Saturday in the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time, August 8, 2020

The Feast of St. Dominic

Matthew 17:14-20

A man came up to Jesus, knelt down before him, and said, “Lord, have pity on my son, who is a lunatic and suffers severely; often he falls into fire, and often into water. I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him.” Jesus said in reply, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long will I be with you? How long will I endure you? Bring the boy here to me.” Jesus rebuked him and the demon came out of him, and from that hour the boy was cured. Then the disciples approached Jesus in private and said, “Why could we not drive it out?” He said to them, “Because of your little faith. Amen, I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

The events in the Gospel reading for today transpire immediately after the Lord and his Apostles Peter, James, and John return from Mount Tabor following the Transfiguration.  The exorcism Jesus performs here serves to validate the events on the mountain and the words heard by the Apostles just as the healing of the leper did when Jesus descended the mountain upon delivering the Sermon on the Mount.  One further descent and validation is to come: following the Last Supper and the inauguration of the Mass, Jesus will come down the Mount of Olives to die on the Cross.  In the healing of the leper, the Lord in sign enters our own sinfulness in order to heal us from our sins.  In the present exorcism, in sign he casts out the evil one who has dominated the human race to that point.  In his Death on the Cross, he will fulfill the signs of the healings and rescue us all, and destroy the power of the devil over all humans.

“He falls into fire, and often into water.”  The Church Father Origen makes an interesting comment on this verse.  Already in the mid third century some were saying that the boy was suffering from some physical ailment, attributable in Origen’s day to an upset of the balance of the four humors.  Origen points out that if so, the Lord would certainly have treated him differently than he did, and then would not have explained to his Apostles that prayer (and fasting) were necessary for casting out an evil spirit of this magnitude.  In the present day, many modernist scholars will echo the notion which Origen so soundly defeated.

“O faithless and perverse generation, how long will I be with you?“. This sounds like a rebuke of the Apostles, who failed to cast out the devil, but the Fathers, such as St. Jerome, are universal in seeing these words as applied to the boy and his father.  What is lacking is not want of power for a successful exorcism, but the faith necessary to be exorcised.  St. Mark, in his more detailed telling of the event, records: “And Jesus saith to him: ‘If you can believe, all things are possible to him that believes.’  And immediately the father of the boy crying out, with tears said: ‘I do believe, Lord. Help my unbelief!’ ” (Mark 9, 22-23).  While Jesus does not always require faith on the part of the one he is to heal, he does so on several occasions, such as this one, in which a Jewish child and his father must renounce evil and believe in God’s mercy.

Later, in private, the Apostles ask the Lord how they could have failed: surely they had received power from him to cast out demons and cure diseases (Matthew 10, 1)?  They had exercised previously: “Even the demons were subject to us!” (Luke 10, 17).  Jesus explains, “Because of your little faith.”  That is, they had received the power, but the power required faith to be applied.  With Jesus on Mount Tabor, the faith of the nine remaining Apostles weakened enough that they could not accomplish this work.  Jesus continues, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”  We ought to consider the size and purity of our faith, and pray for more, so that we might move the mountain of our world to convert and to become a truly holy mountain.  In this way we could join in the work of St. Dominic, who won back to the True Faith those who had rejected it for a terrible heresy.

Friday in the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time, August 7, 2020

Matthew 16, 24-28

Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life? For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory, and then he will repay each according to his conduct. Amen, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom.”

Many teachers or rabbis roamed through the Holy Land at the of Jesus.  Some, like John the Baptist, gathered large followings, and some attracted only a handful of disciples.  The proponents of sects like the Pharisees and Sadducees also taught distinctive doctrines and maintained that their way pointed out how best to worship God.  All of these teachers taught by saying, “The Lord God commanded, etc., and this is what he means.”  The Lord Jesus taught by saying, “This is what I say.”  In this way “he was teaching them as one having power, and not as the scribes and Pharisees” (Matthew 7, 29).  Furthermore, he backed his words with splendid miracles.  Truly, “never did man speak like this man” (John 7, 46).

