Saturday in the Twelfth Week of Ordinary Time, July 1, 2023

Matthew 8, 5-17

When Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion approached him and appealed to him, saying, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, suffering dreadfully.” He said to him, “I will come and cure him.” The centurion said in reply, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man subject to authority, with soldiers subject to me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come here,’ and he comes; and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith. I say to you, many will come from the east and the west, and will recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the banquet in the Kingdom of heaven, but the children of the Kingdom will be driven out into the outer darkness, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.” And Jesus said to the centurion, “You may go; as you have believed, let it be done for you.” And at that very hour his servant was healed.  Jesus entered the house of Peter, and saw his mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever. He touched her hand, the fever left her, and she rose and waited on him. When it was evening, they brought him many who were possessed by demons, and he drove out the spirits by a word and cured all the sick, to fulfill what had been said by Isaiah the prophet: He took away our infirmities and bore our diseases.

St. Matthew’s account of the Lord’s cure of the centurion’s slave differs markedly from that of St. Luke, the only other Evangelist who gives it.  St. Luke provides a little more detail and emphasizes that the Jews interceded on behalf of the centurion.  Both accounts report the centurion’s remarkable declaration that he is not worthy for the Lord to come into his house to heal the slave and that he believe the Lord can heal even from far off.  Both accounts recount the Lord’s praise of the centurion’s faith, but Matthew goes further and presents the Lord comparing the lack of faith by the Jews to that shown by the Gentiles, and that the former will be lost and the latter will be saved.  It is quite a remarkable statement to read, as it must have been to hear.  This Gospel Reading also includes the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law and subsequent healings he administered in Capernaum.

“When Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion approached him.”  St. Luke tells us that the centurion did not speak directly to Jesus but through intermediaries.  This does not necessarily contradict Matthew’s account because “centurion approached him” could just as easily mean that he approached him through the Jews who spoke for him.  “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, suffering dreadfully.”  Luke tells us that the slave was sick and about to die while we learn in Matthew that he was also paralyzed.  There is no contradiction here either since each Evangelist tells us part of what was said but not the whole, which we can reconstruct: “My slave is paralyzed, suffering dreadfully, and is about to die.”  

“I will come and cure him.”  The Lord acts as though the centurion were doing him the favor of asking him to heal the servant, so willing is Jesus to go to him.  We can see in this the eagerness of the Son of God to be made man in order to die for our sins.  But we allow his very willingness to take what he has done for us for granted or to minimize it.  “Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed.”  Luke lets us know that the centurion loved the Jewish nation and built the town’s synagogue.  We can infer from this that he knew that Jews were not allowed by the Law to go into the houses of Gentiles.  This may explain in part his reticence to have Jesus come to him, but he also makes an act of faith: “For I too am a man subject to authority, with soldiers subject to me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come here,’ and he comes; and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”  We should note that the centurion says, “I too am a man of authority.”  While the Jewish leaders challenge him and consider him an inferior, the Roman honors him as  an authority.

“Many will come from the east and the west, and will recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the banquet in the Kingdom of heaven.”  The Israelites had been oppressed by many nations from the east, especially the Babylonians, who destroyed the Temple.  The Romans came from the west.  These represent the Gentiles.  They will recline at the banquet in heaven with the founders of the Jewish people, namely, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  “But the children of the Kingdom will be driven out into the outer darkness, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”  Those who complacently believed that their status as descendants of Abraham. Isaac, and Jacob entitled them to recline with them at the banquet but who did not possess the faith of their forefathers, would not only miss out on it, but be driven into hell.  They were positioned for glory, chosen by God, and they rejected him.  They preferred to return as slaves in Egypt and eat their meals there to the heavenly banquet.

“And at that very hour his servant was healed.”  Both the Hebrew and Greek words for “hour” can mean an unspecified time.  The sense is that the slave was healed at that time.

“He touched her hand, the fever left her.”  This healing contrasts with that of the centurion’s pagan slave in that the Lord healed him from afar, and he heals the Jewish mother-in-law through touching her.  The mother-in-law shows the response the Jews should have made to the Lord in his coming to them: “She rose and waited on him.”  

We must take great care that we not fall into complacency, thinking that we have done enough in our service to the Lord, but we should take the attitude of servants in the parable: “We are unprofitable servants; we have done only that which we ought to do” (Luke 17, 10).

 Friday in the Twelfth Week of Ordinary Time, June 30, 2023

Matthew 8, 1-4

When Jesus came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him. And then a leper approached, did him homage, and said, “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.” He stretched out his hand, touched him, and said, “I will do it. Be made clean.” His leprosy was cleansed immediately. Then Jesus said to him, “See that you tell no one, but go show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses prescribed; that will be proof for them.”

“When Jesus came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him.”  This occurs immediately following his account of the Sermon on the Mount and so it acts as a sign of divine approbation for it.  The first verse seems to confirm the idea that Jesus had preached only to his disciples — whether Matthew meant by this his Apostles or the larger group of disciples — and not to the crowds.  If this were true, than the crowds waited for him to descend to them, and they followed him once he did.

“And then a leper approached, did him homage.”  Because large crowds were following Jesus, the leper must have approached him coming from in front.  Matthew says he “approached” Jesus, meaning that he came as near as he dared, considering his ailment rendered him unclean.  But Jesus must have walked right up to him because Matthew also tells us that he “stretched out” his hand to him.  The crowd behind may not have seen this but the Apostles around him would have shuddered in horror at the sight of their Lord drawing near to the repulsive sight of the leper.  The stench would also have nearly overpowered anyone in the proximity of the man.  But more than that, they would have felt anxiety that Jesus was putting himself in the position of becoming unclean himself.  

“Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.”  This can also be translated, “Lord, if it is your will, you are powerful to make me clean.”  The leper has heard of the Lord’s ability to heal.  He knows that it is merely a matter of whether it is the Lord’s will to make him clean.  We can understand this as the leper speaking for all of us, confessing his power and acknowledging his will.  The leper does not directly ask to be healed, but puts forward this statement which makes his healing (or not) a personal matter between the Lord and him.  It is as if he were asking, Do you want to heal me?  We ought to pray this way when we ask him to forgive our sins, for in praying “Lord, you have the power to forgive me” we explicitly state our belief in his power, whereas, “Please forgive me” only implicitly achieves this.

