Tuesday in the Ninth Week of Ordinary Time, June 1, 2021

Mark 12:13-17

Some Pharisees and Herodians were sent to Jesus to ensnare him in his speech. They came and said to him, “Teacher, we know that you are a truthful man and that you are not concerned with anyone’s opinion. You do not regard a person’s status but teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not? Should we pay or should we not pay?” Knowing their hypocrisy he said to them, “Why are you testing me? Bring me a denarius to look at.” They brought one to him and he said to them, “Whose image and inscription is this?” They replied to him, “Caesar’s.” So Jesus said to them, “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” They were utterly amazed at him.

“Some Pharisees and Herodians were sent to Jesus.”  These men, who had no official status in Judah or Galilee but who were members of certain groups in opposition to each other, were “sent” by the high priests to trap the Lord Jesus in his speech so that he might be accused either as a lawbreaker or as someone who could not possibly be the Messiah because he paid the tax to Caesar.  It is a clever trap that must have taken time to arrange, to get just the right people together for it.

“Teacher, we know that you are a truthful man and that you are not concerned with anyone’s opinion.”  This statement is indeed true of Jesus, but it is uttered in bad faith and so it merits them nothing.  But just as this was true of Jesus Christ, so it ought to be true of his followers throughout time.  We ought to customarily ignore the opinions of others when they are offered us without our solicitation.  We should ask the opinions of a few wise and experienced persons, especially those of our Faith, but even those we must weigh carefully.  “You do not regard a person’s status but teach the way of God in accordance with the truth.”  This, again, is true of Jesus Christ, for he who is Almighty God would hardly pay heed to the infinitesimal and arbitrary degrees of difference in status between human beings.  The Lord’s followers must act in the same way, teaching the truth regardless, and not concealing some potentially unpopular portion of it.

“Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not? Should we pay or should we not pay?”  This is a political question, not a religious one.  The Herodians and Pharisees resort to this kind of question because they have seen that Jesus is a preacher, disdaining to comment on the politics of the day as though the subject were beneath him.  The Lord sees the question, though, as a religious one: We owe all that we are to God; do we owe anything at all to the political system that governs us?  With his answer, “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God”, the Lord seems to favor political stability when it can be purchased by nothing more than money or goods, but that is all.  Political stability — as long as the government does not attempt to control the souls of the people — allows for the spread of the Gospel more expeditiously than political instability. 

“They were utterly amazed at him.”  The verb could also be translated as “flabbergasted” or “breathless with astonishment”.  The Lord’s utter refusal to be drawn into sectarian politics and to steadfastly see everything in terms of God left them standing and staring.  He simply did not speak their language.  This demonstrates their godlessness.  In fact, the Greek word usually translated as “hypocrisy” is used in the Septuagint to translate a Hebrew word that means “godlessness”.  It does not mean “hypocrisy” in the modern sense.  The Lord, then, recognized the godlessness of these Herodians and Pharisees and gave them an answer they could not comprehend because God meant nothing to them.  How vastly different the world looks to the person who is conscious of God and “meditates on his Law day and night” (Psalm 1, 2).

The Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Monday, May 31, 2021

Luke 1:39-56

Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” 

And Mary said: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant. From this day all generations will call me blessed: the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name. He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation. He has shown the strength of his arm, he has scattered the proud in their conceit. He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. He has come to the help of his servant Israel for he has remembered his promise of mercy, the promise he made to our fathers, to Abraham and his children for ever.” 

Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home.

Like the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity which the Church celebrated yesterday, the Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary has its origins in the Middle Ages.  It was established by Pope Urban VI in 1389 during a very difficult period for the Church.  For centuries the Feast was celebrated on July 2, but in the 1962 Roman Missal it was moved to May 31 so that, in the Church year, it precedes the celebration of the Birth of St. John the Baptist.

“Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah.”  The Archangel Gabriel had told the Blessed Virgin Mary of the pregnancy of her relative, Elizabeth, on the occasion of his Annunciation to her that she would conceive the Son of God by the Holy Spirit.  He seems to have had two purposes in mind, here.  First, to encourage Mary in her miraculous and utterly unprecedented conception of Jesus by pointing out that the much older Elizabeth had conceived by the power of God.  Second, to intimate to Mary that she should go to Elizabeth, not only to help her, but to be helped by her and her husband, the priest Zechariah.  Of all the humans then living, this couple could furnish the most assistance to her: Elizabeth through the experience of her conceiving well beyond the age of childbirth; and Zechariah, the priest who received a like vision of the Archangel Gabriel, and who could also counsel Mary.  Elizabeth, for her part, seems to understand that she was to avoid all visitors, especially the merely curious, and only to receive the help God would send her — the Blessed Virgin Mary — for, “Elizabeth his wife conceived and hid herself five months” (Luke 1, 24).  

The Blessed Virgin traveled “in haste” (which can also be translated from the Greek as “with diligence”).  She did not travel in a panic, but without delay.  Her urgency was to serve God completely and in all things, and it would seem that Gabriel had pointed her to go her relatives in Judea, rather than to remain at home.  She was seeking to assist her cousin and to learn whatever she could about what God expected of her.  Zechariah could communicate with her only through his writing tablet or by showing her passages in the Scriptures, which a scribe could have read to her.  Perhaps most importantly, he could have taught Mary, or reinforced for her, the value of silence in the face of incomprehensible mystery.  We ought to keep in mind that Gabriel did not provide much instruction for how the Virgin was to conduct herself during her pregnancy — not even as to whether to tell her betrothed, Joseph.  She may have wondered, after the Angel had left her, whether she was to tell anyone.  After all, the whole people of Israel waited in great expectation for the Messiah’s arrival.  Were they not entitled to know that his Birth was imminent?  She might also have wondered if she should now return to live in the Temple, where she had spent her early years.  In what more appropriate place could she have lived while the Child grew in her virginal womb?  She went without delay to seek counsel from the people whom God had indicated through his messenger.  While Mary did not even tell her parents, she must have confided in her betrothed, for he had a need to know.  And he accepted the truth she told him, for, as St. Jerome tells us, it was easier for him to believe that Mary had conceived by the Holy Spirit than that she had sinned in fornication.  After she departed, though, he did struggle in trying to understand what God expected of him, now.

