Monday in the 22nd Week of Ordinary Time, September 1, 2025

Luke 4, 16-30

Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went according to his custom into the synagogue on the sabbath day. He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.”  Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him. He said to them, “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” And all spoke highly of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They also asked, “Is this not the son of Joseph?” He said to them, “Surely you will quote me this proverb, ‘Physician, cure yourself,’ and say, ‘Do here in your native place the things that we heard were done in Capernaum.’” And he said, “Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place. Indeed, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the sky was closed for three and a half years and a severe famine spread over the entire land. It was to none of these that Elijah was sent, but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon. Again, there were many lepers in Israel during the time of Elisha the prophet; yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” When the people in the synagogue heard this, they were all filled with fury. They rose up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong. But he passed through the midst of them and went away

We first notice in this reading that Jesus is in the synagogue on the Sabbath and is given a scroll to read.  Synagogue services were much less formal before the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem than now.  On the Sabbath, the Jews would gather in a meeting wall where they would discuss the Law and the Prophets.  Visiting rabbis or scribes would be invited to speak.  Jesus, who has made a name for himself as a preacher, is asked to speak on this occasion.  Handed a scroll containing the prophecies of Isaiah, he looks for and finds the passage on which he would like to preach.  The passage the Lord quotes is from Isaiah 61, 1-2, although he may have quoted many verses beyond these: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.”  Luke’s rearrangement of the order of events allows him to show that the first words we hear from the mouth of Jesus at the beginning of his ministry are these, and they act as the banner under which he will work until his Death, and under which his disciples will work after Pentecost.  These words, although coming from a Jewish prophet, speak not merely of the Jews but of all people: the poor, captives, the blind, and the oppressed.  Matthew provides an account of this event in very nearly the same words, but we can see how Luke frames it with the Greeks in mind.

“Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”  The verb here translated as “fulfilled” can also mean “completed”, as though completing an action that was already begun.  We might think of the Prophet writing his words in faint pencil and the Lord coming along later and inking in the letters of those words with beautiful flowing color.  And the Lord did not simply “fulfill” the prophecy and then move on.  When Jesus touched the Jordan River at the time of his baptism, he changed it; it did not change him.  He entered it so as to render water capable of conferring eternal life, with the formula he would give his Apostles before his Ascension (cf. Matthew 28, 19).  This remained true even after he climbed up out of the water.  Similarly, when the Lord Jesus “touched” the bringing of glad tidings to the poor, proclaiming liberty to captives, and caring for the blind and the oppressed, he made our performing these actions, done for his sake, capable of making us like him.  His fulfillment of the words of the Prophet endures to the present time in us.

“And all spoke highly of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They also asked, ‘Is this not the son of Joseph?’ ”  We see their divided opinion here.  The people — his neighbors and relatives — struggle to reconcile the Jesus they had known with the Jesus they had recently heard about.  This reminds us of how little we really pay attention to people as we run around, absorbed in the business of our own lives.  When we hear that an old friend or acquaintance has become a world-class athlete, or actor, or scientist, we wonder about it.  Thus, the synagogue crowd sees only two alternatives: either Jesus was a greater man than they had thought or he was a fraud.  And in their pride, they thought him a fraud.  

“They rose up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong.”  The brow of the hill is some distance from the old town of Nazareth.  It would have taken quite an effort even for three or four men to carry a grown man out to it.  This, then, was not a sudden act committed in haste.  The crowd, or at least a large percentage of the crowd, had decided to kill him.  We might ask why they would want to do this.  What had he said that had inflamed them so that they wanted to commit murder?  Let us consider what he had said to them.  He had declared that he was the Messiah, the Anointed of God and that he had come to save the poor, captives, the blind, and the oppressed.  But if the Scriptures were fulfilled in their hearing, then he was identifying them as the poor, captives, the blind, and the oppressed, and that he, the son of Joseph the carpenter, had come to save them.  We should compare this to John 8, 33: “We are the seed of Abraham: and we have never been slaves to any man. How sayest thou: You shall be free?”  The Lord had told the Jews in Jerusalem that the truth would set them free, and they were outraged, and they sought to kill him then.  In both cases, the people did not want to hear the truth about themselves, a truth they secretly suspected but did not want to face, even to the point of killing the one who merely told it to them — and promised to help.