“He stretched out his hand, touched him.”  All who witnessed this touching would have gasped out loud at this.  Even the leper might have instinctively drawn back.  The Lord touched him without any warning, any hesitation.  Probably he touched his hand, but he might have touched his face.  We can try to imagine the leper’s feelings.  He had probably not felt a human touch in many years.  The Lord looked directly into his eyes, through his eyes, and into his soul.  The leper would have felt the Lord’s heart touching his as he looked at him.  The compassion in the Lord’s eyes alone would have melted away the putrefied sores.  In the precise instant the Lord touched him, he was healed: “His leprosy was cleansed immediately.”  St. Mark tells us that when the woman with the hemorrhages touched the Lord, “she felt in her body that she was healed of the evil” (Mark 5, 29).  Who can doubt that the leper felt the Lord’s power surging through him as well? 

“I will do it. Be made clean.”  This is better translated, “I will it.  Be cleansed.”  Jesus is saying that he it is his will for the leper to be cleansed.  It is not simply an agreement to do something.  It is the will of God that he be free from his leprosy.  It is the will of God that we be freed from our sins.  All we need do is to come before him with contrition and to confess that he has the power to do this.

“See that you tell no one.”  The Lord often told those whom he cured to tell no one of how it was done.  Here, he may have done so as a test of the man’s obedience towards the one who healed him, or it may have been in order to prevent him being overwhelmed by people seeking cures so that he had no time to preach. Sadly, in his report of the cure, St. Mark tells us, “He being gone out, began to publish and to blaze abroad the word: so that he could not openly go into the city. but was without in desert places. And they flocked to him from all sides” (Mark 1, 45).  

“But go show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses prescribed; that will be proof for them.”  It is unclear from Mark’s telling of the aftermath of the fire whether the former leper followed through with this or not.  According to the detailed instructions in the Book of Leviticus, only the Temple priests could declare a man cleansed of leprosy and grant that he return to his family.  This might have taken the form of a signed written notice.  The cleansed man was instructed to give as a gift “two living sparrows, which it is lawful to eat, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop” (Leviticus 14, 4).  The priest would examine the man for the tiniest sign of the disease.  Having presented the offering and survived the examination, the man would wash his clothes, shave all his hair, and wash himself.  He would return to his town, but could not enter his house for seven more days.  For us, when we ask for the forgiveness of our sins, this amounts to the performing of a penance.

The Lord looked into the man’s eyes and touched him with his hand.  May he one day look into our eyes and take us by the hand and lead us into heaven.

 The Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, Thursday, June 29, 2023

Matthew 16, 13–19

When Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter said in reply, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

The first evidence for the existence of this feast comes from a calendar of Church holy days produced in the fourth century.  This calendar notes that from the year 258 the dual feast of Peter and Paul was celebrated on June 29.  The date commemorates the transfer of the remains of the Apostles, originally buried near the sites of their executions, to one of the catacombs.  The fact that from very early on the two Apostles were venerated together is confirmed by similar feasts in the East, though on different days than June 29.  

Even as young men, neither Simon of Capernaum nor Saul of Tarsus could have imagined how their lives would turn out.  Simon, a successful fisherman, probably married, would have expected to live out his days near the Sea of Galilee.  Saul, an unmarried Pharisee who studied under the wise Rabbi Gamaliel, would have expected to spend the rest of his life in Israel, teaching the Law to others.  But first Simon, and about ten years later, Saul, discovered the Lord Jesus.  Simon met him through his brother Andrew.  Saul, through a vision while persecuting the first Christians in which the Lord Jesus spoke to him.  After long years of service to Jesus, both have up their lives in Rome, where they had brought the Gospel, in the year 67.

Of the two, Simon, whose name the Lord changed to Peter (“rock”), was the more impulsive of the two.  The Evangelists show him numerous times acting and speaking abruptly, making decisions quickly.  His speaking up and confessing that Jesus is the Son of God is part and parcel of this characteristic.  Later, as a further example, when he hears that the Lord has been raised from the dead, Peter (and John) jump up at once and run at breakneck speed to the tomb.  Paul had more reserve and was better educated, so that he could deaf and write.  Paul tended to plan his actions out ahead of time, as we can see from the plans he forms for his missionary journeys.  Both possessed enormous energy and zeal for Christ.  Both men so loved the Lord that they held nothing back in their service to him in their missionary work.  Paul’s touching words of his love for Jesus could have been spoken by Peter, too: “For to me, to live is Christ: and to die is gain” (Philippians 1, 21).  Likewise, Paul’s words towards the end of his life could have been Peter’s: “I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith.”  The prize for winning the race was Jesus himself.

We ask Saints Peter and Paul to intercede for us, that though, in awe of the Lord’s glory, we might wish to say, “Leave me Lord for I am a sinful man” (Luke 5, 8), we might say instead, “I count all things to be but loss for the excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ, my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but as dung, that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 3, 8). 

 Wednesday in the Twelfth Week of Ordinary Time, June 28, 2023

Matthew 7, 15-20

Jesus said to his disciples: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but underneath are ravenous wolves. By their fruits you will know them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? Just so, every good tree bears good fruit, and a rotten tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a rotten tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. So by their fruits you will know them.”

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but underneath are ravenous wolves.”  St. Matthew quotes the Lord Jesus twice on the subject of false prophets.  In the other passage, found in Matthew 24, 23-26, the Lord provides more detail, speaking of “false prophets and false Christs” who will perform wonders so convincing that even the elect will be tested in their faith.  In the context of his warning, these false prophets will arise in the time shortly before the end of the world.  St. John will later identify these as “the Antichrist” (1 John 4, 3), and St. Paul will speak explicitly of “the man of sin” and “the son of perdition” (2 Thessalonians 2, 3).  Jesus warns his believers to beware of them because they are servants of the devil who will lure many away from the path of virtue and faith to destruction.  When they come, they will present themselves wearing “sheep’s clothing”, that is, the appearance of goodness.  People will follow them not because they recognize them as evil but because they believe them to be doing God’s work.  This is the mystery of the Beast in the Book of Revelation: his number, 666, is not an evil number — in fact, it was a number considered by ancient people as a perfect number because the number six is the sum of its parts: 1 + 2 + 3 = 6.  The Beast, the false prophets, the Antichrist, will fool people with appearances.  We should note that Jesus speaks of the sign of “the sheep’s clothing”: he himself is the Lamb of God.  The false prophets shall make themselves out to be the Lord’s forerunner before the end of time or the Lord himself.  Beneath the appearances, however, these false prophets are “ravenous wolves” who will devour those foolish and faithless enough to follow them.  This devouring will take place both here on earth and in hell.  

