corinthians 6, 14-15).  

“Why is my pain continuous, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed?”  This “wound” is the longing for God that cannot be entirely satisfied here on earth.  As St. Augustine famously said, “My heart is restless until it rests in you!”  A certain level of restlessness will afflict our hearts until the moment we see God in heaven.  We speak with him in prayer and sometimes have marvelous insights or inspirations, but we are made by him to see him face to face, and we yearn for that with all our hearts.  For the saints, the presence of a single venial sin on their souls stings sharply because it may have the effect of prolonging the time until they see him.  “You have indeed become for me a treacherous brook, whose waters do not abide!”  Rejected and mocked by worldly folks, the believer seeks the embrace of God as solace, but oftentimes, as in the Passion of Christ, we find ourselves crying out, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” (Matthew 27, 46).

“Thus the Lord answered me: If you repent, so that I restore you, in my presence you shall stand.”  The Blessed Virgin Mary excepted, all the saints are penitents, from former persecutors like St. Paul to seraphic souls like St. Aloysius Gonzaga.  Repentance and doing penance is a life-long project, as well.  Never will there come a time in our mortal life in which we can think we are perfected.  But in our repentance, God will raise us up to stand before him so that we may do his will as best as we are able.  “If you bring forth the precious without the vile, you shall be my mouthpiece. Then it shall be they who turn to you, and you shall not turn to them.”  That is, If you speak my words and do not insert your own agenda.  If we turn away from sin and persevere in virtue, we “stand” before God and  he will put his words in our mouths.  We will then become an effective sign of the Lord in the world, and at last people who have tired of the world or been cast off by it because of the pangs of conscience, or who suddenly see this earthly life for what it is, will turn to God and hear the words prepared for them from those whom God has made his “mouthpieces”.  

“And I will make you toward this people a solid wall of brass. Though they fight against you, they shall not prevail.”  That is, those who continue to reject God and the call to grace will not harm them or silence their voices.  St. John, in the Book of Revelation, speaks of two witnesses whom God will particularly protect, but these words apply to Christians persevering in the world and whom God uses as his “mouthpieces” by their words and actions: “And if any man will hurt them, fire shall come out of their mouths and shall devour their enemies. And if any man will hurt them, in this manner must he be slain. These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: And they have power over waters, to turn them into blood and to strike the earth with all plagues, as often as they will” 

(Revelation 11, 5-6).  All this to say, Do not be afraid of anyone.

“I am with you, to deliver and rescue you, says the Lord. I will free you from the hand of the wicked, and rescue you from the grasp of the violent.”  “I am with you”, that is, “God-is-with-us”, Emmanuel, the name given our Messiah in Isaiah 7, 14.  He will “deliver and rescue” us, that is, Yeshua, Jesus, for “God saves.”  And just as God delivered his Son from the hand of the wicked Jewish leadership and the violent Roman soldiers in the Resurrection, so will he deliver those of us who belong to him.  

Today we celebrate the Feast of St. Martha, sister of Mary and Lazarus of Bethany.  We might remember her best in the account of how Jesus visited the home she shared with Her brother and sister, and how Martha toiled behind the scenes preparing a meal while Mary sat at the feet of the Lord, listening to him.  From this we learn that there is always work to be done, but prayer ranks highest among all that we may do, for it leads to Union with Christ.  Very likely, Martha and her brother and sister would have suffered from the persecution by the Jewish leaders of the early Christians, as they lived near Jerusalem and were well known as followers of Christ.  We may infer her importance in the early Church in Judea from the prominence St. John gives her in his Gospel.  

Tuesday in the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 28, 2020

Matthew 13:36-43

Jesus dismissed the crowds and went into the house. His disciples approached him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.” He said in reply, “He who sows good seed is the Son of Man, the field is the world, the good seed the children of the Kingdom. The weeds are the children of the Evil One, and the enemy who sows them is the Devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. Just as weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his Kingdom all who cause others to sin and all evildoers. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears ought to hear.”

