Thursday in the Second Week of Ordinary Time, February 29, 2024

Luke 16, 19-34

Jesus said to the Pharisees: “There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day. And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man’s table. Dogs even used to come and lick his sores. When the poor man died, he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried, and from the netherworld, where he was in torment, he raised his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. And he cried out, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me. Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am suffering torment in these flames.’ Abraham replied, ‘My child, remember that you received what was good during your lifetime while Lazarus likewise received what was bad; but now he is comforted here, whereas you are tormented. Moreover, between us and you a great chasm is established to prevent anyone from crossing who might wish to go from our side to yours or from your side to ours.’ He said, ‘Then I beg you, father, send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they too come to this place of torment.’ But Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them.’ He said, ‘Oh no, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ Then Abraham said, ‘If they will not listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.’ ”

Today’s Gospel Reading features one of the Lord’s most fascinating parables inasmuch as it is the only one which deals with the life of the soul in the next world.  We should pay especial attention to what the Lord tells us about it.

“There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day.”  It seems very likely that the Lord is telling about two actual individuals.  He gives a name to one of the two main characters, which he otherwise never does.  He is also carefully making a point to the Pharisees: this rich man was one of them and perhaps they even dined at his home, brushing past the man on the ground in front of their friend’s house: “And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man’s table.”  His sores came from his skin scraping against the hard ground and, untreated, would have worsened over time.  He probably suffered from what today we could call “bed sores”.  And for the dogs to come to lick these tells us something of their reek, and of the man’s helplessness.

“When the poor man died, he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham.”  Uncaring hands had carried Lazarus to the rich man’s door and left him to die — the Greek text says that he had been dropped or thrown there — and was no more of their concern.  But it is angelic hands that softly caress the soul of Lazarus and gently bear him to paradise.  The Lord, specifically, speaks of “the bosom of Abraham”.  In Ancient Greek, to say that a person was “in the bosom” of another person meant to have a place right next to that person at a banquet,  as an example of this, see John 13, 23 when at the Last Supper “there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of his disciples, the one whom Jesus loved.”  The picture we have in the parable, then, is of a great banquet at which Abraham presides, with Lazarus placed next to him as a highly honored guest.  They are not seated on chairs but are reclining on dining couches before the table on which would be set rich food and wine.  The term itself was in use at that time, as we find from such Jewish works as the one sometimes styled “The Fourth Book of Maccabees”.  It was used to describe a place of consolation for Jewish martyrs.  

“The rich man also died and was buried, and from the netherworld, where he was in torment, he raised his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side.”  The Greek “Hades” is translated here as “netherworld”.  Jesus is probably speaking to the Pharisees in Greek and so this would be the word he used.  It would correspond with Gehenna, which word he uses when speaking in Aramaic to the crowds and the Apostles.  The netherworld is a distinctly different place from the bosom of Abraham although both contain the souls of the dead, for the rich man suffered in torment there.  “He raised his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side.”  Now, the fact that the rich man recognized Abraham tells us that he must have had theological training, for there were no portraits of him as there were portraits of the great kings of the time.  This strengthens the case that he was a Pharisee and that Jesus wanted the Pharisees to whom he was telling the parable to know it.  

“Father Abraham, have pity on me. Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am suffering torment in these flames.”  The rich man calls Abraham his “father”, but he had not acted as his son while on earth because Abraham was most hospitable to those passing by his camp (cf. Genesis 18, 2-5) and he had not given so much as a crumb to Lazarus to lay at his door for months.  We see the rich man’s desperation: he begs for a drop of water.  Part of his torment must have been to see Lazarus surrounded by so much greater richness than the rich man had ever imagined possessing.  All the rich man possesses now are the flames tearing at him: “I am suffering torment in these flames.”  His words indicate that he expects Abraham to know who he is though he does not give his name.  