“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”  Here, Jesus goes beyond authoritatively teaching the truth about God.  As shocking as this sounded to the Apostles and his other disciples, this is a natural development of what he has said and done to this point.  He has shown himself to be the Son of God, and Peter has just confessed it.  If he is the Son of God, he alone can provide the way to heaven.  If, then, he speaks about carrying the dreadful cross, then this must be done.  After he had spoken, the Apostles probably discussed whether he was speaking in parables, but the gravity of the command could not have escaped them.  Clearly, this meant to follow him even if to the bitter end.  To help us understand the confusion this command would have caused among his followers, they were prepared to hear him say, Whoever wishes to come after me must follow me into battle.  The “cross” meant defeat, humiliation, and an agonizing, prolonged death.  The cross was the sentence given to defeated rebels, as in the case of six thousand survivors of the slave revolt under Spartacus, a hundred years before.  To many of his hears, it would have sounded as though Jesus were saying that they must follow him to terrible defeat, and that he expected to be defeated.

“For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”  Note that Jesus does not say, for instance, “for the sake of God’s name”, or “for the sake of the temple”.  Only God, or a madman, could say what he is saying.  Only the most devoted, zealous follower or a madman could obey this.  In losing your life — for his sake — you will find it.  In the Second Book of Maccabees we find examples of Jews dying for the law and looking forward to the Resurrection for doing so.  Here, a Jew is say in essence that those who die for him can therefore look forward to the Resurrection.  

“What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life?”  Jesus speaks to all would-be conquerors across the ages, and perhaps his words remind his hearers of Alexander the Great, who died at the height of his power, or Julius Caesar, who was killed shortly after defeating the Gauls.  His words also apply to those today who shed all morality in the climb up the corporate or political ladders, perhaps even going to the extreme of defending the practice of abortion in order to win votes.  The Lord Jesus speaks thus to contrast dying for for, which wins salvation, with “winning” some worldly prize, and losing one’s soul (“forfeits his life”).

“For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory, and then he will repay each according to his conduct.”  This might seem a change of subject on first reading, but the Lord is saying here that a person’s “conduct” is the choice he makes for or against him: for the world or for its Creator.  The Lord will reward those who carry the cross after him, and punish those who refuse the cross and go on to selfish pursuits.

“Amen, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom.”  These words might make us wonder because it sounds as though Jesus is saying that some hearing him would not die but would live until he came again to judge the world, and that certainly did not happen.  St. Albert the Great solves this problem by analyzing the expression Jesus uses, “not taste death”.  It is certainly an unusual expression.  How does a person “taste” death?  St. Albert points out that if Jesus meant to say, There are some who will not die until they see the .son of Man, etc., then that is what he would have said.  To “taste” death means to commit sin, or to experience the bitterness of death without belief in the Resurrection.  All to whom Jesus spoke died before the second coming, but there were some among them, such as the Apostles (minus Judas) who did not “taste” death.

If we follow Jesus, joining in the parade of the saints who “follow the Lamb wherever he goes” (Revelation 14, 4), then we shall see with them “the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom.”

The Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, August 6, 2020

Matthew 17:1–9

Jesus took Peter, James, and his brother, John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them; his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, conversing with him. Then Peter said to Jesus in reply, “Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud cast a shadow over them, then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” When the disciples heard this, they fell prostrate and were very much afraid. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and do not be afraid.” And when the disciples raised their eyes, they saw no one else but Jesus alone.  As they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, “Do not tell the vision to anyone until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

The Feast of the Transfiguration began to be celebrated locally in the 900’s on various dates in Western Europe.  It was promulgated to the whole Church by Pope Callistus III in the year 1456 in thanksgiving for the victory of the Hungarian Count John Hunyadi over far larger Moslem forces at the Battle of Belgrade, who threatened to enslave Europe after taking Constantinople three years before.  The victory by this ragtag, quickly assembled army of peasants and mercenaries forced the Muslims to retreat and saved Europe.  

