The Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 1, 2021

John 6:24–35

When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into boats and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus. And when they found him across the sea they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” Jesus answered them and said, “Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled. Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him the Father, God, has set his seal.” So they said to him, “What can we do to accomplish the works of God?” Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.” So they said to him, “What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you? What can you do? Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written: He gave them bread from heaven to eat.” So Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” So they said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”

The Gospel reading for today’s Mass continues the narrative begun last Sunday, with the feeding by the Lord Jesus of the five thousand people. 

“Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled.”  The Lord Jesus tended to reserve the expression “amen, amen” for solemn occasions when he intended his hearers to pay particularly close attention to his teachings.  Here he employs it at the beginning of one of his most important discourses — on himself as the true Bread of Life, and the implications of this.  He begins by pointing out that the ones who have followed him, who had wanted to make him king the evening before (cf. John 6, 15), were motivated by the miracle itself, and not by what it meant.  “Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life”  The Lord speaks of the food they had eaten and which had satisfied their physical hunger in order to talk about the food that “endures” (“remains”, “abides”) unto eternal life. That is, the bread that they ate is digested in the body and disappears, providing strength for a time, but the Bread that it signifies remains in the person and is not digested but endures, giving eternal life to the soul.  The Lord urges them to “work” for it, that is, to do the work commanded by the Son of Man, who would, in turn, feed them.  “What can we do to accomplish the works of God?”  They recognize that the work the Son of Man will give them is the work of God.  “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.”  That is, that they believe that he, Jesus, was sent by God, and that they acknowledge his teachings as divine revelation.  

“What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you?”  The people understand what he is saying, that he is referring to himself as “the Son of Man” and as the one sent by God, on whom God “has set his seal”.  Their question, though, tells us that they did not understand the miracle of the loaves and the fish as a sign beyond the physical reality.  “Our ancestors ate manna in the desert.”  They regard the bread that Jesus produced for them as lesser than the manna God sent down from heaven.  If they are to believe in him, they are saying, he must perform as great or greater a miracle than that of the manna.  “What sign can you do?” they ask.  The Lord replies, “Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.”  He explains to the crowd that the manna was the sign.  He, the Son of God, will now fulfill this earlier sign.  The idea that the feeding with manna, though historically true, was but a sign of something greater to come would have stunned the Lord’s hearers.  “My Father gives you the true bread from heaven.”  The key to understanding the meaning of these words is in knowing the tense of the verb, which is in the present.  That is, the action is taking place now.  We ought to read this as, “My Father is giving you the true bread from heaven.”  This is meant to contrast with the antecedent “it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven”, which is in a past tense, the perfect.  The sense, then, is: My Father gave you bread from heaven in the past; my Father is now giving you the true bread from heaven.  The first is a sign, the second is the reality signified by the sign.  This bread, which the Father “is giving” “is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world”.  To this, the people say, “Sir, give us this bread always.”  This echoes the request made by the woman whom Jesus met at the well: “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw” (John 4, 15).  The Lord answers them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”  He himself is the true Bread which the Father sends down from heaven and “is giving” to the people.  Jesus is revealing to the people that the miracle of the loaves and fishes was the sign that God had become man and that belief in him will lead to eternal happiness.  He will subsequently explain why the sign is that of bread.

 Saturday in the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 31, 2021

Now that a few weeks have passed since the promulgation of Pope Francis’s motu proprio restricting the traditional Latin Mass and there has been sufficient time for reflection, I thought I might share some of my thoughts on it.  My initial reaction after reading it was that it was poorly thought-out and written.  My second reaction was a sharp feeling that certain facts were being twisted, such as the notion, expressed early in the document, that Pope Benedict had given permission for priests to offer the traditional Mass.  In fact, Pope Benedict had stated that no such permission was necessary.  This was actually the purpose of Pope Benedict’s motu proprio, for John Paul II had years earlier issued an indult stating that the Mass could be said with the permission of the bishop.  It made me a little sick, though, that Francis stated that he was restricting the Mass out of his concern for the unity of the Church.  While the use of the Mass has steadily grown since Benedict’s motu proprio, relatively few priests and members of the Faithful regularly offer or attend it.  Francis’s edict is more likely to spur division than to heal the division he feels is there.  And then there is the break with tradition introduced by Francis in his decree: that one pope can cancel the decree of his predecessor and, what is insulting, do it while his predecessor is still living.  Ultimately it is up to the bishops how and if this is enforced.  The local bishops here seem to be taking their time before announcing anything.  This could be either because they are genuinely concerned for the good of their people, or because they simply want it to appear that way.  In the end, we who love the traditional rite of the Mass know that the Church gives us the Mass under the form of the Novus Ordo and that this is a legitimate way to offer the Sacrifice of the Lord, so it is not as though the Mass itself is being restricted.

My own feeling is about this decree is one of sadness because this hurts the Church and many faithful lovers of God.  We pray for the Holy Church, the Bride of Christ, assailed within and without until the Lord comes.  

Matthew 14:1-12

Herod the tetrarch heard of the reputation of Jesus and said to his servants, “This man is John the Baptist. He has been raised from the dead; that is why mighty powers are at work in him.”  Now Herod had arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip, for John had said to him, “It is not lawful for you to have her.” Although he wanted to kill him, he feared the people, for they regarded him as a prophet. But at a birthday celebration for Herod, the daughter of Herodias performed a dance before the guests and delighted Herod so much that he swore to give her whatever she might ask for. Prompted by her mother, she said, “Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist.” The king was distressed, but because of his oaths and the guests who were present, he ordered that it be given, and he had John beheaded in the prison. His head was brought in on a platter and given to the girl, who took it to her mother. His disciples came and took away the corpse and buried him; and they went and told Jesus.

