Monday in the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time, August 1, 2022

Matthew 14, 22-36

Jesus made the disciples get into a boat and precede him to the other side of the sea, while he dismissed the crowds. After doing so, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When it was evening he was there alone. Meanwhile the boat, already a few miles offshore, was being tossed about by the waves, for the wind was against it. During the fourth watch of the night, he came toward them, walking on the sea. When the disciples saw him walking on the sea they were terrified. “It is a ghost,” they said, and they cried out in fear. At once Jesus spoke to them, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.” Peter said to him in reply, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” Peter got out of the boat and began to walk on the water toward Jesus. But when he saw how strong the wind was he became frightened; and, beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught him, and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” After they got into the boat, the wind died down. Those who were in the boat did him homage, saying, “Truly, you are the Son of God.”   After making the crossing, they came to land at Gennesaret. When the men of that place recognized him, they sent word to all the surrounding country. People brought to him all those who were sick and begged him that they might touch only the tassel on his cloak, and as many as touched

it were healed.

The events taking place in this Gospel Reading follow the Lord’s feeding of the five thousand people.  

“He went up on the mountain by himself to pray.”  When we think of people praying in ancient times, we should keep in mind that they were praying aloud.  A few instances, such as the case of the mother of Samuel, are found in which someone is praying in silence but moving their lips, but these are rare occurrences.  St. Augustine even remarked how extraordinary it was that St. Ambrose prayed in silence.  Praying in silence does not become customary until the growth of monasteries, where the cacophony of hundreds of monks making their private prayers or reading would have made praying or reading impossible.  We modern Americans, with our obsession with personal freedom and privacy, would find ourselves very much be out of place in any other era than ours.  We should, then, think of our Lord praying vocally, even when he was “alone”.

“Meanwhile the boat, already a few miles offshore, was being tossed about by the waves, for the wind was against it.”  The Greek is a little stronger: the boat was “tormented” by the waves.  As difficult an experience as this might have been during the day, so much more so at night.  And all this after a big meal.  “During the fourth watch of the night, he came toward them, walking on the sea.”  The “fourth watch” meant just before dawn, when the night was supposed to be its darkest.  The choice of verb by the Evangelist, which is translated here as “walking” is an unusual one and we will come back to it.  “When the disciples saw him walking on the sea they were terrified.”  This could also have been translated, “they were agitated”, that is, upset.  The sea’s tumult reflected their feelings.  “It is a ghost!”  One day, in the not far distant future, these same men would look at death and rejoice, knowing that it would reunite them with Jesus.  Philippians 1, 21: “For me, life is Christ and death is gain.”  “Peter got out of the boat and began to walk on the water toward Jesus.”  The wind must have died down a bit for Peter to have dismounted from the boat, and then picked up again.  This in itself was quite an act of faith.  It was very dark, the water was choppy, and the wind strong enough that the men had to shout to each other to be heard.  “But when he saw how strong the wind was he became frightened.”  Peter had taken his eyes off the Lord and became frightened by what else he saw.  It is not easy for us to keep our eyes on the Lord in the midst of life’s troubles.  He seems in the distance and quiet while our troubles are close and loud.  To do this we must pray long and often, gazing at the crucifix,   gazing at the Blessed Sacrament.  If an athlete or musician can practice for hours in order to perfect their craft, than we can do this too.  “Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught him.”  He had seemed far off, but he was closer than Peter could have hoped with only natural hope.  “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”  He says this in order to explain to Peter that his failure was not due to the Lord’s lack of power but his own lacking in faith.  “Truly, you are the Son of God.”  The Apostles confess their faith in the Lord after having seen him walk on the water, and then both command Peter to come to him and then rescue him when he sinks.  It is a greater manifestation of power to rescue a person than to give him the means to do something and he does it.

Now, the word mentioned above that is translated as “walking” has the alternate meaning of “conducting one’s life”, as in, “going along one’s way of life”.  Taking this meaning, we can understand the above passage as the Son of God praying before his Incarnation; then his Incarnation, embarking on the water; then “conducting” his sinless life, obeying the will of his Father; the reaction of the world of nature to his Incarnation and the reaction of the human world to his manner of life; the attempt by some to imitate his way of life; the absolute need for perseverance to accomplish this; and the Lord’s getting into “the boat”, making it the Church by his presence with the Apostles.  Looking at this verb in this way helps us to understand the radical nature of what the Lord was doing on becoming man and saving us.  Nature itself was aghast that its Maker had come into it.  The Pharisees reacted with violence against this possibility, despite all the proof.

 The Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 31, 2022

Luke 12, 13–21

Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.” He replied to him, “Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?” Then he said to the crowd, “Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions.”  Then he told them a parable. “There was a rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest. He asked himself, ‘What shall I do, for I do not have space to store my harvest?’ And he said, ‘This is what I shall do: I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones. There I shall store all my grain and other goods and I shall say to myself, “Now as for you, you have so many good things stored up for many years, rest, eat, drink, be merry!”’ But God said to him, ‘You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?’ Thus will it be for all who store up treasure for themselves but are not rich in what matters to God.”

This reading begins with an interesting situation.  A man said to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.”  This reveals that a man who perceived himself to suffer injustice was seeking assistance outside the law.  Either he had not yet gone to the law, or, more likely, he had, and the authorities had not given him what he thought he deserved.  He then goes to the Lord, as one having moral authority, but the Lord does not usurp the power of the duly appointed authorities.  Thus, the Lord answers, “Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?”  The Lord does not bring anarchy into the world, but order.

“Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions.”  The Lord Jesus adapts for those called to live in the world his counsel of selling one’s goods and giving to the poor as a condition for following him.  That is, we are all called to follow Jesus, but not all in the same way.  Singleness of purpose does not imply uniformity of means.  The key here is that possessions are not to hinder us from serving him, but are best used in this service, according to his will.  The Lord goes beyond possessions, though, and teaches against greed, which gnaws at the souls of so many.  It seems to arise out of a certain neediness, a certain desperation for security.  It is never appeased, but only grows worse as we continue to feed it: the more we have, the more we want.  Our obsession with saving ourselves shuts God out of our lives except in ways that border on superstition, such as promising him something if only he does not smite us.