“She entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.”  The women of a house stayed in the back of the house where they could have the most privacy, and so Elizabeth would have kept there after finding herself pregnant.  Mary went into the house to greet Elizabeth, though Zechariah may have met her outside the house.  The grace that she brought in herself and which her Child brought would have gladdened the hearts of all in the vicinity.  The presence of a saint can do that.  This was the case with Mother Teresa.  A person could feel her enter a room, even if the person was unaware of it at the time.  A lightness of heart and clarity of mind fills all those around.  Certainly this effect would have been much magnified when the Virgin entered the house with her Child in her womb.  Luke tells us how Elizabeth felt it: “At the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy.”  The Church teaches us the significance of this moment: that in that instant, John the Baptist was freed from original sin.

“Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home.”  As the Rosary teaches us, we ought to meditate frequently on the three months in which the Virgin Mary remained with Zechariah, Elizabeth, and the unborn John the Baptist.  Let us consider the joy of those who were able to see the Blessed Virgin face to face every day, to encounter her in the market, to see her strolling along the road, to accompany her as she went out to the village well for water, to eat food cooked by her hands, to be comforted by her words.  Those who are devoted to her in this life know her care in their daily labors and cares, and this only whets the appetite of the soul to one day join her company in heaven.

 The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, May 30, 2021

Matthew 28:16–20

The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them. When they all saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted. Then Jesus approached and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”

This Feast was decreed by Pope John XXII (1316–1334).  While every Sunday Mass particularly but every Mass in general is a celebration of the Most Holy Trinity, it is very appropriate to celebrate this great and mysterious reality of God following Pentecost, when the Church’s mission to the world of proclaiming the Holy Trinity officially commenced. 

The following translation of the traditional Preface of the Most Holy Trinity sums up the truth about him:

“It is truly meet and just, right and for our salvation, that we should at all times, and in all places, give thanks unto Thee, O holy Lord, Father almighty, everlasting God; Who, together with Thine only-begotten Son, and the Holy Spirit, art one God, one Lord: not in the oneness of a single Person, but in the Trinity of one [divine] substance. For what we believe by Thy revelation of Thy glory, the same do we believe of Thy Son, the same of the Holy Spirit, without difference or separation. So that in confessing the true and everlasting Godhead, distinction in persons, unity in essence, and equality in majesty may be adored. Which the Angels and Archangels, the Cherubim also and Seraphim do praise: who cease not daily to cry out, with one voice saying.”

The Sanctus which immediately follows the preface is the worship of the Triune God by the angels, as witnessed by the Prophet Isaiah in the Temple: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts.  Heaven and earth are full of your glory.”  (The last part of the prayer is taken from Psalm 117).  Each Person of the Trinity is thus acknowledged as “holy”.  The unity of the Persons as one God is also confirmed by the use of “God” and “your” in the singular.  We find this in the words of the Lord Jesus himself at the end of the Gospel of St. Matthew: “baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”.  That is, “in the name” of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, not “in the names”.  

We could never have known that God is a Trinity of Persons unless the Son had revealed this to us.  It is the essential truth of Christianity, for this mystery tells us who God truly is, that God is love, and the Son of God is of the Father and is in the most perfect unity with him, and that our destiny is to share in the glory of the Holy Trinity inasmuch as we are the members of the Body of Christ.  This helps us to see the infinite difference between the God the Muslims worship and the God revealed by Jesus Christ: their God is solitary and alone.  The God revealed by Jesus exists in a perfect communion of life and love.  Only a Triune God can be a God who is love because love requires three things: a lover, a beloved, and the love itself.  Love cannot exist in isolation.  It must have a proper object capable of returning that love.  In the case of God, there must be a perfect Lover and a perfect Beloved to share the perfect love of God.  This is the Father and the Son, and the love itself that binds them in unity is the Holy Spirit, whom St. Thomas Aquinas calls the nexus and connectio of the Father and the Son.

Full of the joy of knowing our God in this way, and in knowing of the love we will fully experience and share in heaven, we go forth “to all the world”, according to our various vocations, and preach the Gospel, whether by deed, word, or prayer.

 Saturday in the Eighth Week of Ordinary Time, May 29, 2021

Mark 11:27-33

Jesus and his disciples returned once more to Jerusalem. As he was walking in the temple area, the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders approached him and said to him, “By what authority are you doing these things? Or who gave you this authority to do them?” Jesus said to them, “I shall ask you one question. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. Was John’s baptism of heavenly or of human origin? Answer me.” They discussed this among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘Of heavenly origin,’ he will say, ‘Then why did you not believe him?’ But shall we say, ‘Of human origin’?”– they feared the crowd, for they all thought John really was a prophet. So they said to Jesus in reply, “We do not know.” Then Jesus said to them, “Neither shall I tell you by what authority I do these things.”

“The chief priests, the scribes, and the elders approached him and said to him, “By what authority are you doing these things? Or who gave you this authority to do them?”  The Jewish leaders are responding to the Lord’s casting out the money changers and animal sellers from the Temple courtyard.  They pose an interesting question.  Since they are the authorities over the Temple, and the Lord Jesus did not obtain permission from them to do what he had, where did his authority come from?  The chief priests and elders challenge him in this way in order to force him, they think, into claiming to be the Messiah, claiming authority direct from heaven.  Claiming this would play into their hands, they assume, because they could then contest his claim with their own interpretation of the Scriptures, or by their counterclaim that the Messiah should be obedient to the chief priests.  In their eyes, this Galilean had attacked the Temple itself as well as their authority, and exposing him as a fraud would be easy once they had called his bluff.

