Dear Reader, if you receive these homilettes by email, you may find the service stopped in July. As I understand an instruction from Google, its Burnfeeder program will no longer support the service. You can always find the homilettes on the blog site: https://cbmdominicanpreacher.blogspot.com/ . Perhaps if you send me your email address, I could send the homilettes in a mass email. You may send your email address to cmeleop@yahoo.com. I am also pchecking into other options like changing my blogging service. cm
Friday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
(Genesis 23:1-4.19.24:1-8.62-67; Matthew 9:9-13)
Catholic moral reasoning often confounds its critics. Where some people that one can do anything that
produces a good effect, Catholics are told never to cooperate in evil or to
give scandal. The production of Covid
vaccines this past year highlighted these issues of cooperation and
scandal. Some of the vaccines were
tested using products of abortion. Others
were made with products of abortion.
Although some Catholics sounded the alarm on all these vaccines, the
bishops of the United States judged that they might be used if no uncompromised
vaccines were available. The gospel
today takes up the question of scandal.
The Pharisees seem to be criticizing Jesus for giving
scandal. They find his eating with
sinners as approving sin. Jesus corrects
their mistaken judgment. He has come to
convert sinners, not to approve their sinfulness. He is implying that people who judge him as approving
of sin are too suspicious, too critical.
We can avoid giving scandal by living just lives. If we take care to avoid sin and help others,
many will want to emulate us. We will be
raising consciences to a higher level of judgment.