The Lord warns his followers of the false prophets as though they were expected during their lifetimes.  St. John confirms that in his day they were already gone abroad: “He is now already in the world” (1 John 4, 3) and “Many seducers are gone out into the world” (2 John 7).  Each age has its false prophets.  No age is without them.  They often come in the form of religious or social reformers and are later known for the heretics and apostates and persecutors of the Church that they are.  

To recognize them for who they are and so to avoid their snares, the Lord advises us, “By their fruits you will know them.”  Through the orthodoxy of their preaching and their practice of the virtues we can know whether they lead us to or away from God.  St. Paul puts it another way: “Test all things: hold fast to that which is good” (1 Thessalonians 5, 21).

“Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”  The false prophet gives “bad fruit” which may look healthy but which poisons those who eat it.  The false prophet will suffer death and will be cast into the flames of hell.  He will be silenced and punished.  We might wonder why God allows the false prophet to speak at all.  He does this in order to give the false prophet time to reflect and repent.  

It is necessary for us to pray for the grace to recognize the false prophets who infest the present day so that we might stand fast in the truth that God has revealed to us.

 Tuesday in the Twelfth Week of Ordinary Time, June 27, 2023

Matthew 7, 6; 12-14

Jesus said to his disciples: “Do not give what is holy to dogs, or throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot, and turn and tear you to pieces.  Do to others whatever you would have them do to you. This is the Law and the Prophets. Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many. How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few.”

“Do not give what is holy to dogs.”  Verse 6 seems out of place with what came before and what comes afterwards.  It possibly goes with the Lord’s later instructions to the Apostles about their first preaching mission. In this case, “the holy thing” (as the Greek says) might be the message to repent for the Kingdom of heaven has approached.  We could read it thus: “Go ye not into the way of the Gentiles, and into the city of the Samaritans enter ye not (Matthew 10, 5) . . . Do not give the holy thing to dogs.”  Or if this saying properly belongs to the Lord’s sayings after his Resurrection as he is telling his Apostles to go out to all the world to preach the Gospel, “the holy thing” could refer to Baptism or to the holy mysteries of the Mass.  indeed, one of the Church Fathers identified “the holy thing” as baptism.

Without context, it is difficult to know to what “the holy thing” refers.  We do know what the Lord has in mind when he speaks of “dogs”.  Though the Jewish Law does not explicitly list the dog as an unclean animal in the way the pig is, Old Testament references to dogs eating the flesh of the dead certainly taints the animal as unclean.  The “dog”, then, was anyone unclean, primarily meaning the Gentiles.  The Lord himself spoke of the Gentiles in this way: “It is not good to take the bread of the children, and to cast it to the dogs” (Matthew 15, 26).  Likewise, “or throw your pearls before swine”.  The Lord explains why the Apostles should not corrupt what is holy: “Lest they trample them underfoot, and turn and tear you to pieces.”  That is, the unholy people will ruin the holy things and also attack the ones who provide them.  We can understand this verse today in terms of the reception of Holy Communion by non-Catholics or by those who are not in the state of grace.  While perhaps sounding harsh, it is necessary to keep in mind the great holiness of the Lord’s Body and Blood and the great vileness of the state of a person who has maliciously cast away the grace that the Lord Jesus died on the Cross to give him.

“Do to others whatever you would have them do to you.”  This verse also seems unconnected from what has gone before.  One explanation for this seeming collection of unrelated sayings is that Matthew is working from his memory and he puts down only what he is sure of and does not try to cobble together a flow of speech he is not certain of.  While for the believer, the meaning this admonition seems apparent, others have criticized it for being impossible to carry out in real life.  They argue that if someone were to ask us to give them our house, we should do this if we follow this rule if it is what we would have them do for us if we asked.  However, the Lord gives the rule to those who believe in him and who therefore would not ask a neighbor to give them something that would ruin the neighbor.  Such behavior would, in fact, violate the commandment that we love our neighbors as ourselves.

“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many.”  The “narrow gate” leads to life.  It is said to be a “gate” because it presents restrictions.  It is said to be “narrow” in that the restrictions are demanding.  The Lord says that the way to eternal life passes through a narrow gate, one side of the gate being the commandment to love God with all our heart, mind and soul.  The other side of the gate signifies the love of neighbor as oneself.  These “restrict” us from doing harm to our hopes for salvation by keeping us from worshipping false gods such as power, wealth, and sex and from doing harm to our neighbor.  The gate that leads to destruction is said to be broad because the two sides of the gate that leads to life have been torn down and only a wide hole in the fence remains. “Those who enter through it are many.”  Many people reject the narrow gate because they think themselves too good for any perceived abridgment on their imagined autonomy, and who want nothing more than to pursue the false gods that appeal to them.  It is the sin of Adam and Eve all over again, and leading to the same disaster.

“How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few.”  The gate to life is not narrow to keep people out.  It is narrow to keep people in.  Those are few who find it because those are few who look for it.  

 Monday in the Twelfth Week of Ordinary Time, June 26, 2023

Matthew 7, 1-5

Jesus said to his disciples: “Stop judging, that you may not be judged. For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you. Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove that splinter from your eye,’ while the wooden beam is in your eye? You hypocrite, remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye.”