The feast commemorates the manifestation of Christ’s glory to his most zealous Apostles Peter, James, and John, who would later describe this to the others.  It occurred as the Lord led his disciples to Jerusalem in order for him to enter his Passion, and it served to strengthen them for its coming as well as to prepare them for his Resurrection.

“Jesus took Peter, James, and his brother, John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves.”  Mount Tabor, the traditional site for the  Transfiguration, rises almost two thousand feet above the surrounding plain near the Sea of Galilee and presents a marvelous view from its summit.  It is a rather steep feature and it would have required a lot of work to get to the top, particularly since no roads went up it at the time.  It takes a few hours to climb.  Since Jesus often chose places like this to pray, his Apostles might have thought, as they made their way up, that he proposed to do this here.  On the other hand, he preferred to go off by himself to pray.  They knew that when he took the three of them along apart from the other Apostles, they saw wondrous healings and even the dead rise.  

“And he was transfigured before them.”  The Greek verb here is the root of the English “metamorphosis”, which means “a transformation”.  The Greek is customarily translated as “he was transfigured”, which has the sense of being transformed into something greater or more beautiful.  The question arises, then: Was he or his appearance transformed into this greater reality, or was he or it revealed to be thus in actuality?  We can think of Jesus himself as a sacrament in which the outer appearance signifies the power of God.  In the case of Jesus, the appearance of his Body was that of a Jewish man, but his words and his actions, also part of his appearance, indicated far more.  In this way, the Transfiguration meant the revealing of his glory inasmuch as human eye could bear it.  It was also a sign of the transformation his Body would undergo in the Resurrection, when it became spiritualized.

“His face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light.”  The Lord’s Transfiguration dazzled his Apostles, and yet it drew their vision on with its glory.  This was the light of pure love, the end of every human desire.  Peter later described it in the presence of St. Mark, who duly recorded his words: “And his garments became shining and exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller upon earth can make white” (Mark 9, 2).  St. Luke says, “His shape of his countenance was altered and his raiment became white and glittering” (Luke 9, 29).  

“And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, conversing with him.”  St. Luke adds: “And they spoke of his decease that he should accomplish in Jerusalem” (Luke 9, 31).  That is, of the Lord’s Passion and Death.  Jesus stood in the center of these two holy men, showing himself to be their superior.  Both had seen a vision of God, Moses will still alive, and Elijah when he was carried up to heaven in a fiery chariot.  God had formed the people of Israel from the law and the covenant which he made through Moses.  Elijah was to come again at the beginning of the end of the age to announce the Messiah, who would form the people anew.  The Fathers saw Moses as signifying the Jewish law, and Elijah as signifying the prophets calling the people to observe that law.  Together, they signify the old covenant, which would be “transfigured” into the new covenant of Jesus: “This is my Blood of the new covenant, which shall be shed for many” (Mark 14, 24).  

“Then Peter said to Jesus in reply, “Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”  St. Mark adds, “For he knew not what he said: for they were struck with fear” (Mark 9, 5).  Peter evidently surmised that Jesus meant to make this mountain his headquarters and that he and James and John were brought along to serve Jesus, Moses, and Elijah there.  They could not have raised proper tents, of course, but they could have gathered wood from the trees that abound on Tabor for shelters until something more fitting could be constructed.

“A bright cloud cast a shadow over them, then from the cloud came a voice.”  This might remind us of the dedication of the temple of Solomon, nearly a thousand years before: “A cloud filled the house of the Lord, and the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud: for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord” (1 Kings 8, 10-11).  Here, the dedication of the Body of the Lord, for which the earthly temple was but a sign, is manifested by his Father for his coming Sacrifice on the Cross.  “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him”, the Father’s own words thundering through creation, as they had at the beginning of his Son’s earthly ministry, reaching even our ears today.

“When the disciples heard this, they fell prostrate and were very much afraid. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and do not be afraid.”  It shall be thus for the blessed souls at the end of time.  The angels will reconstitute their bodies and they will tremble in anticipation of the great judgment, but the Lord shall call to them still in their graves, “Rise, and do not be afraid.”

