July2 in Year C 10

From Fifteenth week in Ordinary Time to Seventeenth week in Ordinary Time

Click on any date to go to the Thought for that Day

Morning Offering: O Jesus, through the most pure heart of Mary, I offer you all the prayers, works, joys and sufferings of this day for all the intentions of your divine heart, in union with the holy sacrifice of the Mass. I offer them especially for the Holy Father's intentions:

Pope Benedict's general intention for July is: "That in every nation of the world the election of officials may be carried out with justice, transparency and honesty, respecting the free decisions of citizens."

His mission intention is: "That Christians may strive to offer everywhere, but especially in great urban centres, an effective contribution to the promotion of education, justice, solidarity and peace."

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(July 16) Our Lady of Mount Carmel
Hermits lived on Mount Carmel near the Fountain of Elijah (northern Israel) in the 12th century. They had a chapel dedicated to

Our Lady. By the 13th century they became known as “Brothers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.” They soon celebrated a special Mass and Office in honour of Mary. In 1726 it became a celebration of the universal Church under the title of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. For centuries the Carmelites have seen themselves as specially related to Mary. Their great saints and theologians have promoted devotion to her and often championed the mystery of her Immaculate Conception. St. Teresa of Avila called Carmel “the Order of the Virgin.” St. John of the Cross credited Mary with saving him from drowning as a child, leading him to Carmel and helping him escape from prison. St. Theresa of the Child Jesus believed that Mary cured her from illness. On her First Communion she dedicated her life to Mary. During the last days of her life she frequently spoke of Mary. There is a tradition (which may not be historical) that Mary appeared to St. Simon Stock, a leader of the Carmelites, and gave him a scapular, telling him to promote devotion to it. The scapular is a modified version of Mary’s own garment. It symbolizes her special protection and calls the wearers to consecrate themselves to her in a special way. Obviously, no magic way of salvation is intended. Rather, the scapular is a reminder of the gospel call to prayer and penance — a call that Mary models in a splendid way.
“The various forms of piety toward the Mother of God, which the Church has approved within the limits of sound and orthodox doctrine, according to the dispositions and understanding of the faithful, ensure that while the mother is honoured, the Son through whom all things have their being (cf. Colossians 1:15–16) and in whom it has pleased the Father that all fullness should dwell (cf. Colossians 1:19) is rightly known, loved and glorified and his commandments are observed” (Vat II, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, 66). (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Isaiah 38:1-6.21-22.7-8; Psalm: Isaiah 38; Matthew 12:1-8

At that time Jesus went through the cornfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some ears of corn

and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath. He answered, Haven't you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread— which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven't you read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple desecrate the day and yet are innocent? I tell you that one greater than the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. (Matthew 12:1-8)

The Lord Our scene today is that of Christ passing through the cornfields with his disciples on the Sabbath. The synagogue service may have been over, or even yet to come, for a few verses later Christ enters the synagogue. We read that his disciples were hungry and began to pick for themselves some ears of corn to eat. There must have been others nearby and among them some Pharisees, who immediately approached our Lord with their complaint. His disciples were violating the Sabbath rest, which

together with the synagogue service was the linchpin of the religious practice of the nation. The Scriptures proclaimed that the Sabbath day had to be kept holy. One of the features we notice in the debates between our Lord and his adversaries was his dexterous command of the entire Scriptures. He was continually revealing new treasures of teaching in them. On one occasion he was confronted by the Sadducees who refused to accept anything beyond the Pentateuch as being inspired. Accordingly, they did not accept the doctrine of the resurrection. So they posed their puzzle to our Lord of the woman who had had seven husbands. Our Lord immediately turned the tables by quoting, from the book of Exodus, words from God himself to the effect that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were still alive. So there was a resurrection from the dead, even accepting only the Pentateuch. On another occasion he quoted a psalm suggesting that the Messiah was not only Son of David, but David’s Lord — how could this be? He was alluding to his divinity and to the Incarnation. In our encounter today (Matthew 12:1-8) our Lord refutes the Pharisees by appealing to the example of their forefather David who took and ate bread on the Sabbath, and in the house of God itself. And, after all, in preparing the offerings of the lambs the priests themselves violate the Sabbath rest, and in the very Temple. How much more ought his critics respect what he allowed, for “one greater than the temple is here.” So in passing, our Lord claims to be greater even than the Temple, the house of God!