“Stop judging, that you may not be judged.”  This verse has been much misinterpreted over the years.  The traditional English translation of the Greek verb in the verse has a range of meanings and has in fact shifted in meaning down through the centuries though the word continues to be retained.  In fact, in Ancient Greek it means “to bring to court”, “to accuse”, “to condemn”.  It most emphatically does not mean “to make or hold an opinion” or “to criticize”.  In practice, Jesus means for us not to act with malice on our thoughts or words about another person.  Neither should we jump to conclusions, assume the worst about someone’s intentions, or draw conclusions from generalizations.  By withholding our accusations and condemnations, we avoid sin and escape condemnation from God.  “The measure with which you measure will be measured out to you.”  While the first part of the verse tells us what not to do, the second part advises us on what we should do.  We should “measure” generously and graciously unto others, but because we imitate Jesus in his immeasurable generosity to us, offering his life for us, and because we thus increase our capacity for what God wants to give us.

“Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye?”  This “beam” would hold up a roof.  Jesus speaks to our desire to divert our own and others’ attention from our own faults.  He also hints that once this “beam” is removed we will find that it distorted our eyesight so badly that the fault we attributed to our brother in fact did not exist, and so we look doubly foolish.  “Let me remove that splinter from your eye,’ while the wooden beam is in your eye.”  Not only do we point to the supposed fault, we attempt to correct it though we truly do not understand how.  This is also the sign of a person who wishes to control other people.

“You hypocrite.”  Jesus calls such a person who accuses others of faults while themselves being riddled with faults “godless”.  This is the work not of a religious soul but of a pagan.  Pagan do not always worship statues, but they do always act in destructive ways against their neighbors in order to promote themselves.

In these verses we see the Lord Jesus not only fulfilling the Law but providing a way to understand that the basis of the Law — the path to heaven — is love.  

 The Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time, June 25, 2023

Matthew 10, 26–33

Jesus said to the Twelve: “Fear no one. Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known. What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light; what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge. Even all the hairs of your head are counted. So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.” 

In this part of his Gospel, St. Matthew is recording how the Lord Jesus prepared his Apostles to preach to the cities and towns in Galilee and Judea.  He has given them them specific instructions on what to take with them, how to act while on mission, and what to say.  The verses that make up today’s Gospel Reading, however, may actually come from a later time, during the forty days after the Resurrection, when the Lord was preparing the Apostles to go out to the world.  If this is correct, then Matthew adds them on to the instructions the Lord gives his Apostles at the an earlier time during his Public Life because the content is similar and it seemed to to him to fit there.  The reason for thinking this possible is that the Lord is sending the Twelve to nearby localities where they will not experience the persecution he speaks of here — they are just dipping their toes in the preaching life that they will know after Pentecost.  But whether Jesus spoke these words in the order we have them or indeed after the Resurrection, their meaning does not change for us.

“Fear no one.”  The Lord tells this to the Apostles who will be confronted by resistance, mockery, and both religious and civil authority.  A message which ought to cause universal rejoicing will be seen by many as a threat.

“Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known.  What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light; what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.”  This verse seems detached from “Do not fear”, but this addresses another fear, that the machinations and persecutions of the wicked will prevent the Gospel from being preached.  The Lord is saying, Do not worry, for the Gospel will be made known to everyone, everywhere.  Just do as I tell you.

“And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.”  The Lord returns to the subject of fear for their personal safety.  Down through the ages, from the time Adam and Eve lost immortality for the human race, people viewed death as the worst possible thing that could happen to a person.  They viewed it this way because death meant the end, extinction, though a person’s “shade” might persist for a time.  The Lord, however, revealed that the life of this world amounted to only the beginning of life for those who believed in God.  And this new life would make us forget about the pains of this life: “The sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come that shall be revealed to us” (Romans 8, 18).  The soul, Jesus reveals, is beyond the power of any man because it is in the hands of God.  “Be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.”  It is God alone who has power over the soul, and he will allow those who persevere in wickedness to suffer the consequences of their actions in hell.  “Gehenna” is a valley outside the city of Jerusalem into which trash was thrown and often burnt.  It was also a place where, during the time of the Kingdom of Judea, wicked priests and kings offered human sacrifices to pagan gods (cf. 2 Chronicles 28, 3).

“Even all the hairs of your head are counted.”  Each of us is fully accounted for in God’s marvelous Providence, and he dwells through his grace in each believer.  He knows us intimately and thoroughly.  He knows every action we have performed, no matter how slight and unconscious, and every reason for it: “You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, lo, O Lord, you know it through and through (Psalm 139:3-4).”

“Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.”  The Greek word translated here as “acknowledge” also has the meanings of “profess”, “confess”, and “praise”. Any of these options work better than the vague “acknowledge”.  One “acknowledges” the existence of another, but to “profess”, “confess”, or to “praise” express knowledge of another and allegiance to him.  We confess and praise God through our good deeds as well as verbally.  In fact, we act like Christians without regard for what anyone else thinks.  The reward for this is that our Lord will praise us before his Father in the life to come.  We ought to dwell on this, that the infinite and all-powerful Son of God who died for our sins will praise you and me for the comparatively little things we did for him here on earth!

We have no reason to fear anyone but have every reason to rejoice always (cf. 1 Thessalonians 5, 17).

 The Nativity of St. John the Baptist, Saturday, June 24, 2023

Isaiah 49, 1–6

Hear me, O coastlands, listen, O distant peoples. The Lord called me from birth, from my mother’s womb he gave me my name. He made of me a sharp-edged sword and concealed me in the shadow of his arm. He made me a polished arrow, in his quiver he hid me. You are my servant, he said to me, Israel, through whom I show my glory. Though I thought I had toiled in vain, and for nothing, uselessly, spent my strength, yet my reward is with the Lord, my recompense is with my God. For now the Lord has spoken who formed me as his servant from the womb, that Jacob may be brought back to him and Israel gathered to him; and I am made glorious in the sight of the Lord, and my God is now my strength! It is too little, he says, for you to be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and restore the survivors of Israel; I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.

These words, spoken by the Prophet Isaiah, also illuminate for us the interior life of John the Baptist.  Certainly, John showed himself a worthy descendent of Isaiah, who seems also to have come from a priestly family, and who preached repentance and prophesied future salvation both in his words and in the deeds the Lord told him to perform.  John likewise preached repentance and set forth signs such as in his clothing and food, and most especially in the sign of his baptism, which pointed to the baptism initiated by the Lord Jesus which conferred grace.

