Words of the Word

Ordinary Time Week 20: Tuesday

“Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19:24)

In an ancient work known as the Incomplete Work on Matthew, an anonymous Ancient Christian Writer (ACW) offers the following insight on this verse from today’s Gospel:

“The needle is the Word of God, which is the Son of God himself. The tip of the needle is sharp and subtle: subtle according to his divinity and sharp as to his incarnation. The needle is straight and without curve, that is, without scruple. Through the wound of his Passion the Gentiles now have entered eternal life. Only this needle, the cross, can stitch wounds together. He sewed together once again the tunic of immortality, which had been torn by Adam. It is the needle that sewed the flesh to the spirit. This needle joined together the Jewish people and that of the Gentiles; the apostle says of it, “For he is our peace who has made us both one.” This is the needle that joined the broken friendship of angels and human beings. This is the needle that pierces and passes through but does not wound.” (Incomplete Work on Matthew, «Homily 33»)

Pondering today’s Patristic passage...

Did the image of the needle wow you? The ‘actions’ of the needle are also thought provoking: ‘stitching wounds,’ ‘sewing together humanity and immortality’ and “pierces and passes through but does not wound,” to name only a few. Given the depth of the analogy, one can picture easily a large wound (and perhaps recall the pain!) that demands stitches because no band-aid or gauze can stop the bleeding. In terms of the battle with sin and the reality of salvation, human efforts apart from the Person Jesus are ineffective: grace pulses from our lives leaving us empty and lethargic. The Divine Physician, Who so readily wants to stitch the wounds of sin, needs something from us: room to work. This is why Jesus sounded the caution about riches. Being rich in the biblical world meant not only having much, but being so full, so complete that nothing can be added. The rich who have a hard time living the Kingdom have filled life with self to the point that no one can ‘get in’ — life has become all about me, myself and I punctuated by narcissistic grandiosity and entitlement. Jesus, Who so ardently desires to stitch our bleeding wounds, want us to let go of sin’s clutter and obstacles so that He has an opportunity to sew healing into the fabric of our lives. When we do so, we may even find that the needle does not hurt as much as we imagined.

Collect

O God,
Who have prepared for those who love You
good things which no eye can see,
fill our hearts, we pray,
with the warmth of Your love,
so that,
loving You in all things and above all things,
we may attain Your promises,
which surpass every human desire.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

Ordinary Time Week 20: Monday

“The young man said to him, “All of these I have observed. What do I still lack?” (Matthew 19:20)

Saint Augustine of Hippo comments on this verse from the Gospel proclaimed at Mass today:

”The rich young man claimed to have kept the commandments. Then he heard the greater commandment: “If you wish to be perfect, you still lack one thing: sell all that you have and give it to the poor”; you will not lose it, but “you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” What good does it do you if you follow the law and do not follow me? He went away sad and sorrowful, as you have heard, for he had great wealth.”

What he heard, we too have heard. The Word of Christ is the gospel. He sits in heaven, but he does not cease to speak on earth. Let us not be deaf, for he shouts. Let us not be dead, for he thunders. If you are not willing to do the greater commandments, do the lesser ones. If the burden of the greater is too much for you, take up the lesser. Why are you slow to do either? Why do you oppose both? The greater commandments are “Sell everything that you have and give to the poor and follow me.” The lesser are “You shall not commit murder; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not bear false witness; you shall not steal; honor your father and mother; love your neighbor as yourself.” So do these things. Why do I shout to you that you must sell your possessions when I cannot get you to admit that you should not take someone else’s? You have heard, “You shall not steal.” You rob. Before the eyes of so great a judge, I now hold you not a thief but a robber. Spare yourself; pity yourself. This life still gives you time. Don’t reject reproof. Yesterday you were a thief; do not also be one today. Perhaps you have also been one today? Do not be one tomorrow. Sometime end your sin and expect good reward. You want to have your goods, but you are unwilling to be good. Your life is contrary to your hopes. If it is a great good to have a good house, how great an evil is it to have an evil soul? (Sermon 85)

Pondering today’s Patristic passage...