This reading from the Gospel of Matthew occurred on a recent Sunday.  Its recurrence in the daily Mass cycle provides us with an opportunity to look more closely at the last few verses, which speak of the future of the soul.

To begin with, Jesus speaks of “the end of the age” as a “harvest”.  The harvest is a very active time on a farm when the mature crop is brought into the barns as quickly as possible before it over-ripens or before it rains, making the field a muddy mess that is harder to work in.  For the modern farmer, a big rain just before or in the middle of the harvest means he cannot use his machinery because of the condition of the soil.  The end of the age, then, will involve great urgency and speed.  The world has ended.  No deeds remain to be done.  The destiny of each person has been decided.  At this point, too, we are speaking of resurrected bodies, which move with incredible swiftness.  The angels will reintegrate the bodies of the deceased so that they may live again, and the souls of those bodies rejoin them so that soul and body may together share in the joys of the blessed or the torments of the damned.

The wicked will be placed away from the just at the last judgment so that each group may hear its sentence with the members together.  The just will rejoice at seeing the great saints in their company, saints to whom they prayed during their lives and whose virtues they imitated.  On the other hand, the wicked will look upon the faces of their fellows with alarm and growing horror.  They will recognize the most evil men in history who thought nothing of the slaughter and massacre of innocent humans.  The instant the judgment on each group is pronounced, the just are brought into heaven, where “they will shine like the sun”,  and the wicked will be thrown by the angels into “the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”  Here is how St. John the Apostle saw the final judgment in a vision he himself recorded: “And I saw the dead, great and small, standing in the presence of the throne. And the books were opened: and another book was opened, which was the book of life. And the dead were judged by those things which were written in the books, according to their works” (Revelation 20, 12).

The just will enter “the Kingdom of their Father”.  These are very sweet words.  We can think of how the father of the prodigal son watched for the coming of his son day after day, night after night, and when he finally saw him afar off, ran out to meet him, tears of relief and joy streaming from his eyes.  We can think of how tightly the father held him, and then led him home to a great feast.  Our Father watches for us, waits for us, and will finally embrace us on our entrance into heaven.  We might think of the words of the Song of Songs: “For, behold, the winter is now past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers have appeared in our land, the time of pruning is come: the voice of the turtle-dove is heard in our land: The fig tree has put forth her green figs: the vines in flower yield their sweet smell. Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come” (Song of Songs 2, 11-13).

Terrible and unrelenting punishment awaits those “who cause others to sin and all evildoers”.  These shall “suffer eternal punishment in destruction, from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his power” (2 Thessalonians 1, 9).  That is, their punishment shall be both external and internal.  External in “destruction”.  Jesus gives us a hint of this in the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man.  In hell, the rich man cried out, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water to cool my tongue: for I am tormented in this flame” (Luke 16, 24).  The internal punishment is indicated by the words “wailing and grinding of teeth”.  This punishment is the awareness by the damned that they are away “from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his power”.  They will suffer from the knowledge that they are permanently cut off from the face of God by their own choice, by their own works.  The words of the afflicted Job allow us some insight into their hearts: “Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said: A man child is conceived. Let that day be turned into darkness, let not God regard it from above, and let not the light shine upon it. Let darkness, and the shadow of death, cover it, let a mist overspread it, and let it be wrapped up in bitterness” (Job 3, 3-5).

“Whoever has ears ought to hear.”  This is an idiom that means the same as, “a word to the wise”.  Let us pray for wisdom so that every day we might know how to firm up our place with the just by an unshakable faith and a bounty of good works.  