“And when the disciples raised their eyes, they saw no one else but Jesus alone.”  Suddenly, without warning, all was as it had been.

“Do not tell the vision to anyone until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”  St. Mark adds, “And they kept the word to themselves; questioning together what that should mean, when he shall be risen from the dead” (Mark 9, 9).  In their wonder at what they had seen, the Apostles must have thought that Jesus was speaking in parables here.  In light of this vision of his glory, at this validation by God himself, what could he mean?  So much they would not understand until after it had happened, when they looked back and remembered, and when he came back to explain it to them.  We cannot now imagine the glory of heaven although the Lord and his saints have told us about it, and entire chapters of the Book of Revelation are given over to it.  Still, “eye has not seen, nor ear heard: neither has it entered into the heart of man, what things God has prepared for them that love him” (1 Corinthians 2, 9).  We have a hint, in the words of today’s Gospel reading, of the beatific vision.

Wednesday in the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time, August 5, 2020

The Feast of the Dedication of St. Mary Major

Matthew 15: 21-28

At that time Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman of that district came and called out, “Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not say a word in answer to her. His disciples came and asked him, “Send her away, for she keeps calling out after us.” He said in reply, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But the woman came and did him homage, saying, “Lord, help me.” He said in reply, “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.” Then Jesus said to her in reply, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed from that hour.

The city of Tyre lies thirty-nine miles from the Sea of Galilee, and Sidon several miles north of Tyre, a fairly formidable distance on foot, with rugged country to navigate.  St. Matthew does not say that Jesus traveled as far as Tyre, but only to the region, so perhaps this journey did not go so far.  His destination in the region remains a mystery, unless he meant to visit a synagogue in a town of that country.  Matthew does say that Jesus “withdrew”, which is one of the two main ways to translate the Greek verb here.  Another way would be to say that the Lord “retired” there.  As Matthew tells it, Jesus and his Apostles went directly from Jerusalem to the region of Tyre and Sidon, “withdrawing” or “retiring” there.  It is intriguing that he did not simply “withdraw” back to Galilee.  Perhaps Jesus wanted to spend some time in a place where he would not be thronged by crowds of people.  His Apostles would have benefitted from the respite, and he would have the opportunity to teach them privately.  Matthew does not tell us how long he spent there.

Mostly, the inhabitants of that place worshipped a mix of the old Phoenician gods and the imported Greek gods.  Matthew does not call them “Gentiles” but “Canaanites”, an anachronistic term.  The equivalent would be to call the Jews of the Lord’s time “Hebrews”.  Matthew does this in order to point up the ancient enmity that existed between these descendants of the original inhabitants of the Promised Land and the Hebrews who entered it under Joshua.  This has implications for what follows.

“Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is tormented by a demon.”  The reputation of Jesus has penetrated to this pagan land from Galilee, or perhaps Jesus had performed some miracles among the few Jews who lived in the area.  Whatever the case, this “Canaanite” woman is very certain that the Lord can help her.  She may not know his name, for she does not use it.  But she does call him “Lord”.  It is significant that she acknowledges this Jew as her Lord, for it shows the desperation of her situation.  The Phoenicians were a proud people with a long and storied history.  They regarded the Israelites as below them.  She shouts out for all to hear that her daughter is “tormented by a demon”.  This may mean that her daughter was suffering from a curse, an evil spell, or from demonic possession.  This latter was not confined merely to the Jews.  Matthew does not say that the girl was present with her mother and so we might surmise that she was confined st home.  