“My child, remember that you received what was good during your lifetime while Lazarus likewise received what was bad; but now he is comforted here, whereas you are tormented.”  Abraham indicates that the destinies of the rich man and Lazarus were linked together by Divine Providence: the one man had received a surplus to good things and the other a severe deficit of good things.  Both had received the Law by which Almighty God provided for the poor by various means, including through alms.  The poor man existed, in a sense, in order to give an opportunity for the rich man to gain his salvation, and the rich man was given his riches precisely so that he might care for the poor man.  But the rich Pharisees was perhaps too learned to remember this.

“Moreover, between us and you a great chasm is established to prevent anyone from crossing who might wish to go from our side to yours or from your side to ours.”  This unbridgeable chasm exists because the hatred of the wicked makes unbearable the sight of the righteous enjoying themselves.  The righteous cannot cross over because of their deeply-rooted respect for God’s justice.

“Then I beg you, father, send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they too come to this place of torment.’   Even in hell, those who possessed power on earth cling to the illusion that they still possessed it.  The constant reminders that they do not constitute part of their torture.  Here, the rich man, no longer rich, tries to manipulate Abraham to do his will.  “They have Moses and the Prophets. Let them listen to them.”  By the “five brothers” we might see Jesus speaking through the rich man of his brother Pharisees, who pride themselves on their study of Moses and the Prophets.  We might speculate that Jesus was telling this parable to the town’s remaining five Pharisees.

“Oh no, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.”  Here the Lord plants a seed in the hearts of the Pharisees to whom he is speaking, that it might sprout when they hear of the Lord’s Resurrection in the weeks to come.  But if it does not, they will know well that they have no one to blame but themselves in the world to come: “f they will not listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.”

As we read the Lord’s parables he is speaking to each of us directly in the present time.  How carefully we ought to consider what he says to us.

 Wednesday in the Second Week of Lent, February 28, 2024

Matthew 20, 17-28

As Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the Twelve disciples aside by themselves, and said to them on the way, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death, and hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and scourged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.”  Then 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.”

“Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death, and hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and scourged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.”  We ought to try and imagine Jesus saying this to his Apostles, and them hearing this.  The way that the Lord phrases it, the reason they are going up to Jerusalem is so that this will happen.  He addresses only his Apostles, away from the crowd.  Does he do this at night as they are preparing to sleep out of doors?  It would seem so, for the road during the day is crowded with pilgrims either following him or making their own way to Jerusalem for the coming Passover: there would be little opportunity to speak privately to them then.  How would he speak to them?  Calmly, seriously, very deliberately, and without any hint of apprehension.  He would have taken care to speak slowly and clearly enough for all to hear him.  He looked them all in their eyes, and he let them see a glimpse of the commitment to redeeming us that filled his heart.  He had already told them, “The Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of men: And they shall kill him, and the third day he shall rise again” (Matthew 17, 21-22).  But now he tells them that the time had come.  In addition, he tells them who it is that will have him put to death: the chief priests and the scribes, the Jewish leaders.  These were the ones who should have recognized him as the Son of Man.  They were not the busybody Pharisees who buzzed around the towns of Galilee and Judea and ran their mouths.  These were the rulers over Israel, at least in the religious sense.  The expectation was that when the Son of Man, the Messiah, came, he would be recognized by the high priests, made King over Israel, and the revolt against the Romans would commence.  His rejection by the high priests, which the Lord was foretelling to them, made no sense.  His imminent Death made no sense.  This was not what the Pharisees had been telling them the Scriptures said since they were children.