“The Lord called me from birth, from my mother’s womb he gave me my name.”  Now, we do not read of God telling his parents what to name Isaiah in the way John’s parents were told, but these words mean that God had charge of the child from his birth, and had prepared a special vocation for him.  As the son of a priest, John would have received an education in the Law and the Prophets such as would prepare him for service in the Temple.  The forerunner of the Savior, then, was guided by God to know the Scriptures and to know him.  “He made of me a sharp-edged sword and concealed me in the shadow of his arm.”  John spoke of Jesus as an “axe” (Matthew 3, 10), and the Prophet speaks of John as a “sword”.  As a sharp-edged sword in the hand of the Lord, John spoke plainly of the sins of the Pharisees and the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem, cutting through their pretensions and false interpretations of the Scriptures.  He was “concealed” in that he lived quietly for most of his life in Judea, praying and doing penance, and attracted crowds only in the last few years.

“You are my servant, he said to me, Israel, through whom I show my glory.”  God calls him “Israel”, who went into Egypt with his sons and did not live to see the nation sprung from his loins enter and inhabit the land God had promised to Abraham and his father Isaac before him.  John lived to see the beginning of Christ’s ministry, but did not live to see his Resurrection.

“Though I thought I had toiled in vain, and for nothing, uselessly, spent my strength, yet my reward is with the Lord, my recompense is with my God.”  The Prophets suffered periods of frustration and questioning.  Jeremiah especially poured out the darkness that sometimes filled him.  It is not impossible that John felt this too now and then in the long years of waiting for the Messiah as well as during his imprisonment in Herod’s fortress. He would have taken consolation from the fact that he was doing the will of God.  “For now the Lord has spoken who formed me as his servant from the womb, that Jacob may be brought back to him and Israel gathered to him.”  John knew deep inside his heart that he was the chosen instrument of God for beginning the work of calling Israel to return to God.  He knew that he was the voice who would cry out in the wilderness that the Kingdom of heaven was approaching.  

“I am made glorious in the sight of the Lord, and my God is now my strength!”  Just as the Virgin Mary could say that all generations would call her blessed for all that the Lord has done for her, so John the Baptist knew that he would be made glorious by what God had done for him in calling him to be the forerunner of the Son of God.  “It is too little, he says, for you to be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and restore the survivors of Israel.”  God praises John for his commitment to doing his will, for prophesying in an age long after the prophets had ceased to come, living in the wilderness instead of a city, as most of the prophets had, and giving up the chance to serve in the Temple, the highest honor a Jew could receive.  “I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”  And not only would he call the Jews together but his preaching went out to the Gentiles as well so that they began to look for a Savior from Israel.

 Friday in the Eleventh Week of Ordinary Time, June 23, 2023

Matthew 6, 19-23

Jesus said to his disciples: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal. But store up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be. The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light; but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be in darkness. And if the light in you is darkness, how great will the darkness be.”

“For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.”  The Lord Jesus offers us an acute piece of wisdom which enables us, with some ease, to identify our true priorities and to understand the target to which the trajectory of the choices we make will take us.

In Psalm 119, 97, we read: “O how have I loved your law, O Lord! It is my meditation all the day.”  The tense of the verb in the first sentence of the verse is in the perfect, indicating that an action begun in the past has continued into the present where it is completed.  The loving of the law does not mean a single action completed in the past but is continuous to the present time.  In order to accomplish this action a person must be vigilant and concentrated.  No other action may interfere with it or surpass it.  “It is my meditation all the day” tells us the result of this love of the law of God.  Notice that “all the day” does not rule out other activities, but that these would be subordinated to or derive from the meditation.  This preoccupation with the law of God — that is, his nature, his work as Creator, his Divine Providence, the Redemption of the human race, and so on, shows where this person’s heart is because this is his treasure.  

In contrast, Ecclesiastes 5, 11 says: “Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income.”  The one who loves money or devotes himself to fornication, drunkenness, or power never has enough.  The more he has, the more he wants.  These are his treasures.  As Ecclesiastes 4, 8 reflects: There is a man, who has no spouse, no child, no brother, and yet he ceases not to labor, neither are his eyes satisfied with riches, neither does he reflect, saying: For whom do I labor, and defraud my soul of good things?”  Giving in to the drive for more and more makes it almost impossible for a person to realize that the treasures which he seeks are ultimately worthless: “You fool, this night do they require your soul of you. And whose shall those things be which you have obtained?” (Luke 12, 20).  His heart lies in his treasure, which “moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal.”

At what do we spend our time and our attention?  Is it on video games or social media?  On our career or our personal ambitions or those we have for members of our family?  These are our treasures, for these are where our hearts are.  But these are not treasures in heaven.  Ultimately they will fail and we will have nothing to show for having hard them.

But to place our hearts on Jesus Christ and knowing and serving him results in everlasting riches.  We will have no need to ask ourselves, “For whom do I labor, and defraud my soul of good things?”  For we labor for God and receive good things now and in eternity.

 Thursday in the Eleventh Week of Ordinary Time, June 22, 2023

Matthew 6, 7-15

Jesus said to his disciples: “In praying, do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them. Your Father knows what you need before you ask him. This is how you are to pray: ‘Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.’ “If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.”

There seem to be two stories of how Jesus teaches the Our Father to his followers.  Here, he teaches it as part of his Sermon on the Mount.  In Luke 11, 1 we read: “And it came to pass that as he was in a certain place praying, when he ceased, one of his disciples said to him: Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”  Luke then quotes the Lord, who presents a slightly different form of the prayer.  The most sensible way to understand this as that these are two separate occurrences.  The settings and circumstances of the accounts are very distinct.  And it is likely that many people would have asked the Lord how to pray during the course of the three years of his Public Life.