“But he did not say a word in answer to her.”  This lack of response from Jesus would not have surprised the Jews of the time, who mixed as little with the Gentiles as they could.  Even speaking with them was done only out of necessity.  “Send her away, for she keeps calling out after us.”  The Apostles are annoyed with the shouting, or that it is a Gentile woman who is doing it.  We can see here two competing prayers made to the Lord.  Both are reasonable requests.  The woman earnestly desires her daughter’s deliverance, and the Apostles want to be free of an annoyance that could possibly draw an angry crowd against them.  “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  Presumably Jesus answers her in Greek, which would most likely have her language.  In referring to the “house of Israel” Jesus uses a term found in the law and the prophets, but which had no real meaning at the time in which he was speaking: there was Judah and Galilee, but no Israel.  Again, this points out the conflict between the two peoples.  “But the woman came and did him homage, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’ ”  First, she publicly calls this Jewish man “Lord”, and now she renders him homage, perhaps bowing low to the ground and even lying prostrate.  Her prayer becomes more direct: “Lord, help me.”

“It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.”  To us this seems a very harsh way to speak, but it reflects the attitude of a Jew of the time towards a Gentile.  We note here too that Jesus speaks to her as a haughty lord would speak to his slave.  He has accepted her naming him “Lord”, but he acts as though he were merely the Lord of the Jews.  “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.”  The woman shows herself a quick-thinker with her clever rejoinder, but she has also humbled herself to the lowest point possible.  First, she calls him Lord; second, she renders him homage; third, she accepts his calling her a “dog”.  She is not even the slave of this Lord, but beneath even that.  With this admission, Jesus astonishes all by answering, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.”  He credits her with faith, for only belief in him as Lord could result in such humility, and he delivers her daughter from the demon.  He does this without causing scandal for her by entering her home (she could not have let him in without her husband present, and if she had been married, her husband would have gone to Jesus instead of her), and without incurring uncleanness through his doing so, in the same way as was done with the Gentile centurion’s servant.  And in performing this miracle the Lord heals the rift between the Jews and this people, the descendants of Noah’s son Canaan, signifies by the final words of this reading: “And her daughter was healed from that hour.”  Jesus shows himself as much their Lord and Savior as that of the Jews, from whom, at this time, he had “withdrawn”.  

We see in this reading how Jesus answers prayer.  He desires our heartfelt acknowledgment of him as Lord, homage, and complete submission to his will while confessing our unworthiness.  Jesus answers the prayer of his Apostles too, although in a way they had not expected: by casting out the demon from afar, he sends the woman away, back to her home.

Today we celebrate the dedication, in the year 434, of the largest church in Rome named for the Blessed Virgin Mary.  In this time of anti-Catholic violence, we ask for her intercession for the divine protection of all church buildings consecrated to the worship of God and for the faithful who come to them,

Tuesday in the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time, August 4, 2020

The Feast of St. John Vianney

Luke 12, 35–40 

Let your loins be girt and lamps burning in your hands. And you yourselves like to men who wait for their lord, when he shall return from the wedding; that when he comes and knocks, they may open to him immediately. Blessed are those servants whom the Lord, when he comes, shall find watching. Amen I say to you that he will gird himself and make them sit down to meat and passing will minister unto them. And if he shall come in the second watch or come in the third watch and find them so, blessed are those servants. But this know ye, that if the householder did know at what hour the thief would come, he would surely watch and would not suffer his house to be broken open. Be you then also ready: for at what hour you think not the Son of man will come. 

Yesterday I wrote and posted a reflection on the Gospel reading for Tuesday instead of for Monday, getting mixed up on the date.  It’s just as well, though, because, due to the current system for the lectionary, Monday’s Gospel reading was exactly the same as Sunday’s.  For today’s reflection, I would like to look at Luke 12, 35-40, the Gospel reading for August 8, according to the traditional Missal.

In order to understand the first part of the reading, we ought to review how a Jewish wedding proceeded in the time of Jesus.  The actual marriage really began with the agreement between the families involved, particularly the parents of the bride and groom.  At that time, a celebration was planned, which might take place weeks or months in the future.  Jesus attended such a celebration at Cana at the beginning of his ministry.  At the end of the celebration, which was held at the house of the bride’s family, the groom would lead the bride back to his home, where the couple would set up housekeeping.  This took place in the late evening.  Often, the bride and groom lived in the same city or town before they married, but otherwise they would live in neighboring localities.  The servants in the groom’s house would light lamps and open the gates and doors for the arriving couple and a short celebration would ensue there.  Because the time of the arrival of the couple was uncertain due to various factors, especially travel times if the families lived in different cities, the servants had to stay awake late at night and keep watch for them. In this way we can understand the marriage agreement and the celebration at the bride’s house as the Incarnation, Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of the Lord, and the return to the groom’s house as the great judgment.