Monday in the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 27, 2020

I had an especially busy day yesterday and did not get a chance to write on the Gospel for today.  Please find below a recent thought that occurred to me on Jesus and the Law:

The story of the Pentateuch is the story of the Law.  God creates the world for the sake of man, the end point of his physical creation.  He creates a people from a descendent of the original man.  He then gives his law to the people, and with it the land promised to them in order to live out this law.  The New Testament might be seen as the sending of the New Law, the Logos.  God prepares a people for his New Law through John the Baptist.  The people of the New Law will be led into the Promised Land of heaven where they shall live it out forever.  Certainly, Matthew saw Jesus as the new Lawgiver, the new Moses, as well as the true son of David.

When Jesus told Peter that he would head his “Church”, he was already breaking with the Jewish structure of religion.  In the Jewish mind the world consisted of the Jews and the Gentiles.  The Jews centered their religious life around the temple.  The synagogues served as unofficial though important gathering places where the Law was heard and discussed, but rabbis were not officially appointed and the worship offered there was minimal.  Establishing a “Church”, an ekklesia, was a startling act that would have provoked serious questions as to what the Lord intended.  Appointing the fisherman Peter as its head was just as remarkable.  Peter probably could not read Hebrew as would a rabbi, who would read the Law.  And why would Jesus appoint him at all?  Was not Jesus the head of this Church?  Did he anticipate his own Death as so imminent that he had to make this preparation to carry on his teaching?  Matthew shows Jesus at once speaking of his own suffering and Death, which would make perfect sense after naming Peter his successor in this way.  Peter’s sharp reaction to Jesus making this practical provision in light of his coming Death shows that Peter took him very seriously and literally.  The announcement had burst upon him and he was filled with alarm.  The Lord’s equally sharp rebuke assures Peter that he knew exactly what he was doing, and in essence tells him and the others to prepare for it in a way more emphatic than if he had merely elaborated on it: it is God’s will.

The Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 26, 2020

Matthew 13:44–52

Jesus said to his disciples: “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field, which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls. When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea, which collects fish of every kind. When it is full they haul it ashore and sit down to put what is good into buckets. What is bad they throw away. Thus it will be at the end of the age. The angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth. Do you understand all these things?” They answered, “Yes.” And he replied, “Then every scribe who has been instructed in the kingdom of heaven is like the head of a household who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old.” 

Jesus preaches here to his disciples, who are familiar with his way of preaching and with his parables, and so are in a better position to understand him than the crowds.  He particularly preaches here regarding the kingdom of heaven, a term that does not occur in the prophets or in the apocryphal literature of the time.  It is worth noting that Jesus does not say, “the kingdom of Israel”, the re-establishing of which many Pharisees and scribes expected to be done by the Messiah.  Thus, in his healing and exorcising, the Lord acts, for the Jews, like the long-awaited Messiah, but his words do not lend to this interpretation.  

His parables on the kingdom of heaven do not contain references to uprisings, soldiers, fighting, or victories, either.  Clearly, his kingdom is “not of this world”.  Instead, the objects and occupations of ordinary daily life fill these parables, at once speaking to the common man, and at the same time showing them as signs of heavenly realities.

“The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field.”  Now, this treasure was not buried in the man’s own field, but in another’s.  It sounds like the finder happened to be in this field, perhaps on business, and found the treasure.  It sounds like the finder had a fairly easy time locating it.  He would hardly have taken to digging and excavating another man’s field without permission.  This implies that the owner of the field did not know his field very well.  He did not know what was on it.  This signifies the Gentiles, who found Christ among the Jews and “sold off” their former way of life in order to live as a Christian.  We can also understand this as a Christian man whose devotion is unremarkable suddenly realizing, in an inspiration of the Holy Spirit, how much Jesus loves him, and he completely gives himself over to the Lord.

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls.”  Now, we can understand this parable much as we understand the one above, but we can look at them in another way: It is The Son of God who is the merchant in this parable, and he is “looking for” those whom he has come down to earth  to save.  Out of joy in finding us, he sells all that he has — that is, he leaves heaven, becomes man, and endures his Passion and Death — in order to save us.  In his eyes, we are the “pearl of great price”.  As St. Paul reminds us, “You are bought with a great price” (1 Corinthians 6, 20).