The Twelve listened in silence and did not respond in words.  Some must have shaken their heads even as they were shaken to their cores by the Lord’s news.  One, though was affected by his words in a different way: Judas Iscariot.  One strange twist in the Lord’s words caught them, though.  Often before, when they thought they knew what he was saying, had figured out the message of a parable, the Lord threw some bit of detail in that changed the story or their perception of his teaching altogether.  He had said, at the end of his statement, “He will be raised on the third day.”  What did this mean?  Death, they understood.  But “he will be raised” was something new.  The Lord did not attempt to explain this to them either.  He tells them only what they needed to know.  We can compare his reserve to that of the Angel Gabriel’s Annunciation to the Virgin Mary.  She is told that a most stupendous, unprecedented wonder would occur within her, the Incarnation of the Son of God.  She is told what she needs to know regarding how it would happen — that her virginity would be preserved — and almost nothing more.  She is not told anything in regards to Joseph, how to prepare for his Birth, where the Child should be born, how to care for him, whether she might tell this news to anyone else.  The Angel waits to hear her consent and then he is gone.  It is the same with us.  God gives us only what we need to know at the time.  It never seems enough, and yet it is, so long as we are obedient.

“Command that these two sons of mine sit, one at your right and the other at your left, in your kingdom.”  The mother of the sons of Zebedee, whose name comes down to us as Salome, does not know what the Lord has told her sons.  She glows with confidence at the coming restoration of Israel and wants her sons to have a prominent place in it.  This is why he answers her as he does: “You do not know what you are asking.”  He does not explain  further.  But to James and John, the “sons of thunder”, he turns and asks, “Can you drink the chalice that I am going to drink?”  That is, Can you share in my destiny?  Having heard his declaration to them that he was going to Jerusalem to die at the hands of the Jewish officials, and not understanding what he meant by his being raised on the third day, they make a courageous answer: “We can.”  This too can be compared to the Virgin Mary’s consent.  Her love of God and fervent desire to serve him overrode any concerns she might have had for how she was to carry out her part in her Son’s life.  James and John so loved the Lord and were so zealous in his service and they, with Simon Peter, formed a special subset of the Apostles, did not fully understand to what they were consenting, but they knew they had to be with their Lord whatever it meant for them.

The other Apostles saw this as a ploy for power over them, for if they were to sit at the Lord’s sides, they would be understood as nearly his equals and they would have authority even over them.  Suddenly we are back in the realm of petty human rivalries and jealousies.  The Lord decisively makes it clear that inasmuch as they belong to him they must imitate him in their lives and no one else.  Their model was not to be drawn from the conquerors of the past but the One who would conquer sin for our eternal benefit.  “The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”  

This is the “chalice” Jesus offers those who wish to reign with him, the cup of service, the chalice of obedience to the Father.  We drink his Blood with this chalice and so enter his life, in whatever form it may take for us.

 Tuesday in the Second Week of Ordinary Time, February 27, 2024

Matthew 23, 1-12

Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying, “The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens hard to carry and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them. All their works are performed to be seen. They widen their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels. They love places of honor at banquets, seats of honor in synagogues, greetings in marketplaces, and the salutation ‘Rabbi.’ As for you, do not be called ‘Rabbi.’ You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers. Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven. Do not be called ‘Master’; you have but one master, the Christ. The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

From Chapter 21 to Chapter 28 of St. Matthew’s Gospel, the Evangelist tells us of the Lord’s last week on earth, his Resurrection, and his Ascension into heaven.  Most of the Lord’s teaching concerns itself with the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple (at the end of the Jewish rebellion in 70) and with the end of the world.  Here, Matthew reports on how the Lord addressed the very current issue (at the time) of the authority of the scribes and the Pharisees, groups which overlapped to some degree.  The conclusion the Lord reaches helps us in our own understanding of authority in the Church.