Saint Augustine makes an interesting distinction in terms of the Commandments: greater and lesser. In doing so, he does not omit any Commandments nor does he hint that any of Them are optional. His point is reflective of the entire Matthean Gospel wherein Jesus is quite clear, ‘what you do to the least, you do to Me.’ Sacrificial giving to the poor (once again, the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy) helps to authentically live the Commandments and authentic living of the Commandments directs our lives to sacrificial giving to ease the burdens of the poor. The Sacred Text records that the rich young man “observed” or “kept” all the Commandments (notice the verb tense: “past” and it is “past” in the sense of a completed, single action). Since ‘the poor will always be with us’ (poor understood both materially and spiritually) such a work can never be relegated to the past nor can it be a single action. The same is with the Commandments: they are not activities on a To-Do list awaiting a mindless, heartless check-off. For Jesus’ disciples, the Commandments must reflect a way of life anchored in a heart that has been fully given to the God and Father of mercy.

Collect

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

Ordinary Time Week 20: Sunday

“Them I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer; Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on my altar, For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” (Isaiah 56:7)

Saint Jerome offers the following insight on this verse from today’s Gospel:

“Is it not written, “He says, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’”? We read this in Isaiah: “But you have made it a den of thieves.” Where we read, “You have made it a den of thieves,” John’s Gospel had instead, “You have made it a house of business.” Wherever there are thieves, there is a house of trafficking. Would that it were applied only to the Jews and not the Christians! We would, indeed, weep for them but rejoice for ourselves. But now, in many places, the house of God, the house of the Father, has become a place of business. I who am speaking and each one of you, priest, deacon or bishop, who yesterday was a poor man, who today is a rich man in the house of God! ” (Homilies on Mark, 83)

Collect

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

Ordinary Time Week 19: Saturday

“Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked them...” (Matthew 19:13)

In an ancient work known as the Incomplete Work on Matthew, an anonymous Ancient Christian Writer (ACW) offers the following insight on this verse from today’s Gospel:

““Then”—that is, when the Lord was preaching about chastity and saying that eunuchs were blessed. For when the Lord was speaking about the glory of chastity and saying, “There are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven,” some of those listening offered him their infants, boys of the purest chastity. For they thought that the Lord was praising those who were pure in body only, not those also pure in will. They did not know that the Lord did not call blessed those eunuchs made chaste by the necessity of youth but those made chaste by the virtue of continence. “But the disciples rebuked the people.” O flesh, friend of wickedness and not of goodness! Because it does not delight in the good, it easily forgets the good. But whatever evil it hears, it retains forever as though naturally planted in the heart. For a man can never forget what he loves nor remember what he hates.

Only a little before, when receiving a child, Christ had said, “Unless you become like this child here, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” But now look at how the disciples had immediately forgotten the innocence of children and had kept them back as though they were not worthy to come to Christ, even though the disciples themselves had been invited to be like children. Who would merit to approach Christ if innocent children are kept back from him? The disciples thought they were doing honor to Christ, while actually they were diminishing his glory. For just as it is a loss to a physician if the sick are kept away from him, so it is a loss to Christ not to have those he may save.” (Incomplete Work on Matthew, «Homily 32»)

Collect

Show favor, O Lord, to Your servants
and mercifully increase the gifts of Your grace,
that, made fervent in hope, faith and charity,
they may be ever watchful in keeping Your commands.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

— Saint Maximilian Kolbe, Priest and Martyr —
Ordinary Time Week 19: Thursday

“Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?” (Matthew 18:33)

Saint John Chrysostom comments on this verse from today’s Gospel reading:

“Do you see the mercy of the Lord? Do you see contrasted the lack of mercy of the servant? Listen, all you who do such things for money: one should not act like this because it is a sin. But it is much worse to act like this for money. How then does he plead? “Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.” But he did not even respect the very words through which he had himself been saved. With these words he himself had been freed from a debt of ten thousand talents! He did not even recognize the harbor by means of which he had escaped shipwreck. Even the gesture of supplication did not remind him of his master’s kindness.