“Let your loins be girt and lamps burning in your hands.”  That is, we ought to wait in a state of constant readiness at all times, properly washed, dressed, and equipped.  The oil lamp which we hold signifies our faith and good works.  “That when he comes and knocks, they may open to him immediately.”  It is his house, though maintained by servants.  These servants exist in order to serve him.  The joys of the master are their joys, and likewise his sorrows.  In order to share in his joy, they must perform their role for him.  The vigilant servant shows this desire to share in the joy of his master by opening right away to him.  “Blessed are those servants whom the Lord, when he comes, shall find watching.”  This can mean that it is the blessed servants who are waiting for the Lord as well as that the servants will be blessed by the Lord when he comes.  The wicked servants are not watching but indulging themselves beforehand.  The servants will be blessed by the joy of the Lord’s coming and by his reward for them.

A bizarre element always shows up in the Lord’s parables, and here it is: “Amen I say to you that he will gird himself and make them sit down to meat and passing will minister unto them.”  The master of the house now acts as though this were the wedding of his servants, and he proceeds to wait on them.  He seems to forget that he is the one to whom honor and service are rightly due.  He seems, in fact, to act in an irrational manner.  All the same, it is his house, these are his servants, and he is free to act in any way he desires.  Of course, this would greatly astonish the servants, who would hardly know how to act in turn.  But the master puts them at their ease, shows them their places at the table, and brings out the feast and the wine for them to celebrate.  And all this, simply because they were doing their job.  They would say to their Lord, “We are unprofitable servants for we have only done that which we ought to do” (Luke 17, 10).  But the Lord will answer them, “Come, eat my bread, and drink the wine which I have mingled for you” (Proverbs 9, 5).  “And if he shall come in the second watch or come in the third watch and find them so, blessed are those servants.”  The second and third watches would have occurred between midnight and before dawn.  The Lord is saying that those who persevere late into the night of this life, through tribulation and persecution, will be doubly rewarded.  

“But this know ye, that if the householder did know at what hour the thief would come, he would surely watch and would not suffer his house to be broken open.”  Here, it seems that St. Matthew has added a saying of Jesus from another occasion.  He does this sometimes in his Gospel.  Outside of his descriptions of the major events in the Lord’s life, Matthew tends to record our Lord’s words and actions according to theme rather than chronologically, as a historian would do.  It is also possible that the Lord paused for a moment after the parable of the master’s return from the wedding feast and then took a different approach to make his point.  Now, the passage about the thief and the householder likens the Lord to a thief.  To put it in other words, if a mortal man knew when the Lord was coming (at the time of death), he would “keep watch”, occupying himself with good works and prayer.  He would not “suffer his house to be broken open”, that is, he would not allow himself to be caught unprepared.  “Be you then also ready: for at what hour you think not the Son of man will come.”  Historically, people like the Blessed Virgin Mary, her husband Joseph, Peter, James, John, Mary and Martha and Lazarus, and Nicodemus, showed themselves as ready as anyone could be for the coming of the Lord among us.  The larger number of the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin did not.  In our own time we can look around and see so many folks evidently dedicated solely to secular pursuits, and even folks who declare themselves atheists, agnostics, or, vaguely, “spiritual”.  These have no readiness.  We find this true even among those nominally Christian.  Let us busy ourselves with the Lord’s work so that we may one day have him serve us at his banquet in heaven.

We celebrate the feast of St. John Vianney today and ask him to pray for the complete dedication of priests to God so that all who look upon them may see Christ the Lord, as once French folks saw the Lord in him.