“But he passed through the midst of them and went away.” His hour had not yet come, and so he disentangled himself from them and walked away.  Perhaps as the people neared the brow of the hill their enthusiasm for their intended action sagged and they set him down.  And then Jesus, without a word, got up and walked away.  He would never return to his childhood home.  We see that Jesus invites all, speaks to all, but forces himself on no one.  When he is rejected he does not call down fire and brimstone, as two of his Apostles will want him to do later, but neither does he return, unasked.  

The 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 31, 2025

Luke 14, 1, 7-11

On a Sabbath Jesus went to dine at the home of one of the leading Pharisees, and the people there were observing him carefully. He told a parable to those who had been invited, noticing how they were choosing the places of honor at the table. “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not recline at table in the place of honor. A more distinguished guest than you may have been invited by him, and the host who invited both of you may approach you and say, ‘Give your place to this man,’ and then you would proceed with embarrassment to take the lowest place. Rather, when you are invited, go and take the lowest place so that when the host comes to you he may say, ‘My friend, move up to a higher position.’ Then you will enjoy the esteem of your companions at the table. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Our model par excellence of humility is the Lord Jesus Christ, for, as St. Paul says, he “who was in the form of God, did not think it a prize to be grasped to be equal to God, but he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, born in the likeness of men, and was found in the likeness of a man.  He humbled himself, being born unto death, the death of the cross” (Philippians 2, 6-8).  The verb I have translated from the Greek as “emptied” can also mean “to deprive of content”.  

To begin to understand the Lord’s humility, which is all we can humanly do, we have to think in terms of similes and metaphors.  In today’s Gospel reading, the Lord himself presents what he has done, taking “the lowest place”.  Verse 10 in this reading, which speaks of this, might be translated, literally, “But when you are called, traveling, recline at the last place.” The verb I have translated as “traveling” has this customary meaning, rather than “going”.  The adjective I have translated here as “last” is the Greek eschaton, which does not mean “lowest”, as in the lectionary translation, but “last”, “final”, “at the last”.  The Lord uses this word to describe himself in Revelation 22, 13: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” Applying this verse to the Lord, it means that he “emptied himself” in order to “travel” the great distance between heaven and earth, where he reclined first in the womb of the Virgin Mother, then in a dirty manger, then on the “bed” of the Cross, as the Fathers called it, and finally in a stranger’s tomb, taking the furthest place from heaven possible in the human world.

The Lord shows how we might imitate him in his humility through the parable in this reading.  “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not recline at table in the place of honor.”  The seating at a banquet or feast was determined by the host.  The guest of honor, or the guest whom the host considered of highest importance, would be given a place of marked significance — at the head of the table, for instance.  The other guests would be seated by the host in the order of the importance in which he viewed them.  (The fact that the Lord and his Mother were with the servants at the Wedding at Cana tells us that they were seated at places furthest from the head).  The order was determined entirely by the host.  Thus, a guest who chose for himself the place of honor showed himself as rude and a fool.  “A more distinguished guest than you may have been invited by him.”  This is the more likely the greater the number of guests who have been invited.  In addition, the seating of a guest in the place of honor by the host was itself a conspicuous honor.  In seating himself, the foolish guest would be passing this up.  But because a fool seldom realizes that he is a fool, the Lord urges that no one consider himself the guest of honor.  Otherwise, “you would proceed with embarrassment to take the lowest place.”  A better translation would be: “You will be led in shame to the last place.”  

Rather, the Lord says, “traveling, recline at the last place so that when the host comes to you he may say, ‘My friend, move up to a higher position.’ ”  We note that the Lord did not say to take one of the last places, but the very last place.  The host, recognizing the true value of the guest in the last place at the table, seats him higher up, perhaps displacing another person to do this.  The Almighty Father who sees his Son in the last place, says to him, My Son, come up higher, and so from his tomb he raises him to glory.  “Then you will enjoy the esteem of your companions at the table.”  Those at the table will praise the one who is raised up, seeing the favor bestowed upon him by their host.  The guest thus receives greater honor than if he had been seated by the host there right at the start.

“Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”  We should note here that the one who “exalts himself” will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself “will be exalted” by another, by the host.  When we exalt ourselves we show our own foolish pride, which all can see but ourselves.  When someone of actual importance exalts us, it is a different matter.  When the Lord exalts us after we have taken the last place with him on earth, we shall be glorified in the eyes of the angels.

Saturday in the 21st Week of Ordinary Time, August 30, 2025

Matthew 25, 14–30

Jesus told his disciples this parable: “A man going on a journey called in his servants and entrusted his possessions to them. To one he gave five talents; to another, two; to a third, one— to each according to his ability. Then he went away. Immediately the one who received five talents went and traded with them, and made another five. Likewise, the one who received two made another two. But the man who received one went off and dug a hole in the ground and buried his master’s money.  After a long time the master of those servants came back and settled accounts with them. The one who had received five talents came forward bringing the additional five. He said, ‘Master, you gave me five talents. See, I have made five more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. Since you were faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities. Come, share your master’s joy.’ Then the one who had received two talents also came forward and said, ‘Master, you gave me two talents. See, I have made two more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. Since you were faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities. Come, share your master’s joy.’ Then the one who had received the one talent came forward and said, ‘Master, I knew you were a demanding person, harvesting where you did not plant and gathering where you did not scatter; so out of fear I went off and buried your talent in the ground. Here it is back.’ His master said to him in reply, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I did not plant and gather where I did not scatter? Should you not then have put my money in the bank so that I could have got it back with interest on my return? Now then! Take the talent from him and give it to the one with ten. For to everyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And throw this useless servant into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.’ ”

According to St. Matthew, the Lord Jesus told two parables immediately before his graphic account of the Second Coming and the great judgment in which the eternal destiny of each human person who ever lived will be announced (Matthew 25, 31-46).  The first of these is that of the Wise and Foolish Virgins.  The second is that of the Ten Talents.  We learn essential features of the end times from each of these.  Both speak of the unexpected coming of the Master, and both speak of how his subjects may gain reward and avoid punishment.  The first parable particularly emphasizes the desire of the wise virgins to take part in the wedding feast.  The second, the potential for each human person to receive a heavenly reward.

In this parable, the Master is going away on a journey and he sets up his servants to carry on his business for him. “To one he gave five talents; to another, two; to a third, one— to each according to his ability.”  He knows his servants’s abilities, and he distributes his talents among them according to his expectations in light of this knowledge.  He does not distribute the talents in an equal way because he understands that the three servants do not have the same abilities.  It is noteworthy that he does not give all the talents to the one who is best qualified to handle these talents — the one to whom he gives five.  He would have made more money that way, in the end, but it seems that making money is only a secondary factor here.  What the Master really intends is to give all three of the servants who have handled his money a chance to shine, and to be rewarded for their work.  Thus, the Lord entrusts each person with a calling — a vocation — and the grace necessary to know, and to carry out, his calling.  His purpose for doing so is not to enrich himself, for he is infinitely rich in glory and happiness, but so that he might have cause to grant a share in his riches and joy with us.

What are these vocations, in general?  The Church Father Origen taught that the five talents signified a complete knowledge of God’s law, as the number five was the number of the books of the Pentateuch.  The person who received these was meant to govern in some way.  Learned and able, this one might be a member of the clergy, or a secular authority, or a teacher.  The number two signified the the material and the spiritual aspects of the world, and for Origen this meant that the one who received two talents was meant to build, for instance.  This could be a missionary, or a construction worker.  This person would have practical knowledge and cleverness.  The one talent signified the unity of one, and this meant the spirit.  Origen considered that the person who received the one talent actually received more than the one who received the five because the spiritual person is greater than one who merely governs things and people.  These talents — these vocations — are given to be developed.