Casting all these out of his mind in his greed, cruelty and rancor, he was more brutal than any wild beast in seizing his fellow servant by the throat.

What are you doing, O my beloved? Do you not see that you are making such a demand upon yourself? You are deceiving yourself. You are thrusting a sword into yourself! You are revoking both the sentence and the gift. But he considered none of this, nor did he remember his own case, nor did he yield at all. Yet the requests were not on the same order. Compare them. One was for ten thousand talents, the other for a pittance: a hundred denarii. One was merely dealing with his fellow servant. But the other was dealing with his lord. The one received entire forgiveness; the other asked for delay, and not so much as this did he give him, for “he cast him into prison.” (The Gospel of Matthew, «Homily 61»)

Pondering today’s Patristic passage...

Perhaps you cringed as you heard what the servant did to a fellow servant who owed a mere pittance. His actions were devoid of any pity (sometimes mercy or compassion is an equally valid translation). But how do you define pity? Is it a feeling? Is it a sentiment that in essence sounds a heartless Seinfeld response, "That’s a shame!”? The biblical world of both Testaments makes a radical break with other ancient cultures in that pity is an action (or actions!) that knows what another person needs and take concrete steps to alleviate the need or burden. As far as Jesus is concerned, when mercy is demanded - feelings just don‘t cut it. Action is required and demanded by Jesus. These actions are not grand and spectacular. They are the grace-inspired and grace-motivated Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy. So ask the Holy Spirit this day for a renewal of the Gifts imparted in Confirmation to attune your senses to see and hear the needs of people in your life, the understanding and wisdom to know what to do and the courage and fortitude to carry through with the Grace of God our Father.

Collect

O God,
Who filled the Priest and Martyr
Saint Maximilian Kolbe
with a burning love for
the Immaculate Virgin Mary
and with zeal for souls and love of neighbor,
graciously grant, through his intercession,
that, striving for Your glory
by eagerly serving others,
we may be conformed, even until death,
to Your Son.
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

Ordinary Time Week 19: Wednesday

“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Matthew 18:20)

Saint Peter Chrysologus comments on this verse from the Gospel proclaimed at today’s Mass:

“There are those who presume that the congregation of the church can be disregarded. They assert that private prayers should be preferred to those of an honorable assembly. But if Jesus denies nothing to so small a group as two or three, will he refuse those who ask for it in the assemblies and congregation of the church? This is what the prophet believed and what he exults over having obtained when he states, “I will confess to you, O Lord, with my whole heart, in the council and congregation of the righteous.” A man “confesses with his whole heart” when in the council of the saints he hears that everything which he has asked will be granted him.

Some, however, endeavor to excuse under an appearance of faith the idleness that prompts their contempt for assemblies. They omit participation in the fervor of the assembled congregation and pretend that they have devoted to prayer the time they have expended upon their household cares. While they give themselves up to their own desires, they scorn and despise the divine service. These are the people who destroy the body of Christ. They scatter its members. They do not permit the full form of its Christ-like appearance to develop to its abundant beauty — that form which the prophet saw and then sang about: “You are beautiful in form above the sons of men.”

Individual members do indeed have their own duty of personal prayer, but they will not be able to fulfill it if they come to the beauty of that perfect body wrapped up in themselves. There is this difference between the glorious fullness of the congregation and the vanity of separation that springs out of ignorance or negligence: in salvation and honor the beauty of the whole body is found in the unity of the members. But from the separation of the viscera there is a foul, fatal and fearful aroma.” (Sermon 132)

Pondering today’s Patristic passage...