Monday in the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time, August 3, 2020

Matthew 14:22-36

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

The events in this passage from the Gospel of St. Matthew occur after the feeding of the five thousand.  This enormous crowd was composed of those who “followed him on foot out of the cities” (Matthew 14, 13) at a location in Galilee.  One wonders how the Lord “dismissed” this multitude.  It seems likely that he did so with prayers and blessings, but the mystery of what he did lingers.  Afterwards, we find him “up on the mountain by himself to pray.”  Matthew emphasizes his solitude by adding, “When it was evening he was there alone.”  Calculating from the indications Matthew gives us, the Lord prayed between eight and ten hours, from sundown until an hour or so before dawn.  The Gospels make special note of Jesus spending time alone in prayer on three significant occasions: before the choosing of the Apostles, before his Passion and Death, and here, before he announces to Simon son of John that he will be the “rock” on which he will build his Church. 

Meanwhile, the Apostles are struggling in their boat, with the wind blowing hard against them. It would seem that they spent several hours on the water without making much progress.  At this point, they had worked steadily from dawn of the morning before, making their way across the countryside with Jesus, and then listening to him preach to them and the crowd, followed by their ministrations with the loaves and fish.  Now they labor away in the boat, seemingly making little progress.  At the fourth watch, an hour or two before dawn, the Lord Jesus “came toward them, walking on the sea.”  We ought to notice all the detail with which Matthew fills his account.  He tells us the times when things happen, how far the boat was from the shore, where Jesus went to pray, and that he was very specifically alone.  While Matthew liberally quotes the words of the Lord, he seldom devotes this kind of time to relating a narrative.  The scene, at which he was present, must have deeply impressed him very deeply so that it was still fixed in his mind years later.

When the exhausted Apostles looked out at the sea, with the faint glow of the sun beginning to appear in the east, “they were terrified. ‘It is a ghost,’ they said, and they cried out in fear.”  The word translated here as “ghost” is the Greek fantasma, which can mean “ghost”, “spirit”, or “apparition”.  It would be interesting to know what Hebrew word Matthew originally used, for it could have been simply the word for “spirit”, ruah, or another word which carried the implication of an evil spirit.  Whatever it may have been, in my opinion, the Apostles were seized with fright because they thought that this was a sign that they were going to die.  Just then, however, the Lord called out to them, his voice rising above the howl of the wind, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.”  The unmistakable sound of the Lord’s voice had its effect on the Apostles and their fear turned to wonder at the sight of him walking on the water towards them.  Some distance existed between him and them when they first caught sight of him, and they watched him for some time as he drew nearer.  At length, only some yards separated them, and then Peter called out, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”  We might wonder ourselves at Peter’s impetuous desire.  It is almost as though Peter were testing the Lord’s power.  This is the same man who swore several times during the Last Supper that he would die for Jesus, and who hurtled out of the locked house when news came of the Resurrection.  This is the same Peter who, dazzled by the Transfiguration, offered to build tents for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah: “for he knew not what he said: for they were struck with fear”, as St. Mark comments, in Mark 9, 5.  Above all, Peter loves Jesus.  He is driven to serve Jesus, to give himself to Jesus. His zeal makes him an apt companion for the “sons of thunder”, James and John, who want to call fire down from heaven on those who oppose the Lord.  On this occasion, Peter simply wants to walk near his Lord, even on the sea.  