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea, which collects fish of every kind.”  That is, everyone is invited into the kingdom of heaven: “Many are called” (Matthew 22, 14).  “Fish of every kind” are caught, that is, those who love Christ for himself, and those who give the appearance of following him for some benefit, such as power or money.  The net is haul ashore, the last judgment, and what is good is kept and what is bad is thrown away.  The Lord adds this explanatory phrase: “The angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous.”  Traditionally, it is understood that the mission of the angels on the day of judgment will be to wake the dead, reconstituting their bodies so that their souls can reunite with them.  The angels will then convey the resurrected humans to the place of judgment.  In the image our Lord furnishes here, it is the angels which will separate the “lambs” from the “goats” in the presence of the Lord.  After the judgment, the angels will take the wicked and “throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”  Perhaps the former guardian angels of the wicked will do this.  The “wailing and grinding of teeth” signifies both the agony of the wicked in their torments and of their regret at how easily they could have been saved if they had given themselves to Christ during the short time of their mortal lives.

Finally, Jesus compares the scribe instructed in the kingdom of heaven as the head of the household who brings out both the old and the new.  In the case of the head of the household, that might mean fresh food and aged wine.  In the case of the scribe, it can mean the ability to understand and preach both the Old and New Testaments, revealing how the Old is the sign of the New.  That can be any of us who love the Scriptures inspired by God and treat them as treasures and as pearls of great price.

The Feast of St. James the Apostle, July 25, 2020

Matthew 20:20-28

The mother of the sons of Zebedee approached Jesus with her sons and did him homage, wishing to ask him for something. He said to her, “What do you wish?” She answered him, “Command that these two sons of mine sit, one at your right and the other at your left, in your Kingdom.” Jesus said in reply, “You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the chalice that I am going to drink?” They said to him, “We can.” He replied, “My chalice you will indeed drink, but to sit at my right and at my left, this is not mine to give but is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.” When the ten heard this, they became indignant at the two brothers. But Jesus summoned them and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and the great ones make their authority over them felt. But it shall not be so among you. Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave. Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Today we celebrate the Feast of St. James, the son of Zebedee and the brother of St. John.  He is called “the greater”, perhaps because of his age, distinguishing from the St. James who became the bishop of Jerusalem and who lived until nearly the time of the Jewish Revolt.  St. James the Greater is mentioned several times in the Gospels, usually in conjunction with his brother John.  He and John and Peter shared a special intimacy with the Lord, who invited them to places apart from the other nine.  James would seem to have been a young man at the time our Lord called him to follow him, since his father and mother were very much alive at the time.  He also would seem to have preceded John in age since he is always mentioned as first of the pair.  We have an indication of his temperament in that Jesus referred to the two brothers as “the sons of thunder” (cf. Mark 3, 17), and when he and John wished to call down fire from heaven on a town that would not receive them (cf. Luke 9, 54).  He was the first of the Apostles to die, beheaded by Herod, in about the year 44.  This indicates their zeal — even rashness — for the Lord.  Peter manifests a similar zeal, so perhaps this is why these three were chosen by our Lord for events such as the Transfiguration and to keep him company during his Agony in the Garden before his arrest.  He was the first of the Apostles to receive martyrdom, as he was beheaded by Herod Agrippa in the year 44.  There is a tradition, though not an ancient one, that St. James preached the Gospel in Spain before returning to Jerusalem, where his martyrdom took place.  His relics are said to rest in Compostela, Spain, an important destination of pilgrimages from the Middle Ages onwards.