Herod Antipas ruled the region of Galilee for about forty-two years, until the year 39 A.D.  His great accomplishment was the building of the city of Tiberius on the western coast of the Sea of Galilee.  In his sixties, he was accused of plotting against the Roman emperor, and he and his wife Herodias were exiled to Gaul, where they both died.  He was no better or worse than most petty rulers of that or any other time.  His main goal was to stay in power and his policies were devised with that in mind.  His marriage to Herodias was made for this purpose.  He had been married to the daughter of an Arabian king but divorced her in order to marry his niece, also the widow of his half brother Philip, thereby, in theory, quashing any threat from that side of the family.  

It was this incestuous marriage that John the Baptist protested.  Particularly as ruler, Herod, ostensibly a Jew, was obliged to give good example to his subjects by living according to the Mosaic Law, but he flouted this in his second marriage and on other occasions.  John was not alone in protesting the marriage, but his voice rang the loudest, and he was arrested in order to silence it.  However, such was John’s charisma that Herod could not bring himself to kill him.  In fact, according to St. Mark, “Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and kept him safe. When he heard him, he was much perplexed; and yet he heard him gladly” (Mark 6, 20).

Herodias, wishing to remove any threat to the power she had through her husband, and to protect herself, preyed upon Herod’s weaknesses in order to arrange for John’s killing.  We are told that Herod regretted the murder.

The moment we cease to know ourselves to be the servants of others, we begin to see others as our servants, and we use them in ways that build up our petty kingdoms.  We may even daydream that we have become at some point safe from all threats, through our manipulations, half-truths, lies, false promises, and deal-making.  It is all vanity.  Our models as Christians must be the Lord Jesus and his Blessed Mother, preeminent in selfless service, not presidents, kings, leaders of corporations, or “celebrities” of various sorts.  Most especially if we are set in places of authority, we are to use the authority for the benefit of all, and not to indulge ourselves and settle private scores.

 Friday in the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 30, 2021

Leviticus 23:1, 4-11, 15-16, 27, 34b-37

The Lord said to Moses, “These are the festivals of the Lord which you shall celebrate at their proper time with a sacred assembly. The Passover of the Lord falls on the fourteenth day of the first month, at the evening twilight. The fifteenth day of this month is the Lord’s feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first of these days you shall hold a sacred assembly and do no sort of work. On each of the seven days you shall offer an oblation to the Lord. Then on the seventh day you shall again hold a sacred assembly and do no sort of work.”  The Lord said to Moses, “Speak to the children of Israel and tell them: When you come into the land which I am giving you, and reap your harvest, you shall bring a sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest, who shall wave the sheaf before the Lord that it may be acceptable for you. On the day after the sabbath the priest shall do this. Beginning with the day after the sabbath, the day on which you bring the wave-offering sheaf, you shall count seven full weeks, and then on the day after the seventh week, the fiftieth day, you shall present the new cereal offering to the Lord. The tenth of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement, when you shall hold a sacred assembly and mortify yourselves and offer an oblation to the Lord. 

The fifteenth day of this seventh month is the Lord feast of Booths, which shall continue for seven days. On the first day there shall be a sacred assembly, and you shall do no sort of work. For seven days you shall offer an oblation to the Lord, and on the eighth day you shall again hold a sacred assembly and offer an oblation to the Lord. On that solemn closing you shall do no sort of work. These, therefore, are the festivals of the Lord on which you shall proclaim a sacred assembly, and offer as an oblation to the Lord burnt offerings and cereal offerings, sacrifices and libations, as prescribed for each day.”

Previous to the Mosaic Law, the Hebrews had no Sabbaths, and almost no holy days.  Neither did they have set rules for what was to be offered to Almighty God in sacrifice, or when.  What they did have to hold them together was their heritage as descendants of Abraham, signed physically on the males with circumcision, and thus to his God.  Their recent common experience of leaving Egypt and miraculously crossing the Red Sea acted as a bond, too.  But it was the Law given by God to Moses that truly “formed” the Hebrews into a people and nation.  This Law superseded and took the place of tribal laws, rules, and customs, and regulated the people across tribal divisions.  

The Law was God-given.  God gave the Law to the Hebrews and their descendants not in order to benefit from it himself, but in order to benefit the Chosen People.  The individual ordinances provided guidance and structure on how to live, and the Law as a whole existed as a sign of God’s love and care for his people.  Through the Law the Hebrews could know themselves as God’s people, his chosen, and understand their proper place among the other nations as special to God.  The comprehensive array of laws within the Law also told the people about God: that he was a God of order who had created an orderly world.  There was no place, then, for the superstitions or magic that played such a large role in the lives of the people of other nations.  Nor did the Hebrews need fear God’s arbitrary wrath and punishments, for he was a God of justice, a quality that is the pinnacle built on order.

Ultimately, the Law, the laws within it, and the holy days specified by it are fulfilled by the Lord Jesus.  The Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the Day of Atonement are fulfilled in the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of our Lord, who gives us his Flesh to eat so that we might flee the world and its temptations and enter the Promised Land of heaven.  The Feast of Booths is a harvest feast which is in a way fulfilled by the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples after the Lord’s Ascension, and will be completely fulfilled in the gathering of the just into the barns of heaven at the end of the world (cf. Matthew 13, 30).

For those who are Christians, each day we celebrate the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of the Lord.  Each day is a feast day.  And each of today’s feast days prepares us for the one great feast day in heaven, which will never end.

 Thursday in the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 29, 2021

The Feast of Saints Martha, Mary, and Lazarus

John 11, 19-27

Many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother [Lazarus, who had died]. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him; but Mary sat at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise.” Martha said to him, “I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus told her,”I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and anyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.”