Even in fifth-century Italy, Peter Chrysologus — the saintly Archbishop of Ravenna — essentially addressed a pastoral dilemma still heard all too often in our day: ‘I can pray on my own, I don‘t need to go to a Church building on Sunday.’ While a discussion of what it means ‘to pray individually’ versus ‘to worship communally’ is certainly important and valid, Saint Peter Chrysologus takes a different approach: beauty. All members of Jesus’ Body united to and with Him form a living organism whose beauty attracts others, not to beauty itself but beauty’s Author: God and Father of us all. With the necessary graced pastoral work of helping our sisters and brothers to reconnect with the Body of Christ (the New Evangelization), how does «beauty» affect the way we minister to one another?

Collect

Almighty ever-living God,
whom, taught by the Holy Spirit,
we dare to call our Father,
bring, we pray,
to perfection in our hearts
the spirit of adoption
as your sons and daughters,
that we may merit to enter
into the inheritance
which you have promised.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

Ordinary Time Week 19: Tuesday

“See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father.” (Matthew 18:10)

Origen of Alexandria comments on this verse from the Gospel proclaimed at Mass today:

“Another may say that among these children “little” means perfect, recalling that the one who is less among you all is greater. Some may argue that the child shown by Jesus is the person who humbles himself and becomes a child among the whole mass of the faithful. This is so even if he is an apostle or bishop. He may become like a nurse taking care of her children. He is like an angel worthy of looking upon the face of God.” (Commentary on Matthew, 13)

Pondering today’s Patristic passage...

‘Becoming child-like’ as well as the virtue of humility are often perceived in the popular culture as inviting anyone and everyone to ‘take advantage of you’ and become a doormat. Origen suggests that a proper Gospel based humility, embodied by the child, is to ease the burdens of the least (like a nurse) while looking on the face of God (like an angel). But how do we ‘look on the Face of God?’ Jesus is clear: ‘whatever you did for one of these least, you did for Me.’ Thus the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy (see Catechism of the Catholic Church, especially paragraph 2447) become indispensable for any believer being formed by the Holy Spirit as a disciple of Jesus.

Collect

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

— Memorial of Saint Clare —
Ordinary Time Week 19: Monday

“But that we may not offend them, go to the sea, drop in a hook, and take the first fish that comes up. Open its mouth and you will find a coin worth twice the temple tax. Give that to them for me and for you.”” (Matthew 17:27)

Saint Cyril of Alexandria reflects on this verse from today’s Gospel, writes:

“He was also able to take the coin out of the earth, but he did not do so. [Instead he] made the miracle out of the sea, so that he might teach us the mystery rich in contemplation. For we are the fish snatched from the bitter disturbances of life. It is just as if we have been caught out of the sea on the apostles’ hooks. In their mouths the fish have Christ the royal coin, which was rendered in payment of debt for two things, for our soul and for our body. Also for two peoples, the Jews and the Gentiles. Also in the same way for the poor and the wealthy, since the old law clearly demanded the payment of the half-shekel from both rich and poor alike.” (Fragment 212)

Pondering today’s Patristic passage...

Saint Cyril presents an interesting image of a disciple of Jesus: fish pulled from the chaos of life on the hook of the apostles. Being snatched from the disturbances of life is a no-brainer: Yes — absolutely — make it happen — bring it on! Am I, however, willing to be caught by an apostle’s hook? To be hooked by an apostle is to be brought to Jesus and His way of living. I might even discover then, in the light of Jesus, that the chaos I am delivered from has been a chaos of my own creation!

Collect

O God,
Who in Your mercy led
Saint Clare to a love of poverty,
grant, through her intercession,
that, following Christ in poverty of spirit,
we may merit to contemplate You
one day in the heavenly Kingdom.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

— Words of THE WORD —
Ordinary Time Week 19: Sunday

Gospel excerpt

“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 (φάντασμα [phantasma]),” they said, and they cried out in fear.” (Matthew 14:24-26)

Reflection

Scholars tell us that the "fourth watch of the night" is the period of time between 3 and 6 in the morning. This is a time of paradox. Around 3am, intense darkness engulfs all reality. On the Sea of Galilee, darkness is so intense that when you stretch out your arm, you cannot see your fingertips. Without light, it is easy to loose your bearings and wander off course. The heart pounds faster. Breathing quickens as fear of being lost takes hold of life. Add an unexpected storm that tosses a 30-foot fishing boat mercilessly at the whim of wind and waves and you have a recipe for disaster.