“There was a rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest.”  We should notice here that the man in the parable was already rich.  His bountiful harvest makes him even more rich.  He does ask a reasonable question regarding his surplus: “What shall I do, for I do not have space to store my harvest?”  He rightfully sees a problem: he does not have space for it all.  He needs to do something or the harvest will go to waste.  “This is what I shall do: I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones.”  The man comes up with a reasonable answer.  He had better hurry, though, or his crops will rot in the field.  “There I shall store all my grain and other goods and I shall say to myself, Now as for you, you have so many good things stored up for many years, rest, eat, drink, be merry!”  Here is where the man gets into trouble.  He sees the harvest only as a means to indulge himself.  He does not see the harvest as a gift from God and then ask the real question: Given that God has already given me enough to live on, what should I do with this abundant harvest?  What is God’s will?  He does not ask this question, and that night he is faced with reality: he will die and his wealth will not bring him any joy but will be carried away by others.  We can see him as a precursor to the rich man who refused to feed Lazarus, and was cast into hell.

Current at this time, though its influence was beginning to wane, was the philosophy of Epicurus, who taught that though the gods existed, they did not involve themselves in human affairs and so no need existed to worry about pleasing them.  Also, death was the end of life, but since worry about death brought nothing but misery, worry about death ought to be avoided.  The business of life was to become self-sufficient and to live well.  The person who did so could then spend his time studying philosophy.  Christians battled these ideas as the Faith spread into the Greek and Roman worlds.  It is possible that the Lord gave this parable with the future in mind or because whiffs of this philosophy had entered the thought of the Greek-loving Pharisees. (One of the ironies in New Testament times is that despite the Pharisees and Sadducees claiming to represent the Law in its purest form, both groups liked Greek things).

Let us continually seek the will of God and pray that we may accomplish it.  It is by his will that we exist at all, and it is by doing his will that we will enjoy an eternal rest.

 Saturday in the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 30, 2022

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.

The Church teaches that in the interpretation of Holy Scripture, we first need to find and understand its literal sense, the meaning intended by the biblical author through a consideration of the text in its original language, its historical context, and the context of the passage within the book or section of the book.  Thus, in looking at Luke 10, 25-37, we must note first that the Lord is telling a story, a parable.  He is not relating a historical fact.  Then we can examine what it meant to be a Samaritan at the time of Jesus, what inns of the time were like, and so on.  We can also peer into the Greek of the text to see what nuances we can find in the language of the story that would help us better understand it.  After determining the literal sense, we can read more deeply to discover the spiritual sense.  We can do this with the help of the Fathers, especially writers like St. Augustine and St. Jerome.  We can consult the works of St. Thomas and other medieval teachers, too.  Various Catholic editions of the Bible now in print offer these insights in the form of notes.  The spiritual meaning is the more fundamental reality of the text, presenting to us truths which we can learn by considering what lies beneath the literal sense.  In the Parable of the Good Samaritan, we can understand the half-dead victim of robbers as the human race, despoiled of grace by the devil.  The Samaritan in the Son of God who raises the man up on his beast — that is, his Body — and takes him to an inn — the Church.  The wine and oil he uses on the man’s wounds are the Sacraments.

St. Albert the Great (d. 1280) taught at the .university of Paris and among his many books is a wonderful collection of his sermons on the feasts days of saints.  These are brief, direct, and filled with wisdom.  He preaches on the saint and also on the Scriptures used for the Mass of the feast.  In his sermon on the Feast of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist, St. Albert teaches that we can understand the account of his death, in the spiritual sense, as the devil’s attack against the Christian.  He says that Herod signifies the devil, and that John the Baptist signifies the Christian in the world.  The devil attempts to destroy the soul of the Christian in five ways: sending (Mark 6, 17: “For Herod himself had sent”); apprehending (“and apprehended John”); binding (“bound him”); imprisoning (“and imprisoned him”); and beheading (Mark 6, 28: “And he beheaded him in the prison”).  The devil “sends” temptations to us.  He “apprehends” us through our consent to the temptations.  He conquers and “binds” us through our commission of sin.  He “imprisons” us when sin becomes a habit in us.  And he “beheads” us when we despair of ever repenting.  

St. Albert concludes his sermon with a prayer: “Brethren, pray that the divine mercy may snatch us from the chains and prison of the devil through our true repentance, lest Herodias — the envy of the devil — glory in our destruction, but rather that all the armies of the angels of God rejoice over our salvation.  Amen.”

The Holy Spirit has so caused the Scriptures to be written that untold riches remain to be mined even after thousands of years.  By finding these riches and adorning ourselves inwardly with them, we will persevere in time of temptation and comes into the presence of Almighty God.

 Friday in the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 29, 2022

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, on July 29 the Feast of St. Martha alone was celebrated, with her sister Mary, then identified as St. Mary Magdalene, and her brother Lazarus having their own feast days.  On January 26, 2021, Pope Francis decreed that the three saints should share the same feast day, July 29.

Lazarus, Martha, and Mary must have been close in age since they appear to live together in one house, meaning that that they were not married.  This also indicates that they were fairly young at the time when Lazarus died (the first time).  No parents are mentioned and the fact that in Luke 10, 38 and John 12, 1-2 Martha is said to be serving, or supervising the cooking and serving, tells us that no parents were then living.  Also, Luke 10, 38 refers to the house where she “received” Jesus as “her house”.  This raises the possibility that Martha had been widowed and so the house had become “hers”.  If this is true, then the dinner given our Lord by this family during the week of his Passion and Death could have taken place in her house, not in that of Lazarus, where she would not have needed to serve because he had his own staff.  