Jesus is greater even than the Temple! Now, the Temple was the greatest thing in the nation — while Herod built temples to the gods of various gentile populations, his architectural marvel was the Temple of Jerusalem. It was one of the great buildings of the ancient world. It must have reinforced the sense of the transcendent importance of the Temple of Jerusalem in the life of the nation, signalling to all and sundry that Yahweh, who dwelt there, was supreme. But our Lord says that he himself is a greater dwelling place of Yahweh God than is the Temple. “One greater than the Temple is here.” Further, in the matter of the Sabbath, he is its Lord. Lord of the Sabbath, too! Greater than the Temple, and Lord of the Sabbath, our Lord’s masterful use of the Scriptures continues. The Pharisees, he says, must go and learn the Scriptures. Elsewhere he accuses the Sadducees of not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God. Here he accuses the Pharisees of not knowing the Scriptures either: “If you had known what these words mean, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the innocent.” Let us notice a detail in this remark. “If you had known what (this) is, I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” The word “to know” (ginooskoo) has a broader meaning than its use here. While it is legitimate to translate it here as meaning, “if you had known the meaning of this text I now quote to you,” the word is used elsewhere to indicate an intimate knowledge of persons. For instance, in response to the Angel Gabriel’s message to her, Mary said, “how will this be, since I do not know man (ou ginooskoo)?” (Luke 1:34). At the Last Supper, our Lord in his prayer states that “eternal life is this, that they may know you (ginooskoosin), Father and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). That is to say, it is more than that the Pharisees simply lack knowledge of a key Scriptural text. Our Lord may have been implying that they do not know God, for God is merciful and desires mercy more than sacrifice. They must go and learn to know the mercy of God, which is to say, Yahweh God himself. He, Jesus, is the incarnation of the One who is rich in mercy.

Let us place ourselves with the disciples as Jesus confronts the Pharisees and defends his own. Look upon him! He is the Temple of temples, the abode of the living God. Destroy it, and he would raise it up in three days. He is the Lord of the Sabbath too. As the Lord, he is the revelation of the Father who is rich in mercy. Image of the unseen God, he is our Redeemer and our all. Let us love him with all our mind, heart, soul and strength, obeying him in everything.
(E.J.Tyler)

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Second reflection: Matthew 12:1-8

God rich in mercy It is not hard for a religious person to stray from the path that God intends, while remaining religious. The

Pharisees were religious people, and were intent on adhering strictly to God's Law as they understood it. In general this is, of course, very laudable. But in their case — if we are to go on our Lord's words about many of them — they did not read the Scriptures with understanding. For instance, they overlooked the insistence of Scripture on mercy, mercy and justice. And so they judged people, condemned them, and were not merciful. They were sinking into pride. Consider our Lord's remarks in today’s Gospel (Matthew 12:1-8). They did not "understand the meaning of the words: What I want is mercy, not sacrifice." The Scriptures reveal that God is a God rich in mercy and kindness. He asks us to be like him, truly his children, and says that we must be like him precisely in his mercy if we are to benefit from his mercy and kindness ourselves.

Let us strive to be merciful especially in thought, resisting resentments, lack of forgiveness, bitterness in memories, for as our Lord says in another part of the Gospel, in this way we will be sons of our Father in heaven.
(E.J.Tyler)

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Your life is happy, very happy, though on occasions you feel a pang of sadness, and even experience almost constantly a real sense of weariness.

—Joy and affliction can go hand in hand like this, each in its own “man”: the former in the new man, the latter in the old.
(The Forge, no.183)

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I say there is only one Oracle of God, the Holy Catholic Church and the Pope as her head. To her teaching I have ever desired all my thoughts, all my words to be conformed; to her judgment I submit what I have now written, what I have ever written, not only as regards its truth, but as to its prudence, its suitableness, and its expedience.

JHN, from Certain Difficulties felt by Anglicans in Catholic Teaching Vol. 1 “Letter to the Duke of Norfolk”

Saturday of the fifteenth week in Ordinary Time C/II

(July 17) St. Francis Solano (1549-1610)

Francis came from a leading family in Andalusia, Spain. Perhaps it was his popularity as a student that enabled Francis in his teens to stop two duelists. He entered the Friars Minor in 1570, and after ordination enthusiastically sacrificed himself for others. His care for the sick during an epidemic drew so much admiration that he became embarrassed and asked to be sent to the African missions. Instead he was sent to South America in 1589. While working in what is now Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay, Francis quickly learned the local languages and was well received by the indigenous peoples. His visits to the sick often included playing a song on his violin. Around 1601 he was called to Lima, Peru, where he tried to recall the Spanish colonists to their baptismal integrity. Francis also worked to defend the indigenous peoples from oppression. He died in Lima and was canonized in 1726. "When Francis Solano was about to die, one of the friars asked him, 'Father, when God takes you to heaven remember me when you enter the everlasting kingdom.' With joy Francis answered, 'It is true, I am going to heaven but this is so because of the merits of the passion and death of Christ; I am the greatest of sinners. When I reach our homeland, I will be your good friend'" (contemporary biography of St. Francis Solano). (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Micah 2:1-5; Psalm 9; Matthew 12:14-21

The Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus. Aware of this, Jesus withdrew from that place. Many followed him, and he healed all their sick, warning them not to tell who he was. This was to fulfil what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: Here is my servant whom I have chosen, the one I love, in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations. He will not quarrel or cry out; no-one will hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smouldering wick he will not snuff out, till he leads justice to victory. In his name the nations will put their hope. (Matthew 12: 14-21)

Christ’s way Philip II of Macedon (382 BC — 336 BC) took the throne of Macedon in 359 and began his gradual expansion — by force of arms — throughout the Greek peninsular. He was on the threshold of an attempt on Persia when he was assassinated. In an amazing eleven-year journey of conquest, his son, the young Alexander, conquered all the way from Egypt to India. Behind him followed Greek institutions and the Greek language, which became the standard of the ancient world. Alexander was

determined to conquer what he understood to be the world, and his means were arms, material resources and natural talent — especially his own. The decline and the division of his empire set in with his death (323 BC). For over two hundred years during this period Rome and Carthage had left one another alone, signing treaties from time to time while each expanded. Finally, some eighty years after the death of Alexander, the Punic Wars between Carthage and Rome began, with Cato’s motto emerging as the clarion call of Rome: Carthago delenda est! Carthage must be destroyed! By force of arms Rome prevailed and proceeded to its extraordinary domination of the civilized world. The Roman Empire lasted centuries till in the West it buckled under the weight of the barbarian invasions. It was by force of arms that the barbarians prevailed. Then out of Arabia came the Islamic whirlwind. In about 610 Mahomet had his religious experiences in the cave, and gradually became convinced that he was Allah’s Prophet. Within two decades and by force of arms, Islam gained control of nearly all of the Arabian Peninsula. Within three years of this, Islam controlled Damascus, and the following year Syria and Israel. A year later Islam expanded into India, North Africa and Spain — only to be stopped by Charles the Hammer in France. Again, an Empire has suddenly risen and enveloped vast areas by force of arms. It is the story of the world. When Satan showed the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time to Christ in the desert, he would have shown the ebb and flow of conquest. This story of conquest was the story of the growth of kingdoms by means of arms.

Let this general backdrop be the setting for our Gospel today (Matthew 12: 14-21), in which Matthew interprets Christ’s manner of ministry. Was Christ’s manner of ministry one of force? It was not. The struggle Mahomet faced from his own home city came down to a military struggle, and Mahomet prevailed. Our Lord faced a struggle, and he had incomparable powers he could have used, had he chosen. He could calm storms at sea. He could raise people from the dead and heal them of any illness. He could feed thousands with a handful of food. He could do anything. In the Garden of Gethsemane he awaited his betrayer and imminent captors. When they arrived and laid hands on him, Peter drew his sword and struck in order to defend him. Christ ordered him to desist, saying that if he merely asked, his heavenly Father would send twelve legions of angels to defend him. No power on earth could have resisted Christ, had physical force and conquest been his chosen method of advance. But it was not. God sent his divine Son to establish here on earth his Kingdom, a Kingdom that had been foretold and which would last forever. But the means of world conquest were utterly different from the ways of the world. Are you a King, then? Pilate asked Jesus. Yes, I am a King, but my kingdom is not of this world — if it were, my subjects would be fighting to prevent me from being handed over to the Jews. My Kingdom is not of this kind. There was to be no force, no arms. In our Gospel today our Lord retreats because the Pharisees were plotting to kill him. Why did he retreat? It was because his method of victory was altogether different, and Isaiah the prophet had predicted this. “This was to fulfil what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: Here is my servant whom I have chosen, the one I love, in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations. He will not quarrel or cry out; no-one will hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smouldering wick he will not snuff out, till he leads justice to victory. In his name the nations will put their hope.”

