Words of the Word

Wednesday of the Twenty-second Week
in Ordinary Time

“After he left the synagogue, he entered the house of Simon. Simon’s mother-in-law was afflicted with a severe fever, and they interceded with him about her.” (Luke 4:38.)

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

“Now Simon’s mother-in-law was kept in her bed sick with a fever.” May Christ come to our house and enter in and by his command cure the fever of our sins. Each one of us is sick with a fever. When-ever I give way to anger, I have a fever. There are as many fevers as there are faults and vices. Let us beg the apostles to intercede for us with Jesus, that he may come to us and touch our hand. If he does so, at once our fever is gone. He is an excellent physician and truly the chief Physician. Moses is a physician. Isaiah is a physician. All the saints are physicians, but he is the chief Physician.” (Homilies on the Gospel of Mark, 75.)

Collect

God of might, Giver of every good gift,
put into our hearts the love of Your name,
so that, by deepening our sense of reverence,
You may nurture in us what is good
and, by Your watchful care,
keep safe what You have nurtured.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
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

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Christ spoke of his body as a temple

Origen of Alexandria

Priest, Ancient Christian Writer and Martyr

An excerpt from his Commentary on John

Wednesday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time

Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. It seems to me that Jesus meant the Jews in this episode to stand for sensual men and those desirous of carnal and sensual things. These Jews were angry at his expulsion of the people who were turning his Father’s house into a market. So they asked for a sign to justify these actions, a sign that would show that the Word of God, whom they refused to accept, was acting rightly. The Savior’s reply combines a statement about the temple with a prophecy about his own body, for in answer to their question: What sign can you give to justify your conduct? he says: Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.

Indeed, I think that both the temple and the body of Jesus can be seen together as a type of the Church. For the Church is being built out of living stones; it is in process of becoming a spiritual dwelling for a holy priesthood, raised on the foundations of apostles and prophets, with Christ as its chief cornerstone. Hence it bears the name “temple.” On the other hand, it is written: You are the body of Christ, and individually members of it. Thus even the harmonious alignment of the stones should seem to be destroyed and fragmented and, as described in the twenty-first psalm, all the bones which go to make up Christ’s body should seem to be scattered by insidious attacks in persecutions or times of trouble, or by those who in days of persecution undermine the unity of the temple, nevertheless the temple will be rebuilt and the body will rise again on the third day, after the day of evil which threatens it and the day of consummation which follows. For the third day will dawn upon a new heaven and a new earth when these bones that form the whole house of Israel are raised up on that great day of the Lord, when death has been defeated. So the resurrection of Christ, accomplished after his suffering on the cross, embraces the mystery of the resurrection of his whole body.

For just as that physical body of Christ was crucified and buried, and afterward raised up, so in the same way the whole body of Christ’s holy ones has been crucified and lives no longer with its own life. For each of them, like Paul, makes his boast of nothing else but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which he has himself been crucified to the world, and the world to him. But each Christian has not only been crucified with Christ and crucified to the world; he has been buried with Christ too, as Paul tells us: We have been buried with Christ. But as though already in possession of some pledge of the resurrection, Paul goes on to say: And we have risen with him.

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

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Tuesday of the Twenty-second Week
in Ordinary Time

“Jesus then went down to Capernaum, a town of Galilee He taught them on the sabbath…” (Luke 4:31.)

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

“People who cannot be brought by argument to the sure knowledge of him who by nature and in truth is God and Lord may perhaps be won by miracles to a quiet obedience. Therefore helpfully, or rather necessarily, he often completes his lessons by going on to perform some mighty work. For the people of Judea were not ready to believe. They snubbed the words of those who called them to salvation. The people of Capernaum had this character especially. For this reason the Savior reproved them. He said, “And you, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, shall be brought down to hell.” Although he knows them to be both disobedient and hard of heart, nevertheless he visits them as a most excellent physician would visit those who were suffering from a very dangerous disease and endeavors to rid them of their illness. He himself says, “Those who are healthy have no need of a physician, only those who are sick.” He taught, therefore, in their synagogues with great freedom of speech. For he had foretold this by the voice of Isaiah: “I have not spoken in secret, nor in a dark place of the earth.”” (Commentary on Luke, Homily 12)

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

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The truth of the Lord endures for ever

Thomas à Kempis

Priest

An excerpt from a The Imitation of Christ

Tuesday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time

You thunder your judgments upon me, O Lord; you shake all my bones with fear and dread, and my soul becomes severely frightened. I am bewildered when I realize that even the heavens are not pure in your sight.