When the Master returns, he calls his servants to him in order to learn how they succeeded.  Now, the Lord Jesus knows all things and does not need us to tell him anything.  But he wants us to admit the truth, to take responsibility, for what we have done.  In the present case, the man with the five talents has governed wisely.  He has rejected attempts to enrich himself at the expense of others and the temptation of abusing his authority.  This might be Pope St. Gregory the Great, or St. Catherine of Sweden.  The servant with the two talents has also worked hard, building.  This might be a Catholic wife and mother, Louis Pasteur, or Father Damien of Molokai.  The servant called to the spiritual life might be St. Claire or St. Francis.  But in this case, the servant failed.  He rejected his spiritual calling or failed to make progress in it once he had begun.  As his Master tells him, all he had to do was the most basic thing, accept the vocation and make even the smallest progress, but he did not even do that.  If he had truly applied himself, he could have made many more times the amount the one with the five talents did, and this would have rebounded to the glory of the Master.

Because the servant with the one failed to carry out his vocation, he is cast out into the fearsome darkness.  Had the one with the five not produced, this would have been his lot as well.  How essential is it to know and to carry out our vocations!  And yet this is a terrible problem in our society today.  So many people do not know what to do with themselves.  This applies to people of all ages.  Young people graduate from high school with no ideas or plans and then accrue enormous debt in college and still have no real ideas or plans.  People in the midst of their careers suddenly wonder what it is all for.  Folks who retire early from their government or corporate jobs now face nearly half their lifetimes with no real idea for what to do next.  But this is not hard to figure out.  Understanding our vocations comes down to thinking about how we can serve God and our neighbors, given the talents, abilities, and interests that we have.  In the end, it all comes down to service, to answering the question, How can I help?

May we serve our God with all our hearts so that one day we may hear him say to us, “Come, share your master’s joy.”

The Feast of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist, August 29, 2025

Mark 6, 17-29

Herod was the one who had John the Baptist arrested and bound in prison on account of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip, whom he had married. John had said to Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” Herodias harbored a grudge against him and wanted to kill him but was unable to do so. Herod feared John, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man, and kept him in custody. When he heard him speak he was very much perplexed, yet he liked to listen to him. She had an opportunity one day when Herod, on his birthday, gave a banquet for his courtiers, his military officers, and the leading men of Galilee. Herodias’ own daughter came in and performed a dance that delighted Herod and his guests. The king said to the girl, “Ask of me whatever you wish and I will grant it to you.” He even swore many things to her, “I will grant you whatever you ask of me, even to half of my kingdom.” She went out and said to her mother, “What shall I ask for?” She replied, “The head of John the Baptist.” The girl hurried back to the king’s presence and made her request, “I want you to give me at once on a platter the head of John the Baptist.” The king was deeply distressed, but because of his oaths and the guests he did not wish to break his word to her. So he promptly dispatched an executioner with orders to bring back his head. He went off and beheaded him in the prison. He brought in the head on a platter and gave it to the girl. The girl in turn gave it to her mother. When his disciples heard about it, they came and took his body and laid it in a tomb.

The deep influence of St. John the Baptist required the Gospel writers to record more about him than any other figure apart from Jesus.  They provide us with greater information about John the Baptist than even about the Lord’s own Mother and foster-father.  And while St. Luke gives us many words from the mouth of Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, we never hear St. Joseph, the Lord’s foster-father, speak at all.  The Baptist, even in death, seemed to overshadow the Lord Jesus, for some people believed the Jesus was John the Baptist or perhaps had received a “portion” of his spirit, much as the prophet Elisha received from the prophet Elijah before the fiery chariot carried him up to heaven (cf. 2 Kings 2, 9).  Indeed, John’s harsh manner of life and his fierce, relentless preaching marked him out as the prophet the Jews had anxiously awaited since the death of their last prophet, Malachi, over four hundred years before.

 In much a similar manner to Elijah, John the Baptist got into trouble with a ruler over his wife (although here Herod Antipas is called a “king” his title was only that of “tetrarch”).  Herod’s wife Herodias was both the divorced wife of his brother Philip and also his niece, and thus the marriage went contrary to the law of Moses on two counts, though in the Gospels John the Baptist is shown as harping on the first.  John’s hold on the Judean people and Herod’s shaky position as tetrarch resulted in Herod and Herodias feeling seriously threatened by him, and so John was arrested.  We are not given any details of the arrest.  It would have been interesting to compare the details of his arrest with those of Jesus’s, three years later.  At the same time, Herod hesitated in killing John because of his popularity.  St. Mark gives us an insight into Herod’s state of mind regarding John at this time: “When he heard him speak he was very much perplexed, yet he liked to listen to him.”  From this, it seems that Herod either had John brought to him on occasion or that he went into the prison in his for tree in order to listen to him.  Either way, John’s forceful personality and the authority of his words exercised some hold even on an essentially non practicing Jew like Herod.  Later, this same “perplexity” caused Herod to want to see Jesus, who only stood silently before him when Pontius Pilate sent Jesus to him (cf. Luke 23, 8-9).

Herod would likely have kept John alive in his prison indefinitely had it not been for Herod’s lust.  Seeing the daughter of his niece/wife Herodias dance at his own birthday party, he promised the girl anything she wanted, even up to a part of territory which he ruled.  The girl, who would not have been married at the time and so would be in her early teens, went to her mother, who had more reason to feel threatened by John the Baptist than her husband.  Herod, after all, could have appeased John and his large following by divorcing his problematic wife.  Seizing her opportunity, she told her to ask for the head of the prophet.  Politically, this made sense for the girl as well as for the mother since John’s death could mean that his following would disappear and Herodias’s (and her daughter’s) position at court would be assured, st least in the short run.  

However, John had completed his sacred mission of preparing the way for the Son of God, and many of his disciples, during his life and after his death, joined with Jesus — he himself encouraging them to do so.  During his time in prison John’s followers kept him informed of the miraculous deeds and words of the Lord Jesus, of his growing following, so that he could know that he had, as St. Paul would later say, “I am even now ready to be sacrificed: and the time of my dissolution is at hand. I have fought a good fight: I have finished my course: I have kept the faith. As to the rest, there is laid up for me a crown of justice which the Lord the just judge will render to me” (2 Timothy, 4, 6-8).

Thursday in the 21st Week of Ordinary Time, August 28, 2025

Matthew 24, 42-51

Jesus said to his disciples: “Stay awake!  For you do not know on which day your Lord will come. Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour of night when the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and not let his house be broken into. So too, you also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.  Who, then, is the faithful and prudent servant, whom the master has put in charge of his household to distribute to them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master on his arrival finds doing so. Amen, I say to you, he will put him in charge of all his property. But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is long delayed,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants, and eat and drink with drunkards, the servant’s master will come on an unexpected day and at an unknown hour and will punish him severely and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”

“Stay awake!  For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.”  The Lord’s teaching on the end of the world begins in St. Matthew’s Gospel at the beginning of Chapter 24.  The day before the Lord gave this teaching he had entered Jerusalem triumphantly, with the Jews thinking he was the long-awaited Messiah.  Matthew then describes him as coming out of the Temple and the Apostles marveling at its buildings and courtyards, and telling them that of these things “there shall not be left here a stone upon a stone that shall not be destroyed” (Matthew 24, 2).  The Apostles anxiously asked for the time when this would happen, and the Lord proceeded to tell them all about his return in glory to judge the living and the dead while also mentioning the destruction of Jerusalem which would come first.  We can also understand these verses as pertaining to the end of our lives on earth.

In the verses used for today’s Gospel Reading, the Lord teaches the necessity for the faithful to possess and exercise both perseverance and alertness.  He means, From now on, keep vigilant, for the judgment is coming.  That is to say, we should not start taking the second coming seriously when we are older, but every day of our lives we should be prepared for it.  We need not be obsessed with it so that we do nothing but wait, but we should be aware of our need to build up our faith and to fill up our treasure of good deeds in heaven.  “Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour of night when the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and not let his house be broken into.”  The Lord emphasizes urgency with his image: if the master of the house will stay alert for the hour the thief will come, how much more should we, whose very souls are at stake, keep awake and aware.  In this way we can see temptation and sin as a distraction by our soul’s enemy so that we are not ready when the Lord comes, but performing good works as engaging in this vigilance.

“So too, you also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.”   We might think back to the first Passover, when the Jews ate a late dinner with their coats on and were ready at a moment’s notice to rise and to leave Egypt.  We, likewise, must be ready to leave the Egypt of this life for the Promised Land of heaven.