The Lord does not yield to their scheming and will not give an answer that could be interpreted as a claim to be the Messiah they imagine for themselves: a military leader.  Instead, “Jesus said to them, ‘I shall ask you one question. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things.’ ”  He does not give them a chance to reply.  He is not asking  them to make a deal with him; he is giving them an order: “Was John’s baptism of heavenly or of human origin? Answer me.”  We note here that he has said twice, “Answer me.”  His order will abide no silence from them.  Now, they do not dismiss his order, showing that they lack confidence in their authority.  They do not ignore his order, either.  If they truly believed in their position as the rightful masters of the Temple and truly discounted that Jesus had the authority to do what he had done, they would have spoken very forcefully at this point, insisting that he answer them.  But they do not.  They feel compelled to answer him, thus acknowledging his authority.  But they cannot agree on an answer to the question he poses.  They are trapped between competing fears: “If we say, ‘Of heavenly origin,’ he will say, ‘Then why did you not believe him?’ But shall we say, ‘Of human origin?’ – they feared the crowd, for they all thought John really was a prophet.”  The question Jesus tells them to answer is not unrelated to the situation at hand.  The chief priests and elders were trying to force him into declaring himself as the Messiah, but they and the people present knew that John himself had pointed out Jesus of Nazareth as the Lamb of God.  For them to admit that John spoke by heavenly authority would be to acknowledge Jesus to be who he showed himself to be.  Yet to say that John did not act by heavenly authority would cause a riot among the people, and most certainly reveal them to be unworthy of respect and authority.

“We do not know.”  But in truth, they did.  This answer from the very people who should have known substantially undermined their authority in the eyes of the people.  It also lay open to the view of all the corruption and incompetency into which the Jewish priesthood had fallen.  As St. Paul would say, speaking of the New Priesthood of Jesus Christ and the New Covenant in his Blood, “Now in [God] telling of a new, he has made the former old. And that which decays and grows old is near its end” (Hebrews 8, 13).  “Neither shall I tell you by what authority I do these things.”  The Lord declares his victory over the chief priests and the elders with these words, and shows himself to be their authority, at the same time reminding them of who he was through the reference to John the Baptist, who said of him, “I indeed baptize you with water: but there shall come one mightier than I, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to loose. He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.  His fan is in his hand: and he will purge his floor and will gather the wheat into his barn: but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire” (Luke 3, 16-17).

The chief priests and elders, with all their “wisdom” and “authority” were silenced and put to shame.  The people and the Apostles rejoiced.  We marvel at the authority of the Lord Jesus, to whom all power was given by the Father, and who will protect and save those who belong to him.

 Friday in the Eighth Week of Ordinary Time, May 27, 2021

Mark 11:11-26

Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple area. He looked around at everything and, since it was already late, went out to Bethany with the Twelve. The next day as they were leaving Bethany he was hungry. Seeing from a distance a fig tree in leaf, he went over to see if he could find anything on it. When he reached it he found nothing but leaves; it was not the time for figs. And he said to it in reply, “May no one ever eat of your fruit again!” And his disciples heard it. They came to Jerusalem, and on entering the temple area he began to drive out those selling and buying there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves. He did not permit anyone to carry anything through the temple area. Then he taught them saying, “Is it not written:   My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples? But you have made it a den of thieves.”  The chief priests and the scribes came to hear of it and were seeking a way to put him to death, yet they feared him because the whole crowd was astonished at his teaching. When evening came, they went out of the city. Early in the morning, as they were walking along, they saw the fig tree withered to its roots. Peter remembered and said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.” Jesus said to them in reply, “Have faith in God. Amen, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it shall be done for him. Therefore I tell you, all that you ask for in prayer, believe that you will receive it and it shall be yours. When you stand to pray, forgive anyone against whom you have a grievance, so that your heavenly Father may in turn forgive you your transgressions.”

“The next day as they were leaving Bethany he was hungry.”  The custom of the time and place was to eat a single meal, normally around noon.  Work would begin soon after the break of day, continue till noon, and then after dinner work went on until the sun began to set.  Everyone went back to the house and went to bed then.  One of the most noteworthy aspects of the Passover meal was that it was decreed to be eaten after sunset, contrary to custom.  Jesus is hungry because he has not eaten since noon of the previous day, when he did not have enough time or opportunity to eat much, or he may have been fasting during this last journey to Jerusalem, but now after he has reached it, he can break his fast.  “Seeing from a distance a fig tree in leaf, he went over to see if he could find anything on it.”  So frequently in the Gospels we see the Lord performing miracles or delivering momentous teaching.  Here we see him performing a very human, natural action, peering through the branches and leaves of a tree in search of fruit.  He does this as a sign to the Apostles, however.  He knows very well that this tree has no fruit on it.  “When he reached it he found nothing but leaves; it was not the time for figs.”  This comment by Mark assures us that this is a prophetic action in the tradition of actions performed by the Prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel.  “And he said to it in reply, ‘May no one ever eat of your fruit again!’ ”  Ordinarily, this outburst would have been thought to be a sign of insanity: cursing a fig tree for not bearing fruit when it was not time for it and the Apostles do not immediately understand what Jesus is doing.  St. Matthew tells the story in a slightly different way and reports that the Apostles remarked to him about this.  But then Jesus leads them on to Jerusalem. 

“He began to drive out those selling and buying there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves.”  While this may seem like a different story, it is in fact key to understanding the curse of the fig tree.  The Lord finds corruption and filth in his house and he begins to purify it.  This is also a prophetic sign, since the Temple courtyards were vast and he set on the money changers and animals sellers in only one corner of it.  Nor does he set a guard of Apostles to keep these people from returning.  Jesus performs this sign in order to show that this was his house inasmuch as it was his Father’s house, and that he was displeased with how it was being treated.  The money changers and sellers signify the high priests and the Sanhedrin.  The Lord casting them out shows that those entrusted with his house are now expelled from it as unworthy, as profaners of the holy place: “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”  The high priests and Sanhedrin heard of this and, understanding the sign he performed, were livid, rather than repentant.  And instead  of examining their consciences and turning away from their wickedness, they would kill the one who had shone them up: “The chief priests and the scribes came to hear of it and were seeking a way to put him to death.”