If you discovered iniquity in the angels and did not spare them, what will become of me? The stars fell from heaven, and I, mere dust, what should I expect? Those whose works seemed praiseworthy fell to the depths, and I have seen those who once were fed with the bread of angels delighting in the husks of swine. There is no holiness where you have withdrawn your hand, O Lord; no profitable wisdom if you cease to rule over it; no helpful strength if you cease to preserve it. For if you forsake us, we sink and perish; but if you visit us, we rise up and live again. We are unstable, but you make us firm; we grow cool, but you inflame us.

All superficial glory has been swallowed up in the depths of your judgment upon me. What is all flesh in your sight? Can the clay be glorified in opposition to its Maker? How can anyone be aroused by empty talk if his heart is subject in the truth to God? The whole world cannot swell with pride the man who is subject to truth; nor will he be swayed by the flattery of all his admirers, if he has established all his trust in God. For those who do all the talking amount to nothing; they fail with their din of words, but the truth of the Lord endures for 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

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When Jesus’ Cross is absent,
life becomes rocky even for the one called ‘Rock’

εὐαγγελίζω (euaggelizo)
"to announce the Good News of victory in battle"

“You duped (פָּתָה, pathah) me, O LORD,

and I let myself be duped;
You were too strong for me, and you triumphed.”

(Jeremiah 20:7)

“He [Jesus] turned and said to Peter,
“Get behind (ὀπίσω, opiso) me, Satan (σατανᾶ, Satana)!
You are an obstacle (σκάνδαλον, scandalon) to me.
You are thinking not as God does,

but as human beings do.””

(Matthew 16:23)

Scriptures for the Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

θεωρέω (theoreo)
("to perceive, discover, ponder a deeper meaning")

Dupe is an interesting translation in the New American Bible of the Hebrew ָּתָה, (pathah). The Revised Edition of the New American Bible uses the verb seduce, which is closer in meaning to the original. Either way, dupe or seduce do not seem appropriate ways to describe God’s manner of dealing with humanity, especially a person like Jeremiah who is doing God’s work as a prophet. What is certain though, Jeremiah is quite angry with God. In the verses leading up to today’s proclamation, we learn that Jeremiah has been arrested and put in stocks for doing God’s work. Jeremiah seems confused - ‘I do the Lord’s work and this is the thanks I get?’ Isn’t this the same question many of ask when misfortunes come our way. ‘Why are you doing this to me God, I’m one of your good ones?’

Jeremiah rightly terms his entrance into ministry as a seduction. Jeremiah sees, hears and senses a Presence that ignites a life within in a way that even he finds hard to explain. He knows the pleasure of speaking on God’s behalf [technically what the Hebrew word nabi (prophet) means] yet has not come to grips with the fact that fidelity to the Word often involves suffering. The misfortunes, detours and derailments of life are products of a fallen, yet redeemed world. But some sufferings are the result of opposition to the Word as well as sin. The graced-task, not just for the prophet but anyone involved in a covenant relationship with God, is to experience suffering as redemptive.

Like Jeremiah, Peter must continue responding to Jesus' formative work. As part of last week’s Proclamation, Jesus Himself rejoiced in His Father’s work as Peter responded to Jesus, “You are the Messiah (Christ), the Son of the Living God.” It certainly was a moment of revelation sparked joy even to the point of Jesus declaring Peter to be Rock. But what exactly does it mean to confess Jesus as Messiah? In what seems to be an instant, Peter reverts to a non-revealed way of knowing Jesus. When Jesus speaks about His redemptive suffering, Peter’s knee-jerk reaction is to ‘stand in front’ of Jesus and “trip” Him as He journeys to Jerusalem, the place of His Passion, Death and Resurrection. Note carefully the text. When Peter balks at Jesus’s words concerning suffering, Jesus commands Peter to “get behind (ὀπίσω, opiso).” What has happened? Peter lost his bearings as to where he is to be relative to Jesus. The disciple is always behind the Master. Recall Moses and his incessant plea to God to see the Divine Face. When Moses was permitted eventually to gaze upon God, the choreography was quite clear. Moses was placed in a cleft (a cut out) in the rock, God’s hand covered Moses and withdrew in time to see only the back of God. When the disciple is anywhere except behind the Master, the disciple becomes a scandolon (scandal, obstacle). Scandolon in Jesus’s day was graphically and tragically described as ‘putting a rock in the path of a blind person.’ The horror of that picture fills us with indignation. And yet that is precisely the stinging word that Jesus addresses to Peter.

