St. John Vianney, Priest
Jeremiah 30:1-2,12-15,18-22  +  Matthew 14:22-36 or Matthew 15:1-2,10-14
August 4, 2023

“If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.”

There are two options for this weekday’s Gospel Reading.  This reflection is based upon the latter option.

Jesus plainly criticizes the Pharisees in this Gospel Reading, calling a spade a spade.  Yet His words go beyond the first-century setting in which He lived.  His words offer us in the twenty-first century points for reflection regarding the need of fallen man for a Savior.

Throughout the history of the Church the Faith has been attacked in many different ways.  But every attack upon the Faith is, directly or indirectly, an attack upon the person of Jesus Christ.

One manner of attack upon Christ is the diminishment of what He accomplished for fallen man, and at the same time, an attack upon the uniqueness of His role in salvation history.  Fallen man cannot raise himself up by his own bootstraps, no matter how many good works he accomplishes and no matter how grand any of his accomplishments are.

Good works flow only through the power of God.  Salvation is only possible through the Self-sacrifice of Jesus Christ on Calvary.  Fallen man cannot save himself.  Only Jesus Christ can.  Our good works are the fruit of His Cross.

Monday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time [II]
Jeremiah 28:1-17  +  Matthew 14:22-36
August 3, 2023

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The Church bears a rich treasury of interpretation of Sacred Scripture.  By that I don’t simply mean that the Church has accumulated many different, though equally insightful, interpretations of Scripture from the writings of her many members (although that’s true).  The Church’s treasury of Scripture interpretation is based upon a four-fold view of the Holy Bible.

The first view of the Bible looks at the literal meaning of a Scripture passage.  In the case of today’s Gospel passage, for example, the literal meaning of the passage is an historical event involving Jesus interacting with His disciples, and miraculously walking on water.  One could write a long and spiritually fruitful essay solely about the literal meaning of this passage.

However, the other three views of Scripture consider different “spiritual senses” of a given passage.  That doesn’t mean, of course, that the literal meaning doesn’t deal with spiritual matters.  But the three spiritual senses of Scripture relate the literal meaning to a broader meaning that the passage doesn’t directly touch upon.

For example, at the end of today’s Gospel passage, those who were in the boat did Jesus homage, saying, “Truly, you are the Son of God.”  Above and beyond the literal meaning of this event, one can “see” the boatful of disciples confessing the divinity of Jesus as symbolizing the Church Militant (that is, the Church on earth).  Around this basic symbol are several complementary symbols:  for example, the water on which the boat rests, and the weather surrounding the boat, as the turbulent world in which the Church Militant lives; and the confession of faith as a symbol of the Sacred Liturgy of the Church which receives Jesus into the Church’s “boat”.

It is easier to ponder the literal sense of Scripture than the three spiritual senses.  But with the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the examples of the Church’s saints, the three spiritual senses of Sacred Scripture invite us into rich theological waters.

St. Alphonsus Liguori, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
Jeremiah 26:11-16,24  +  Matthew 14:1-12
August 1, 2023

His head was brought in on a platter and given to the girl, who took it to her mother.

On August 29 the Church celebrates the Passion of St. John the Baptist, and on that memorial we hear the passion narrative according to Saint Mark.  Today’s Gospel Reading offers us this narrative according to St. Matthew the Evangelist.

Jesus does not appear in today’s Gospel passage.  His name is mentioned twice.  Focus on the latter instance, where His name is in fact the last word of the passage.  This is fitting.  In terms of the life and Passion of St. John the Baptist, Jesus is the last word.

John is often considered the last of the Old Testament prophets.  Like many prophets, he was killed because of his witness to God’s Word.  The uniqueness of John’s life and martyrdom lay in how they intertwined with those of the Word made Flesh.

You and I, as Christian disciples, have been baptized into the role of prophet.  It is part of our baptismal commitment to profess the truth of the Gospel no matter what the cost to us.  At times we profess this Truth through our actions; at other times, through our words.  How often do we count the cost first before deciding whether to profess the Truth?  It’s certainly necessary to exercise the virtue of prudence is proclaiming the Truth.  But we ought to ask St. John’s the Baptist’s intercession if we’re ever tempted by fear to refrain from professing the Truth.

St. Ignatius of Loyola, Priest
Jeremiah 26:1-9  +  Matthew 13:54-58
July 31, 2023

“A prophet is not without honor except in his native place ….”