Formerly, St. Martha alone was celebrated on this day, but recently the feast was expanded to include her brother St. Lazarus, and her sister, St. Mary, who lived in Bethany, near Jerusalem.  The St. Mary celebrated today is not St. Mary Magdalene, who stood at the Lord’s Cross and was the first to see the Risen Lord after his Resurrection, but “Mary of Bethany”.  St. Gregory the Great seems to have been the first to conflate these two distinct women.  

From the three accounts in the Gospels which involve Lazarus, Martha, and Mary, we can see their close connection to the Lord.  In Luke 10, 38-42, Jesus enters “Martha’s house” and talks to an enraptured Mary while Martha struggles to prepare dinner.  It would seem from this that either Martha owned the house outright or that it was the house of Lazarus, whom Luke did not know about, and that Martha lived there.  We are not told that Martha was married, so if the house was hers, she might have been a widow.  It could also be the case that Luke does not mention spouses or Lazarus in order to keep his story simple, because the presence or absence of anyone except Martha, Mary, and Jesus does not affect the main point.  

In John 11, 1, the Evangelist tells us, “Now, there was a certain man sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, of the town of Mary and of Martha her sister.”  The implication here is that the three siblings did not live together, but separately.  A further implication is that these three were well-known to the Jewish Christian community in Jerusalem to whom John was writing his Gospel, for the names of those for whom Jesus performs miracles are almost never given.  John also here identifies Mary of Bethany, sister of Lazarus, as “she that anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair”.  He mentions this even before he tells the story how she did this (which he would do in the chapter following the raising of Lazarus) leading us to believe that the story was very well-known at the time of his writing.

The Lord loved these three, as is clear from the story of his raising Lazarus from the dead.  Indeed, when Mary notifies the Lord that her brother is in need of healing, she says, “Lord, behold, he whom you love is sick.”  And John comments, “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister Mary and Lazarus.”  They firmly believed in him as the Messiah, and as one with great power.  When the Lord arrives in Bethany, Martha says to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But now also I know that whatsoever you will ask of God, God will give to you.”  And Mary will say to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  Mary’s faith and her gratitude for the Lord raising up her brother bring her to anoint his feet with a very expensive perfume, and to wipe his feet with her hair.  (This is anointing is distinct, though similar, from that done by the sinful woman in Luke 7, 36-50, which took place in Simon the Leper’s house, not in that of Lazarus.)  

“Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.”  This profession of faith spoken by Martha, reflected the faith of her brother and sister as well.  No one but Peter would make such a profession before the Lord’s Resurrection.  We pray to Saint Martha, that she might obtain for us the grace to be filled with such faith as hers; to her sister Mary, that we may become as dedicated to the Word of God as she; and to Lazarus, that we may hear the Lord saying to us at the moment of our deaths, “Come forth!”, summoning us into his life in heaven.

 Wednesday in the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 28, 2021

Matthew 13:44-46

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.”

These two little sayings are short in length but very rich in meaning.  In his sayings and in his parables, the Lord Jesus truly shows himself to be God, so perfect are they in their wisdom and in their ability to make us wonder and continually find new depths in them.  Here, the Lord says, very simply, “The Kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field.”  Now, the Kingdom of heaven is “hidden” in that few people notice it or care about it.  It has nothing to offer them in comparison with that offered by all the other “kingdoms” that shine their lights and signs so brightly.  But along comes a person who is unsatisfied with these others or is not interested in what they promise.  This person examines this Kingdom, perhaps skeptically at first, and then realizes its true worth, and is amazed that so many people pass it by without a second look.  He covers it up, “hiding it again”, that is, he covers it up in his heart in his excitement for it, and “of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field”, that is, he abandons all that he once held dear in order to possess it alone, and in order to give himself to it alone.  He throws himself into the outstretched arms of the Lord Jesus, who welcomes him into the world of true life and overflowing love.

Likewise, “The Kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls.”  This merchant is not looking for lesser pearls, but for “fine” ones, which would be more rare.  He would go days picking his way through innumerable baskets of oysters, rejecting each one, without certain hope of ever finding a “fine” pearl.  Perhaps just at the moment he is giving up, he finds what he is looking for, and it is well worth the painstaking days, weeks, months.  It is a perfect sphere of white translucence.  A king would give half his kingdom for it.  The merchant who finds this “pearl of great price” then “goes and sells all that he has and buys it.”  That is, he will stop at nothing to possess it.  He sells out, holding nothing back, in order to purchase the lot of oysters in which he found this pearl.  And then he is truly rich, far wealthier than anyone he will meet in his lifetime.  He walks through the bustling crowds thronging the marketplace, each person intent on his own business, while he, with the pearl clutched in his fist, walks among them as though anonymously.  This is the Christian in the world.

Among the other ways to understand these sayings is this: that the man who finds the treasure in the field and the merchant who finds the pearl is Jesus, and we are that treasure, that pearl.  Seeing us, he gives up everything — “he lays his glory by” — and, “out of joy”, comes down from heaven in order to possess us.  We are the pearl of great price for our Lord, who did not hesitate to pour out his Blood in order that he might have us.

 Tuesday in the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 27, 2021

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.”

In the Gospel reading for today’s Mass, the Lord explains the parable which he told in Matthew 13:24-30.  He reveals to his Apostles, through his explanation, the workings of Divine Providence: that all things inescapably work together for the accomplishment of God’s will.