“The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses.”. That is, the “chair of Moses” did not belong to them — it belonged to the sons of Aaron who would succeed Moses as teachers of the Law (cf. Leviticus 10, 8-11).  The scribes and Pharisees were not of the descendants of Aaron and were not among the priests.  And though at certain times the Scriptures state that the priests did teach the people, it is made clear that this was a very brief resumption of the work assigned to them by Almighty God.  The Scriptures mention, for instance, centuries in which the Passover was not celebrated and even the Sabbath was forgotten.  Those who returned to their homeland after the Babylonian Exile appear almost completely ignorant of their religion so that they had to be taught it again.  This was all the fault of the priests, and particularly of the high priests, who evidently saw no profit in it or who perhaps did not know much of the Law themselves beyond what involved their particular duties in the Temple.  And so, with the severe need for the people to learn the Law and the lack of help by the priests, a void existed which was filled by others who appointed themselves as teachers.  The Pharisees, a reform sect that formed during the times of the later revolt against the Greeks, came to dominate in this.  They did this not through the purity of their doctrine or interpretation of the Law but through lack of organized competition.  And so when Jesus says, “The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses”, he is not rendering an opinion or a judgment but stating a fact.  “Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example.”  Because St. Matthew is writing his Gospel in the early years after Jesus had ascended into heaven, he quotes the Lord Jesus teaching his disciples how to live before there was a definite break with Judaism between the years 50 and 70.  Other verses in his Gospel also make this clear.  See, for example, Matthew 5, 23-26.  Jesus is telling his followers that inasmuch as they teach what the Law teaches, quoting it, they should follow it.  Legitimately appointed or not, if they read the Law to the people they are doing them a good service.  However: “Do not follow their example.”  It is one thing to read the Law; it is another to follow it.  To read is a great skill and to the unlettered it looks like magic for a person to make a few seemingly random squiggles in the dust or on paper and for another person to be able to tell exactly what those squiggles mean.  It is the same case with the bulk of the human race, who cannot read music.  A person who has not studied music hears a very moving melody and when shown what it looks like written down, sees no connection with what was heard.  But the fact of reading or teaching the Law of God should not confuse the student into believing that the teacher is the perfect exemplar of it in his life.  

The teacher of the Law of God, if he is to have integrity and be convincing of his knowledge of it must practice the Law with great attention.  However, the teacher is especially subject to the temptation to believe that he is superior to the student and to those who do not know the Law at all.  This may originate in a deep-seated realization that hardly any of us “deserve” the privilege of teaching the Law and overcompensate for this by puffing themselves up and acting with supreme confidence in themselves.  Others are affected by the need for attention and recognition and so go to great lengths to look like their vision of a holy person, as one in an elevated state, like a ruler in the days of the “divine right” of kings.  We see these among the priests, clergy, and ministers of all religions and in the governments of all levels of government.  We only need be patient with them in our necessary interactions with them and then go on our way.  We do not need to learn holiness from them.  We have the Scriptures, the Sacraments, and the Holy Cross.  It is of great consolation and assistance to us when our leaders and teachers are saints, but it is not strictly necessary for our own salvation.  Fortunately for us.

A word about “Call no one on earth your father, etc.”  The Lord speaks in absolute terms here, and in absolute terms God alone is our Father by virtue of his adoption of us as his children through our union with his Son effected by baptism.  All fatherhood comes from him.  Even natural fatherhood is derived from his Fatherhood and so is, in a real sense, secondary to his.  God is our Father.  All other fathers share in this Fatherhood.  And God’s Fatherhood is absolutely primary to the extent that Jesus is is able to teach, “You have but one Father in heaven.”  The Greek says, “There is one [Father] of you, the heavenly Father.”  And so all men whom we call father, whether as biological or through adoption, or spiritual, are to act in a way which is modeled after The Father.

Monday in the Second Week of Lent, February 26, 2024

Luke 6, 36-38

Jesus said to his disciples: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.”

In the Gospel reading for today’s Mass, the Lord is giving commandments in a way that reminds us of how Moses gave the Law to the Hebrews.  He goes from one law to the next, accepting no questions, and not relying on previous authorities.  The Lord gives these on his own authority.  Very often, when laws are made they seem to primarily benefit the ones who make them.  Here, the laws do not benefit the Lord at all, but greatly benefit the ones for whom he made them.  First, there is the great benefit of having his law.  Before the Lord came into our world the human race stumbled about in a dark maze, unable to find its way out, or, indeed, if it was supposed to find its way out.  The light provided by the laws of Christ provide a way to see and his grace provided a means of following that light.  Second, these laws that he gives show his love for all of us since they are made for all of us, and not for a subset of people.  Third, his laws guide us safely through this life into eternal life.

“Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”  This law can be retranslated as “Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate to you.”  We do not earn his compassion nor does he owe it to us.  We cannot buy it, demand it, or expect it.  He gives it to us not because of who we are but because of who he is.  Therefore we give it to others not because of who they are, but who we are.  Now, we cannot be compassionate to the extent that the Father is because we are not infinite.  We are limited in what we can do.  But we do what we can for others even when we recognize the reality that we often cannot do as much as we want. 

“Stop judging and you will not be judged.”  The Lord does not command us here not to form informed opinions or not to go by our own experience when we encounter others whom we do not know.  He is saying for us to wait until the facts come out in a situation before making up our minds as to someone’s innocence or guilt.  We are not to jump to conclusions or to look for reasons to hate someone.  “You will not be judged”, that is, we will all be judged at the end of our lives, and on the last day when Jesus comes again, but that judgment will be entirely fair and it will be rendered by God, who knows all things.  He will not act aggressively, he will not frame evidence against us, he will not listen to lies uttered against us.  In short, he will not judge in the way that people usually judge each other.

“Forgive and you will be forgiven.”  We show our desire to be forgiven in our forgiveness of others.  As with compassion, we bestow forgiveness not because of who those who have harmed us are, but because of who we are: the adopted sons and daughters of Almighty God.  In fact, we give proof of who we are by forgiving, imitating our God who is much more anxious to forgive us than we are to ask for forgiveness.

“Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap.”  How often we see this in the Scriptures and in our lives!  The Lord Jesus does not merely make wine from water for the wedding couple at Cana, he makes the best possible wine.  He does not merely make just enough food for the crowds which he feeds in the wilderness, he makes a great deal more than enough.  He does not merely stop storms threatening to capsize Peter’s ship, he completely and in an instant  calms the sea and dispels the clouds.  He does not merely die for us to set us free from sin, he dies the hideous and grievous death of the cross.  This bountiful giving brings to mind the Lord’s words in Matthew 10, 8: “Freely you have received: freely give.”  The Lord has given so much to us that we can share it and not miss any of it.  

“For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.”  This rule helps us to tell how much we have done and how much we still have to do.  In giving our whole self to Christ, we receive his whole self in the Kingdom of Heaven.

 

 The Second Sunday in Lent, February 25, 2024

Mark 9, 2–10

Jesus took Peter, James, and John and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no fuller on earth could bleach them. Then Elijah appeared to them along with Moses, and they were conversing with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus in reply, “Rabbi, it is good that we are here! Let us make three tents: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” He hardly knew what to say, they were so terrified. Then a cloud came, casting a shadow over them; from the cloud came a voice, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.” Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone but Jesus alone with them.  As they were coming down from the mountain, he charged them not to relate what they had seen to anyone, except when the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what ‘rising from the dead’ meant.

We humans can read about a thing, study it, analyze it, and feel that we can know it well, but often when we come face to face with it for the first time, we are stunned by its reality.  The numbers on paper describing it do not begin to tell of its true size or grandeur, as we experience it in person.  In the same way, the Lord had prepared Peter, James, and John to witness his Transfiguration through healing the blind, the deaf, and the lame, and by raising the dead.  Peter had confessed that he was the Christ, the Son of the living God.  Even so, what these men saw on the mountain “greatly terrified” them, according to the Greek.  Peter, the boldest of the three, was reduced to babbling about building tents.