The prayer itself is meant as a sign of the distinction between the followers of John the Baptist, those of the Pharisees, and others, as we can tell from the quote from Luke.  It is not a prayer for the coming of the Messiah, as John would have taught his disciples, nor for worldly goods, as the Pharisees would have taught theirs, but for the Kingdom of God to come.  That is, for the great judgment at the end of the world and the raising up of the just into heaven.  The main intention of the prayer is made clear at the beginning.  After addressing the heavenly, Father, he is blessed: “Hallowed by thy name.”  Then the leading petition, to which all the others are subordinate which relate to it, is made: “[May] thy kingdom come.”  The petition that follows it is akin to it: “[May] thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  That is, the Father’s will is accomplished by the coming of his kingdom.  The Lord instructs us to pray for our “daily bread”, grace and the Holy Eucharist, which will preserve us until God’s kingdom comes.  We pray for the forgiveness of our sins, which we must have in order to enter heaven, which is conditioned upon our forgiveness of others: “If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you.”  The petition translated centuries ago as “Lead us not into temptation” sounds alarming to modern ears.  The Greek says, “Put us not to the test.”  We can learn the meaning of the petition by considering the Lord’s admonition to the Apostles at the Last Supper: “Pray that you be not put to the test” (Matthew 26, 41), that is, their faith.  We are praying for perseverance in our faith in Jesus, come what  may, so that we may enter the Kingdom of God.  “Deliver us from evil”, or, “Deliver us from the evil one” concludes the prayer, for we owe our salvation to God alone, and cannot buy it or earn it on our own.

This prayer that Jesus teaches, emblematic of the Christian, is concise and to the point.  May all of our prayers be like this and not the rambles of lawyers who seek to gain a positive outcome for their clients by clouding the issue at hand with an over abundance of words.

 Wednesday in the Eleventh Week of Ordinary Time, June 21, 2023

Matthew 6, 1-6; 16-18

Jesus said to his disciples: “Take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them; otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father. When you give alms, do not blow a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets to win the praise of others. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right is doing, so that your almsgiving may be secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you. When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you. When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites. They neglect their appearance, so that they may appear to others to be fasting. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you may not appear to others to be fasting, except to your Father who is hidden. And your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you.”

“Take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them; otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father.”  The desire for the approval and applause of others is rooted in weakness.  It is as though we depend on this approval and applause to reassure us of our essential goodness and reaffirm our high opinion of ourselves.  It is also true that some very deliberately and publicly perform some act of charity in order to uphold their place in society by gaining and cementing the good opinion of others.  The Lord is criticizing these latter, for they make a travesty of charitable actions, which are done for the sake of the needy and not for the sake of oneself.  Because these actions are performed for the sake of the needy, the person doing them does not draw attention to the recipients of his actions, lest they be embarrassed by their need.  Done properly, with true love for the recipients, these deeds receive “recompense” from our Heavenly Father.  What kind of recompense?  One only the Father can render: “He who has mercy on the poor, lends to the Lord: and he will repay him” (Proverbs 19, 17).

“When you give alms, do not blow a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do.”  The Greek word translated here as “hypocrite” is used in the Septuagint (the early Greek translation of the Old Testament) to translate a Hebrew word that means “godless”.  We see, then, how strong the Lord’s condemnation is.  To be “godless” is to act as the heathen do, without any reference to God but solely based on one’s own self-interest.  Godless actions harden a person in his godlessness so that he deserves a severe punishment in hell: “Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.”  That is, they make their place in the afterlife more certain.

“Do not let your left hand know what your right is doing, so that your almsgiving may be secret.”  Throughout the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord uses figures of speech to drive home his meaning.  He uses hyperbole, for instance, in advising people to cut off their hands lest their hands cause them to sin, or not to resist evil.  Here he speaks of one hand not knowing what the other is doing, as though hands had their own minds.  His point is that his followers should be so accustomed to performing good deeds that they themselves do not notice the significance of what they are doing.  That is, charity ought to become ordinary behavior, not extraordinary.

“When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them.”  This May seem ridiculous behavior to us today, but in the very religious culture of the Jews in .Israel at that time, it often happened that someone whose heart was full would cry out in prayer publicly.  We see an example of this in the case of Zechariah when he recovered his ability to speak after naming John the Baptist.  Prayer was always spoken aloud at that time, whether on the street or in the synagogue or Temple.  It could be used to proclaim one’s good fortune or supposed virtue.  But the Lord cautions his followers, “When you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret.”  This practice preserves the purity of the prayer, which is meant for God alone.

“When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites.”  That is, like the godless heathens who are only interested in the approval of others.  In the days when Jesus walked the earth, there was one major fast, the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), and various minor fasts that prohibited eating from sundown to sunrise.  The Lord says not to make a show of fasting, but to act as one would on ordinary days.  The purpose of fasting is to do penance, to remember one’s lowliness.  Calling attention to oneself when fasting directly contradicts this purpose.

Just as the Law given by God to the Hebrews in the wilderness made them a nation distinct from the peoples around them by its particular regulation of behavior, so the fulfillment of the Law in the Sermon on the Mount does this for Christians.  We are not to act like the others around us, but like Jesus our Lord.

 Tuesday in the Eleventh Week of Ordinary Time, June 20, 2023

Matthew 5, 43-48

Jesus said to his disciples: “You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same? So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

When cornered regarding an error, a miscalculation, or a sin, people often excuse themselves by saying, “Nobody’s perfect.”  But that is not true.  Besides the Lord Jesus himself, there is Blessed Mother.  She is not perfect through a magic spell but because she cooperated with the will of God in all the moments of her life.  Grace certainly aided her, but it only made what she accomplished achievable.  At any time she could have chosen to deviate from his will but she did not.  There are all the saints, as well.  These men, women, and children may have sinned and even have lives of debauchery, but by the time of their deaths, through lives spent in penance and selfless devotion to the Lord, they became perfect.  We can think of St. Mary of Egypt, a courtesan for much of her life whose heart was changed by a few lines from the Gospel which she heard one day while passing a church.  She repented in the wilderness, living in a cave on bread and water, praying for forgiveness.  Or St. John of God, who hired himself out as a mercenary during the sixteenth century, living a thoroughly ungodly life, until he converted, did penance, and served the poor for the rest of his life.  He died while trying to save a youth from drowning.