“The good seed [is] the children of the Kingdom.”  These “children” are of the Kingdom of heaven.  They are the ones whom Almighty God has foreseen, from all eternity, will belong to him: the men, women, and children who will avail themselves of the graces won for them by the Lord Jesus and who will choose to live for him, according to his commandments.   On the other hand, “the weeds are the children of the Evil One.”  They are said to be the devil’s “children” because they imitate the devil in his pride, his malice and in his evil works: “You are of your father the devil: and the desires of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning: and he stood not in the truth, because truth is not in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of lies” (John 8, 44).  The “children of the Kingdom” practice virtue and seek the conversion of the wicked; “the children of the Evil One” seek to corrupt and destroy those who love God.  No one and no thing compels a person to do evil, anymore than a person can be forced to perform virtuous acts.  Just as in the case with the “children of the Kingdom”, so Almighty God foresees those who will reject him and act wickedly.  

The Lord Jesus explains that the “field” is the world.  If this is so, why are there only two kinds of plants in it, the wheat and the weeds?  Does it not stand that there would be room for, say, the indifferent?  The Lord speaks to this: “He that is not with me, is against me: and he that gathers not with me, scatters” (Matthew 12, 30).  Almighty God desires the salvation of all, but he will not force anyone to be saved.  Love cannot be forced from a person with free will, nor can anyone be forced to be happy.  Therefore, it is right and just that “all who cause others to sin and all evildoers” will be cast “into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”  To those appalled by the unimaginable suffering of the wicked, and who cannot reconcile this with a God of love and mercy, we should say that it is no mercy for the wicked to be forced into heaven.  As John Henry Newman noted, it would be greater suffering for the wicked to see the bliss of heaven enjoyed by the saints than for them to burn in hell forever.

“Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father.”  They shall shine in their goodness, for they will wear the immaculate robes of their good deeds.  As St. John writes, “For the marriage of the Lamb is come: and his Bride [the saints] has prepared herself.  And it is granted to her that she should clothe herself with fine linen, glittering and white. For the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints” (Revelation 19, 7-8).  

“Whoever has ears ought to hear.”  With this idiom, the Lord advises his Apostles not only to hear and understand his words, but to take them to heart: for the Hebrew word that is translated as “to hear” also has the meaning of “to obey”.

 The Feast of Saints Joachim and Anne, Monday, July 26, 2021

Matthew 13:16-17

Jesus said to his disciples: “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.”

According to The Proto-Gospel of James, which scholars say was written around the year 150 A.D., there was was a very devout man named Joachim, wealthy in livestock.  He grieved, however, that he and his wife, Anne, had no children.  One day, in terrible desperation, he went out to the wilderness and vowed to stay there until God heard his prayer and sent him a sign that he would become a father: “I will not go down either for food or for drink until the Lord my God shall look upon me, and prayer shall be my food and drink.”  Anne, meanwhile suffered the double blow of present childlessness and imminent widowhood.  She lamented, “Alas! To what have I been likened? I am not like the birds of heaven, because even the birds of heaven are productive before you, O Lord. Alas! To what have I been likened? I am not like the beasts of the earth, because even the beasts of the earth are productive before you, O Lord. Alas! To what have I been likened? I am not like these waters, because even these waters are productive before you, O Lord. Alas! To what have I been likened? I am not like this earth, because even the earth brings forth its fruits in season, and blesses you, O Lord!”  Visits by angels to Joachim and Anne assure them that God has heard their prayer and that they will have a child.  Anne declares that the child she bears will be dedicated to God, whether it be a boy or a girl.  The child she bears she names “Mary”.

We know from the Jewish writings from the first century B.C., such as the Books of Enoch and texts among the Dead Sea Scrolls that at the time of the Lord Jesus’s Birth in Bethlehem, anticipation for the Messiah was at fever pitch.  The Pharisees had drawn up a list of qualifications by which they would (they thought) recognize him.  Various men had arisen and made great claims for themselves and formed followings, but nothing had come of them.  When the Lord did come he was recognized by great crowds, but hardly by a majority of the Jews.  Yet, those who did recognize him as their Savior rejoiced in him.  “Blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear.”  The Lord confirms the Apostles in their hopes, and also calls them “blessed” because they not only see him, but they know who he is.  “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.”  The Lord is telling his Apostles, in these words, what it means that they are blessed: the great prophets and the righteous of the ages yearned to see and hear what they were seeing and hearing, but did not.  They, the Apostles, and not those.

Joachim and Anne had the great joy of becoming the parents of a child conceived without original sin, and who would not commit any sin.  She would herself be visited by an angel, and this angel would stand in awe of her.  She would become the Mother of God.  We honor the Blessed Virgin’s faithful parents, whose virtue and righteousness gave her good example and prepared her for the holiness that was to be hers.

 The Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, July 25, 2021

John 6:1–15

Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee. A large crowd followed him, because they saw the signs he was performing on the sick. Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. The Jewish feast of Passover was near. When Jesus raised his eyes and saw that a large crowd was coming to him, he said to Philip, “Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?” He said this to test him, because he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, “Two hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little.” One of his disciples, Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what good are these for so many?” Jesus said, “Have the people recline.” Now there was a great deal of grass in that place. So the men reclined, about five thousand in number. Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed them to those who were reclining, and also as much of the fish as they wanted. When they had had their fill, he said to his disciples, “Gather the fragments left over, so that nothing will be wasted.” So they collected them, and filled twelve wicker baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves that had been more than they could eat. When the people saw the sign he had done, they said, “This is truly the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world.” Since Jesus knew that they were going to come and carry him off to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain alone.

The Lord Jesus performs the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand in such a way that parallels stand out between what he does and what Moses did long before.  This enables the Apostles, at least, to understand the meaning of his action.  Now, the Lord times this miracle for proximity to the Feast of the Passover, and so the events of the Passover would have been present in the people’s minds just then.  First, the Lord crossed the Sea of Galilee.  Doubtless, he did this in a boat, but he crossed it and a large crowd of people followed him across.  They followed him because of the cures he had performed.  Likewise, the Hebrews followed Moses across a sea after having seen Moses perform powerful signs.  But whereas the signs of Moses were plagues inflicted on the Egyptians, the signs of Jesus are healings he performs on the Chosen People.  And then Jesus goes up a mountain, as Moses went up Mount Sinai.  We know from St. Mark’s account of the same miracle that on the mountain the Lord “began to teach them many things” (Mark 6, 34).  Likewise, Moses had received the Law from Almighty God on Mount Sinai.  And the Lord knows that the people, there in the wilderness, are hungry, and he feeds them.  Moses had heard the people’s cries of hunger and God had fed them manna from heaven, as much as they could eat.

The Lord shows how Moses prefigured him, and how he himself surpasses Moses, as the true Leader of the Chosen People.  Through subsequent Sundays we will hear the Lord declaring that the Father has now rained down the True Bread from heaven, that Jesus is this Bread, and that those who eat this Bread — the Lord’s Body — will live forever.  Finally, we will see that many of his followers will “walk no more” with him because they reject his teaching.  They reject the Lord as their Leader just as so many Hebrews rejected the Lord and Moses as they were about to enter the Promised Land, fearful of what might lie ahead: “Would to God that we had died in Egypt: and would to God we may die in this vast wilderness, and that the Lord may not bring us into this land” (Numbers 14, 13).  On that occasion, the Lord declared to the rebels, “Your children shall wander in the desert forty years, and shall bear your rebellion, until the carcasses of their fathers be consumed in the desert” (Numbers 14, 33).  These wandered futilely into the desert for forty years and died.  They prefigured those who would reject the Lord Jesus who offers a Promised Land of eternal happiness, and so these, in their rejection of him, will suffer in hell forever.  The King lays out his Feast, and those who wish to belong to him hasten to it.

 Saturday in the Sixteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 24, 2021

Matthew 13:24-30

Jesus proposed a parable to the crowds. “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.’ ”

If we consider this parable from the point of view of the early Galilean Christians for whom St. Matthew wrote his Gospel, we can understand the Lord as speaking of the Jews who would follow him and the Jews, mainly the Pharisees and Sanhedrin, who would persecute them for doing this.  For the Galilean Christians, an urgent question was why the Lord Jesus, now in heaven, did not simply “pull up” these weeds so that the wheat could grow in peace and be fruitful in security.  The Lord’s answer would have demanded faith to hear: “If you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them.”  The Lord would not intervene to end the persecution, with its confiscation of property, ostracism, beatings, and murders.  And yet, there is a hard wisdom in the reason for permitting this: the truly faithful grow strong in persecution.  The Lord provides consolation in that the persecution would come to an end one day, at the end of the world, and at that time perfect justice would be done: the just would be “harvested”, fully grown in their faith, and brought into the “barn” of heaven, while the wicked would be “tied together in bundles” and burned, and not for a time, but forever.

The Lord’s lesson on Divine Providence is meant for us today as well.  The practicing Christian stands surrounded by people who live thoroughly pagan lives and who celebrate as good what humans had always before held as wicked.  For very many, these are the “weeds” that surround God’s “wheat”, and which threaten to choke them with the temptations to despair and surrender.  We pray for their conversion and our perseverance, knowing that they may reject the grace God offers them, and that their persecution of us may continue throughout our lives.  At the same time that we pray for them, we recognize that their lifestyles are godless and even malicious.  To fortify ourselves against them we ought, first, to pray continually; to regularly associate with fellow believers; to study the Scriptures, the doctrines of the Church, and the lives of the saints; to go on pilgrimages to holy places, if possible; and to practice such devotions and pious practices as we are drawn to.  We would also find comfort and strength in spending time with inspiring art depicting the Lord, his Mother, and the saints and listening to good music, especially Gregorian chant and the sacred music of composers such as Palestrina, Vivaldi, Haydn, and Mozart.

Wheat is destined for greatness — in fact, to be changed into the Body of God at Holy Mass.  If we persevere a little while amongst the inevitable weeds of this life, we shall share in the glory of Christ our Lord in heaven.

 Friday in the Sixteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 23, 2021

It seems that a number of U.S. bishops realize how fruitful is the offering of the Holy Mass in the Extraordinary Form and they are not prohibiting it.  That is true, for now, in the Diocese of Arlington.

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.”

Especially when we are young, we wonder about why apparently reasonable people differ in taste or preference among each other.  We may think that a particular musician is the most skillful and that no one can hold a candle to him or her.  The idea that anyone would rather listen to another musician is ludicrous.  And yet, droves of music fans ignore our favorite musician and flock to others, exhibiting the same passion for that one as we feel for our own.  When we are children and trying to understand this, we might think that there is something wrong with all these other people.  They must have little appreciation for music, or they had not heard our musician perform, or they heard our musician perform under less than ideal circumstances, coloring their opinion.  Or — terrible to think — there is something wrong with us.

To a person in love with the Lord Jesus, it perplexes that other people do not have the same or any love for him.  It perplexes us because he made it more than clear that he is the Son of God who came down to earth in order to cleanse us of our sins and to lead us to happiness in heaven.  He performed innumerable miracles to manifest both his power and his love, and he brought to earth the most beautiful teachings that ever graced the world.  In short, he is infinitely lovable and worthy of love.  He even provides the graces we need with which to love him perfectly and with which to experience his love.  Many of his followers even have died for him, so much did their love for him fill and animate them.  So how could anyone who has heard of him or his life and teachings not be excited to belong fully to him?