The next morning finds the Lord and the Apostles once again leaving Bethany for Jerusalem.  The Apostles are probably wondering what he will do next.  But then “they saw the fig tree withered to its roots.”  Peter points this out to the Lord with wonder.  It is dawning on Peter that the Lord’s action with the tree the day before was meant as a sign.  Now he is trying to put it together.  It seems to me that the story ends there, with Peter’s remark, and that the Lord’s teaching about faith and prayer comes at a later time and is not related to the tree, since the Lord does not mention it again, and the teaching he gives next does not really apply to the message of the withered tree.  The fig tree signified the Jews, and particularly their leadership (much as the cedar tree, shown on the Lebanese flag, signifies Lebanon).  The Lord looked for fruit upon it at a time when there should be no fruit, and he cursed it.  Now, how much more would he have cursed it if it had been time for fruit and he had found none on it?  Going into Jerusalem and coming to the Temple, he found no “fruit”: he found only the corruption of the high priests and Sanhedrin, though it was indeed the time for fruit, for he had now spent three years preaching repentance and the coming of the kingdom, and this after the years of preparation by John the Baptist.  He had healed the sick, cast out demons, taught the Gospel, and raised the dead.  Instead of recognizing their Messiah and welcoming him with joy, the Jewish leaders tried to thwart him every step of his way.  The time for fruit had come, but there was no fruit to be found.  The story ends there, with Peter’s observation, and the meaning would be clear to anyone who thought about it.  The Lord did not have to spell it out for them.  As he would say later to the high priests and the elders, “Therefore I say to you that the kingdom of God shall be taken from you and shall be given to a nation yielding fruit” (Matthew 22, 43).  This other “nation” is that of the Gentiles, and ultimately meaning the Church.

While we can wonder at this sign, we ought to apply its lesson to ourselves as well: We have heard the Lord’s call to repent, and so it is time for fruit from us.  What will he find when he looks for it?

 Thursday in the Eighth Week of Ordinary Time 

Mark 10:46-52

As Jesus was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a sizable crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind man, the son of Timaeus, sat by the roadside begging. On hearing that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.” And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he kept calling out all the more, “Son of David, have pity on me.” Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” So they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you.” He threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus. Jesus said to him in reply, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man replied to him, “Master, I want to see.” Jesus told him, ‘Go your way; your faith has saved you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way.

The Lord Jesus healed many people during the three years of his public life.  Most often, those suffering from illness or infirmity came or were brought to him.  When the afflicted could not come to him, he went to them or healed them from a distance.  Here, Jesus seems to simply walk by a blind man as though he is not aware of him.  Of course, as he was making his way to Jerusalem, he was surrounded by his disciples and, on this occasion, at least, by a large crowd.  He is also traveling on the busy road between Jericho and Jerusalem.  No one would have expected Jesus to see the blind beggar on the side of the road.  Jesus, though, knows well that he is there.  He walks by purposely in order to elicit the cry for help from the beggar.  Jesus’s will is to heal, but only those who ask — pray — for this.  When the Lord calls for him, the crowd tells him to go to Jesus, but they do not seem to do anything practical to help; he is an obviously blind man, but they do not help him up or lead him to the Lord.  He springs up on his own, however, and makes his own way.  

Jesus asks, “What do you want me to do for you?” The Lord knows well what the man wants so desperately.  What the Lord wants is for the man to speak for himself.  In this way, he causes him to be involved in his own healing.  The Lord’s question also is meant to elicit an act of faith from the man.  First, Bartimaeus cried out for help, which he could have asked from anyone.  Now, he is to ask the Lord to grant him sight, professing belief that the Lord can indeed do this.  “Master, I want to see.”  The prayer is direct and without ornament.  There is no attempt to gain Jesus’s sympathy, no flattery, no rhetorical flourishes, nor does he make any outlandish promises in exchange for his healing.  His prayer is straight from the heart.  “Go your way; your faith has saved you.”  His simple faith that Jesus possessed the power to heal him is enough.  Now, the man did not heal himself because he believed; rather, Jesus healed him to confirm his faith.

Jesus says to the man, “Go your way; your faith has saved you.”  St. Mark tells us that after receiving his sight, the man followed Jesus.  The way of Jesus had become his way.  Faith led him to the Lord through the crowd, and he continued to follow him.  Bartimaeus used the gift he received from the Lord in order to follow the Lord, which ought to make us wonder how we use the gifts the Lord gives us.

St. Mark must have known the man at some point, because he is the only Evangelist of the three who render this account and who gives the man’s name.  Since Mark was a later follower, he must have known Bartimaeus as a member of the early Church.

Rev Walter smith.  2028414732

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 Wednesday in the Eighth Week of Ordinary Time, May 26, 2021

Mark 10:32-45

The disciples were on the way, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus went ahead of them. They were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. Taking the Twelve aside again, he began to tell them what was going to happen to him. “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and hand him over to the Gentiles who will mock him, spit upon him, scourge him, and put him to death, but after three days he will rise.” Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Jesus and said to him, ‘Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” He replied, ‘What do you wish me to do for you?” They answered him, “Grant that in your glory we may sit one at your right and the other at your left.” Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the chalice that I drink or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” They said to him, ‘We can.” Jesus said to them, “The chalice that I drink, you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right or at my left is not mine to give but is for those for whom it has been prepared.” When the ten heard this, they became indignant at James and John. Jesus summoned them and said to them, “You know that those who are recognized as rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones make their authority over them felt. But it shall not be so among you. Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all. For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

“Can you drink the chalice that I drink or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?”  The question the Lord asks James and John and the answer they give amounts to a vow.  The two young Apostles have asked the Lord for a share in the rule of the kingdom of Israel, which they believe he, as Messiah, will reinstitute.  They do not seem to present any arguments to further their request.  Perhaps they make it on the basis that the Lord has included them with Peter as witnesses to some of his more powerful miracles.  The Lord, for his part, tells them that they do not know what they are asking, for they do not yet understand that his kingdom is not of this world.  The Lord’s words do not dismay them and they persist.  The Lord then asks them this question, whether they can drink of his chalice or be baptized with his own baptism.  The two brothers say right away that they can, without asking first what this means.  Now, the Greek text has the Lord asking, “Are you capable of drinking, etc.”  This is a little different from simply “can you”.  The Lord is asking them if they have the ability, the strength, with which to carry out this action, implying that the action itself will be a demanding one.  And, indeed, it is, for the Greek tells us that the “drinking” and “being baptized” is not a one-time action that is quickly done, but a continuous one that extends into the future.  This “drinking” of the Lord’s chalice and this receiving of his own “baptism” will go on for the rest of their lives.  Performing or undergoing these actions will, in fact, become their lives.

