Friday, July 27, 2018

Friday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time

(Jeremiah 3:14-17; Matthew 13:18-23)

In a television drama, a detective is asked if he believes in God.  He answers that he used to and hints that he lost his faith when his wife was killed in a hit and run accident.  The vignette demonstrates what Jesus means in the gospel by saying that some seed falls on rocky ground.

No one’s life is always easy.  Everyone suffers setbacks and experiences limits.  Yet everyone as well is beckoned to respond in faith to God’s loving initiatives.  He gives life and, more significantly, sends men and women to preach of His mercy.  Rebelliousness and outrage hinder a positive response.  These obstacles comprise the rocky ground of the parable.  Still it is not inevitable that anyone lose faith.  Jesus is urging his listeners to soften the ground of their lives by breaking up clods of anger.  As countless suffering people have testified, God is more generous than anyone deserves.

We live in an age of disbelief.  Statistics may say that a majority still believes in God, but the idea-makers are predominately agnostic and the faith of many is tenuous. Now more than ever perhaps it is our responsibility as believers to testify to our faith.  We can tell others how when we pray, good things happen.  At the very least, prayer enables us to cope with misfortune without cursing or self-pity.

Thursday, July 26, 2018

Memorial of Saints Joachim and Anne, parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary

(Jeremiah 2: 1-3.7-8.12-13; Matthew 13:10-17)

Anne and Joachim are recognized as the parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  They are not mentioned in Scripture and known only from the dubitable “Gospel of James.” It is fashionable today to think of them as the grandparents of Jesus, but there is no link of them to him at all.  Still positive conjectures may be made of them.  Because Mary is knowledgeable of the Old Testament, it is likely that Anne and Joachim formed her in this way.  They probably avoided the pitfalls to which today’s readings refer.

Jeremiah’s oracle speaks of Israel having grown cynical with age.  The people have come to take for granted the goodness of God.  They no longer dream that their faithfulness to the Covenant promises them a glorious future.  In the gospel Jesus tells his disciples that many hear his parables not as the metaphors that he intends but as riddles.  Their minds have been closed with the passing of years to the possibilities that God offers in Jesus.

We must guard against the pitfalls of cynicism and despair.  It may seem incredible that we will be raised from the dead with all other followers of Jesus’ law of love.  But that has been the promise since Jesus’ own resurrection.  Now we must learn from him how to love truly from the heart.

Wednesday, July 25, 2018

Feast of Saint James, apostle

(II Corinthians 4:7-15; Matthew 20:20-28)

A sonnet by an anonymous Spanish mystic tells of perfect Christian love.  It reads that the author is not moved to love God by the hope of heaven or to fear God by the fire of hell.  No, what moves this devotee is God’s love for him demonstrated on the cross.  In today’s gospel Jesus helps James and John rise to that perfect love.

The situation appears pathetic.  The mother of James and John comes to bid for her sons’ high places in Jesus’ kingdom.  Jesus, however, does not allow the woman to embarrass his apostles.  He calls them to solidarity with him in the suffering which he is bound to endure.  The two brothers willingly assent.  Then Jesus tells them that he cannot reward them with the seats of highest honor.  Rather he says that the secular order will be reversed in his kingdom.  There those who serve will be considered great, not those who sit in high places.

Catholics are sometimes criticized for loving God out of a supposedly selfish concern to achieve eternal life.  This desire is not selfish but natural.  After all, we are made to love ourselves as well as others.  But life teaches us, as Jesus instructs James and John, that there is something better than a high place in heaven.  That, of course, is standing with Jesus in suffering as well as in rejoicing.  We come to understand that the happiness of heaven consists precisely in Jesus’ companionship.

Tuesday, July 24, 2018

Tuesday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time

(Micah 7:14-15.18-20; Matthew 12:46-50)

The prophet Micah was a contemporary of Isaiah.  Both lived in Judah during the heyday of Assyria when the Northern Kingdom of Israel had fallen.  They preached trust in the Lord as savior without concessions to the superpower.  Micah is cited in the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah as responsible for the reform movement of King Hezekiah.  He promised the destruction of Judah which prompted a return to the Lord.   In today’s passage Micah describes God’s mercy for those who repent of wrong-doing.

He says that God “does not persist in anger forever, but delights rather in clemency.”  He assures the people that God “will have compassion…, treading underfoot (their) guilt.”  No one understands God’s infinite love more than Jesus.  In today’s gospel Jesus indicates an intimate knowledge of it.  In speaking of family relations he reserves a singular place for his father.  Others may be his “brother, sister, and mother,” but only God is his “Father”.

Jesus would not deny that God is our Father as well.  Indeed, his whole mission is to tell us of God’s fatherly care.  There is no reason to fear His justice when we repent of our wrong-doing.  God will gladly cancel our guilt and give us peace.

Monday, July 23, 2018

Monday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time

(Micah 6:1-4.6-8; Matthew 12:38-42)

Both readings today speak of outrageous demands.  Whether knowingly or not, people dictate to the Lord as if he were a schoolboy.  Their requirements have to be rejected if God and not humans is to have authority.

The reading from Micah describes a court scene.  Judah has obviously been at fault regarding its Covenant with God.  So how are they going to make amends?  Judah proposes that God accept standard offerings which already proven to be insincere.  Then it makes an indecent offer – that God receives their children in a holocaust sacrifice!  In the gospel the scribes and Pharisees demand a sign from Jesus after he has given seemingly as many signs as fill Times Square!

Micah famously explains what people owe to God: “…to do the right and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God.”  Anything less than this would be pure pretentiousness on the part of Judah.  Similarly, the scribes and Pharisees owe Jesus, as the most accomplished rabbi of the age, their utmost attention.  We should go beyond these requirements to give the Lord our fullest devotion.