In the Gospel Reading for this feast, Lazarus, whom the Lord loved, has died and been buried.  His tomb is not underground, but in the side of a rocky hill, as is clear from his appearance after the Lord brings him back to life.  This manner of burial tells us that he had been a man of some wealth, further evidenced by the feast he prepared for Jesus and his Apostles afterwards.  Mary and Martha had sent for the Lord during the time when Lazarus suffered his sickness, but he had delayed his coming.  The grief felt by the two sisters for the loss of their brother was thus exacerbated by this seeming scorn for their friendship.  This is revealed in the verse, “When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him; but Mary sat at home.”  Mary refused to come out of the house.  “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.”  Martha shows tremendous faith here.  First, in the Lord’s ability to heal people from deadly diseases, and then that even that the Lord had the power to raise him up again.  Her statement of faith also amounts to a prayer.  “Your brother will rise.”  Jesus assures her not just of her brother’s resurrection, but of his salvation: he will rise into heaven.  “I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day.”  Martha confirms her belief in the general resurrection and her brother’s part in it, but she does not withdraw her request or lose hope that the Lord will grant what she is asking.  

“I am the resurrection and the life.”  This brings to mind how the Lord later would say to his Apostles, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14, 6).  We say and believe that Jesus is God, but it is important for us to think about what that means, to the extent that we can.  He does not merely possess power, he is power.  He does not only possess life, he is life.  He not only loves, he is love.  Here, the Lord Jesus says that he himself, standing before the grieving Martha, is the resurrection, he is himself our rising from the dead.  When we rise at the end of the world, we rise in him who is the resurrection.  “Whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live,
and anyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”  The Lord says, “even if he dies”, mentioning almost casually the thing people fear the most.  For the Lord and those who believe in him, death is not a termination but a liberation.  “Do you believe this?”  The Lord Jesus knows that she does.  He asks her so that she might continue to show her faith and stand by her prayer 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.”  This great public profession of faith is matched in his Public Life only by Peter’s.  It is a good profession for us to make to the Lord in our prayers, for we look forward to his coming again into the world.

Many legends later tell us of the lives after Pentecost of Lazarus, Mary, and Martha.  One, told in the popular medieval book, The Golden Legend, holds that during the persecution by the Jewish leaders, they were captured and set adrift in a rudderless boat that sailed, miraculously, to France.  In this account, Lazarus became a local bishop, Mary became a penitent, and Martha served the poor.  

We give God thanks for these good people who opened their home to the Lord, listened to his words, and became such fervent believers.  Through their intercession, may we so open our hearts to him.

 Thursday in the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 28, 2022

Matthew 13, 47-53

Jesus said to the disciples: “The Kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea, which collects fish of every kind. When it is full they haul it ashore and sit down to put what is good into buckets. What is bad they throw away. Thus it will be at the end of the age. The angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.  Do you understand all these things?” They answered, “Yes.” And he replied, “Then every scribe who has been instructed in the Kingdom of heaven is like the head of a household who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old.” When Jesus finished these parables, he went away from there.

“The Kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea, which collects fish of every kind.”  The Apostles Peter, Andrew, James, and John would have especially paid attention to this parable as they had made their living from fishing before Jesus called them.  Jesus had even promised to make them “fishers of men”.  Here, they might pick up a clue as to what he had meant.  The net the Lord speaks of is indifferent to the kinds of fish that go into it: a fish of any size and any condition might be naught in it.  “When it is full they haul it ashore and sit down to put what is good into buckets.”  When we read “buckets” we should think “baskets”.  The hard work of fishing is not finished when the boat returns, but continues with the sifting of the catch.  This would be done with the sunrise.  “What is bad they throw away.”  The Greek word translated here as “bad” actually means “rotten” and “useless”.  Something “bad” might still be salvaged, but not something rotten.  

“Thus it will be at the end of the age.”  The Jews believed that the world passed through six ages, and that the seventh brought an eternal Sabbath.  Jesus taught that the people of his generation lived in the sixth age, and that at its end would come the great judgment.  We know that this age began with the Lord’s Incarnation and will end with his Second Coming. 

 

“The angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous.”  The Lord repeated a number of times in his preaching that the good and the wicked — the “rotten” — would be together until the end, at which point it would be the task of the angels to separate them.  See also Matthew 13, 24-30.  The angels, always an important part of our lives, have this responsibility as well.  “And throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”  The rotten are not merely set aside but are burned into eternity.  We see from this that those deemed rotten are punished for having made themselves so, and by mixing with the good, threaten to cause them to go rotten as well.  This may remind us of the wheat and the weeds, where the weeds are wicked because they steal nutrition from the wheat.  Their punishment is eternal because they have permanently fixed their malice in their hearts through the evil they have committed repeatedly during their lives on earth.

“ ‘Then every scribe who has been instructed in the Kingdom of heaven is like the head of a household who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old.’ When Jesus finished these parables, he went away from there.”  The Lord commends the scribe who understands the Gospel well enough to teach it using the works of the Prophets and also the words of Jesus and, later, his Apostles.  The Lord may be addressing whatever scribes were present, or he may have been looking to the future when Matthew and John, among those present at that time, would write their Gospels, and when James, Jude, and Peter would write their epistles.

We strive to be the good fish which the Lord puts in his baskets and we strive to recognize the dead, rotten fish  around us so that we may preserve ourselves from them.

 Wednesday in the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 27, 2022

Jeremiah 15,10; 16-21

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

“Woe to me, mother, that you gave me birth!”  This is a cry of despair and grief matched in the Old Testament only by that of the suffering Job: “Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said: A man child is conceived” (Job 3, 3).  The very sound of the Hebrew words elicits pathos: ohh-lee.  Not even the piteous cry of Psalm 22, 1: “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” compares to it, for the Psalmist does not curse his existence but seeks an answer for his grievous tribulation.  With these words, the Prophet Jeremiah breaks out in horror at the realization of his situation.  He is trapped: when he found the words of God, he “devoured” them, yet his doing so has caused his continuous wound and the incurable wound, that is, in his heart. He next cries out to Almighty God: “You have indeed become for me a treacherous brook, whose waters do not abide!”  His words bring to mind Deuteronomy 4, 24: “The Lord your God is a raging fire”, which Hebrews 12, 29 adapts as, “Our God is a consuming fire.”  That is, he destroys all that might rival him in our hearts, even things that are good, until all the heart has left is him.  He will be adored and loved for himself alone, even apart from the good he has granted us.