This background is important to understand Jesus’s address to Peter as "Satan." There is no soft-pedaling this one. Even from a linguistic point of view, Jesus addresses Peter as Satan (the vocative case in Greek). The difficulty is that when many people hear the word "Satan," images abound of a red-hoofed creature wielding a pitch fork against a backdrop of sky and ocean wrapped in fire. For others, “Satan” is the ‘little bad voice’ on one shoulder competing with the good angel on the other shoulder prompting one to do certain things. Some may recall the 1970's comedian Flip Wilson and his famous quip, "the Devil made me do it" or more recently Dana Carvey’s portrayal of "Church Lady" and her propensity to make Satan solely responsible for all sin. While not denying the role of the Tempter in the choice to sin, Satan works tirelessly to thwart the plan of redemption by attempting to remove the Cross from a believer’s life. When Satan is viewed as just ‘the bad voice,’ Satan actually accomplishes more. Mind and heart succumb to the diabolic corruption that attempts discipleship without the Cross. Without Jesus and His experience of the Cross, there is no transformation of sin as one remains trapped in a self-centered world. In such a world or way of living, there is no love.

Jesus’ words to Peter, the Rock, are not sugar-coated. The blunt words sting and probably left Peter thinking, ‘what just happened? I thought I was doing something nice for my Friend, wasn’t I?’ Rather quickly, Peter's life and relationship have become somewhat rocky. Admittedly the Cross is not attractive and its pain is repulsive to our nature. Yet the Cross of Christ stands in the Christian center. Without the Cross, there is no transforming of our nature because the ‘work’ of the Cross is essentially the first commandment Jesus gives at the start of His Public Ministry, "Be converted (μετανοεῖτε, metanoeite [Mark 1:15])." The Cross draws one from self to Other, not just in actions but also in words and thoughts. Thinking, speaking and acting gradually become less self-centered and more focused on the other - AND - as good as this truly is, the Cross of Jesus redeems all. Yes, a world of greater selflessness would be wonderful, but that selflessness can only occur as the fruit of redemption, a redemption won by Christ, Christ crucified. Jesus’ insistence on the Cross is not to create a utopian society but a community of people "bought back" from death to life eternal in transforming love.

Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

“He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do...” (Matthew 16:23.)

Origen of Alexandria (part 2 of Pope Benedict’s reflections on Origen) comments on this verse from the Gospel proclaimed at Mass today:

“Responding to Peter’s ignorance as one opposing God, Jesus said, “Satan,” which is Hebrew for opponent. If he had not spoken to him from ignorance nor of the living God when he said, “Never, Lord! This must never happen to you!” then he would not have said to him “Get behind me,” as if speaking to someone who had given up being behind him and following him. Neither would he have called him “Satan.” Satan had overpowered the one following Jesus in order to turn him aside from following him and from being behind the Son of God, to make him, because of ignorant words, worthy of being called “Satan” and a scandal to the Son of God, “not thinking in the ways of God but of humans.” (Commentary on Matthew, 12.)

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

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The Lord has had pity on us

Saint Augustine of Hippo

Bishop and Great Western Father of the Church

An excerpt from a Homily 23

Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Happy are we if we do the deeds of which we have heard and sung. Our hearing of them means having them planted in us, while our doing them shows that the seed has borne fruit. By saying this, I wish to caution you, dearly beloved, not to enter the Church fruitlessly, satisfied with mere hearing of such mighty blessings and failing to do good works. For we have been saved by his grace, says the Apostle, and not by our works, lest anyone may boast; for it is by his grace that we have been saved. It is not as if a good life of some sort came first, and that thereupon God showed his love and esteem for it from on high, saying: “Let us come to the aid of these men and assist them quickly because they are living a good life.” No, our life was displeasing to him. He will, therefore, condemn what we have done but he will save what he himself has done in us.

We were not good, but God had pity on us and sent his Son to die, not for good men but for bad ones, not for the just but for the wicked. Yes, Christ died for the ungodly. Notice what is written next: One will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die. Perhaps someone can be found who will dare to die for a good man; but for the unjust man, for the wicked one, the sinner, who would be willing to die except Christ alone who is so just that he justifies even the unjust?

And so, my brothers, we had no good works, for all our works were evil. Yet although men’s actions were such, God in his mercy did not abandon men. He sent his Son to redeem us, not with gold or silver but at the price of his blood poured out for us. Christ, the spotless lamb, became the sacrificial victim, led to the slaughter for the sheep that were blemished—if indeed one can say that they were blemished and not entirely corrupt. Such is the grace we have received! Let us live so as to be worthy of that great grace, and not do injury to it. So mighty is the physician who has come to us that he has healed all our sins! If we choose to be sick once again, we will not only harm ourselves, but show ingratitude to the physician as well.

Let us then follow Christ’s paths which he has revealed to us, above all the path of humility, which he himself became for us. He showed us that path by his precepts, and he himself followed it by his suffering on our behalf. In order to die for us—because as God he could not die—the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The immortal One took on mortality that he might die for us, and by dying put to death our death. This is what the Lord did, this the gift he granted to us. The mighty one was brought low, the lowly one was slain, and after he was slain, he rose again and was exalted. For he did not intend to leave us dead in hell, but to exalt in himself at the resurrection of the dead those whom he had already exalted and made just by the faith and praise they gave him. Yes, he gave us the path of humility. If we keep to it we shall confess our belief in the Lord and have good reason to sing: We shall praise you, God, we shall praise you and call upon your name.