Jesus calls to him, “Come!”  Peter put stepped out of the boat onto the heaving water and began to walk.  He took several steps, and the Lord continued to walk to him as well.  And then, “when he saw how strong the wind was he became frightened”.  That is, he took his eyes off the eyes of the Lord, and in that instant, the water opened up as though to swallow him.  He paddled ferociously with his arms, striving to keep from drowning, and he cried out for the Lord’s help.  A few more steps took Jesus to Peter’s position and the Lord’s hand, hardened by his many years as a carpenter, grabbed hold of thick forearm of the fisherman and pulled him up.  Together, they walked the remaining distance to the boat.  When they got on board, the Lord turned to him: “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”  Jesus here poses more of a rhetorical question than one to which he expected an answer.  He meant for Peter to ponder this carefully and to realize that for all his zeal, his faith still needed to grow.  Perhaps Matthew meant to contrast this incomplete faith with that shown by the citizens of Gennesaret, who believed they would be healed of their illnesses simply by touching the tassels of the Lord’s cloak.  Another possibility, though, is that Peter did not lack faith in Jesus, but in himself, that he could carry out the Lord’s command.  We recall how after a miraculous haul of fish, Peter said to Jesus, “Leave me Lord, for I am a sinful man” (Luke 5, 8).  Peter fostered no illusions about himself.  By the Lord asking “Why did you doubt?”, Peter would have remembered how the Lord called him as an Apostle despite knowing that he was a sinful man.  He would come to realize that his own weaknesses would not limit what God intended to do with him.  The Lord would work through them if only his heart remained true.

The Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 2, 2020

Matthew 14:13–21

When Jesus heard of the death of John the Baptist, he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself. The crowds heard of this and followed him on foot from their towns. When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, and he cured their sick. When it was evening, the disciples approached him and said, “This is a deserted place and it is already late; dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages and buy food for themselves.” Jesus said to them, “There is no need for them to go away; give them some food yourselves.” But they said to him, “Five loaves and two fish are all we have here.” Then he said, “Bring them here to me,” and he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds. They all ate and were satisfied, and they picked up the fragments left over — twelve wicker baskets full. Those who ate were about five thousand men, not counting women and children.

Our God creates us, sustains us in existence, nourishes us, heals us, and will raise us from the dead at the end of time.  Here, we see how God nourishes us, and how he provides not merely sufficient food, but more than sufficient.  His desire to feed the people and his desire to show how capable he is of doing this lead to everyone eating until they “were satisfied”, and that twelve large baskets held what remained afterwards.

It pays to compare the feeding of the five thousand men, recorded in all four of the Gospels, with the miracle at the Wedding at Cana, recounted in the Gospel of St. John.  In both cases, someone pointed out a need to the Lord Jesus: in the case at Cana, it was the low supply of wine.  In both cases, Jesus gives directions for the remedy.  At Cana, he has servants pour water into stone jars and then take some out and present it to the master of ceremonies.  Here, he has the Apostles distribute the food.  In both cases, an over-abundance is brought about.  At Cana, he made about 180 gallons of wine, which would have amounted to two or three gallons per guest.  In the feeding of the five thousand, enough was left over to feed hundreds more people.  

We might ponder the meaning of this miracle, for it has a meaning.  All the Lord’s miracles acted as signs.  But we are also assured of this miracle acting as a sign in a remark the Lord makes to the Apostles during a later discussion: “Do you not yet perceive? Do you not remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many baskets you gathered?” (Matthew 16, 9).  For help, we look to the end of the account of the wedding at Cana, where St. John comments: “Jesus . . . manifested his glory; and his disciples believed in him” (John 2, 11).  This hints to us that while Jesus fed all those men and women because they were hungry, just as he provided wine for the benefit of the guests at the wedding, he also performed this action in order to show forth his glory and to strengthen the belief of his Apostles in him.  These miracles act to prepare the Apostles in this way.  The miracle at Cana prepared them for the Lord’s casting out of the money changers at the temple in Jerusalem, establishing thereby that he regarded this building as his own house; the miracle of the loaves and fish prepares them for a great question which he will ask them and which Peter will answer: “Who do you say that I am?” “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16, 18).

This feeding of the five thousand as well as the later feeding of the four thousand, in addition to the making of the wine, ought to remind us of Psalm 104, 27-28: “All look to you, to give them their food in due season. When you give to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.”  The Lord perfectly fulfills this passage in nourishing the souls which he has created by revealing the depths of God’s love for them, even by dying on the Cross to open heaven for them.  All this he does for us.  We have a fabulous abundance in the food of the Holy Scriptures and in the Holy Eucharist.  If we go hungry, we have only ourselves to blame.