“If you repent, so that I restore you, in my presence you shall stand.”  Almighty God says to Jeremiah, If you repent of regretting the gift of life which I have given you as well as the gift of my words, I will forgive you and you will stand in my presence now and in the world to come.  “And I will make you toward this people a solid wall of brass.”  The people, realizing the danger they have incurred because of their sins, will seek Jeremiah to pray for them, but because they do not intend on repenting from their idolatry and riotous behavior, they will find in him not an intercessor but a wall.  The wall will not be one of stone that can be broken down, but one of brass, and one which they have, in fact, created for themselves.  The sinners will see their reflection in this brass and know the depths of their guilt.  Even so, they will not repent.

The Gospel Reading for today, Matthew 13, 44-46, tells of the joy which comes to those who find the Kingdom of God.  They have searched for God’s way and his truth and find it, and for them it is worth more than all their possessions.  The joy they find in it merely precedes and signifies in a small way the ecstasy they will experience in the beatific vision.  The sinners in the reading from Jeremiah, some of whom tried to kill him, could have this joy if they could only stop and give up seeking their own will, which was not bringing them happiness, and seek the Lord’s will instead.  But so many times pride comes between the sinner and salvation.  We make our own brass walls that keep us from going to God, but if we knock at the wall in humility, God will hear us and make an opening in that wall for us to come to him.

 Tuesday in the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 26, 2022

The Feast of Saints Anne and Joachim

Sirach 44, 1; 10-15

Now will I praise those godly men, our ancestors, each in his own time: These were godly men whose virtues have not been forgotten; Their wealth remains in their families, their heritage with their descendants; Through God’s covenant with them their family endures, their posterity for their sake.  And for all time their progeny will endure, their glory will never be blotted out; Their bodies are peacefully laid away, but their name lives on and on. At gatherings their wisdom is retold, and the assembly proclaims their praise.

Often with children, parents and other family members will study carefully their faces in order to see some physical trace of his or her heritage: the color and shape of the eyes, the contours of the nose, the curve of the smile.  We delight on finding these shared traits because they reinforce for us the feeling of connection we have with past generations.  We feel connected.  As the child grows, the presence of certain talents and abilities may be noticed as well, usually to the delight of the one who detects them.  Similarities of this kind could be found in the Lord Jesus as well, for he had taken the flesh of the Blessed Virgin Mary and thus inherited much of his appearance and innate talents and traits from her heritage.  It is humbling to think that the Son of God could have his grandfather’s hands and feet and his Mother’s smile, but in becoming incarnate such would be inevitable.  He would have also inherited his handedness through Mary, as well: whether he was right- or left-handed.  His blood type, too — the very rare AB+, to go by the bloodstains on the Shroud of Turin, the “universal” blood type which anyone can receive in transfusion.  The Lord Jesus would also have received the sound of his voice this way, and whether or not he could sing well.  If he had any ability with his hands, such as to mold objects from clay, this would have come from his Mother and her parents as well.  As An infant, Jesus would have heard his Mother chatting with him and singing to him, and from him he would have picked up any accent that would have been noticed by the Judeans.  From his Mother, too, he would have heard nursery stories that she had heard from her mother which he could have used for material for his parables.  From his own skill, it would seem that Mary and probably her parents before her had a gift for story-telling.  

Like their contemporaries and their ancestors, Anne and Joachim would have yearned for the coming of the Messiah, for the salvation of Israel, for the righting of all wrongs at the great judgment to come.  They would have lived in or near Nazareth and were Galileans by birth, though their grandparents or earlier forebears came from Judea and were part of the Jewish effort to resettle the uninhabited region of the north after returning from the Babylonian Exile.  They would have played with Jesus as an infant and as a child, and would have heard from Mary and Joseph of the signs of his divinity.  They would have died happy, knowing that their salvation was near.

We give thanks to God for the connections that bind us to our families as we praise him for the gift of Saints Anne and Joachim, who raised their child Mary in her virtue and wisdom to be the Mother of God.

 Monday in the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 25, 2022

The Feast of St. James the Greater

Matthew 20, 20-28

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

Comparing the lists of the women who followed the Lord Jesus in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and John, we find that the name of the mother of James and John, the wife of Zebedee, was Salome.  The ancient Syriac translation of the Gospels can be read so that Salome, in the lists, is seen to be the sister of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  This would go far in explaining why, for instance, the Lord entrusted his Mother to the Apostle John: John would have been the Lord’s nephew, in this case.  It might also explain why the Lord chose James and John to be his Apostles — they were already family members, as was the James (so-called “the Lesser”, the son of Alphaeus) who was known as “the brother of the Lord.  However, the Greek text does not allow for this interpretation.  It is not clear when this James was first called “the Greater”, but it does seem to go back practically to Apostolic times.  The term is thought to be used to distinguish him from the other James, but it might also have indicated that he was taller, or, since he was already known as James the son of Zebedee, it might have been used to show that he was older than his brother John.  This does appear to be true in that whenever the two Apostles are named, James is named first.

The Zebedee family seems to have been fairly wealthy due to the fact that Mark 1, 20 discloses that Zebedee engaged hired men to assist him in his fishing business, which also indicates the large size of his boat.  In addition, his wife Salome is reported to have been one of the women who provided for the Lord and his Apostles (cf. Matthew 27, 55).  James and John may have still been comparative youths when the Lord called them since we find their mother amongst his followers and since she spoke on their behalf, as we find in today’s Gospel Reading.  Certainly their impetuosity got the them the nickname “the sons of thunder” from the Lord.  This impetuosity shines forth in Luke 9, 54 when the young men ask Jesus if he wants them to call down the wrath of God on a village which refused them entrance.  The Lord included James as a witness when he raised the daughter of Jairus and when he was transfigured, among other events.  This may be accounted to the Lord’s favor for his zeal or because the Lord wanted John to see these things and included his brother James so as not to give reason for jealousy between them.

James was the first of the Apostles to die for the Lord, as we read in Acts 12, 1-2.  He was arrested by order of Herod Agrippa, who wanted to curry favor with the Jewish leaders, who were persecuting the Church out of their hatred for the Lord Jesus.  This occurred in the year 44 A.D. 