In the Gospel reading for his feast, his and John’s mother, whom many scholars identify as Mary of Cleophas, approaches Jesus and desires him to bestow high rank on her sons, “one at your right and the other at your left, in your Kingdom.”  That is, she wants them to be his chief lieutenants, with one of them possibly becoming his successor “in his kingdom”.  However, she mistakes the nature of the Lord’s kingdom for a re-establishment of an independent kingdom of Israel.  The Lord indicates this, telling her, “You do not know what you are asking,” which is frequently the case when we pray for some outcome or other.  The Lord then addressed the two brothers, asking them, “Can you drink the chalice that I am going to drink?”  The brothers almost certainly have little idea what Jesus is asking them, although they may understand the “chalice” means “battle” of some kind.  Nevertheless, they say, without hesitation, they can.  Then the Lord assures them that they will indeed drink the chalice that he drinks.  We can understand this “chalice” as the persecution and Death that the Lord endured, or more broadly as a commitment to do the will of the Father, no matter what the cost.  We “drink” this chalice when we are baptized, confirmed, and whenever we receive Holy Communion.  It can also mean living the life and dying the death the Father has chosen for us.

At the same time, what they are asking for is not the Son’s to grant, but is reserved for the Father.  That is, it is reserved for those who live in accord with the Father’s will.  To claim a seat in the court of heaven before living a holy life is mere presumption.  It is only after a saint’s death that he hears the words, “Come up higher” at the heavenly banquet (Luke 14, 10).

Naturally, the ten other Apostles took umbrage at this brazen attempt to gain power.  Their might have occurred a permanent rift between the Apostles right here, but the Lord Jesus explains the difference between what he will give them — authority — versus what civil or other religious rulers possess — power.  The point of authority, particularly Within the Church, is that of service: “Whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave.”  But this is not an abject slavery, rather, an imitation of the Lord’s own service: “Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”  

St. James did indeed drink the chalice of the Lord, preaching the Gospel and offering Sacrifice of the Mass until his martyrdom.  And now he sits with God.

We also celebrate the feast of St. Christopher, the patron saint of travelers, who was martyred in Asia Minor during the persecutions. 

Friday in the Sixteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 24, 2020

Matthew 13:18-23

Jesus said to his disciples: “Hear the parable of the sower. The seed sown on the path is the one who hears the word of the Kingdom without understanding it, and the Evil One comes and steals away what was sown in his heart. The seed sown on rocky ground is the one who hears the word and receives it at once with joy. But he has no root and lasts only for a time. When some tribulation or persecution comes because of the word, he immediately falls away. The seed sown among thorns is the one who hears the word, but then worldly anxiety and the lure of riches choke the word and it bears no fruit. But the seed sown on rich soil is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.”

We had this reading on a recent Sunday, but much remains for us to reflect on.

Jesus does not describe the sower in the parable apart from his work.  He scatters the seed and, as far as the parable goes, he has no further part in the fate of the seed.  But Jesus explains later that the sower is the Son of man.  Because of this, we know that as the Sower, he causes the seed to germinate and to grow into a plant.  He causes growth according to the soil the seed lands on.  The seed fails not because of the fault of the Sower or the Seed, but due to the soil.  Also, we note that the Sower tosses seed in all directions so as to cover the entire field, even so that some of it falls on the path: no one is excluded from the possibility of salvation.  At the same time, in real life, each person’s moral choices make it the type of “soil” that he or she is.  

We can also glean from the parable that it is not easy or perhaps even possible to determine what person will convert and become a zealous follower of the Lord and who will not, that is, what patch of soil is rich and what is not.  In tossing seed, a sower uses up all the seed that he has.  It cannot be stored for the next season, and so he has extra incentive to cover his field entirely.  He also wants to spread it as evenly as possible over the field so that no patch of it receives too much or too little.  From this we learn how the Lord does not begrudge his grace to anyone, but everyone is offered it, as much as he needs.