Yet as time drifts closer to the 6am hour, the other pole of the paradox dawns. Not only does light gradually transform darkness, it does so with colors that are rarely seen in the brightness of noonday sun. Color, born of light and water, take hold of life where there was once fear. The captivating prism of light transforms fear to calm and brings a touch of ‘the wow’ to both body and soul. Water, darkness and light all combine to signal hope: the gift of a new day with all of its surprises and blessings.

For a group of first-century Galilean fishermen, a particular day dawned like no other. In the midst of dealing with the wind and sea (traditional images of chaos in the Old Testament over which God alone has power to cause order [cosmos]), the unexpected sight of Jesus triggered fear. The Evangelist records the sight as a φάντασμα (phantasma) which is translated in the New American Bible as “ghost.” In the ancient world, people recognized that a phantasma could be real or imagined. However real or imaginative, the perceiver or the viewer had no control over the sight. This is an important dimension of the ancient meaning of phantasma as it contributes to the human experience of fear. When we are not in control of life, we often sense that as a threat and instinctively the flight/fight mechanism engages with the hope of survival. Later in the Christian era, phantasma's Greek root is part of a larger group of words that eventually means a “showing of God” - an epiphany or a theophany.

All of this - the “fourth watch of the night,” the paradox of time, the metaphor of water and wind for chaos and antiquity's meaning of phantasma - gives us much to ponder this Sunday as God’s Word is proclaimed. While the western mind may want to figure out and perhaps dismiss "walking on water" because it seems so disconnected from our lives, caution is strongly advised and needed. None of us can dismiss the reality of darkness, uncertainty and fear in our lives. We wish we would not have to experience it yet maturity demands that each acknowledges times of aimlessness, confusion, and perhaps even despair that cast gradually intensifying darkness on and in our lives. The same fear that gripped the fishermen in the boat grips us and we look for a way out to experience perhaps just a glimmer, if not the rich colors of life. Faith memories instinctively move us to call out “God, come to my assistance!” as Elijah and the fishermen did. The difficulty is that we often block the God working because “I” am in charge, “I” and in control. But we thereby run the risk of Jesus passing us by. We call out for help - AND - at the same time we want the revealing of God and Divine Help on our terms, not on the Lord's terms. It is the ever-present struggle in our lives to be in control, to hold not only the remote-control but the batteries as well.

Faith in the Person Jesus always requires letting go of the false self. The paradox is that when we put our “hand in the hand of the Man from Galilee” life’s darkness is transformed bit by bit into dazzling colors enabling us to see, hear, speak and live as Galilee's famous Carpenter Who managed to teach fishermen a thing or two about life ... as Jesus continues to do today for us.

Collect

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

Ordinary Time Week 19: Sunday

“Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught him, and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” (Matthew 14:31)

Saint Augustine of Hippo comments on this verse from the Gospel proclaimed at Mass today:

”While human praise does not tempt the Lord, people are often ruffled and nearly entranced by human praise and honors in the church. Peter was afraid on the sea, terrified by the great force of the storm. Indeed, who does not fear that voice: “Those who say you are happy place you in error and disturb the path of your feet”? And since the soul struggles against the desire for human praise, it is good for it to turn to prayer and petition amid such danger, lest one who is charmed by praise be overcome by criticism and reproach. Let Peter, about to sink in the waves, cry out and say, “Lord, save me!” The Lord reached out his hand. He chided Peter, saying, “O man of little faith, why did you doubt?”—that is, why did you not, gazing straight at the Lord as you approached, pride yourself only in him? Nevertheless he snatched Peter from the waves and did not allow him who was declaring his weakness and asking the Lord for help to perish.” (Sermon 75)

Collect

Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen