Monday in the Thirteenth Week of Ordinary Time, June 30, 2025

Matthew 8, 18-22

When Jesus saw a crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other shore. A scribe approached and said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus answered him, “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.” Another of his disciples said to him, “Lord, let me go first and bury my father.” But Jesus answered him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead.”

When Jesus saw a crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other shore. A scribe approached and said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus answered him, “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.” Another of his disciples said to him, “Lord, let me go first and bury my father.” But Jesus answered him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead.”

“When Jesus saw a crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other shore.”  As St. Matthew tells it, the Lord desired to cross to another shore after he had spent the better part of the preceding evening healing the sick.  The Lord is ever on the move, preaching and healing. 

“A scribe approached and said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”  This scribe, presumably a Pharisee, comes to the Lord and announces to him that he will follow him everywhere.  He does not need to tell the Lord this; he could simply do it.  It seems, though, that he wants praise from the Lord, or an invitation to join his Apostles, or merely the approval of the crowd.  The Lord warns him, “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.”  That is, even the animals have places to sleep, but he and his Apostles do not, so constant is their life on the move.  The life of preaching the Gospel requires the utmost sacrifices and eschews any worldly reward.  The Lord’s answer is wonderfully poetic in its imagery.  We can interpret it in many ways, as well, following the Fathers.  The “foxes” can be understood as thieves and robbers, while the “birds” can be understood as those who give up everything in order to live a life of prayer and contemplation: thus, even the thieves have a regular place to live, as do monks, nuns, and hermits, but not the Son of Man.

“Lord, let me go first and bury my father.”  One of those who was already a disciple says this.  According to Luke 9, 59, the disciple answers in this way after Jesus had told him, “Follow me.”  The disciple uses an idiom here, saying, in effect, I will follow you when my father dies and I have made arrangements for my family.  It is something like a refusal and reminds of the excuses offered by those invited to the great feast in the parable, such as, “I have bought a farm and I must needs go out and see it. I pray you, hold me excused” ( Luke 14, 18).  This brings a stinging rebuke from the Lord: “Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead.”  That is to say, those who will not follow him are the dead.  This disciple has life and death set before him.  To reject the invitation of the Lord is to reject true life.  The Lord Jesus was not calling him to be an Apostle, but simply to follow him steadfastly, rather than trying to follow him part-time or half-heartedly.

We need not leave our homes and families in order to follow the Lord Jesus.  We can follow him at home, within our families, and in our jobs.  We remember the practical way that Mother Teresa answered a young woman who wanted to join her order but could not because of her responsibilities: “Where I go, you cannot, but where you go, I cannot.  Together, we can do something beautiful for God.”  We can follow the Lord wherever we are if our heart is with him.

We celebrate today the Feast of the First Martyrs of the Church of Rome, particularly those who died during the persecution of Nero during which Saints Peter and Paul suffered death.  These men and women were the ones who followed the Lamb wherever he went even unto poverty and homelessness, and who left the dead to bury their dead.

The Solemnity of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Sunday, June 29, 2025

2 Timothy 4, 6–8; 17–18

I, Paul, am already being poured out like a libation, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith. From now on the crown of righteousness awaits me, which the Lord, the just judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but to all who have longed for his appearance. The Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so that through me the proclamation might be completed and all the Gentiles might hear it. And I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil threat and will bring me safe to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory forever and ever. Amen.

Although St. Paul wrote the above lines in his Second Letter to Timothy, St. Peter could have written them as well, for both Apostles worked zealously for the spread of the Gospel.  Both men passionately loved the Lord Jesus.  We see his love on his rash promise, on Holy Thursday, to die for the Lord (a promise he made good on about thirty years later) and in his running to the tomb after hearing that the Lord’s Body was not there.  We see Paul’s love for the Lord in deeply touching reflections such as, “For to me, to live is Christ: and to die is gain” (Philippians 1, 21).

“I, Paul, am already being poured out like a libation.”  A “libation” was a drink offering poured out to a god on an altar.  The wine or other drink was completely emptied out, with the priest or attendant shaking the vessel so that not a drop was missing.  Paul feels as though he has nothing left to give, that he is empty.  He has been poured out by God in service to God.  True sanctity is to give oneself to God even when there is nothing left to give — friends, family, health is gone.  There remains no reason to praise God or to thank him except for his own sake.  Peter and Paul, through their extensive travels, various persecutions, arrests, beatings, and their endless work of preaching and leading the churches they founded, had arrived at this point at the time of their final arrests.  “I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith. From now on the crown of righteousness awaits me.”  Paul says this to Timothy in order to give him an example to follow.  Paul saw his work as a competition, even as a race.  He ran, knowing that his eternal salvation depended on his “winning” the race, that is, in finishing all the work that God gave him.  He knew full well how great the work lay before him, for at the beginning of his conversion, God said to Ananias, a Christian of Damascus, “For I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake” (Acts 9, 16).  Likewise, Peter knew that suffering lay ahead of him in his service to the Lord: “When you shall be old, you shall stretch forth your hands, and another shall gird you and lead you where you would not” (John 21, 28).  “The Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so that through me the proclamation might be completed.”  Throughout the Acts of the Apostles we can see how the Lord strengthened both Peter and Paul so that they could rejoice that they had suffered for Christ.  Both men were on the point of being killed by mobs or the authorities multiple times, and both were rescued “from the lion’s mouth” in order to continue preaching.  

We know much from the Scriptures about the journeys of Paul throughout Syria, Asia Minor, and Rome.  Peter worked in Jerusalem for some years, while also preaching in cities and towns throughout Syria and Asia Minor, especially in Antioch, where he remained for a few years.  Afterwards he went to Rome, where he spent the rest of his life.  St. Jerome tells us that this occurred in the year 42.  We do not know whether Peter and Paul met in Rome, though legends circulating in subsequent centuries say that they preached together and engaged in debate with Simon Magus, the magician mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles.  According to the Fathers, such as Tertullian and Origen, Peter was crucified head downwards during the reign of Nero, and Paul, a Roman citizen, was accorded execution by beheading.  Both suffered in about the year 67.

The Feast today celebrates the faith and virtue of these great men but especially how God provides for his people in raising up for us shepherds like himself to lead us.  And throughout the millennia, despite everything, the leaders of the Church have preserved intact the teachings vouchsafed to them by the Lord Jesus Christ.

Saturday in the Twelfth Week of Ordinary Time, June 28, 2025

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.”

In yesterday’s Gospel reading, a leper addressed Jesus as “Lord”.  Here, a centurion does so, a most remarkable act.  As an officer in a legion of the Roman army, the ordinary centurion had command of a unit of about a hundred men, although higher grades of centurion commanded larger numbers.  He was the equivalent of a captain through the rank of lieutenant colonel of today.  The ordinary centurion was promoted from the enlisted men.  As the lowest in rank of the Roman officers, he exercised his role as enforcer of discipline and so formed the backbone of the legion.  The fact that a centurion of the Roman army deigned not only to speak with one of the common people of an occupied land, but to call him “Lord”, and then to ask for his help must have have come as something of a shock to the people witnessing it.  The Roman soldiers, and especially their centurions, were hated and feared by the Jewish populace, and for good reason.  The centurion here probably did not come alone.  A small retinue would have attended him.  Presumably the centurion spoke Greek to Jesus, although he may have employed the services of an Aramaic interpreter on this occasion.  That he addressed Jesus as “Lord” could have gotten him into serious trouble if this became known to his higher-ups.  In any encounter with the general population, the centurion himself would have been addressed as “lord”, and treated with deference.  The centurion’s “lord” was Caesar.  Thus, this account, early in Matthew’s Gospel, shows how the Gentiles would convert in the years after Pentecost, and their courage in doing so.  

“Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, suffering dreadfully.”  Just as the leper humbly presented his need before his Lord, so does this centurion.  He does not attempt to persuade Jesus, he does not try to coerce him, he does not promise him money or favors.  The centurion comes before the One he acknowledges as the Lord who has care for him and simply states his need.  

“I will come and cure him.”  Jesus receives the centurion’s recognition and simply and clearly declares that he will take care of the matter.  Notice how the words and manner of the Lord compare with that of the soldier.  Jesus speaks and acts towards him in a way this man can understand, in the way he is accustomed to be spoken to by those over him.  Also, notice the Lord’s willingness to defile himself by entering the house of a Gentile, so much like his willingness to touch the leper.  This shows the Lord’s own fervent desire to save us, to “bear” the disease of our sin.

“Lord, I am not worthy.”  The centurion makes a statement that must have astonished the crowd even more than when he addressed Jesus as “Lord”.  “Lord” is a statement of faith; “I am not worthy” is a sign of the depths of his faith.  We ought to pause here to consider this man’s attitude, his motivations, his hopes.  His concern for his servant shows an admirable side to him.  Even if the slave possessed particularly rare skills, it is too much to think that his potential loss would have brought the centurion to call Jesus “Lord”.  The man’s subsequent words, “I too am a man subject to authority, with soldiers subject to me”, tell us that here we have a man who understands himself, and others, in terms of his duty.  “Duty” for him means authority coupled with responsibility.  He is responsible for his slave, and Jesus, his Lord, is responsible for them both.  In addition, Jesus, as Lord, has the authority to heal whomever he wants.

Who is this slave?  The centurion describes his servant as a παῖς [pīs], not a δούλος [dūlos].  The latter is a menial slave, especially one that would work out of doors.  A παῖς, on the other hand, could mean “a boy”, “a girl”, “a child”, “a servant”, or, “a slave”.  In the Septuagint text of Isaiah 42, 1, which Matthew quotes in 12, 18, παῖς is to be understood as “servant”.  In his other usages of the word, it’s meaning as “little child” is understood, without any implications of servitude.  The parallel account in Luke 7, 2-9 describes the sick person as a δούλος, a slave of any age.  In addition, Luke provides the detail that the slave was “valuable” to the centurion, meaning that he was skilled.  It would seem most likely that the sick one is a slave of indeterminate age, but probably older than a child because he possessed valuable skills, and that the translator of Matthew’s Gospel from Hebrew into Greek simply used the two terms παῖς and δούλος interchangeably.  

Jesus registers amazement at the centurion’s faith, and he does this in order to point it up for the benefit of the onlookers: This uncircumcised man has more faith than any of you circumcised people who attend the synagogue and make pilgrimages to the Temple!  It would be on the same order of saying, This brick has more compassion than you do!  

“You may go; as you have believed, let it be done for you.”  Jesus dismisses the centurion with this assurance.  It is similar to the assurance the Lord gave to the leper: Jesus sent him to the Temple for the priests to examine him, and who will make his cure official — in this way the leper would have objective proof of his own healing, should any doubt linger.

In both accounts of the leper’s cure and that of the centurion’s slave, we see the eagerness of the Lord to save — there is no one whom he will not save, if only they would let him.

The Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Friday, June 27, 2025

Matthew 11, 25–30

At that time Jesus exclaimed: “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to little ones. Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him. Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”

The solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus was established for the world in 1856 by Pope Pius IX after it had earlier been established for the region of France.  Devotion to the wonderful love and mercy of Jesus Christ for us began to coalesce around devotion to his Heart in the Middle Ages.  At that time, it was believed that the heart was the seat of the mind, that is, the intellect and the will.  The devotion to the Lord’s “Heart”, then, is not to the physical organ but rather to this merciful love, which the Lord exposed in all his works and deeds for us, and which was dramatically exposed on the Cross, where his side was pierced by a lance.  We recall his words at the Last Supper: “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15, 13).  In the 17th century, the Visitation nun St. Margaret Mary received visions of the Lord in which he told her of the love of his Sacred Heart and encouraged devotion to it.  About a hundred years after the established of the Feast, Pope Pius XII wrote a magnificent tribute to it in his encyclical, Haureatis Aquas, named from Isaiah 12, 3: “You will draw water joyfully from the springs of the Savior” (according to the Vulgate, from the Septuagint).    

In the reading from St. Matthew’s Gospel, we hear the Lord pray to his Father, “You have hidden these things from the wise and the learned, you have revealed them to little ones.”  “These things” are the teachings of the Gospel.  The “wise and the learned”: St. Thomas Aquinas memorably comments that the Lord did not choose for his Apostles Plato and Aristotle, but rather Peter and Andrew.  “To little ones”: the Greek text uses a word that has the primary meaning of “infants”.  When applied to adults, it means something like “simpletons”, or “the weak-minded”, or merely, “the uneducated”.  It is not a word a person would like to be described with.  Jesus uses this word in order to emphasize the absolutely free nature of the gift the Father has given these Apostles, and to us as well.  We recall St. Paul’s words, “For see your vocation, brethren, that there are not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble. But the foolish things of the world had God chosen, that he may confound the wise” (1 Corinthians 26-27).

“You who are weary and burdened”: Jesus is speaking these words to his Apostles after they have returned from preaching in the towns and preparing the way for his own visit to them.  The Lord is here consoling his faithful ones who strive for his honor and glory, and for the salvation of souls.  “Take my yoke upon you . . . and you will find rest for yourselves.”  These words seem to present a contradiction.  A “yoke” implied pulling a plow.  How would this allow for rest?  Jesus here shows the contrast between his Law and all other laws.  The law of Jesus is love, and the “rest” is on his breast (cf. the Beloved Disciple reclining on the breast of Jesus in John 13, 23).  Further, this rest which the faithful will find is eternal, in heaven.  “For I am meek and humble of heart.”  The Greek πραύ̈ς, “prous”, is found again in Matthew 11, 29, which paraphrases Zechariah 9, 9: “Your King comes to you, gentle, and mounted on an ass,” and is applied to the Lord triumphantly entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.  And, ταπεινὸς, “tap-eh-nós”, “meek” or “humble” of heart, approachable and compassionate, One upon whose breast a weary disciple may indeed recline.

Thursday in the Twelfth Week of Ordinary Time, June 26, 2025

Matthew 7, 21-29

Jesus said to his disciples: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons in your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?’ Then I will declare to them solemnly, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers.’  Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. But it did not collapse; it had been set solidly on rock. And everyone who listens to these words of mine but does not act on them will be like a fool who built his house on sand. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. And it collapsed and was completely ruined.”  When Jesus finished these words, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.

With this reading from the Gospel of St. Matthew, we come to the end of the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount.  He has laid before us his moral teachings and will shortly confirm them through a series of powerful miracles.  Here, he speaks of the consequences of those who do not follow his teachings though pretending to be his followers.  And in the Sermon’s concluding words, the Lord teaches how following his laws provides his true followers a sure foundation for us to reach heaven.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of heaven.”  It is easy to call for help when we find ourselves in grave danger.  Likewise, it is easy to call Jesus “Lord” when he is about to judge us. But only those who served Jesus on earth as his servants will enter the Kingdom of heaven: “Only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.”  To enter heaven after we die we must serve the King of heaven while we live.  He will recognize us as his servants and will invite us in.  More than that, “He will gird himself and have them sit at table, and he will come and serve them” (Luke 12, 37).  “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons in your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?”  However, they did not.  Or, for personal gain some people fake their Christianity and act as go through the motions of prophesying — preaching — and performing good works, but these, coupled with immoral living — insult God and do him no honor at all.  Instead, “their god is their belly” (Philippians 3, 19).  

“I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers.”  That is, he never knew them as his followers, his servants.  They never came to him to learn of him.  In the end, they call upon him merely to stave off their condemnation: he is nothing more for them than a means to an end.  He calls them evildoers because he knows them for their godlessness.

“Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.”  This means that the builder sinks the principal beams that will hold his house together into the rock, the deeper the better.  He must use solid wood, preferably a hardwood, or even with such a rock as the foundation the house will not last long.  The “rock” is the Church, which preserves and advances the teachings of the Lord.  The “wood” the builder uses is his intellect and free-will.  Grounded in this rock, these beams will fixedly hold together the house of this man’s hope for heaven.  “A fool who built his house on sand.”  It is relatively easy and cheap to build a house on a foundation of sand, but it will not endure.  Sand does offer much in the way of stability but is quickly scattered by the wind and washed away by water.  In the spiritual life, “sand” signifies our neglect of prayer, the Sacraments, Holy Mass, and a perverse trust in our own abilities.  “The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house.”  Trials, tribulations, health failures, the weakness of old age do not trouble those who have given themselves entirely to God, but will mean disaster for those who have not: their house will collapse and be completely ruined.  

“When Jesus finished these words, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.”  Throughout his Sermon, the Lord declared to the people, “I say.”  Here is your understanding of the Law, or the understanding of the scribes, but I say to you, etc.  The Lord Jesus came to complete and to fulfill, and to reveal the deeper demands of the Laws given to the people through Moses, which can now be carried out with the help of God’s grace.Through our adherence to the commandments of Christ we build our house on rock, looking forward to the day when we will dwell in God’s eternal dwellings. 

Wednesday in the Twelfth Week of Ordinary Time, June 25, 2025

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.”

After the Lord Jesus warns his followers not to judge, he tells them not tο throw what is holy to the dogs and to beware of false prophets so that that they may know that they should discern the good from the wicked while refraining from the public condemnation which belongs to God.

“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.

The Solemnity of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, June 24, 2025

Luke 1, 57–66; 80

When the time arrived for Elizabeth to have her child she gave birth to a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy toward her, and they rejoiced with her. When they came on the eighth day to circumcise the child, they were going to call him Zechariah after his father, but his mother said in reply, “No. He will be called John.” But they answered her, “There is no one among your relatives who has this name.” So they made signs, asking his father what he wished him to be called. He asked for a tablet and wrote, “John is his name,” and all were amazed. Immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue freed, and he spoke blessing God. Then fear came upon all their neighbors, and all these matters were discussed throughout the hill country of Judea. All who heard these things took them to heart, saying, “What, then, will this child be?” For surely the hand of the Lord was with him. The child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the desert until the day of his manifestation to Israel.

St. Luke tells us how St. John the Baptist was conceived and how he was named.  All four Gospels describe his manner of life in the wilderness as well as some of his preaching.  Three of the Gospels give us detailed reports of the circumstances of his death. For all this, John the Baptist remains an enigmatic figure.  We know that he attracted crowds, but how influential was he really?  He preached and prophesied to the people for at least a year and people came to him, but what attracted them to him?  The Lord Jesus rhetorically asked this question of those who followed him: “What went ye out into the desert to see? A reed shaken by the wind? But what went you out to see?” (Luke 7, 24-25).  And what did Jesus mean when he said that John was Elijah, who was prophesied to return (cf. Malachi 4, 5-6)?  The Fathers of the Church help clarify the mystery, but we are still left to ponder and to wonder.

“When the time arrived for Elizabeth to have her child she gave birth to a son.”  Her husband Zechariah had said to the Angel Gabriel, at the time he foretold the pregnancy, “My wife is advanced in years” (Luke 1, 18).  But now the words of the Angel are fulfilled in the birth of a son.  This alone constitutes a great sign of God’s presence among his people.  Her neighbors and relatives saw this as an act of God’s “great mercy” towards her, not realizing how this was an act of great mercy towards them, for the child who was born would prepare them for the coming of the Son of God.  “No. He will be called John.”  These neighbors and relatives oddly wanted to name the child after the father, which would have gone against the custom of the time.  It is possible that they regarded Zechariah as though he were dead because of his inability to hear and to speak, which disqualified him from exercising his priesthood, and saw this child as raised up by God to take his place.  But Elizabeth insists that the child would be named John.  The people are astounded when Zechariah writes out for them that he was to be named John.  The fact that they did not attempt to make signs to the father what name his son should have indicates that either they had ignored or had not noticed him — confirming that they were acting as though he was dead.  His writing out that the child was to be named John astounded them, both because the dead man had come back to life and because he could not have understood what the debate was about.  And while today we might assume that he could have communicated his desire for this to his wife through writing, it is very unlikely that Elizabeth could read.  

“Immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue freed, and he spoke blessing God.”  His lack of faith cost him his voice; his act of faith restored it.  This illustrates how we cannot speak sensibly without faith for only through faith can we understand the world.  But once we have faith and begin to exercise it we can speak rightly.

“Then fear came upon all their neighbors.”  The Greek word could be translated as either “fear”, as in “terror”, or as “reverence”.  Perhaps in this case Luke meant both, for the sudden realization that God is present overwhelms the guilty with fear and causes the faithful to fall upon their knees in awe.  “The hand of the Lord was with him.”  The idiom “the hand of the Lord” appears many times in the Scriptures.  It signifies divine protection, power, and justice: “What you give to them they shall gather up: when you open your hand, they shall all be filled with good” (Psalm 104, 28).  “If I shall walk in the midst of tribulation, you will quicken me: and you have stretched forth your hand against the wrath of my enemies: and your right hand has saved me” (Psalm 138, 7).  In the context of this verse, God filled John with grace so that he could accomplish the purpose for which God had created him.

The world strives to stamp us with its name, with what it values, but abiding in God’s grace we resist and keep the name of Christian which God has given us.

Monday in the 12th Week of Ordinary Time, June 23, 2025

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.”

“Do not judge” does not mean “Do not form and hold an opinion.” But just after the Lord tells his disciples not to judge, he tells them, “Give not that which is holy to dogs; neither cast ye your pearls before swine.”  The Lord himself seems to “judge”, calling unbelievers “dogs” and “swine”.  He also implies that his disciples should note that certain people are “dogs” and “swine” so as not to waste what is holy on them.  The Greek word translated here as “to judge” has many meanings, but the one that fits the context the best is “to condemn”, that is, publicly.  We cannot do this because it is not our place.  Only one who is higher than us has the standing to condemn.  Even the Lord Jesus says it is not his work to condemn: “For God sent not his Son into the world, to judge the world: but that the world may be saved by him” (John 3, 17).  And again, “And if any man hear my words and keep them not, I do not judge him for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that despises me and receives not my words has one that does judge him. The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day” (John 12:47–48).  That is, the Lord came the first time not to judge but to save; but those who refused his salvation he will judge when he comes the second time.  And so we leave the condemnation to God.  We can criticize, with an eye to correction, but we cannot use the this fraternal correcting as an excuse for acting out on our hatred and grudges.  And this is what the Lord does in speaking of “dogs” and “swine”: the disciple, recognizing a person acting in bad faith or obstinate in their refusal of the Gospel (or of  fraternal correction, for that matter), should leave the person be and go his way, in hopes that time will allow the person to change.  “The measure with which you measure will be measured out to you.”  The key is to act in charity.

“How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove that splinter from your eye,’ while the wooden beam is in your eye?”  The Lord gives an example of how we sometimes judge under the cover of charity.  We set ourselves up as seeing the fault in others while pretending to have no fault ourselves, and we do this professing that we do it for the other’s good out of charity.  

In studying the Lord in these verses we see how we “fulfills” the Law, we admire his wisdom and his authority.  There is nothing about “judging” in the Old Law.  There are prohibitions against certain actions and commandments to carry out certain others.  But the Lord shows what lies within these so that we may not simply appear just according to the letter of the Law, but holy in his eyes.