“So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  These words may seem impossible to fulfill.  It may seem one thing to become as perfect as a human saint but quite another to be perfect as God himself is perfect.  We think this because we fail to understand what Jesus means.  He is not telling us to become infinite as God is, or as fully actuated as God is (for, as St. Thomas Aquinas tells us, God is pure act).  God is perfect in the ways that God can be perfect, and we are called to be perfect in the ways that a human can be perfect, and for us that principally means having no attachment to sin and loving, believing, and hoping to the full extent of our ability.  And, as we see in the saints, this is quite possible for us.  We may gaze upon St. Therese or St. Anthony and think that we have so far to go that we will never succeed.  It is like a child beginning to learn to play the piano and struggling with a simple tune, thinking she will never be able to perform the Beethoven piano sonatas.  It takes work, hard work, accepting the assistance of the grace God provides, but it can be done.  In our case, it must be done, for only the pure of heart shall see God.

 Monday in the Eleventh Week of Ordinary Time, June 19, 2023

Matthew 5, 38-42

Jesus said to his disciples: “You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one to him as well. If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well. Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles. Give to the one who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow.”

Jesus says, “Offer no resistance to one who is evil”.  We have to read this verse in context with the preceding verses, which include, “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.”  That is, Jesus is using hyperbole to make a point.  He is telling us not to offer violence with intent to harm: do not provoke someone into a fight, and do not enact revenge against a person.  Rather, seek justice from the proper authorities.  Now, in following the commandment to love oneself and our neighbors, we ought to understand that we can defend ourselves and those for whom we have responsibility.  In contrast, if we literally offered no resistance to evil, we would be complicit in it.  This applies also to the famous words about turning one’s cheek.  We are not to offer ourselves to violence, but we are to avoid committing it, particularly with malice, as best we can.  

“Give to the one who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow.”  The commandment here is to be generous, but it is not meant in an absolute sense: a person ought to be generous but not so that it affects one’s own good or that of the people for whom one is responsible.  If our neighbor asks us for a thousand dollars and we have only that much and it is for the rent we owe, then we cannot give to our neighbor.  In this case, we simply do not have it to give.  We can understand this verse, then, as: Give to the one who asks of you if you are able.  We must also be prudent with our money and other goods.  If a person asks us for money and our best guess is that the person will use it to fuel his addiction, then we ought not to provide the money.  We use it to pay our bills or help someone with the necessities of life.  We should also keep in mind here that in the historical context in which Jesus was speaking, a person only asked for a loan if he was in trouble.  In the first century A.D., no one was seeking loans in order to pay for luxuries.  Loaned money would be used to pay taxes, to buy food, or even to get a person released from debtor’s prison.  Often, usurious rates would be applied to the loan, although theoretically the Jewish law prohibited Jews from charging interest on loans to each other.  Jesus is reminding his hearers not to do this, but to loan freely.

The reason for us to be generous is that our God is generous.  As we have freely received from him, we should freely give.

 The Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, June 17, 2023

Matthew 9:36—10:8

At the sight of the crowds, Jesus’ heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.” Then he summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness. The names of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon called Peter, and his brother Andrew; James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus; Simon from Cana, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed him. Jesus sent out these twelve after instructing them thus, “Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town. Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons. Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.”

“At the sight of the crowds, Jesus’ heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned.”  A couple of vocabulary details to helps us with this Gospel Reading.  First, while “Jesus’ heart was moved with pity” is a picturesque phrase, the Greek word simply means “to pity”.  St. Matthew, as an author, was not much given to sentimental phrases like this.  Second, the Greek word translated as “abandoned” actually has the meaning of “cast aside”: the shepherd has not merely walked away from the flock, he has treated them contemptuously in leaving them.  This describes the state of the Jews at that time.  The priests did not preach to them or teach them the Law as the Law itself commanded them to do, and those self-appointed experts, the Pharisees, misinterpreted the Word of God for the people so that they were not much better off than if they had no teachers at all.  The people yearned for a Savior and desired to do God’s will, but the Pharisees did not accept Jesus despite his miracles and they made following the Law so complicated that the idea of serving God fell away from the Law altogether.

“The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.”  The people are ready to hear the announcement of the approach of the Kingdom of heaven, but despite his relentless efforts, the Lord could not go out to all the towns and villages of Galilee and Judea.  Nor could he go to the Jewish communities in Alexandria, Egypt, and in Rome to preach to them.  The three years allotted for his Public Life simply did not contain enough days.  The Lord tells the disciples to pray for “laborers” — he is telling them to pray that they be good laborers for this work.  When the Lord makes us aware of a problem, he is pointing to us to do something about it.  “Then he summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness.”  We do not give ourselves authority, but it must come from an authority.  Otherwise we are usurpers and no better than the Pharisees.  The Apostles receive this authority and power not in order to gather followings for themselves but to validate their preaching about the Kingdom of heaven and the need for repentance.  These signs, worked from heaven, prove to all that what they say comes from God.

“The names of the twelve apostles are these, etc.”  The list of names appears in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.  The Evangelists give them in almost in the same order, with a couple variations on the names, as Nathanael for Bartholomew.  Looking at the calling of the Apostles in the four Gospels, the Apostles seem to be listed in the order in which they were called, except for Peter, who should be listed after Andrew and John, to go by the Gospel of St. John.  The Evangelists may give these lists in order to distinguish them from the deacons and other disciples preaching in the earliest days of the Church.

“Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town. Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  The Lord forbids the Apostles to go into non-Jewish lands not because he disdains the people in these places but because he wants to give his Apostles a chance to learn how to preach in a familiar setting before going into more challenging locations.  “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  This verse is more correctly translated, The Kingdom of God has drawn near” — it did not suddenly and randomly appear; it has steadily and deliberately approached.  “Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons. Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.”  The Apostles did not have to pay expensive fees to obtain the authority and power to perform these miraculous works.  Nor did they even dare to ask for it.  The Lord gave it to them with their asking and without cost.  It came with their assignment.  Evidently they did heal the sick and cast out devils, from what they told Jesus on their return, but they did not raise the dead until after they received the Holy Spirit after the Resurrection.

We are sent out likewise with such power — grace — given to us as we may need for the individual job each of us is called to do.