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

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Memorial of
The Passion of Saint John the Baptist

“John had said to Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.”” (Mark 6:18.)

In commenting on these verses from today’s Gospel, Saint John Chrysostom writes:

“John saw a man that was a tyrant overthrowing the divine commands on marriage. With boldness, he proclaimed in the midst of the forum, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother Philip’s wife.” So we learn from him to admonish our fellow servant as an equal. Do not shrink from the duty of chastising a brother, even though one may be required to die for it. Now do not make this cold reply: “What does it matter to me? I have nothing in common with him.” With the devil alone we have nothing in common, but with all humanity we have many things in common. All partake of the same nature with us. They inhabit the same earth. They are nourished with the same food. They have the same Lord. They have received the same laws. They are invited to the same blessings with ourselves. Let us not say then that we have nothing in common with them.” (Concerning the Statues, 1.)

Collect

O God,
Who willed that Saint John the Baptist
should go ahead of Your Son
both in his birth and in his death,
grant that,
as he died a Martyr for truth and justice,
we, too, may fight hard
for the confession of what You teach.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
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

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Precursor of Christ in birth and death

Saint Bede

Priest and Doctor of the Church

An excerpt from Homily 23

Memorial of the Passion of Saint John the Baptist

As forerunner of our Lord’s birth, preaching and death, the blessed John showed in his struggle a goodness worthy of the sight of heaven. In the words of Scripture: Though in the sight of men he suffered torments, his hope is full of immortality. We justly commemorate the day of his birth with a joyful celebration, a day which he himself made festive for us through his suffering and which he adorned with the crimson splendor of his own blood. We do rightly revere his memory with joyful hearts, for he stamped with the seal of martyrdom the testimony which he delivered on behalf of our Lord.

There is no doubt that blessed John suffered imprisonment and chains as a witness to our Redeemer, whose forerunner he was, and gave his life for him. His persecutor had demanded not that he should deny Christ, but only that he should keep silent about the truth. Nevertheless, he died for Christ. Does Christ not say: I am the truth? Therefore, because John shed his blood for the truth, he surely died for Christ.

Through his birth, preaching and baptizing, he bore witness to the coming birth, preaching and baptism of Christ, and by his own suffering he showed that Christ also would suffer.

Such was the quality and strength of the man who accepted the end of this present life by shedding his blood after the long imprisonment. He preached the freedom of heavenly peace, yet was thrown into irons by ungodly men; he was locked away in the darkness of prison, though he came bearing witness to the Light of life and deserved to be called a bright and shining lamp by that Light itself, which is Christ. John was baptized in his own blood, though he had been privileged to baptize the Redeemer of the world, to hear the voice of the Father above him, and to see the grace of the Holy Spirit descending upon him. But to endure temporal agonies for the sake of the truth was not a heavy burden for such men as John; rather it was easily borne and even desirable, for he knew eternal joy would be his reward.

Since death was ever near at hand through the inescapable necessity of nature, such men considered it a blessing to embrace it and thus gain the reward of eternal life by acknowledging Christ’s name. Hence the apostle Paul rightly says: You have been granted the privilege not only to believe in Christ but also to suffer for his sake. He tells us why it is Christ’s gift that his chosen ones should suffer for him: The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed in us.

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

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Memorial of Saint Augustine
Bishop and Doctor of the Church

“The foolish ones, when taking their lamps, brought no oil with them, but the wise brought flasks of oil with their lamps.” (Matthew 25:3-4.)

Saint Augustine of Hippo comments on this verse from the Gospel proclaimed during today’s Mass:

“It is some great thing, some exceedingly great thing, that this oil signifies. Do you think it might be charity? If we try out this hypothesis, we hazard no precipitate judgment. I will tell you why charity seems to be signified by the oil. The apostle says, “I will show you a still more excellent way.” “If I speak with the tongue of mortals and of angels but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” This is charity. It is “that way above the rest,” which is with good reason signified by the oil. For oil swims above all liquids. Pour in water, and pour in oil upon it; the oil will swim above. Pour in oil, pour in water upon it; the oil will swim above. If you keep the usual order, it will be uppermost; if you change the order, it will be uppermost. “Charity never fails.” (Sermon 93)

Collect

Renew in Your Church, we pray, O Lord,
the spirit with which You endowed
Your Bishop Saint Augustine
that, filled with the same spirit,
we may thirst for You,
the sole fount of true wisdom,
and seek You, the author of heavenly love.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
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

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