The last sentence of today’s Gospel passage presents something of a conundrum.  No matter how we interpret the fact that Jesus “did not work many mighty deeds there because of their lack of faith”, we are challenged.

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We are challenged, then, to admit where we lack faith in our own lives.  We are challenged to allow the miracles that God works to bear fruit in our lives.  We are challenged not to live for ourselves, but for others, beginning with the Other who calls us to share in His life of love.

The Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time [A]
Isaiah 55:1-3  +  Romans 8:35,37-39  +  Matthew 14:13-21
August 2, 2023

… he said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds.

What do you think is the meaning of Jesus feeding a crowd of more than five thousand people with only a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish?  Was Jesus simply showing his power to work a miracle:  demonstrating his power over material things?  Of course that was a part of it, but this miracle of feeding the five thousand has far more to tell us about Christ than just this.

Being compassionate, Jesus was certainly concerned with the physical well-being of the people who had come to hear Him preach.  Just how deep Christ’s compassion was is made obvious when we consider again something the first verse of this passage tells us:  Jesus is told about the hunger of the crowds right after he had heard of the death of John the Baptizer, and had withdrawn by boat to a deserted place by Himself.  If we were to take time to imagine this, we could very clearly see just how human Christ was, responding in grief and perhaps anger at the murder of His own cousin.  He withdrew from others to be by Himself.  Yet even at this point in His life, the needs of others pressed upon Him.  His response was that of God Himself:  He turned to help those in need.

We could look at this compassion of Jesus and see in it an example for ourselves.  As Christians, we are called to walk in the footsteps of Christ and imitate Him.  We are especially to imitate the sort of self-sacrifice that He shows in this passage, the sort of self-sacrifice that came to full expression in His death on the Cross.

But this passage is not so much about our need to imitate Christ.  We all have our limits.  Very likely, if we learned of the murder of a close relative, we’d be of little help to others.  None of us can expect to match the depth of Christ’s self-sacrifice.

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Being compassionate, Jesus was certainly concerned with the physical well-being of the people who had come to hear Him preach.  But He knew the people in the crowds better than they knew themselves.  Christ had a much deeper concern for their spiritual well-being.  He had reminded them that their ancestors, whom God had fed in the desert by sending bread in the form of manna, had died.  His divine Father, Jesus told them, had sent Him to be their spiritual bread which would allow them to live for ever.  If they would eat this bread by accepting Him and following His commandments, they could enter into God’s eternal kingdom of love.

In today’s First Reading, Isaiah says in the name of the Lord, “Come to me heedfully, listen, that you may have life.”  This is the same message which Jesus conveyed to those people gathered near the Sea of Galilee.  He brought His meaning home to them in a concrete way by giving them physical bread to satisfy their bodily hunger.  But at the same time, he revealed that He was the spiritual bread which God had sent to bring them eternal life.  His miracle used what was physical in order to point towards what is spiritual.

The crowds naturally had a spiritual hunger.  Perhaps many of them were not even aware of this hunger inside their souls.  Unfortunately, many of us today as well aren’t even aware of the hunger in our souls.  Instead, we are distracted by many things such as our work, our leisure and our possessions.  We are worried about many things without giving heed to the one needful thing.  Jesus, then, calls us first to recognize the greatest hunger in our lives, and then to seek the One who alone can fill it.

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Jeremiah 18:1-6  +  Matthew 13:47-53
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Can I not do to you, house of Israel, as this potter has done?

In the Catholic press, much has been said recently about an idea called the “Benedict Option”.  The idea is that Christians would opt to imitate the example of Saint Benedict of Norcia in the face of the disorder within civil society.  Is the example of St. Benedict apropos to our day?  To what extent is Western culture vulnerable to collapse?

Regardless, only an ostrich would be unable to notice the red flags that the high priests of secular culture wave in the faces of everyone.  So ought Christians flee as much as possible from civil society, and form small communities of dedicated Christians?  Or ought Christians engage the secular culture as much as possible in the public square, even until the dying day of that culture?

Regardless of whether Christians choose the “Benedict Option”, or the “Dominican Option”, or the “Gregorian Option”, or any other option, today’s First Reading places before us a salient reminder.  If secular culture is subject to decay and collapse, so also is the spiritual life of a child of God, and of His entire People.  The image of the potter, and the Lord’s message regarding the potter’s work, is an Old Testament complement to Jesus’ exhortation to remove the plank from one’s own eye before attempting to remove the speck from another’s.  “Indeed, like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand”.