The Apostles may have understood that “to drink” the Lord’s “chalice” meant to fight at his side against the Romans.  Their fight, though, would be against the world, the flesh and the devil, as they endeavored to do the Father’s will in spreading the Gospel, even if it cost them their lives.  We know how the Lord himself suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane, praying to his Father, “My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will but as you will” (Matthew 26, 39).  It may be that the Lord prayed with these words, and allowed James and John, as well as Peter, to witness him praying in this way so that they might understand what this “chalice” would cost them.  

“The chalice that I drink, you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized.”  The Lord accepts their vow.  He will permit them to live his life.  This in itself is a great privilege, and in doing so, they shall reign with him in his kingdom.  Their particular role in this rule, however, is a matter of Divine Providence: it is “for those for whom it has been prepared.”  That is, each human person is free to choose to live the life of Christ, and the Lord will provide the graces needed for the person to do this.  At the same time, each person’s part in the work of salvation is foreseen from all eternity by Almighty God, who dispenses talents and abilities to each one accordingly, and places for them are prepared in heaven by God, who foresees how each one will fulfill his will.  The Lord Jesus is telling James and John that if they strive for sanctity they shall indeed become saints, but their places in heaven are not up to them.  He says that this is not his to give by way of emphasizing that their reward is given them by the Father.

“The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”  The life of unconditional service to God is the chalice which the Son drinks and which he promises to those who desire to belong to him.  

Please pray for the soul of Father John Kelly’s mother.  She died this evening.  He was there with her.

 Tuesday of the Eighth Week of Ordinary Time, May 25, 2021

Mark 10:28-31

Peter began to say to Jesus, “We have given up everything and followed you.” Jesus said, “Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the Gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age: houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come. But many that are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

With the Monday after Pentecost, we re-enter the region of Ordinary Time, so-called from the ordinal numbering of the weeks of the Church year outside of the seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter.  For nearly two thousand years this period was called the Time After Pentecost, reminding the Church faithful that we have received the graces of the Holy Spirit so that we might convert the world.  This time became “ordinary” after the Second Vatican Council.

The Gospel reading for today’s Mass follows the teaching of Jesus that it will prove hard for the rich to enter heaven.  Here, St. Peter speaks in alarm, as under the Old Law, wealth was seen as a sign that a person was living righteously.  He and the other Apostles had expected that they would be amply rewarded when the Lord Jesus reestablished the kingdom of Israel.  Now, it seems that the Lord is condemning the wealth that they had hoped for: “We have given up everything and followed you.”  As if to say, We gave up everything to follow you before you brought back the kingdom to Israel in hopes of a reward, but now you say that there will be no reward.  The Lord Jesus patiently teaches them about the true reward that they can expect by speaking in the material terms they understand.  First, he enumerates what the Apostles have left behind: “There is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the Gospel.”  Then he makes an amazing promise: “Who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age: houses, brothers, sisters, etc.”  By stating “a hundred times more”, the Lord engages in hyperbole which leads us to wonder what he means by all these things and people.  The Lord’s promise would have unsettled the Apostles with its strangeness, but at least they were assured that the Lord knew and understood their sacrifices for him.  With the aid of the Church Fathers we know that the Lord was speaking of the spiritual, here.  The Apostles would gain very many friends, followers, and co-workers whom they would regard as their brothers, sisters, and children, as well as “houses” in heaven.  

The Lord does not hide from them that tribulations would ensue: “with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come.”  As they had made sacrifices for the sake of the Gospel — in order to preach the Gospel and live out its way of life — the Apostles would incur persecution.  This persecution would keep them in the state of earthly poverty which they had accepted for Jesus’s sake, and lead them directly to eternal life, to receive the fullness of the reward the Lord had promised: fellowship with the saints in heaven.  “But many that are first will be last, and the last will be first.”  That is, those who were “the first” in this world because of their riches will be “last”: either “last” in the kingdom of heaven because the care of their wealth wore away their faith, hope, and charity; or, “last” in the deepest regions of hell, where their wealth will be the fuel for the flames that will scorch them forever, if they had lost their faith altogether.  But the “last” in this world: those who labor in the Lord’s vineyard day in and day out, and so never become rich or famous, will be the first admitted through the gates of heaven when the Lord comes again, or those who will ascend to the highest ranks of the saints because they possessed no earthly wealth to hold back their faith and love.

 The Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, May 24, 2021

John 19, 25-34

Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son.  Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his home. After this, aware that everything was now finished, in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I thirst.  There was a vessel filled with common wine. So they put a sponge soaked in wine on a sprig of hyssop and put it up to his mouth.  When Jesus had taken the wine, he said, “It is finished.”

And bowing his head, he handed over the spirit.  Now since it was preparation day, in order that the bodies might not remain on the cross on the sabbath, for the sabbath day of that week was a solemn one, the Jews asked Pilate that their legs be broken and they be taken down. So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and then of the other one who was crucified with Jesus. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs, but one soldier thrust his lance into his side, and immediately Blood and water flowed out.

In 2018, Pope Francis ordered this memorial to be added to the Church calendar on the Monday after the Feast of Pentecost, which celebrates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and the Blessed .Virgin Mary, and the beginning of the Church’s ministry to the world.

After the Death of the Lord Jesus, St. John the Apostle took the Blessed Virgin into his care, although immediately after the Lord’s Death she seems to have stayed with the women, such as Mary of Clopas and Mary Magdalene, who followed him.  Tradition tells us that the Lord appeared to her first after his Resurrection, and that he was announced to her by an Angel just as an Angel had announced to her that God had chosen her for the Mother of his Son, years before.  This tradition inspired the ancient prayer, the Regina Caeli.  At Pentecost and afterwards she lived in Jerusalem with John, perhaps in the house that Jesus had used for his Last Supper, and which the Apostles also used as a meeting place.  Since we find John at Jerusalem around the year 48 A.D. when the question of circumcising Gentile converts to the Faith was decided, Mary would have still lived there.  A few years afterwards, John left the city to preach the Gospel in Asia Minor.  One tradition holds that John eventually settled in Ephesus, and that the Blessed Virgin’s earthly life ended there.  Another tradition has it that she remained the rest of her life in Jerusalem and that John only went to Asia Minor after she had departed this life.  It is said that as long as she lived in Jerusalem, she regularly walked the way on which her Son had been led to Golgotha and that every day she prayed at his tomb.  Whether in Jerusalem or in Ephesus, she prayed for the Church, and her prayers obtained great graces for the Apostles in their labors.