What did these three men see?   They saw that the Lord’s clothes “became dazzling white, such as no fuller on earth could bleach them. Then Elijah appeared to them along with Moses, and they were conversing with Jesus.”  We note that Mark describes the Lord’s clothes, but not his face.  St. Matthew tells us that the Lord’s face “shone as the sun” (Matthew 17, 2).  No word, no sound, told them what was about to happen.  The Lord stood before them, and then it happened, perhaps very suddenly.  Elijah and Moses stood with him, as though a curtain had been drawn to reveal that they had been with the Lord all along.  The Apostles saw these two great men of Israel “conversing with Jesus”.  St. Luke tells us that “they spoke of his exodus that he should accomplish in Jerusalem” (Luke 9, 31).  The Greek word is, in fact, “exodus”, the same word that describes the departure of the Hebrews from their slavery in Egypt for the Promised Land.  The Lord would have been preparing Elijah and Moses for his Passion and Death, teaching them how he would fulfill the Law and the Prophets.  In this way, he showed the Apostles that he himself was the culmination of the Law and the Prophets, and that they were subordinate to him.  The Apostles also saw a great cloud overshadow them, and they heard a voice of great power blare out from it: “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.”  This commandment from heaven acted to confirm Peter’s confession of the Lord Jesus as the Son of the living God, in an unforgettable way.  

“Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone but Jesus alone with them.”  For a single moment after hearing the voice, the Apostles stared about them at the revealed glory of their Lord, and then it was all gone.  This would have been as much a cause of wonderment as its arrival.  Jesus gave them no time to recover, or even to rub their eyes.  He had shown them what he wanted them to see, and now he gave them an order they would have no trouble following: “As they were coming down from the mountain, he charged them not to relate what they had seen to anyone.”  They themselves did not begin to understand until after the Resurrection what they had seen, and only then could tell the others about it.

“Except when the Son of Man had risen from the dead.”  They struggled among themselves to know what he meant when he said that he would rise from the dead.  It was a phrase shrouded in mystery for them, but they only asked themselves what it might mean, as though, on their own, they could comprehend it.  They did not ask the Lord.

The Lord’s glory shines around us all the time.  At the offering of the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass, angels fill the sanctuary of the Church to adore their Incarnate God.  They fill the places where he is enshrined in tabernacles.  A blaze of grace fires around the holy men and women of our world.  Miracles go unnoticed despite their power.  As we grow in holiness we will do better than to see these with our eyes, which can be distrusted; we will know them with our souls.

 Saturday in the First Week of Lent, February 24, 2024

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 and sisters only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same? So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

“You have heard that it was said, etc.”  The Lord Jesus is fulfilling, completing, the Law as he said he had come to do: “Do not think that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill” (Matthew 5, 17).  In doing so he so he offers a renewed Judaism that can lead not to mere worldly prosperity, as the Old Law had promised, but to immortality with God.  Over the course of a decade or two it became clear that the Jews by and large did not accept the fulfilled Law Jesus provided and so a separate religion took its place.  St. Paul would teach that those who believed in Christ were in fact the true Jews irrespective of tracing one’s genetic heritage back to Abraham: “For he is not a real Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical. He is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart, spiritual and not literal” (Romans 2, 28-29).

The central fulfillment of the moral Law which the Lord Jesus fulfills in that of the love of God and man.  The Old Law was based upon duty, plain and simple.  The fulfilled Law sees our duty not in prescribed outward actions but in loving God with all our heart, mind and soul as our Father in heaven who loves us with an love beyond all telling, and in our love of neighbors for the sake of the God who loves them just as much.

“You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.”  This commandment is not found in the Hebrew Bible but may have been taught by the Pharisees.  The Lord completes this commandment with, “Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Heavenly Father.”  We love our enemies best by praying for their conversion even as we may prayer for justice if they have harmed us.  “Those who persecute you”.  We tend to associate the word “persecute” with religious persecution, but the Greek word can mean anyone who harasses and threatens another.  To follow this new commandment is to live in a distinctly new way and to go counter to what our fallen human nature urges.  We do this for the sake of our Heavenly Father who “causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust”, benefitting the crops of all.  As of today say: Love your enemies because God does.  He does not let someone’s wicked actions stop him from loving them.  The Lord Jesus emphasizes that his followers must be distinct from those who follow the Old Law, and from those who follow no law: “if you greet your brothers and sisters only, what is unusual about that?”  The Christian is to be “unusual”.  It is the Christian who is the be “the light of the world”.  All others simply justify the behavior they pursue by encoding it and teaching it, or building a philosophy or pseudo-science around it.  