St. Martha
Jeremiah 15:10,16-21  +  John 11:19-27
July 29, 2023

“Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things.”

On this feast of Saint Martha, the Gospel Reading must come from the feast day.  The other readings may come from the day in Ordinary Time, which the feast supersedes.  However, there are two options for the Gospel Reading on this feast.  Both, of course, feature Martha.

The first option offers a bit more flattering portrait of Martha.  The occasion is the death of Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary.  Martha goes out to meet Jesus, while Mary sits at home, which is an interesting contrast to the sisters’ respective roles in the other Gospel Reading for the feast.  Martha’s words to Jesus express not only her love for her deceased brother, but also for Jesus, as well as faith in Jesus.  Yet Martha is missing something.  When Jesus declares to Martha, “Your brother will rise”, she does not understand fully what Jesus means.  Jesus is promising that her brother will return to her, not on “the last day”, but on that very day when Jesus and Martha are speaking.  It’s to Martha’s credit that when Jesus makes more clear His intention, Martha makes clear her faith in Jesus.  This faith in Jesus, who is “the resurrection and the life”, is a model for our own faith.

The second option for the feast’s Gospel Reading is perhaps the better-known Gospel story about Martha.  Martha is overshadowed by her sister Mary, the latter being an example of putting “first things first”.  Nonetheless, perhaps the example of Martha in this passage is more like most of us Christians.  To identify with Martha in this passage is to humble ourselves and to recall that our good works are empty if they don’t proceed from a faith that’s nourished by the Word of God.

Tuesday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time [II]
Jeremiah 13:1-11  +  Matthew 13:31-35
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All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables.

Jesus today proclaims two parables about the Kingdom of Heaven.  In wanting to understand these parables, we might wonder what exactly the Kingdom of Heaven is.  Is the Kingdom of Heaven the realm of Heaven?  Is it the Church, or some measure of both the Church and Heaven, or something else entirely, such as the individual Christian’s soul?

Jesus never directly answers this question.  But even without defining 安卓看youtube上的视频加速软件, we can say that the kernel of each “Kingdom parable” describes in some way the reality of Heaven, and/or the Church, and/or the Christian’s soul.

Take Jesus’ first parable in today’s Gospel passage.  The change from the 视频加速器哪个好？六款好用的视频加速器推荐_软件评测 ...:2021-12-3 · 此外，软件还对优酷、56、酷6等视频网站进行加速。 六、天空视频加速器 天空视频加速器 天空乐享工具是一款非常好用的简洁高效的网络加速器软件，软件非常小巧，大小1.06MB，通过IE设置来增加用户加载速度，可加速众多电视、视频和 to “the largest of plants” seems more easily applied to the Church and the Christian soul than to Heaven.  Tertullian wrote that “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church”, a phrase through which we can see how this parable applies to the Church.  With God, all things are possible:  from a natural death springs supernatural life.  Or as the Church prays to God the Father in one of the prefaces for martyrs at Holy Mass:  by “your marvelous works” “in our weakness you perfect your power / and on the feeble bestow strength to bear you witness ….”

Monday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time [II]
Jeremiah 13:1-11  +  Matthew 13:31-35
July 27, 2023

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Jesus today proclaims two parables about the Kingdom of Heaven.  In wanting to understand these parables, we might wonder what exactly the Kingdom of Heaven is.  Is the Kingdom of Heaven the realm of Heaven?  Is it the Church, or some measure of both the Church and Heaven, or something else entirely, such as the individual Christian’s soul?

Jesus never directly answers this question.  But even without defining 手机youtube免翻, we can say that the kernel of each “Kingdom parable” describes in some way the reality of Heaven, and/or the Church, and/or the Christian’s soul.

Take Jesus’ first parable in today’s Gospel passage.  The change from the “smallest of all the seeds” to “the largest of plants” seems more easily applied to the Church and the Christian soul than to Heaven.  Tertullian wrote that “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church”, a phrase through which we can see how this parable applies to the Church.  With God, all things are possible:  from a natural death springs supernatural life.  Or as the Church prays to God the Father in one of the prefaces for martyrs at Holy Mass:  by “your marvelous works” “in our weakness you perfect your power / and on the feeble bestow strength to bear you witness….”