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.

Friday, July 20, 2018

Friday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time

(Isaiah 38:1-6.21-22.7-8; Matthew 12:1-8)

Pope Francis and the rest of the world prayed for the Thai schoolboys and their coach trapped in an underground cave for three weeks.  God evidently heard the prayers as all were rescued although one rescuer died in the effort.  In today’s first reading God likewise hears the prayer of Hezekiah, king of Judah.

Hezekiah is reckoned as a righteous king. He reformed the nation’s religious observance by demanding strict allegiance to worship according to the law.  He could unashamedly turn to God for help when he was said to be dying.  God not only healed him of his ailment but added fifteen years to his life.

Still sometimes God does not seem to answer our prayers.  We have all prayed for people who did not recover from their illness.  What are we to think then?  That God is fickle -- answering some prayers and ignoring others?  No, we believe that God always does what is best for us.  We know that even Jesus prayed that his crucifixion might be suspended.  If our requests are not granted, God will make us stronger through suffering.

Thursday, July 19, 2018

Thursday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time

(Isaiah 26:7-9.12.16-19; Matthew 11:28-30)

The eighty year-old women knelt beside her bed every night.  Rosary in hand, she prayed for her family.  She did not have children of her own; she never married.  But she prayed for her sisters and brother, her nephews and niece, and her grand-nieces and nephew.  Did she pray for herself?  Probably she did since her life was not the happiest.  Her solitariness likely called within her like a broken record, “What’s wrong with you, Mary?  What’s wrong with you?

In today’s gospel Jesus particularly invites those who never married and the widowed, the divorced and homosexuals who try to live chastely to share their burden with him.  He will give them support because he too felt loneliness as a burden.  He never married but that does not seem to have caused him grief.  Rather it was being betrayed by one trusted disciple and denied by another, being condemned by the leaders of his nation and being scorned by Rome, the supposedly great defenders of justice at the time, that made him feel abandoned.  His forlornness is dramatically demonstrated on the cross when he cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Jesus asks all of us to take upon ourselves this yoke of loneliness.  He wants us to love one another – both friend and foe – even when it is difficult.  It seems like a daunting challenge, but it turns out to be the way to happiness, precisely because we share it with him.

Wednesday, July 18, 2018

Wednesday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time

(Isaiah 10:5-7.13b-16; Mathew 11:25-27)

Assyria was a mighty empire extending through most of the Middle East including Egypt.  It easily conquered the Northern Kingdom of Israel in the eighth century before Christ.  Although it considered itself the “cradle of civilization,” its army as much as its cultural institutions brought it notoriety.  In today’s first reading, the prophet Isaiah denounces Assyria’s warrior ways.

Isaiah states that God had used Assyria to punish the wayward kingdoms like Israel.  But Assyria went beyond its mandate.  It sought to wipe away other nations when it arrogantly attributed a godlike power to itself.  For this reason Isaiah predicts the fall of Assyria which came about in the late seventh century B.C.

We should allow the fate of Assyria to serve as a lesson for us.  For whatever gifts we have, we need to be grateful to God.  We have to ask ourselves how we might employ those gifts for God’s sake.