“So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  The Greek word translated here as “perfect” also means “full-grown”.  Jesus does not command us to have the Father’s perfections (omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence) to be as perfect as a human can be, and by this Jesus means love.  Through God’s grace we can love God and neighbor to the extent possible for us.  And we do this for God’s sake.  Through doing this we are conformed more and more to God’s Son and are prepared for the eternal recompense the Son died to give us.

 Friday in the First Week of Lent, February 23, 2024

Matthew 5, 20-26

Jesus said to his disciples: “I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven.  You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment. But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment, and whoever says to his brother, Raqa, will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna. Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Settle with your opponent quickly while on the way to court. Otherwise your opponent will hand you over to the judge, and the judge will hand you over to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. Amen, I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny.”

The Lord Jesus did not offer himself to the Jews as merely an alternative to the Pharisees, in terms of his teaching, but as one who came to restore the Mosaic Law to what it actually said.  The Pharisees had interpreted the Law through the prism of the Temple and the purity and other precepts governing it.  They also brought the Law “up to date” to a population that was no longer mainly nomadic by extrapolating from the original law, thus creating the “precepts of men” that the Lord so much opposed.  In effect, the Pharisees made it very hard to carry out Jewish duties.  At the same time, they did not teach much on the moral laws, as distinct from the laws regarding ritual purity and things of this kind.  Part of the appeal of Jesus as a teacher came from his stripping away this accretions that the Pharisees held up as the true meaning of the Law.

When the Lord Jesus says to the crowd, “I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven”, he is insisting that the people need to follow the Law as God gave it to Moses, and as Moses gave it to the people.  They could hear it — and the Prophets — read out in the synagogues so that they could know it, and they were to follow it without falling into the ways of the Pharisees.  Their teachings on righteousness made righteousness nearly impossible for the average Jew and for anyone but themselves, but their teachings were wrong.  Righteousness was within the grasp of any Jew who carried out the Law in his life — the righteousness that was possible for the Jews before the time of grace, at any rate.  And the Lord prepares them to receive grace by instructing them correctly on how to follow the Law.  He has established by his miracles, which were only possible by the power of God, that he has the authority to teach the Law, whereas the Pharisees have no real standing to do this.  They were not appointed by the high priests to teach, nor did they have anything to do with the Temple authorities and the governance of the Jews.  Indeed, their sect only arose in Israel a couple of hundred years before.  It was certainly not inaugurated by Moses.  It is, in fact, just another emperor without his clothes on.

There are many cultural forces and self-important persons which strive to tell us how to live in society, and even as Christians.  They attempt to foist their pathologies on us and to call these “normal” or normative.  But there is only one Christ, and he calls us to a salvation that cannot be surpassed.  We, his sheep, know his shepherd’s voice, for it rings out through the Church.  These forces and people are the new Pharisees whose moral code sometimes uses Christian terms, but in ways at odds with their true meaning.  They would have us think that theirs is the only ethics, the only morality, but it benefits only themselves.  The difficulty in following their shifting code makes life and even language impossible, but the new Pharisees mock and try to destroy those who fail.  Let us, for our part, listen to and follow the Lord Jesus, who is the only Way, the only Truth, and the only Life.

A final note on this Reading: “Whoever says to his brother, Raqa, will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna.”  In the Greek text we can see that Matthew quotes Jesus as using two words fool”, the Aramaic Raqa and the Greek moros.  The point Jesus makes is that whatever language we speak we should not call our brother or sister “fool”.

 The Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter, Apostle, February 22, 2024

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.”