The Lord tells the Parable of the Sower in order to make sense of this for us, lest we doubt our own faith in him.  Some who hear him have spent their lives indulging themselves and so they do not understand the Lord’s injunction to love others or his own desire to die for them: “the Evil One comes and steals away” their attention, fixing it on some further self-indulgence.  Some who hear the words of life are enchanted by them, but they are dedicated first and foremost to protecting themselves, and when the teachings of the Lord threaten them or their way of life, either by requiring them to forego some thing because it is sinful or because it demands that they leave their complacency to perform some good act, they abandon them.  And some who at first accept the teachings of the Lord later discover that they do not lead to their principal goals in life of wealth and power, and they drop them.  

The message of the Lord to those who have given themselves to him, body and soul, is that they do not err in this, but that those who fail to do so will not reject the petty gods they worship, for him.  Therefore, we pray for their conversion and for our perseverance in adhering closely to the one, true God.

 The Feast of St, Mary Magdalene, Thursday, July 22, 2021

John 20, 1-2, 11-18

On the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him.”  Mary stayed outside the tomb weeping. And as she wept, she bent over into the tomb and saw two angels in white sitting there, one at the head and one at the feet where the Body of Jesus had been. And they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken my Lord, and I don’t know where they laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there, but did not know it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” She thought it was the gardener and said to him, “Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni,” which means Teacher. Jesus said to her, “Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and then reported what he told her.

Very little is said of St. Mary Magdalene in the Gospels.  They drop hints, as though expecting us to know what they meant, but they are rather circumspect regarding her.  Both St. Mark and St. Luke tell us that Jesus cast seven demons out of her, and we also know that she stood beneath the Cross with the Blessed Virgin and St. John.  The Gospels further tell us that she was one of the women who followed the Lord and provided for him out of their own means (cf. Luke 8, 3).  These facts speak of her passion for the Lord Jesus as her Savior.  Of all the people the Lord had healed, of all the people the Lord had called to follow him, she came to be with him as he hung on the Cross.  Who else was there?  His Mother, who loved him beyond all telling, and the disciple whom Jesus loved.  Shame and humiliation meant nothing to them as they looked up into the face of the one who was everything to them.  They hardly heard the scorn, the sneers, the mockery of the high priests and the others who gathered like vultures around the one dying on the Cross.

Mary Magdalene stayed at the Cross the entire time the Lord suffered there, and she saw him die.  She experienced the earthquake that marked his Death, and she saw the centurion shove his spear into the Lord’s side.  The horror of that afternoon did not drive her away in sickness and fear.  She only saw the Lord who had saved her.  She remained at Golgotha even as Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus took his Body down from the Cross, and she followed them to the tomb where they laid it.  She took note of the place so that she could find it again.  And then, a practical woman, she went to one of the shops in Jerusalem that was still open as the sun was going down and the Sabbath was beginning, and she bought “sweet spices” with which to anoint the Body of the Lord after the Sabbath had passed.  She did this in company with at least a couple of other women with whom she had followed the Lord.

St. John focuses on Mary Magdalene in his recounting of the first appearance of the Lord after his Resurrection, and he shows the fullness of her love in how early she came to the tomb, how her anxiety to care for his precious Body overrode waiting until later in the day to rally some of the men to move the heavy stone that covered the mouth of the tomb, and in how she remained at the tomb even after she had discovered that it was empty, as if to say, Where else can I go?  

“She turned around and saw Jesus there, but did not know it was Jesus.”  This has been interpreted as teaching that the glorified bodies of the saints will differ in appearance from how their bodies looked during their life on earth.  While that is no doubt true, there seems to be more to her not recognizing the Lord than this.  Was it that her tears marred her vision, or that the grim reality of his Death had so impressed itself on her mind that she simply could not recognize him as alive and conversing with her?  But it also seems that her question to him is phrased awkwardly, and is a little strange.  It is almost as if she is attempting to get him to speak some more so that she can listen to the sound of his voice.  “Mary!”  The Lord calling her name is one of the most moving moments in all of the Scriptures, and in all of human history.  She recognized the way he spoke her name.  It was the way only Jesus had spoken it, with his heavy Galilean accent and the sheer love of her in his voice.  She answered him at once, and John gives us the exact Aramaic name she called him, translating it into the Greek for his readers: “Teacher!” although there is more to what she called him than how we think of “teacher”, which we see today as merely a profession.  For her, the Lord taught how she should live, and who God was, and how much God loved her.  He taught her about the beauty of the world God had created, and that he had created it for her.  Before the Lord had cast out the evil spirits that had possessed her and used her, she had endured a miserable existence.  We can think of other examples of the possessed in the Gospel: of the man possessed by Legion, who took him over so that he “had his dwelling in the tombs, and no man now could bind him, not even with chains. For having been often bound with fetters and chains, he had burst the chains, and broken the fetters in pieces, and no one could tame him.  And he was always day and night in the tombs and in the mountains, crying and cutting himself with stones” (Mark 5, 3-5). Or of the little boy from whom the Lord cast out demons after his Transfiguration: “I have brought my son to you, who has a dumb spirit, who, whenever he seizes him, dashes him down, and he foams at the mouth and gnashes his teeth and grieves” (Mark 9, 16-17).  Jesus had saved her, and she never forgot it.  He had given her her life.  And now, after losing him to death, she had him again.

“Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.”  The Greek has, “Stop touching me.”  In her wonder and love, she had embraced him, and he had held her.  But only in heaven could she embrace him forever.  In the meantime, the Lord sends her on a mission to tell his Apostles of his rising from the dead.  To be given a commission by her Lord was her fervent dream, and so she carries it out energetically.  We do not know if she saw him again on earth after that, but her love for him only grew in intensity during the remainder of her life, and now she beholds him forever in heaven, an example of how we ought to yearn for the Lord, setting all else beside, and an intercessor  for us as well.

 Wednesday in the Sixteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 21, 2021

Exodus 16:1-5, 9-15

The children of Israel set out from Elim, and came into the desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departure from the land of Egypt. Here in the desert the whole assembly of the children of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The children of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died at the Lord’s hand in the land of Egypt, as we sat by our fleshpots and ate our fill of bread! But you had to lead us into this desert to make the whole community die of famine!”  Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will now rain down bread from heaven for you. Each day the people are to go out and gather their daily portion; thus will I test them, to see whether they follow my instructions or not. On the sixth day, however, when they prepare what they bring in, let it be twice as much as they gather on the other days.”  Then Moses said to Aaron, “Tell the whole congregation of the children of Israel: Present yourselves before the Lord, for he has heard your grumbling.” When Aaron announced this to the whole assembly of the children of Israel, they turned toward the desert, and lo, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud! The Lord spoke to Moses and said, “I have heard the grumbling of the children of Israel. Tell them: In the evening twilight you shall eat flesh, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread, so that you may know that I, the Lord, am your God.”  In the evening quail came up and covered the camp. In the morning a dew lay all about the camp, and when the dew evaporated, there on the surface of the desert were fine flakes like hoarfrost on the ground. On seeing it, the children of Israel asked one another, “What is this?” for they did not know what it was. But Moses told them, “This is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat.”

In the first reading for today’s Mass we hear the story of how God fed the Hebrews in the desert.  Reading this account carefully helps us to understand better the Sacrament of the Lord’s Body and Blood, the Holy Eucharist, for Jesus taught that the manna God gave the Hebrews was a sign of the true Food with which he would feed those who belonged to him (cf. John 6, 49-50).

First, we note that Moses had led the Hebrews away from slavery in Egypt.  This is a sign of Baptism, which forgives all sin — taking a person from Satan’s domain — and makes him an adopted child of God.  Now, not long after their departure from Egypt, the people’s food stocks are dwindling.  They experience hunger and do not know what they are going to eat.  Responding to this, the Lord tells Moses, “I will now rain down bread from heaven for you.”  God declares that he himself will feed them.  He allows them to suffer from hunger in the desert in order for them to realize their total dependence on him for their sustenance.  Following Baptism, the new Christian experiences a spiritual hunger that cannot be satisfied by any earthly food.  In the Eastern Churches, with babies, and in the West, with adults, those receiving Baptism are fed the Holy Eucharist later during that Mass.  “Each day the people are to go out and gather their daily portion.”  The new Manna is the Holy Eucharist which we ought to receive on a daily basis when we can.  Otherwise, we can understand our waiting a week between Masses to receive the Body of our Lord as a time of preparation.  “Present yourselves before the Lord!”  This is the summons to Holy Mass.  The Lord has heard our earnest prayers — our “grumbling” — and now he will feed us.  “Lo, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud!”  That is, the Son of God was made man: “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory” (John 1, 14).  “You shall have your fill of bread, so that you may know that I, the Lord, am your God.”  Just as it is necessary to have faith in order to receive the Body of the Lord, its reception increases our faith and enables us to know more deeply that he is our God.  “In the evening quail came up and covered the camp.”  Quail feed on insects and seeds, and a certain kind of quail abounded in North Africa along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.  They seem causative in some way of the appearance of the manna.  We can understand the quail here as priests who confect the Sacrament, turning bread and wine into the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus.  Birds, such as quail, go between the sky and the earth, and in a similar way, the prayers of priests bring God from heaven to earth in the consecrations at Mass.  The “dew” signifies the grace of God by which the transubstantiation of the bread and wine takes place.

“The children of Israel asked one another, ‘What is this?’ for they did not know what it was.”  Literally, the Hebrew word mah means “what”, and the nah is an enclitic that indicates that a question is being asked.  The Hebrews did not know what it was, and today, the mystery of the Body of Christ is beyond our comprehension.  We can study the doctrine and we can pray before the Blessed Sacrament, but he will always be greater than we can imagine.  He will always take our breath away.  The manna given to the Hebrews is itself difficult to understand. As we read a little further down, “And the children of Israel . . . gathered, one more, another less. And they measured by the measure of a gomor: neither had he more that had gathered more; nor did he find less that had provided less” (Exodus 16, 17-18).  

“This is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat.”  We rejoice that God himself feeds us, and not just any food, but the Body and Blood of his Son, the very Bread of heaven.  Let us prepare ourselves properly for it, eat it with devotion, and give thanks to God, who is so good to us.

 Tuesday in the Sixteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 20, 2021

Exodus 14:21-15:1

Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord swept the sea with a strong east wind throughout the night and so turned it into dry land. When the water was thus divided, the children of Israel marched into the midst of the sea on dry land, with the water like a wall to their right and to their left. The Egyptians followed in pursuit; all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots and charioteers went after them right into the midst of the sea. In the night watch just before dawn the Lord cast through the column of the fiery cloud upon the Egyptian force a glance that threw it into a panic; and he so clogged their chariot wheels that they could hardly drive. With that the Egyptians sounded the retreat before Israel, because the Lord was fighting for them against the Egyptians. Then the Lord told Moses, Stretch out your hand over the sea, that the water may flow back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots and their charioteers.” So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at dawn the sea flowed back to its normal depth. The Egyptians were fleeing head on toward the sea, when the Lord hurled them into its midst. As the water flowed back, it covered the chariots and the charioteers of Pharaoh’s whole army that had followed the children of Israel into the sea. Not a single one of them escaped. But the children of Israel had marched on dry land through the midst of the sea, with the water like a wall to their right and to their left. Thus the LORD saved Israel on that day from the power of the Egyptians. When Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the seashore and beheld the great power that the Lord had shown against the Egyptians, they feared the LORD and believed in him and in his servant Moses. Then Moses and the children of Israel sang this song to the Lord: I will sing to the Lord, for he is gloriously triumphant; horse and chariot he has cast into the sea.