The Seed which is sown has power and life.  In all the cases Jesus describes, except for the seed that falls on the path, it germinates, although it may last a short time, perhaps a moment or a few days. Although path does not receive the seed, the Seed lingers.  The Seed does everything it can do, but it cannot force itself to take root if the ground does not allow it.  It lasts only until trouble and persecution come. The Seed that falls among the thorns struggles to take root and grow, entwined as it is by anxieties and ambitions.  It is finally choked and dies.  The desire to advance in the world or to possess some temporary good outweighs the love of Jesus Christ and even of one’s own soul.  We recall the Lord’s words, “What does it profit a man of he gains the whole world but suffers the loss of his own soul?” (Matthew 16, 26).  And then the rich soil gives the seed a proper home, and abounding in the love of God and taking to heart his word, the soil produces many times as much fruit as the seed that went into the soil.  It is the miracle of seed that from it can grow a pumpkin that contains hundreds of seeds, or an apple tree that produces bushels of apples, each containing more seed.  As for the Seed that falls on the path, we see the terrible responsibility of the human will, which can even set itself against God and ultimately lose its power in hell.

Thursday in the Sixteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 23, 2020

Matthew 13:10-17

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

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

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

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

The Feast of St. Mary Magdalene, July 22, 2020

Song of Songs 3:2-5; 8:6-7

I will rise and go about the city; in the streets and crossings I will seek Him Whom my heart loves. I sought Him but I did not find Him. The watchmen came upon me as they made their rounds of the city: Have you seen Him Whom my heart loves? I had hardly left them when I found Him Whom my heart loves. I took hold of Him and would not let Him go till I should bring Him to the home of my mother, to the room of my parent, I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles and hinds of the field, do not arouse, do not stir up love before its own time. Set me as a seal on Your heart, as a seal on Your arm; for stern as death is love, relentless as the nether world is devotion; its flames are a blazing fire. Deep waters cannot quench love, nor floods sweep it away. Were one to offer all he owns to purchase love, he would despise it as nothing.

We celebrate today the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene, a particularly joyous occasion because it reminds us that no matter how far we have fallen into sin, God will welcome us back to the life of grace if we repent.  The established facts of her life are few, and she is sometimes confused with Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and Lazarus because both women are said to have performed a similar service for our Lord.  St. Luke tells of an unnamed woman as coming to Jesus as he ate in the house of a Pharisee, “sitting behind at his feet. she began to wash his feet with tears and wiped them with the hairs of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment” (Luke 7, 38).  The Lord’s host, seeing this, thought to himself, “This man, if he were if a prophet, would know surely who and what manner of woman this is that touched him, that she is a sinner” (Luke 7, 39).  This woman is traditionally identified as Mary Magdalene.  St. John describes a scene like this one, but distinct from it: “Mary therefore took a pound of ointment of right spikenard, of great price, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the odor of the ointment” (John 12, 3).  This, of course, is Mary of Bethany, anointing the Lord’s feet at a feast held after he had raised her brother from the dead.  The reason why the two women were rolled into one, as it were, is because St. Gregory the Great combined the two in a sermon, and for a long time writers took their cue from him.

St. Mark identifies Mary Magdalene  as the woman “out of whom [Jesus] had cast seven devils” (Mark 16, 9).  Unfortunately, none of the Evangelists provide an account of what must have been a remarkable scene.  We find her prominent in the accounts of the Resurrection, however, underscoring her intense devotion to the Lord.  She stands with the Blessed Virgin and St. John beneath the Cross in our Lord’s final hours.  She lingers at the there hours after his Death and so sees Joseph of Arimithea take the Lord’s Body down from the Cross and follows along to the tomb.  It is she who takes the initiative in procuring what was necessary for anointing his dead Body and who sets out early in the morning, even before the sun rises, to go to the tomb.  And it is to her that the Scriptures tell us that he appeared first, with the Lord calling her name.  He sends her to tell the Apostles that he is alive and that they will see him.  For this reason, the Fathers call her “the Apostle to the Apostles.”