“Who, then, is the faithful and prudent servant, whom the master has put in charge of his household to distribute to them their food at the proper time?”  The master has put a servant in charge and gone away for an unknown period.  Jesus asks the question: Who is this?  It is each of us, for the Lord puts us “in charge” of helping the people around us to get to heaven, nourishing then with our words and deeds.  “Blessed is that servant whom his master on his arrival finds doing so. Amen, I say to you, he will put him in charge of all his property.”  How many actions we have performed which we would not want to be our last actions on earth!  What do we want to be doing when the Lord comes, whether at the end of our lives on earth or at the great judgment if we are alive at that time?  The servant who is doing his master’s work when he comes will be put in charge of all his property: this servant will be raised from his earthly work to a lofty place in heaven, there to intercede for the conversion of the world.

“My master is long delayed.”  We may be tempted during our lives to end our alertness, to cease our vigilance.  We grow weary and the wait seems long.  We cease to nourish with our words and good example the people whom God has given us, and this amounts to “beating” them and “drinking” with “drunkards” — those who have given in to self-indulgence to the extent that they are senseless and uninterested as to the master’s return.  “The servant’s master will come . . . and will punish him severely and assign him a place with the hypocrites.”  The master will punish that neglectful servant for not being ready himself for his return as well as for not helping the others get ready for it.  They will be punished to some degree too, for they were not helpless, bot not as severely as the one who was supposed to help them (cf. Luke 12, 47-48).  This wretched servant will be assigned a place with “the hypocrites”, the godless, the word the Lord used for the scribes and Pharisees (which may indicate that the Lord may have originally meant that the Pharisees were this servant who was supposed “to distribute to [the Jews] their food at the proper time”).  In this place there will be “wailing and grinding of teeth.”  St. Thomas Aquinas says that the wailing will be due to the exterior suffering afflicted on the damned and that the grinding of teeth will be due to interior hatred and guilt for having known the Lord’s will and rejected it.

Holy pictures and crucifixes in our homes, and medals and scapulars on our person help us to stay vigilant as well as the regular habit of prayer.  We should take advantage of whatever we can to keep our minds on heaven, and the Lord who reigns there.

Wednesday in the 21st Week of Ordinary Time, August 27, 2025

Matthew 23, 27-32

Jesus said, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of filth. Even so, on the outside you appear righteous, but inside you are filled with hypocrisy and evildoing.  Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the memorials of the righteous, and you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have joined them in shedding the prophets’ blood.’ Thus you bear witness against yourselves that you are the children of those who murdered the prophets; now fill up what your ancestors measured out!”

“You are like whitewashed tombs.”  Today’s Gospel Reading continues the Lord’s reproach of the scribes and the Pharisees.  The Jews of the time provided two kinds of resting places for their dead.  Ordinary folks buried their dead in graves dug out of the ground.  The wealthier among them had tombs carved out of the outcrops of rock common in the Holy Land.  These tombs amounted to small compounds with a little courtyard and then the tomb itself which consisted of a chamber large enough to accommodate a human body lying on its back and also a few people who would wrap it and anoint it as well as recite prayers.  Niches were carved within the side of the tomb where the bones of the body would be placed after the flesh had decomposed so that entire families could be buried together.  The exterior of the tombs were kept clean and were even whitened so that they did not become overgrown with plants.  These would “appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of filth.”  The Greek word translated here as “filth” should be understood as the Jewish concept of “uncleanness”.  This meant that touching the tomb made a person unclean, “beautiful” appearances notwithstanding.  The tomb is a thing of death, and belongs to the kingdom of darkness and death.  This, the Lord Jesus is telling the crowds, is the scribe and Pharisee, whatever his learning, his ability to speak, his expensive clothing, his elaborate prayers.

“You build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the memorials of the righteous.”  The scribes and Pharisees wish to take the bones of the prophets from the places where they have lain buried for centuries and build new tombs for them as of to cover up how they were killed and hurriedly buried by their frightened followers.  “If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have joined them in shedding the prophets’ blood.”  The scribes and Pharisees attempt to separate themselves from the guilt of their ancestors without condemning their ancestors and separating themselves from them.  “We would not have joined them”, but we not have stopped them, either.  And the scribes and Pharisees do not say, “We will repent of the way of our ancestors by obeying the words of the prophets.”  The Lord concludes, “You are the children of those who murdered the prophets; now fill up what your ancestors measured out!”  The scribes and the Pharisees are their “children” in the sense that they carry out the work of their parents in opposing the truth and persecuting those who proclaim it.  Those who killed the prophets inspired by God followed prophets of their own choosing and making who validated their wicked way of life, as did the scribes and Pharisees of the day, who foisted upon Israel their own false interpretation of the Law and the Prophets, and then lived godless lives contrary to the Law.  They “filled up” what their ancestors “measured” through the harassment of John the Baptist and their persecution and killing the Son of God, even in the face of miracles that could be performed only with divine power.