 The Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Saturday, June 17, 2023

Luke 2, 41-51

Each year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, and when he was twelve years old, they went up according to festival custom. After they had completed its days, as they were returning, the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Thinking that he was in the caravan, they journeyed for a day and looked for him among their relatives and acquaintances, but not finding him, they returned to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions, and all who heard him were astounded at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.” And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he said to them. He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart. 

This feast was first celebrated locally in France in 1648 and was instituted for the universal Church in 1805.  It was at first celebrated in February.  As war raged throughout the world during the year 1944, Pope Pius XII dedicated it to the protection of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, moving the feast celebrating it to August 22, the octave day of the Solemnity of Mary’s Assumption into heaven.  In 1969, Paul VI moved the feast to the Saturday following the Feast of the Sacred Heart, and the Feast of the Queenship of Mary from May 31 to August 22 so that it fell on the octave day of the Assumption.  The devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary commemorates the overflowing love of the Blessed Virgin for her Son Jesus and also for us, whom the Lord gave to her as her children while he hung dying on the Cross.

The present Gospel passage was set in the lectionary for this feast because it tells of the love of the Virgin’s heart for her Son, an ongoing love that grew as she thought upon him and his deeds and actions, just as ours will if we do this.

“Each year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, and when he was twelve years old.”  St. Luke could have written this verse in another way: When Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, after he turned twelve.  Luke could safely assume that Theophilus, to whom he was writing, knew that the Jews all went up to Jerusalem at this time so he need not have included the words “each year”.  He does so, however, to emphasize the piety of the Lord’s parents.  They practiced their religion with great devotion and so fostered their Son’s love for his Father in heaven as he grew according to his human nature.  “When he was twelve years old.”  Luke is careful to point out this detail: Jesus is now an adult in the Jewish world.  This allows him, for the first time, to separate himself from his human parents in order to begin the work set for him by his Almighty Father.  Luke will make a similar statement about the Lord’s age at the beginning of his Public Life: “Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age” (Luke 3, 23).  He does so to show that the Lord obeyed the custom of the time, that a man could not begin to teach as a rabbi until he had reached his thirtieth year.  

“After they had completed its days.”  We note the precise information that Luke has, as though coming from the Blessed Virgin herself.  According to the Law, the people would eat unleavened bread for seven days after the Passover and then come together for an assembly to worship God.  The Holy Family, then, stayed in Jerusalem for about a week.  It would be interesting to know if they stopped by Bethlehem as they came or went in order to see members of their extended family who would have still lived there.

“The boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem.”  The Greek word translated here as “boy” has a broad range of meanings including “young man”, “son”, “servant”, and “attendant”.  It implies a young man not yet married, for then another word, meaning both “adult man” and “husband” would be used.  “Thinking that he was in the caravan, they journeyed for a day and looked for him among their relatives and acquaintances.”  The men and women traveled in separate caravans, and at the age of twelve Jesus could have walked with either Joseph or Mary.  One of his parents must have sent a message to the other inquiring about Jesus, and then they would have known that Jesus was not among them.  Supposing he was walking with other relatives in the throng, each would have searched through the particular caravans, enlisting others to help them.  It would have been a big job.  But when Jesus was not found, Mary and Joseph dropped out of the crowds and went together back to Jerusalem.  They must have figured that if Jesus was in the city, he would have to be in the Temple courtyard, presumably in the women’s court, the only part of the Temple he had gone into to that time.

“When his parents saw him, they were astonished.”  In verse 47, the people are astonished at the Lord’s knowledge; in verse 48, Mary and Joseph are described as “thunderstruck” (as the Greek word means) at seeing him there, sitting in the midst of a group of teachers.  They might have reacted this way because they saw him “sitting” there, ringed around by the teachers, as though students, in the posture of one who was himself teaching.  The gulf between teacher and student has shrunk dramatically in our times so that teachers often cannot control their students and even fear them.  In ancient times, a teacher was revered by student and public alike.  To be known as the student of a prominent teacher amounted to a mark of honor and a sign of intelligence.  Therefore, the sight of the young, unschooled, Jesus seated as a teacher while holding spellbound older men recognized as teachers must have come as a shock, even given their knowledge of his divine origins.  It was also, for them, the first sign since his Birth and the days following of his divinity.

“Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.”  Mary speaks before Joseph can.  She reveals her heart to us in her.  She calls him “child”, according to the Greek, that is, a male child, not so much “son”.  “What did you do thus to us”, literally.  She is not simply asking him the reason for his acting as he had. According to the Greek, it is as though Mary knows that from now on, their relationship with him has changed.  It is a sign of the day when Mary will come to him while he is preaching and he continues preaching without greeting her (cf. Matthew 12, 46-50).  The Greek word translated here as “anxiety” actually means the much stronger “pain” or “torture”, so that Mary was saying, “Child, what have you done thus to us? Your father and I were searching for you, suffering torture.”

“Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”  Jesus confirms his Mother’s understanding of the change in their relationship with him.  He also answers her address of him as “child” by speaking of choosing to be in his Father’s house than with his human parents.  He is an adult now, not a child, and is free from then on to make his own way in life.  It is a hard blow for any mother to hear, but a much harder one for this Mother, who loved her Son with a love beyond all telling.  The Lord also reminds her and Joseph that they knew this day would come.  According to the Greek, he asks them, “Had you not known that I must be in my Father’s house?”  That is, from the beginning.

“But they did not understand what he said to them.”  They did not understand fully what he said to them, for he spoke to them as an adult and with authority as he would later speak to the crowds.  

“He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them.”  He could have gone off from Mary and Joseph after that or he could have stayed in Jerusalem, but he went home with them out of his love for them and to show us his humility through his obedience, though he did not owe it.  “And his mother kept all these things in her heart.”  The Greek says, His Mother “kept safe” or “held fast” all these “words” or “sayings”.  She treasured all his Son’s words and actions.  She clung to them tightly throughout her life.  Her keen intellect caught it all and she forgot nothing.  

In understanding something of her love for her Son we can apply the words of the Bride from The Song of Songs to her: “I sat down under his shadow, whom I desired: and his fruit was sweet to my palate.”  She was happily content to be his Handmaid even as he became her Son, and she watched and listened to him, enjoying his fruit, his love for her.