According to Eastern traditions, Mary Magdalene went with the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. John the Apostle to Ephesus, where she later died.  It seems fitting that the three who stood at the Cross of the Lord should remain close after the Lord’s Ascension.  Medieval French legends tell of her (confused as Mary of Bethany) and Martha and Lazarus eventually making their way to the southern coast of France with the Holy Grail.

The reading above from the Song of Songs is the epistle from her feast according to the 1962 Roman Missal.  Reading it spiritually, we can read the heart of this holy woman.

“I will rise and go about the city; in the streets and crossings I will seek Him Whom my heart loves.”  The Penitent stirs and rises from her sin, stung by her conscience, but even more so, yearning for the true love only God, “Him Whom my heart loves”, gives.  She does not know where to look for him and so she goes through her familiar haunts, “in the streets and crossings”, the occasions of her sin, but he is not there.  

“The watchmen came upon me as they made their rounds of the city: Have you seen Him Whom my heart loves?”  The “watchmen” are the priests of the Church who hear her devout confession and give her the guidance she needs.  “I had hardly left them when I found Him Whom my heart loves.”  Her sins wiped away in confession and atoned through penance, she finds the Love of her life and embraces him with all her might. “I took hold of Him and would not let Him go.”  This might remind us of how Mary Magdalene took hold of the Lord upon recognizing him in the Resurrection, so that Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me . . . But go to my brethren” (John 20, 17).  “Till I should bring Him to the home of my mother, to the room of my parent”, that is, until she had fully learned his teachings and was making progress in sanctity so as to bring him to others.    

“I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles and hinds of the field, do not arouse, do not stir up love before its own time.”  That is, we cannot possess the Lord Jesus until we have turned our back to sin.

“Set me as a seal on Your heart, as a seal on Your arm.”  She speaks now to the Lord: Let our love be so intimate that my words are your words, and your deeds are my deeds.  “For stern as death is love.”  Death is implacable in that all must face it, but the love of God is not vanquished by it.  From this point in the reading, the name of Jesus May be read for the word “love”, as in “Stern as death is Jesus”, for Jesus is the name of Mary Magdalene’s love.  Here, we see the Lord Jesus unrelenting in his love for her and for us who believe in him:  “Strong as the nether world is devotion; its flames are a blazing fire.”

“Deep waters cannot quench love, nor floods sweep it away.”  This is the experience of the contemplative, and a hint of the joy of heaven.  

“Were one to offer all he owns to purchase love, he would despise it as nothing.”  Jesus, the Pearl of Great Price who gives himself freely and without cost to the one who loves him.

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

Matthew 12:46-50

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

Here we have a rare mention of the Lord’s human family: his Mother and some male members of his clan.  St. John, for one, held a low opinion of these latter: “For neither did his brethren believe in him” (John 7, 5).  Several of his brethren did believe, however.  These evidently included the Apostles James (the son of Alphaeus, married to the Virgin Mary’s sister), Jude (the “brother” of James), and Simon the Zealot (another brother of James, according to Mark 6, 3).  We might expect some others of his kinsmen to have followed him as well.  

The Blessed Virgin traveled with these brethren, seeking Jesus.  The matter must have had some urgency for the Virgin and these men to seek him in this way, likely some family business.  At the same time, they were probably delayed in finding him because he moved fairly rapidly from one town to the next.  When they do locate him, he is inside a house and the size of the crowd does not allow them to get near the door.  They are forced to send a message in to him instead.  Jesus uses the occasion to teach the crowd about the intimacy shared by those who do the will of God — those bound together in grace.  The saints, he says, are nearer each other than any two people related merely by biology.  He says this to people for whom family ties were everything.  A person’s very identity and survival depended upon his or her family, genealogy, and tribal association.   What Jesus says turns Jewish culture on its head.  It is one of the Lord’s “hard sayings”.