In the early Middle Ages the belief was current that St. James had preached in Spain and that after his martyrdom in Jerusalem his body was miraculously transported there,  later to be brought to the city of Compostela, where a shrine was built for it.  It became an important site of  pilgrimages during the Middle Ages and remains so today.  Early Church historians such as Eusebius are silent on this matter, however.

We might wonder why Herod chose to arrest James rather than Peter or John or James the Son of Alphaeus, already recognized leaders of the early Church.  It may have been his great zeal for the Gospel which had earned the notice of Jesus.  Truly unafraid and even eager to drink the Lord’s chalice, he did come to his right hand in heaven, ahead of all the other Apostles.  Through the grace of God we may imitate his zeal through our constant prayers for the conversion of the world and in our readiness to speak the truth about the Lord Jesus.

 The Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 24, 2022

Luke 11, 1–13

Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.” He said to them, “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us, and do not subject us to the final test.”  And he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend to whom he goes at midnight and says, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, for a friend of mine has arrived at my house from a journey and I have nothing to offer him,’ and he says in reply from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked and my children and I are already in bed. I cannot get up to give you anything.’ I tell you, if he does not get up to give the visitor the loaves because of their friendship, he will get up to give him whatever he needs because of his persistence.  And I tell you, ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish? Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg? If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”

“Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.”  This request reveals that the person who spoke it recognized that the Lord Jesus was not himself a disciple of John the Baptist or one of the Pharisees.  This shows a significant development in the growth in faith of the disciples.  It also showed the desire to increase as a disciple of the Lord, to pray as the Lord himself taught him.  Finally, it shows, on a very basic level, the human desire to pray in the right way.  Despite the claims of certain people in the West today to be “autonomous”, the human person craves structure.  In part this has to do with the need for security, but more than that, it is about living the right way.  In this request we see the desire to worship God the right way.  The Lord will provide this structure in the prayer he teaches and later at the Last Supper when he orders the Apostles to “do this in memory of me”.  We seek order because the God of Creation is orderly and imposed order on the universe he created.  This structure and order within us enables us to live and even to prosper.  The structure and order we we desire is a sign of God’s existence, his power, and of his essence.

“Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, etc.”  The lectionary translation that follows tries to stick to the prayer as it is traditionally translated, going back five hundred years, but also attempts to render the final petition correctly according to the Greek, though it should more simply be translated as, “Do not subject us to the test”.  The Lord speaks of this test in Matthew 26, 41, when he sees the Apostles sleeping in the Garden of Gethsemane: “Keep watch and pray that you not be put to the test.”  This “test” may differ for each of us, but it will consist of some crisis in which our faith is tested and we must make an enormous effort in the face of dire circumstances and consequences to maintain it.  It may come at work when a boss tries to force us to perform some action which goes against the Lord’s teaching, or when peer pressure mounts on us to conform to the crowd in some sinful undertaking.  It could come while we are faced with being killed for the Faith.  To overcome these tests, which may recur throughout our lives, we must “keep watch”, to be aware of the fact that our faith will be severely tested at some point, and “pray” for the grace to persevere in it.

The Lord’s Prayer, as St. Luke preserves it for us, differs slightly from the prayer as found in St. Matthew’s Gospel.  This may be because the person from whom Luke learned about it remembered it differently, or because the Lord taught his disciples to pray in slightly different ways as he moved from one village to another, for certainly he would have been asked to do this wherever he preached.   The meaning and purpose of the prayer itself is not affected in any way.  

Now that we have this prayer, it is necessary for us to pray it rightly.  We ought not to pray it hurriedly or inattentively.  It is the Lord’s Prayer because he gave it to us.  We repeat the words he gave us to say.  It ought to be said solemnly and with our hearts.  We ought to think carefully about what we are asking from the Father and to conform ourselves to desiring earnestly the things for which we ask.  The prayer primarily asks for the Kingdom of God to come — we are praying for the end of the world and the final judgment, and for all that we need to prepare for it: our “daily bread”, the graces we need, especially that of perseverance, and for the grace to forgive others while we can.

Continuing in prayer for the accomplishment of God’s will in our lives is a lifelong task.  We have to be careful that we are praying for his will to be done and not ours, though, and we pray that we may prefer his will over ours.  He is the all-knowing and all-powerful Father.

 Saturday in the Sixteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 23, 2022

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.’ ”

Reading the Gospel of St. Matthew, we find a lively portrait of life in the Ancient Middle East: its characters, activities, and details of both town and country life.  This liveliness and color makes the scenes in this Gospel especially memorable and easy for us to picture.  The verses that make up the Gospel Reading for today’s Mass tell of an incident in the life of a farmer from that time.  It is a simple story, and the Lord uses it to impart an important teaching on the problem of good and evil, a philosophical conundrum that perplexes many today.

“The Kingdom of heaven may be likened to a man who sowed good seed in his field.”  This is the second of three consecutive parables with an agricultural theme that Matthew recalls for us.  And, as the Lord explained the first, the Parable of the Sower, so he will explain the second.  Now, when the Lord says “good” seed, he is saying the seed was unmixed with lesser things.  It is seed carefully extracted the year before from the seed heads of harvested wheat crops and preserved in a cool, dry place.  For the farmer, it was like gold.  “While everyone was asleep his enemy came and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and then went off.”  More specifically, the Greek tells us that his enemy sowed darnel in his field.  The verb in the sentence is also very specific, and it means to “sow over” or “sow on top of”.  This shows exact knowledge of planting techniques.  “When the crop grew and bore fruit, the weeds appeared as well.”  More literally, according to the Greek, “When the grass sprouted and produced its fruit, the darnel also appeared.”  It is very hard to distinguish wheat from darnel even after their spikes appear, but it is necessary to do so because darnel can make a person sick.

“Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where have the weeds come from?”  The slaves are bewildered because they had been the ones to separate the wheat seeds from the darnel seeds the previous year.  They know the seed was good, pure wheat seed.  The slaves are also afraid of being blamed for what has happened.  “An enemy has done this.”  The Greek makes clear that he believes the enemy to be a man, and not God, whom we are so ready to blame for our problems.  The farmer at the same time frees his slaves from worrying that he suspects them.  “Do you want us to go and pull them up?”  It would have made an enormous task to do this on the field.  The farmer recognizes this: “No, if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them.”  These are good servants, willing to go out in the heat of the day to pull out the darnel, but the farmer wisely avoids doing this as it would be nearly impossible.  “First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning; but gather the wheat into my barn.”  This would make for a laborious process, but easier to do in a barn than in the field.  We notice in this parable that the farmer know an enemy has threatened his crop, but he does not take action against him.  Certainly he must know who this enemy is.  His whole care is for the crop.  It is as though he is confident of his ability to take care of the enemy and does not mention him again because he does not need to do so.  

The Lord, in his explanation (which will not appear this year in the weekday Gospel Readings because next Monday and Tuesday are important feast days) will teach that the wheat are the holy ones of God and the darnel are the wicked, who belong to the devil.  The two plants are so alike that darnel is called the evil twin of wheat.  Only a studious look at the fruit allows us to see the difference.  An expert can see right away, but those of us who are not experts will struggle to do this,  the key is not to be satisfied with the appearance of the stalk of the plant but to note its fruit.

The good and the wicked are allowed to grow together in this world because the good can benefit from the wicked through the perseverance needed to hold onto the Faith despite the wicked attempting to choke the good of nourishment and sunlight.  The wicked can benefit too, because they may convert due to the example given them by the good.  In the end, though, all are “harvested”.  The Lord means the judgment at the end of the world, but this also applies to the end of an individual’s life, when he receives what the Church calls his “particular judgment”.  All are known in the end and are separated: the useless and sickening darnel to be burned in hell and the wheat to be gathered into the barns of everlasting rest.

 Friday in the Sixteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 22, 2022

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.”

Having explained to the Apostles why he preaches to the crowd in parables, the Lord explains to them the Parable of the Sower.  The Evangelists do not show him explaining his other parables, interestingly.  According to St. Mark’s recounting of this incident, the Lord Jesus reproached the Apostles for not understanding this parable: “Are you ignorant of this parable? and how shall you understand any other parable?” (Mark 4, 13).  Possibly this motivated them to listen more closely to him and to ponder more carefully what he told them.

“The seed sown on the path is the one who hears the word of the Kingdom without understanding it.”  The word here translated as “understanding” can also mean “considering”, and this would seem to be the better way to translate it, for a person may fail to understand due to his own inherent limitations, and this seems unfair in the context.  But a person who fails to consider the word of God is too slothful or proud to do so.  “The Evil One comes and steals away what was sown in his heart.”  The person too slothful or proud to examine the word of the Kingdom already belongs to the Evil One, and he will not let him go.  

“The seed sown on rocky ground is the one who hears the word and receives it at once with joy.”  Even an imperfect knowledge of the news of redemption from sin brings joy to the heart.  It is the first stirring of grace there.  “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.”  To hear the word of God and to rejoice at its hearing does not indicate that this person is saved.  Taking the word to heart and living it, through good times and hard times, makes for salvation.  Many people at some point in their lives are granted a spiritual experience that ought to lead them to God, but they take it as an indication that they are already saved, and do nothing about it.  Their faith, such as it is, falls away swiftly when they are faced with a stark choice of following it or not.  This may not even come about as a result of persecution but in some occasion in their daily lives.

“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.”  While this may seem to apply only to those who are already rich, it applies to us all.  A person may not strive for millions but only thousands or even less and still lose his soul over it.  It should be noted that the word translated here as “lure” actually means “deceit”, as in “the deceit of riches”, which cannot buy heaven or even lasting happiness in this world. “Worldly anxiety” is literally translated as “the anxiety of the age”.  This is something greater than concerns over what we are to wear or to eat, but means existential disturbance: the meaning of life and of existence, and the fear that there is none.  A mind which twists itself in knots over these considerations has no place for the word of God.  It would rather suffer than have peace.  Pride is at the root of this.  The only “fruit” a soul thus afflicted can bear is bitter.

“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.”  The soil is rich because it is receptive to that which is good for it.  This distinguishes it from the thorny soil.  It receives the seed and considers it, and accepting it bears an abundance of fruit.  That is, the one who gives the Lord the throne of his heart to recline in is himself transformed by his presence.  It affects others as well, just as a house at night without lights has no affect on another person or is even depressing, but a house whose windows are bright with the interior light is comforting and gladdening.  The fruit here is the conversion of others.  The person filled with the grace of God may have no knowledge of his or her influence on others or their role in the conversion of others, but it happens through the faithful believer nonetheless.  And this is also the result of the believer’s prayers for the conversion of the world.

We celebrate today the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene, once afflicted with seven demons but after being freed from them by the Lord Jesus, a brave and steadfast follower of his.  She knew the company of the Blessed Virgin Mary as they followed the Lord wherever he went, even standing with her under his Cross on Golgotha.  She was the first, after the Virgin, to see the Lord after his Resurrection, and was sent by the Lord to tell the Apostles that he had risen.  She was one who gladly received the seed of the word of the Kingdom of heaven and lived it as thoroughly as she could.  The example of her conversion and her prayers have helped countless others to draw near the Lord, and will help us as well.

 Thursday in the Sixteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 21, 2022

Matthew 13, 10-17

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

“Why do you speak to the crowd in parables?”  The Apostles ask an interesting question.  Why shouldn’t the Lord speak to them in parables?  They ask as though they think there is a better way to speak to them.  And there is, if the speaker is merely trying to drum up support for a march on Jerusalem — and at this point the Apostles still think that Jesus is the military Messiah that the Pharisees taught the Jews to await.  But parables cause people to think more deeply about a matter than if it were simply stated to them.  Parables present a challenge to the usual way we think.  The use of parables for teaching on moral or religious matters offers more than learning; it offers conversion.  The conversion may take time.  Parables are not solved easily and quickly.  It may take years to understand their meaning.  To tell a parable is to cast a seed unto the soil.