In recognizing the Blessed Virgin as the Mother of the Church, we recognize her as our own Mother, the Mother of all the faithful.  In giving her John the Apostle as her son, the Lord commended all the Apostles to her as her children, and all subsequent believers as well.  Caring for us from heaven with her prayers, she also inspires us with the perfection of her virtues, especially that of her purity, which enables her to love God as no human has ever loved him and to experience his infinite love as no other human could.  On the occasion of this feast, we ask her to pray for the Church: for the conversion of sinners, the defeat of her enemies, and the spread of the Faith.

 The Solemnity of Pentecost, May 23, 2021

John 20:19–23

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you.” As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” 

“On the evening”.  The Greek says, “late in the day”, which would mean the mid-afternoon, if John is speaking according to the Hebrew way of reckoning the days.  Otherwise, he could have meant “after dark”.  “The doors were locked”.  The Greek tells us that the doors were “shut”, as opposed to “locked”.  Now, the Lord had appeared very early in the morning to Mary Magdalene, who had gone to the tomb.  If that appearance occurred around dawn, then he appeared to his Apostles about twelve hours later.  While this may seem strange, we can look at it in a broader way: The Lord came to earth a little more than two thousand years ago, and he suffered, died, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven, promising that he would come again at the end of the age to judge the living and the dead.  The Church has waited now all this time for his return, and she will continue to wait in patience until he does return.  The Apostles were in this position after Mary Magdalene announced that the Lord Jesus had risen.  They waited and prayed.  Certainly, they kept the doors shut “out of fear of the Jews” just as the Church has always existed under the threat or the reality of persecution and protects herself and her members with prayer.  When the Lord did come, it was without warning.  One moment he was not there, and the next he was.  It is just as he had told them before he was arrested: “For as lightning comes out of the east and appears even into the west: so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matthew 24, 27).  The Lord found them waiting for him, just as we are to wait for his coming: “Watch ye therefore, because you know not at what hour your Lord will come” (Matthew 24, 42).  And to those who wait for him, he will say, “Peace be with you.”  The Son of God’s words, unlike ours, are effectual: they cause actions.  Thus, he put his Apostles at peace.  And so the just, at the end of time, will be at peace, seeing that their Lord has come.  The wicked, on the other hand, will react differently.  They will be as the guards of the Lord’s tomb when they saw the Angel: “And for fear of him, the guards were struck with terror and became as dead men” (Matthew 28, 4).

On the last day, the Lord will tell his faithful, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25, 34).  But it is not yet the end.  To help bring about the end, the Lord says to the Apostles, here: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  The Gospel must be preached to the ends of the earth before the Lord comes again.  Jesus did not leave the Apostles powerless to accomplish this, but he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”  The Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son came upon them and made them capable of carrying out the Lord’s command.  The Apostles do, in fact, receive the Holy Spirit at this time, but in a way that also points to the full reception of the Holy Spirit and his gifts on the Jewish feast of Pentecost.

While we await the second coming of the Lord, we who belong to him in the Church are united together and we work to spread the Gospel with great zeal, that the great day of the Lord May come soon.

Saturday in the Seventh Week of Easter, May 22, 2021

John 21:20-25

Peter turned and saw the disciple following whom Jesus loved, the one who had also reclined upon his chest during the supper and had said, “Master, who is the one who will betray you?” When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about him?” Jesus said to him, “What if I want him to remain until I come? What concern is it of yours? You follow me.” So the word spread among the brothers that that disciple would not die. But Jesus had not told him that he would not die, just “What if I want him to remain until I come? What concern is it of yours?” It is this disciple who testifies to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true. There are also many other things that Jesus did, but if these were to be described individually, I do not think the whole world would contain the books that would be written.

“The disciple . . . whom Jesus loved.”  The Lord Jesus loved all of his disciples, but inasmuch as he possessed a human nature, one disciple may have stood out for him as more lovable than the others.  St. John, in his Gospel, does not explain this; he simply states it as though it did not need to be explained, as something already known and accepted by those for whom he was writing his Gospel.  St. Augustine states openly that Jesus had a greater, more familiar love for him.  “The disciple whom Jesus loved” may also be an idiom for “the disciple who loved Jesus very much”, or “the disciple who felt Jesus’s love most acutely”.  The phrase, at any rate, indicates that John had a greater capacity for love than the other disciples.    

“Lord, what about him?”  It helps us to keep in mind that at this point, the Apostles and disciples still believed that Jesus, after his Resurrection, was going to restore the kingdom of Israel.  When Jesus tells Peter that he, Peter, will die through crucifixion, Peter concludes that the Lord means that he will die before the kingdom is restored.  He tries to reconcile the fact that the Lord has declared that he is the Rock on which the Lord would build his Church with this foretelling of his death.  He then wonders about the other Apostles and especially about John, who would seem to have a rank among the Apostles second only to Peter.  “What about him?”  The Greek literally says, But what this one?  The Vulgate has, What shall this one do?  The Lord answers Peter’s question with a question: “What if I want him to remain until I come?”  Jesus reminds Peter that his next work will not be to restore the kingdom of Israel and rule it, but that he will come again to judge the living and the dead at the end of time.  Jesus also redirects Peter to the calling he has received — he is to be the Rock for John and all the others.  As for John’s end, “What concern is it of yours?”  

“So the word spread among the brothers that that disciple would not die.”  It seems that only Peter heard the Lord’s words, and so he would have been the source of the others knowing this.  The “brothers” may not mean the Apostles, but certain disciples, especially those who followed John after Pentecost.  John, who does not misinterpret the Lord’s words, which Peter must have told him at some time, clarifies what the Lord actually said, lest his followers lose hope when he died and the end of the world did not occur.