But what does it mean to be the Lord’s “brother” or “sister” or “mother”?  St. Thomas Aquinas, commenting on these verses, says, “Any of the faithful who does the will of the Father, namely, who obeys him simply, is the Lord’s ‘brother’ [or ‘sister’] because he is like the One who fulfilled the Father’s will.  But the one who not only does this but also converts others, ‘begets’ Christ in others, and thus is made the Lord’s ‘mother’.  Galatians 4, 19: ‘My little children, of whom I am in labour again, until Christ be formed in you.’ ”

We see here how the Lord sees the sanctity of his natural Mother.  Not only does she give flesh to him, but she is his Mother in bringing others to believe in him.  As the elderly Simeon prophesied, “And your own soul a sword shall pierce, that, out of many hearts thoughts may be revealed” 

(Luke 2, 35), that is, through the prayers of this woman who suffered with her Son as he hung upon the Cross, many would come to believe.  

We ourselves may attain the high dignity of the brothers, sisters, and Mother of the Lord very simply — not by birth into a royal family, but by rebirth into the Holy Family.

Monday in the Sixteenth Week of Ordinary Time

Matthew 12:38-42

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

The Pharisees and scribes act in bad faith by asking for a sign from the Lord Jesus since he has offered them many signs in his healings, exorcisms, and in how he has fulfilled the Scriptures.  But to give them one, he points to an event from the past as a sign for what is yet to take place.  He speaks explicitly that this “sign of Jonah” shows that the Son of Man will abide in the “heart of the earth” for three days and three nights.  The Lord goes on to speak of how the men of Nineveh would rise up against “this generation” and condemn it.  While we who believe see the “sign of Jonah” as meaning the Lord’s Death and descent to the dead, any sign which he gives us is going to abound in riches.  In order to know them, let us look closely at the story of Jonah.

We ought to pay close attention to Jonah’s time on the boat.  He was a stranger, from another country than the sailors with whom he sailed.  They were Gentiles while he was a Jew.  When the boat was assailed by the storm and all seemed lost, Jonah offered to sacrifice himself to save the sailors.  The sailors were unwilling to let him do this, saying that his blood was innocent, and he had to persuade them that his death was their only hope.  After he was thrown overboard, a giant fish swallowed him up.  The fish then carried him off into the sea with him in its belly.  Once in the belly of the fish, Jonah prayed to God.  In his prayer, Jonah equates his place in the fish with the place of the dead: “I called to the Lord, out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried” (Jonah 2, 2).  The tone of his prayer is confident, and it ends with thanksgiving.  After the prayer, we are told that the fish vomited him up on the land.  Jonah then went on to Nineveh, at that time the chief city of the world, and preached, proclaiming that the city would be destroyed in forty days.  Thereupon the king of the city declared fasting and penance, and God spared it.  We can see the Lord Jesus in all of this: the Son of God comes down from heaven to travel among “foreigners”, that is, men.  Realizing the shortness of this life and that their souls are in danger of hell, they implore the Lord to help them.  He sacrifices himself by their reluctant hands (those of the Gentiles, who declared him innocent).  The Father saves him and he descends into the place of the dead (where he sets the just free).  The “fish” vomits the Lord onto the Land — that is, Death cannot not hold the Author of life and rejects him as with violence.  He then preaches to the Gentiles (through the Apostles) for “forty days” (forty years being the space of a generation, signifying the final age of the world).  The Gentiles convert and are saved from destruction.  

The reluctancy of the prophet at the beginning of the book and his unhappiness at its end only help us to understand that, as the Lord says, “there is something greater than Jonah here” in him.

What would the Pharisees and scribes have understood from the Lord speaking of Jonah as a sign for himself?  Remarkably, although they ask for a sign, they do not seem to have asked him to explain it to them.  Even the hint that he gives them of its meaning, telling them that the Son of Man would be in the heart of the earth for three days and nights, might not have meant anything to them.

The Sixteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, July 19, 2020

Matthew 13:24–30

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

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

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

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

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