“Because knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom of heaven has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted.”  The Lord Jesus affirms that he teaches his Apostles in a different way, and he can do this because, unlike the crowds, they see and hear him every day.  And the deeper learning they receive through this experience will enable them to reveal “the mysteries of the Kingdom of heaven” after he sends the Holy Spirit upon them at Pentecost.  

“To anyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”  The Lord speaks of faith here: the one who has faith and perseveres in it will receive greater faith, but the one who has little faith will lose even that over time.  It is up to us to live our faith so that it may grow, and to pray for this: “I do believe! Help my unbelief” (Mark 9, 24).

“This is why I speak to them in parables, because they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand.”  If the intent is to make people see and hear what is being told them, it might seem a bad idea to make the understanding even more difficult through parables. But by involving them in the message by presenting it to them in parable form, they will take it to heart when they understand.  It is the same principle in telling stories with morals to small children.

“You shall indeed hear but not understand, etc.”  The Lord Jesus quotes from Isaiah 6, 9-10.  This is the commission given to the Prophet Isaiah after he sees the vision of God in the Temple and after his lips are cleansed with a fiery coal: “Go, and say to this people, You shall indeed hear but not understand, etc.”  That is, You have made yourselves deaf, blind, and without understanding through your repeated sinning.  “Lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and be converted and I heal them.”  That is, the people would rather to continue in sin than to be healed — taught — by the Lord.  The Lord’s use of this particular verse, coming as it does at the very beginning of Isaiah’s work as a Prophet, would draw the Apostles into comparing the Lord with the Isaiah.  They would have noted that for all his greatness and the beauty of his prophecies, Isaiah performed no great feats of healing and exorcism, nor did he preach as this man preached.  Indeed, the Lord Jesus often pointed out that he was fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecies.

“But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear. Amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.”  Blessed are your minds, because they have received the teaching of the Gospel.  This is a lovely verse in which the Lord calls us to think back over the long centuries in which people dreamed of a Savior coming to redeem them.  This brings to mind Moses, whom God took to look over the Land flowing with milk and honey which he would not be allowed to enter due to his sin.  He looked, and he yearned, and then he died.  The Lord, the Promised One of all the ages, has now come to earth and the Apostles saw him with their own eyes, heard him with their own ears, and touched him with their hands (cf. 1 John 1).  

The Lord declared that the eyes and ears of the Apostles were blessed.  They were blessed so that the Apostles might proclaim to the world him whom they saw and heard and touched.  We see and hear him in our hearts when we pray, especially when we pray before the Blessed Sacrament.  We do this for our own good, and for the good of others.

 Wednesday in the Sixteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 20, 2022

Matthew 13, 1-9

On that day, Jesus went out of the house and sat down by the sea. Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat down, and the whole crowd stood along the shore. And he spoke to them at length in parables, saying: “A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky ground, where it had little soil. It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep, and when the sun rose it was scorched, and it withered for lack of roots. Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it. But some seed fell on rich soil, and produced fruit, a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold. Whoever has ears ought to hear.”

The Lord himself is sowing seeds with this Parable.  The crowds to whom he was speaking would not have understood its full meaning as is clear from the fact that even the Apostles felt compelled to ask for an explanation of it.  The image the Lord sowed in the minds of the crowd would have remained with very many of them.  They would have wrestled with its possible meaning as with any tricky puzzle — simple in appearance, and thus deceptive, but deep in its implications.  Later, as the Apostles formed the Church after Pentecost, they would have opened the mystery of the sower and the seed to them.  Later, that is, when they needed to understand why the Pharisees and their leaders in Jerusalem rejected and killed the Lord, and why others gave up their precious gift of faith under threats or actual persecution.  Also, the mystery of how they held on despite all the forces arrayed around them.

While tomorrow’s Gospel Reading will consist of the Lord’s explanation of his Parable, we can wonder now at certain of its aspects which he does not cover.  For instance, the sower sows seeds in all directions.  He does not try to keep his seeds for one particular part of the field or for particular quality of soil.  He broadcasts his seeds in all directions.  A seed sown even in an unlikely seeming area might still sprout, grow, and produce fruit.  Thus, the Lord offers his Gospel and his grace to everyone.  He does not hide it from some and reveal it to others.  It is not his fault or the seed’s fault if the soil does not allow a plant to grow and to bear fruit.  It is the fault of the soil, that is, the person to whom the Gospel and the grace of God are offered, who rejects these.

We also notice that the sower has abundant seed.  Every part of the field receives seeds.  The Lord does not cease sowing until the whole field of the world is covered.  People even receive more than one opportunity to accept the Gospel and grace.  

The sower works for the landowner.  The sower seeks “fruit, a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold” for the profit of the landowner, the Father, not for himself.  And when it comes time for the harvest, the sower becomes the harvester, who gathers the wheat for the heavenly barns of the Father.

Finally, the Lord uses the phrase, “Whoever has ears ought to hear.”  This was an idiom used to inform the listener that the story is over, and when the Lord Jesus uses it, he means that all who hear need to think hard about what he has said so that they might learn something valuable for themselves. 

The Lord speaks in this way, using parables, because he can teach us more, and teach us more effectively, than if he delivered a treatise on the subject to us.  His manner of speaking and teaching using ordinary things teaches us about how well he knows us and how much he wants us to know him.

 Tuesday in the Sixteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 19, 2022

Matthew 12, 46-50

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

I have something to add to what I have previously written about the miracle of the man with the withered hand: a close look at the Greek in Mark 3, 2 suggests that the Pharisees had brought the man into the synagogue in order to see if Jesus would heal him on the Sabbath.  In other words, the Pharisees were using the man to bait a trap for Jesus.  This makes the Lord’s healing him an even greater sign of his mercy as well as a greater sign of his contempt for the Pharisees: their plots and traps do not concern him at all.