“It is this disciple who testifies to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true.”  This phrase may have been inserted in its entirety into an early copy of John’s manuscript, or John may have authored the first part of it, in which he says that he, the “beloved disciple” is the author of this Gospel, with one of his disciples adding “and we know that his testimony is true”.  

“There are also many other things that Jesus did, but if these were to be described individually, I do not think the whole world would contain the books that would be written.”  The Gospels give us the highlights of the Lord’s words and deeds upon the earth.  We are provided hints of great works he accomplished, like that of his casting seven demons out of Mary Magdalene, but they remain only hints.  Until that day when all things are revealed, we must rejoice in what we do know, and take advantage of it by more firmly becoming the Lord’s followers.

 

 Friday in the Seventh Week of Easter, May 21, 2021

John 21:15-19

After Jesus had revealed himself to his disciples and eaten breakfast with them, he said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” Simon Peter answered him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” He then said to Simon Peter a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Simon Peter answered him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was distressed that he had said to him a third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” He said this signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God. And when he had said this, he said to him, “Follow me.”

“Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?”  The Lord is speaking to St. Peter during one of his appearances after his Resurrection from the dead.  They have just eaten a breakfast of the fish the Apostles have miraculously caught at the Lord’s direction.  The Lord Jesus asks Peter, Do you, Peter, love me more than the other Apostles do?  St. John, in recounting this episode in Greek, tells us that the Lord used a particular word that meant loving with a deep, lofty love.  Peter, for his part, is said to have replied using a word that did mean “I love you”, but in a more familiar way.  The Fathers help us to understand this.  St. Bede tells us that Peter, after his terrible denials of the Lord during his Passion, has now learned humility.  He does not want to claim that he loves Jesus more than the other Apostles do, because he knows he cannot know how much they love him, and he knows how much his love still needs to grow.  This is a very different Peter from the one who, multiple times at the Last Supper, asserted that he would die rather than deny his Master.  Jesus tries him three times, and Peter, formerly so impulsive and effusive, remains in his humility.  He is hurt by the Lord’s trying him a third time, but this comes from the guilt he still feels for his denials.  The Lord is pleased by his responses, by his hard-won humility.  The English translation here has the Lord saying to him, “Feed my lambs . . . Feed my sheep.”  The Greek tense, though, has the sense of “keep feeding my lambs, keep feeding my sheep.”  The “lambs” can be understood as “the little ones” in the Faith, those just beginning in the way of Jesus and for whom special care must be taken; the “sheep” are the Apostles and disciples who have known the Lord for the three years of his public ministry and whose faith is firmer and whose understanding is on a higher level. 

“When you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.”  The Fathers understood this statement of the Lord to refer to Peter’s eventual martyrdom.  Peter accepts this quietly in his humility, knowing full well that the Lord means that he will be crucified.  Again, we note how much changed he is from the exuberant and outspoken fisherman of not long before, the one who protested so vigorously when the Lord spoke for the first time of his own coming Passion.  The phrase “where you do not want to go” can be understood to mean that Peter would feel he had so much more work to do that he wanted to continue living awhile on the earth.  It could also refer to his expressed reluctance to die in the same manner as that by which his Lord was killed.  Apocryphal works also tell us that Peter’s followers in Rome tried to smuggle him out of Rome before he could be arrested, and that though at first he wanted to stay, he was persuaded to go, but then turned back upon seeing the Lord in a vision.

“Follow me.”  Again, the sense of the Greek word is, “Keep on following me.”  The understanding of the sense of the Greek imperative mood is important because it helps us see that the Lord did not see Peter’s denials as a cause for a permanent break in his following.  Peter had acted out of weakness in his denials, not out of the malice that motivated Judas.  We may take comfort from this for ourselves, that we may truly learn the humility necessary to love and obey the Lord Jesus, and that the sins we commit out of weakness do not permanently prevent us from continuing as his followers.

Thursday in the Seventh Week of Easter, May 20, 2021

John 17:20-26

Lifting up his eyes to heaven, Jesus prayed saying: “I pray not only for these, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me. Father, they are your gift to me. I wish that where I am they also may be with me, that they may see my glory that you gave me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world. Righteous Father, the world also does not know you, but I know you, and they know that you sent me. I made known to them your name and I will make it known, that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them.”

“I pray not only for these, but also for those who will believe in me through their word.”  Earlier in his prayer for unity, the Lord Jesus said, “I gave them your word . . . Your word is truth.”  He is referring to the Apostles here.  The Lord gave them the Father’s word that is truth so that the Apostles might believe.  The “word” of the Father is the Son himself: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  This is the mystery of the Son who was sent and at the same time came of his own will.  This mystery resembles that of the Son who was raised by the Father from the dead, and rose by his own power.  It is the mystery of the Holy Trinity in which three distinct Persons exist in the purest unity with each other.  Jesus is revealing to us that the Holy Trinity operates in our salvation.  The Holy Trinity is not some abstract mathematical theory out in space somewhere, but is very close to us.  The Son comes down from heaven to teach us of God’s — the Holy Trinity’s — infinite love for us, and shows it to us in the horrific slaughter on the Cross; the Son shows that there is nothing he or the Father or the Holy Spirit would not do for us.  And in showing us the depths of their love, the Son at the same time effects our redemption, canceling out our impossible debt of sin against the majesty of the Almighty God.  The Son does not cancel our debt — obliterate it, really — and then disappear, leaving us on our own to ponder what to do now, but he eternally prays for “those who will believe in me through their word”, through the word of the Apostles.  While the Word came and was heard directly by the Apostles, the Apostles would “speak” the Word themselves to others in their own way, testifying to him: telling of his life and his commandments, and then practicing these commandments so as to be visible models of him.  These others could then become believers and, once baptized, in union with all who believe.

“I made known to them your name and I will make it known.”  That we may speak about the Word of God and imitate his life is a great privilege won for us by the Son.  And we do not do this on our own, left to our own devices, as it were, but the Son does this through us: I will make your name known, Father, through those who have already received it.  