Today we honor the saints — those of the time before Christ and of the time since he came — in many ways.  We name churches after them.  We make paintings of them.  We go to Mass on their feast days.  We (sometimes) name our children after them.  We take their names when we receive the Sacrament of Confirmation.  We pray to them in time of need.  We honor them best by imitating the virtues in which they imitated the Lord Jesus, recalling the words of St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 11, 1: “Imitate me as I also imitate Christ.”  In this way, and infused with the Holy Spirit, we become “living temples” dedicated to the Lord Jesus, truly beautiful in every way, filled not with the dead bones of tombs but with a share in his divine life.

Tuesday in the 21st Week of Ordinary Time, August 26, 2025

Matthew 23, 23-26

Jesus said: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You pay tithes of mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier things of the law: judgment and mercy and fidelity. But these you should have done, without neglecting the others. Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel! Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You cleanse the outside of cup and dish, but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may be clean.”

For three years the Lord Jesus has preached that the Kingdom of Heaven  had drawn near and that people needed to repent of their sins.  He had preached up and down through Galilee and Judea to the rich and the poor.  Now he has entered Jerusalem and is days away from dying on the Cross.  He turns to the Pharisees and the scribes, the very people who should have recognized him as the Savior, and rebukes them for their refusal to give up their devotion to wealth and honors.  Their place was to lead the people in penance, but all they would see in Jesus was a renegade who would wreck their good thing.  But Jesus is no rebel against the Law; in fact, he upholds it rigorously.  He says here, speaking of the tithes on mint and dill that are commanded in the Law of Moses: “But these you should have done,” that is, pay the tithes.  And he does further, that they should not have neglected judgment, mercy and fidelity.  He accuses them of neglecting judgment: the Pharisees but especially the scribes who studied the Law, acted as judges and as such their responsibility was to secure the rights of those who had been harmed in some way.  But frequently they judged only when a sufficient bribe motivated them to do so.  They neglected mercy: they failed in giving alms and in aiding their neighbors in distress when it would have cost them little.  They neglected fidelity, that is, the trust that makes contracts possible.  Instead, they looked for ways to advance their interests no matter how it hurt others.

“Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel!” In warmer regions, in ancient times, wine was often full of gnats, so that one who wishes to drink had to strain it first to remove them.  The “gnats” here can be understood as venial sins and the camels (the largest land animal in that region) as mortal sins or serious vices.  The Pharisees and scribes are said to be “blind” because they ignore the grievousnessvofvtjeircwicked actions and how they affect other people.  They are blind “guides” in that they teach others that this behavior is acceptable. “You cleanse the outside of cup and dish, but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence.”  The cup and dish are human beings.  Their “outside” is the body and the “inside” is the soul.  Cleansing the outside of the cup and dish means dedicating oneself to one’s appearance, whether physical or moral: vanity or hypocrisy.  Jesus is accusing these Jewish leaders of only wanting to seem just and law-abiding.  In ancient times, excessive attention to dress and adornment actually signaled this, in the way that wealth was thought to signal God’s favor.  But all the while, their soul was corrupting, and anything poured into the filthy cup would become corrupted as well, no matter how fine it might have once been.  Thus, they hear the Lord’s preaching and they look for inconsistencies and even blasphemies in it.

“Blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may be clean.”  That is, unless the soul is free from sin and in a state of grace, it is a waste of time to clean and polish the outside appearance.

We are often deceived by appearances, or, we allow ourselves to be deceived by them because they seem to promise pleasure or freedom from the constraints of virtue.  We should keep in mind that the Son of God came as an infant wrapped in rags and laid in a trough, and departed this world bloodied and hanging on a Cross.