“His Mother and his brothers appeared outside, wishing to speak with him.”  St. Mark, in his Gospel, makes the following observation ten verses before he tells the story of how the Lord’s Mother and male relatives came to him: “And they come to a house, and the multitude cometh together again, so that they could not so much as eat bread. And when his friends had heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him. For they said: He is become mad”  (Mark 3, 20-21).  Because of its proximity, Mark may intend to provide a reason for the appearance of the Lord’s Mother and relatives at this juncture.  It is not a certainty, but otherwise it is hard to understand the purpose for these verses.  Mark is not the only Evangelist to note the hostility of at least some of his relatives.  Matthew and Luke along with Mark record the disrespect he was accorded on the one occasion he visited his native town during his Public Life.  And John comments, in a palpably sorrowful tone, “For neither did his brethren believe in him” (John 7, 5).  We may think, then, that his “brethren” — his male relatives and neighbors in Nazareth — did see his zeal for souls as a sign of madness.  His Mother, though, who knew him, saw this as a sign of his divinity.  She would have accompanied the relatives in order to stand with her Son, as she would later stand with him on Golgotha.  

“Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, asking to speak with you.”  From reading Matthew’s account, we might wonder why his family did not enter the house themselves.  Luke adds the important comment, “They could not come at him for the crowd” (Luke 8, 19).  The size of the crowd would have confirmed for the brethren that Jesus was making a spectacle of himself and needed to be taken in hand.  His Mother would have rejoiced at seeing the enormous response to her Son’s teaching.

“Who is my Mother? Who are my brothers?”  from the viewpoint of faith, we can answer this question as follows: Your Mother is the Bride of the Holy Spirit who became your Mother in her perfect obedience to the will of your Father.  Your “brothers” are a mix of mostly ignorant fools with a small handful of faithful followers such as James, and possibly also Simon the Zealot and Jude.  This remains true today.  The Son of God became our brother by assuming our nature, but of all the people who have lived since his time, only a handful have shown themselves faithful to him — have shown themselves as true brothers and sisters.  As spoken to the crowd at that time, it sounds like an odd question because the answer would seem obvious.  The Lord uses this chance to turn that which seems obvious on its head, a regular feature of his teaching.

“And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my Mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and Mother.’ ”  The Greek verb translated here as “stretching out” also means “to cast forth”, as is, to cast forth a net with which to catch fish.  The Lord’s gesture can be understood as claiming his disciples as his “catch”, just as he had told Peter that he would be “catching men”.  First, Peter must be caught; then he may catch too, employed by the Lord.  The Lord identifies those whom he has caught as his “Mother and brothers”.  His gesture would have taken in those outside the house as well to include his Mother while necessarily excluding those who had no intention of being his disciple.  “For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and Mother.”  His Mother, both through her obedience to the Father and in her giving birth to him.  The Lord tells us that we may also become his brothers and sisters through conforming our wills to that of his Father.  This is an inestimable grace inasmuch as otherwise to be his brothers and sisters would require that we have the great good fortune of being born into his family.  As his brothers and sisters on grace we become, with him, the heirs of everlasting life.  

We ought to rejoice in the fact of our baptism in him and our belonging to him through faith and good works, and of our being called by him, “brothers and sisters” and acknowledged as such before his Father’s throne on heaven (cf. Matthew 10, 32).

 Monday in the Sixteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 18, 2022

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.”

Due to the uncertainty of our lives, we often look for signs to guide us or to confirm some choice we already made.  The Lord does not condemn this practice but expects us to make use of it.  Indeed, he chastises the Pharisees for their failure to do so: “You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.”  The Lord, in this instance, is rebuking the Pharisees for their failure to recognize the signs for the coming of the Messiah.  In the present reading, the Pharisees seem to be asking for a sign that will confirm that he is the Messiah.  But the signs are everywhere evident.  In a way, the Gospel of St. Matthew is a collection of these signs.  The problem for the Pharisees, and sometimes us, is that it is easy to get so tied up in signs that the reality is missed.  The Pharisees is the Gospel reading are asking the one to whom the signs all point to give them more signs.  

Sometimes we cannot take Yes for an answer.  This can be out of fear.  We can become comfortable with signs because they point to a reality far off.  We can also ignore certain signs or talk ourselves out of taking some signs seriously and accept only the ones that seem to tell us what we want to think.  A person may notice a symptom of a potentially deadly disease, but then look for some sign that allows the person to discount the symptom, at least for the present.  We also fear being proven wrong if we think a sign is pointing to a definite thing and we find out that it not not pan out.  

A certain pattern of signs helps us more than a single one.  Lists of signs can be drawn up that enable to a person to tell if he or she is called to the Priesthood or to the religious life (in the fool-proof list I share with school kids, the first sign is immediate denial as soon as the subject comes up).  

“An evil and unfaithful generation seeks a sign.”  The Lord is speaking of the generation or age that lasts from the time of his Incarnation until his Second Coming.  The time of signs as to the coming of the Messiah ends at his coming.  The generation or age is “evil” and “unfaithful” because it seeks a different savior, not the Son of God.  It will not accept Jesus and his commandments.

“The sign of Jonah.”  We might think of Jonah as the prophet who tried to run from God, but the Lord is speaking of how he sacrificed himself for the crew of the ship during the storm.  This is the final sign of the Messiah.  “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.  The Lord speaks here of his Resurrection from the dead.  We might recall the the giant fish “vomited” Jonah onto the shore.  Thus also, Death vomited out from itself the Lord of Life.

“At the judgment, the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation and condemn it.”  The story of Jonah acted as a parable for Israel in that he was sent not to the people of the northern kingdom, where he hailed from, but to Israel’s greatest enemy of the time.  The Gentiles there repented after a few days of preaching by a foreign prophet, in contrast to the centuries during which the Lord sent multiple prophets to the northern kingdom where they lived, to no avail.  Nineveh was spared destruction on this occasion, but the northern kingdom was completely wiped out later by the armies of Assyria.  The Lord reminded the Pharisees of that if they do not heed the signs that point to him as the Messiah, this fate will likewise befall them.

“There is something greater than Solomon here.”  The one who filled Solomon with wisdom speaks here to the Pharisees.  He speaks plainly to them.  There are no parables, riddles, metaphors.  In the end, most of them refused to accept the Lord as their Lord.  We pray that we will look to no one but the Lord Jesus to be our Savior.