From very early in the history of the Holy Church, two feasts celebrated St. Peter in Rome.  The oldest recorded of the feasts (not necessarily the oldest of the feasts) was celebrated in Rome and commemorated January 18 as the day on which Peter offered the Sacrifice of the Mass in Rome for the first time.  The other feast celebrated “The Chair of Peter”, that is, the authority given to St. Peter and his successors as the visible head on earth of the people of God.  This feast was celebrated on February 22, traditionally the day on which Peter confessed that Jesus was the Son of God, after which the Lord said that he would give to the Apostle the keys to the kingdom of heaven.  Both feasts were celebrated at Rome from at least the early 300’s.  The Feast of Peter’s Chair became recognized as the greater of the two and in 1960 Pope John XXIII removed the January feast from the Roman calendar because it was seen to duplicate the February feast.  An oaken chair centuries-old and preserved at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome is said to be the actual chair or throne which Peter used during his reign as the bishop of Rome, the first pope.  

“Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”  We should note that Jesus asks his Apostles whom the people say the Son of Man is, not whom the Pharisees or other authorities say.  We should also attend to the fact that he asks about “the Son of Man”.  While the Lord speaks of the Son of Man in the third person, he clearly is speaking of himself.  Do the Apostles accept this?  Simon the son of Jona does.  He does not say, when Jesus asks them who they think the Son of Man is, Simon answers, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”   Simon does not say, The Son of Man is the Son of the living God; he says to Jesus, You are the Son of the living God.  Now, the Prophet Daniel, who prophesied about the Son of Man, did not identify him as either “the Christ” or as “the Son of the living God”.  He identified him as one to whom Almighty God would give “power, and glory, and a kingdom: and all peoples, tribes, and tongues shall serve him: his power is an everlasting power that shall not be taken away: and his kingdom that shall not be destroyed” (Daniel 7, 14).  A mighty figure, but not one anointed for the deliverance of Israel nor the very Son of the Living God.  Simon, however, links them together: the Son of Man is the anointed one, “the Christ”, and he is “the Son of the living God”.  And Jesus of Nazareth is this Son of Man.  It is not a Pharisee, trained in Scripture, or a scholar of the Law who confesses this; it is Simon the Galilean fisherman who does.  That he does so is more astounding than if he had sprouted wings and flown to the moon.  Only God could have revealed this to him and then given him the courage to say it aloud: “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.”  That Jesus says “my” heavenly Father speaks of his personal and unique relationship with the Father.  No Jew would have spoken of God in that way.  You It would have been “our” Father, never “my”.

“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.”  Only one who has total authority over another may change the other’s name — because Hebrew names have meaning and they define a person — and so God changes Abram’s and Sarai’s names.  Jesus changes “Simon” to “rock”, which is not a name at all, underscoring the special nature of what Jesus does with Simon.  The phrase “build my Church” literally translates from the Greek as “builds my assembly”, which does not sound right in any language.  Jesus clearly has another meaning in mind: a Body of members in union with him and with each other through grace.  This Body will overthrow the powers of hell.

“I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven.”  What Jesus says to the fisherman is even more astounding than what the fisherman had said to the Nazarene.  These keys open the gates of heaven to believers.  Peter’s hand is on the keys, and the Lord’s hand is on Peter’s.  “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”  The Lord says this in regard to the binding and loosing of sin: “Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them: and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained” (John 20, 23).  Peter, his successors, and those to whom he grants a share in this power — bishops and priests — can absolve all sins that can be absolved.  Sins for which there is no or insufficient contrition cannot be absolved, for grace is not magic.  Sins may be “retained” in this sense.

It is a great gift to the Church he founds that the Lord Jesus gives us a single, visible head.  This head is not morally infallible, for he can still commit sins, and he is only infallible when he teaches what the Church has always taught.  He is supposed to be a preserver of the truth, not an innovator in any way.  We pray for those who lead us, for their growth in holiness and wisdom, knowing that God writes straight with crooked lines, and does so in a way that may make sense only when he finishes writing and allows us to read all that  he has written.