 

Wednesday in the Seventh Week of Easter, May 19, 2021

John 17:11b-19

Lifting up his eyes to heaven, Jesus prayed, saying: “Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are one. When I was with them I protected them in your name that you gave me, and I guarded them, and none of them was lost except the son of destruction, in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you. I speak this in the world so that they may share my joy completely. I gave them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the Evil One. They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth.”

At the end of the Lord’s sermon at the Last Supper, he offers a prayer to his Father which is sometimes called the Prayer of Unity.  In it, the Lord prays for his disciples.  We seldom hear the words of the Lord’s prayers to his Father when he interceded for his disciples, and so here we learn of his greatest concerns for them.  He does not pray for their health or material prosperity or even for their success in preaching the Gospel after he has left them.  He prays for their unity.  We must distinguish this unity from other things that might resemble it.  “Unity” involves the spirit and is accomplished by the willed reception of grace.  Unity allows for the communication of merit from the Lord and the saints to us, and of our merit to others, for the strengthening of faith and virtue.  “Unity” transcends “community” and “associations”.  As St. Paul says, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one Body” (1 Corinthians 12, 12-13).  As a result, “If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together” (1 Corinthians 12, 26).  It is in that we are members of the Body of Christ that we are saved.  The Lord confers unity with him and with his members on those who desire it through baptism, and strengthens the bond of this unity through offering us — and our devout receiving — the Sacraments of his Church.  We also do our part in strengthening our bond with him and with our fellow members by growing in our faith, hope and love and by performing good works.  Our Lord prays for his followers at the Last Supper for the graces we need in order to do this.

“When I was with them I protected them in your name that you gave me.”  The name the Father gave him, from all eternity, is “Son”.  The Son protected his Apostles from evil by virtue of his Sonship, and of their becoming “sons in the Son” through their faith — all excepting “the son of destruction” who chose to destroy himself by hating the Son of God.  “In order that the Scripture might be fulfilled.”  The sense is, “Fulfilling the Scripture.”  The Scriptures did not cause Judas to sin, nor did anything else.  His choice to betray Christ was foreseen by the Prophets through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

“I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the Evil One.”  The Apostles — and we — are to work during our lifetimes to spread the Gospel.  The Lord Jesus does not ask the Father to take those who belong to him “out of the world”, that is, to preserve them the attendant hardships and persecution.  These will act as the means to grow stronger in the Faith, for those committed to the Lord.  At the same time, he asks that his members be kept from the devil — from temptations that cannot be overcome, from despair, and from the direct assaults of Satan and his horde.  Rather, those who are members of the Lord’s Body will defeat the Evil One by resisting temptation in their own lives, and aiding others in resisting it. 

“They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. Consecrate them in the truth.”  Through baptism, “consecration in the truth”, we do not belong to the world any longer.  We die to the world and all its false delights and wickedness in the waters of baptism and live in Christ.  We are also consecrated “in truth” through Holy Orders and Matrimony, sacraments which provide us the graces we need in order to live our specific vocations.

“And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth.”  The Lord Jesus consecrated himself for them through his Blood on the Cross, offering his total obedience to the Father for the salvation of the human race.  In this way, he offers his followers a model and also the means — the grace — to follow in his footsteps: “For unto this are you called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving you an example that you should follow his steps” (1 Peter 2, 21). 

To “consecrate” means “to make sacred” and “to set apart”.  Let us keep in mind that we have been consecrated by the Lord for glory.

 

 Tuesday in the Seventh Week of Easter, May 18, 2021

John 17:1-11a

Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come. Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you, just as you gave him authority over all people, so that your son may give eternal life to all you gave him. Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ. I glorified you on earth by accomplishing the work that you gave me to do. Now glorify me, Father, with you, with the glory that I had with you before the world began.  I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you gave me is from you, because the words you gave to me I have given to them, and they accepted them and truly understood that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me, because they are yours, and everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine, and I have been glorified in them. And now I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you.”

“Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.”  The Gospel readings for Mass continue to be taken from the Lord’s sermon at the Last Supper in St. John’s Gospel.  “That they should know you, the only true God.”  The Lord Jesus does not say, “that they should know about you”, but “they should know you”.  Eternal life, then, is knowing God.  This brings to mind 1 John 3, 2: “We know that when he shall appear we shall be like to him: because we shall see him as he is.”  Intimacy with the Lord results in our becoming “like to him”.  The Lord Jesus desires his followers to know his Father in prayer, to really know him.  Deep in prayer and in meditation upon the mysteries of our salvation, we may draw very near to God and know him in a way far greater than if we could see him with our eyes.  To know him — to see him — is eternal life because it is to look upon infinite love.  This we shall do perfectly in heaven if we are pure of heart, for only the pure of heart shall see God (cf. Matthew 5, 8).

“Now glorify me, Father, with you, with the glory that I had with you before the world began.”  This is one of the most moving and majestic sentences ever uttered.  We ought to gaze in wonder at it and think about the glory that the Son had with the Father from all eternity, “before the world began”.

“Now they know that everything you gave me is from you, because the words you gave to me I have given to them, and they accepted them and truly understood that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me.”  We see here what we must do to “know” God: we must accept the words the Son gives to us — agreeing to obey them because they come from the Father through the Son.  We must “truly understand” that the Son comes from the Father — that he became incarnate and lived among us.  And we must believe that the Father sent the Son — that the Son, knowing the Father’s will, freely came down from heaven to us in order to atone for our sins and to open the gates of heaven for us.

“I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me.”  That is, those who belong to the world reject the graces which the Lord offers them.  We think of Annas and Caiphas, the high priests who looked into the eyes of Jesus Christ and heard him acknowledge his divinity — proven time and again by his miracles — and rejected him anyway.  Their pride and their ambition was their god.  We think of Judas and the thirty pieces of silver that were his gods.  Also, of Pontius Pilate, who looked at the Truth with his own eyes and asked, “What is truth?”  But he was not looking for an answer, only speaking in despair.  He crucified an innocent man rather than uphold justice.  His god was himself.

“I have been glorified in them.”  God glorifies his Son in those who belong to his Son and have zeal for the Gospel.  This is the glory for which the Son prays, and his prayer is all for our benefit.  He offers is the chance to glorify him, the infinite God, with all the angels and saints in heaven.