The story of the Egyptian chariots and the Red Sea is very familiar to us both because of its drama and also because of its use at Easter, when we see it fulfilled in the Lord Jesus destroying sin and death.  If we think about it carefully, though, a number of questions arise.  For instance, why did God allow the Egyptians to pursue the Hebrews in the first place?  He could have struck them down as they were mobilizing.  Also, why did God not cause the water of the sea to flow back before the Egyptians arrived at the shore, thus sparing their lives?  And, if God wanted to provide a great sign to the Hebrews of his power, why did he or an angel not appear in some visible form, perhaps armed with a sword, and kill the Egyptians in a great battle?

Pondering the first question helps us to find the answers to the others.  So why did God allow the Egyptians to chase after the unarmed Hebrews, already hampered by their baggage?  If the point was to set them in the Promised Land, he could simply have picked them up and placed them there.  Or, he could have cast the Egyptians army in a deep sleep in their barracks so that nothing could rouse them, or he could have overthrown them before they closed in on the Hebrews.  The Lord God wanted the Hebrews to understand that they were not accomplishing their flight from Egypt on their own.  He made them know their own helplessness and their absolute need for divine assistance.  They had to learn that only God could help them — and not the Egyptian gods, but their God.  The fact that their God helped them and the Egyptian gods did not save the people who worshipped them demonstrated both the power of their God and also that the Egyptian gods were mere idols, incapable of helping anyone.  

As to the next question, the Lord God annihilated the enemy army so that they could not pursue the Hebrews at a later time.  The Egyptians had crossed the Red Sea previously and fought against the Canaanite kings and the Hittites.  At various times they had ruled parts of Canaan.  If the army had remained intact, at any time they could have crossed the sea on ships, caught up with the Hebrews, and slain them in the wilderness.

As to the sign, it is a greater sign if it does not seem that God or an angel needed to appear in order for the Egyptians to be defeated.  God’s power is so supreme that he can will a thing to happen and it does immediately.  This helps to to understand why God forbade manufactured images representing his appearance.  If his appearance can be reduced in this way, his divinity cannot be so great.

Throughout history, Almighty God allows his people to experience troubles, threats, and even apparent defeats in order that by turning those things into benefits and victories, he might manifest his power to us.  If we know tumult and persecution now from society, political movements, foreign adversaries, or even from authorities in the Church, we can know that if we persevere now, even as the enemy sees victory in their sight, we will see God overthrow them completely, even as he overthrew the mighty Egyptian army, thousands of years ago.

 Monday in the Sixteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 19, 2021

One thing I will note about Pope Francis’s recent motu proprio is that it is very sloppily written.  It is knotted in contradictions, and its premise is flawed.  In it, Francis attempts to restrict the “permission”, as he calls it, granted by Benedict XVI regarding the Traditional Mass, but as Benedict made clear in his own motu proprio, since that Mass was never abolished, no permission was needed to use it.  Another thing that comes up here is that this is the case of one Pope acting against another, and that the way is now open for succeeding popes to simply cancel what his predecessors have done.  Formerly, a pope was generally bound by what had preceded him.  The new situation means instability: “The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken” (Matthew 24, 29).

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.”

“Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.”  The scribes and the Pharisees seem to not want the reality of the Son of God, but only a sign of him, much as the Hebrews did at the time the Ten Commandments were given: “Now when all the people perceived the thunderings and the lightnings and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled; and they stood afar off, and said to Moses, ‘You speak to us, and we will hear; but let not God speak to us, lest we die.’ ” (Exodus 20, 18-19).  The Lord Jesus had brought greater power with him than these thunderings and lightnings, trumpets, and smoking mountains.  He had healed the sick, raised up the paralyzed, fed multitudes, cleansed lepers, expelled demons, and even raised the dead.  All of this frightened the scribes and Pharisees, the very people who should have understood what this meant.  Now, a “sign” was something they could deal with.  A sign did mot threaten them.  They could inspect it, debate about it, form committees to ponder it and to come up with action plans regarding it.  But the reality was more than they could handle.

The Lord Jesus rejects their request because the time for signs is over.  The Old Testament is for the Christian, the book of signs.  Its time ended with the Incarnation of the Son of God.  The Lord does point to signs in the Old Testament that point back to him.  He speaks of Jonah and Solomon.  Jonah had given himself up for the strangers on the boat on which he was sailing and urged them to throw him overboard so that they might be saved.  And then three days later he landed on a beach and went on to preach in Nineveh, so that these foreign people might be spared the wrath of God.  And Solomon, who asked God only for the wisdom with which to rule his people, and who did not engage in war, but used the peaceful times for the construction of the Temple.  Having spoken of these two signs, the Lord Jesus stood before the scribes and Pharisees as the Reality.  

St. Matthew does not record the reaction of the scribes and Pharisees, but we can imagine it, judging from their increasing persecution of the Lord: they “stopped their ears” (Acts 7, 56).  

Our world is full of scribes and Pharisees who want to pretend that reality is other than it is, and even that there is no God.  It is necessary for us not to listen to them, but to listen only to the voice of the One who speaks with “thunders and lightnings”.