He would lead justice to victory and in him the nations would put their hope. But his method was obedience to his heavenly Father amid the Cross, rejection and apparent failure. This is the weapon used for the Redemption of the human race, and for the sure and certain victory of Christ’s Kingdom in and over the world. It is as sure as the day and much surer, that Christ will prevail over all the kingdoms of the world, especially over the kingdom and household of Satan. His method is obedience to the Father amid the Cross. This is the path his followers must take, and it is this which will give the victory. Every day to it, then! Ah! Now I begin!
                                             (E.J.Tyler)

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Second reflection    (Micah 2:1-5)

A Christ-like heart     The prophet Micah utters a warning: "Woe to those who plot evil, who lie in bed planning mischief!"(2:1),

and in the Gospel we have a dramatic instance of it. The Pharisees go out and begin plotting how to destroy Jesus (Matthew 12:14). Our Lord's reaction was the opposite. He responded with a strength that showed itself not in aggression and revenge, but in restraint and meekness, fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah "He will not brawl or shout, nor will any one hear his voice in the streets" (Matt 14:15-21). Let us contemplate the figure of Jesus, meek and humble in the face of those who plotted evil against him, and let us resolve to be like him. This likeness must involve our thoughts about others, in the inner world of our hearts. Notice the person who is talking to himself: It is obvious that a lot is being said in his heart. God sees our hearts. Let us strive to be Christlike in our hearts — meek and humble of heart and treating kindly others in the world of our memories and our thoughts.

To forgive and to love from the heart is a source of great self-denial and sanctification.
(E.J.Tyler)

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Humility is born of knowing God and knowing oneself.
(The Forge, no.184)

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In Holy Communion … we see Christ’s death and resurrection together, at one and the same time; we commemorate the one, we rejoice in the other; we make an offering, and we gain a blessing.

JHN, from “Plain and Parochial Sermons”, Vol. 4, Sermon 22, “Watching”

Sixteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time C/II

Prayers this week: God himself is my help. The Lord upholds my life. I will offer you a willing sacrifice; I will praise your name, O Lord, for its goodness. (Psalm 53.6.8)

Lord be merciful to your people. Fill us with your gifts and make us always eager to serve you in faith, hope and love. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God.

(July 18) Blessed Angeline of Marsciano (1374-1435)
Blessed Angeline founded the first community of Franciscan women other than Poor Clares to receive papal approval. Angeline was born to the Duke of Marsciano (near Orvieto). She was 12 when her mother died. Three years later the young woman made a vow of perpetual chastity. That same year, however, she yielded to her father’s decision that she marry the Duke of
Civitella. Her husband agreed to respect her previous vow. When he died two years later, Angeline joined the Secular Franciscans and with several other women dedicated herself to caring for the sick, the poor, widows and orphans. When many other young women were attracted to Angeline’s community, some people accused her of condemning the married vocation. Legend has it that when she came before the King of Naples to answer these charges, she had burning coals hidden in the folds of her cloak. When she proclaimed her innocence and showed the king that these coals had not harmed her, he dropped the case.
Angeline and her companions later went to Foligno, where her community of Third Order sisters received papal approval in 1397. She soon established 15 similar communities of women in other Italian cities. Angeline died on July 14, 1435, and was beatified in 1825.

Scripture today: Genesis 18:1-10; Psalm 14; Colossians 1:24-28; Luke 10:38-42

Jesus entered a village where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him. She had a sister named Mary who sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak. Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me.” The Lord said to her in reply, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.” (Luke 10:38-42)

For Jesus If one wishes to attain a personal knowledge of the Lord, a most effective help is to place oneself in a Gospel scene with Jesus, and to be with him as he speaks and acts in that scene. From within that Gospel scene he will reveal himself to the soul, just as he revealed himself to the soul of Martha’s sister Mary in today’s Gospel. Let each resolve to do what our Lord holds up for our observance in our Gospel scene today. Consider Jesus (Luke 10: 38-42) as he speaks to the one who sits at his

feet and listens to him. In our own hearts, let us gaze at Jesus speaking. He is God, the source of truth and light, the supreme teacher of every person. He is God, the guide of all humanity, the source of all light and goodness. He is the Incarnate Beauty of God. If one enters into a serious relationship with him in prayer and in faithful living, the beauty of Christ’s heart and soul will become manifest, and will take possession of one’s heart. St Augustine addressed God as ‘O Beauty, ancient and ever new.’ Jesus is this Beauty, and he is the Light of the world. But he will not be known by the outsider. On one occasion he said, Come to me, all you who labour, and learn from me. We must, then, come to him in order to learn. He will be found by the person who, like Mary in this Gospel scene, resolves to give to Jesus the full attention of his heart as a disciple. But this simple Gospel scene not only tells us about Jesus. It also reveals the vocation of the Christian. In the figure of Mary listening with wrapt attention to the words of the Lord, we have a figure of the total love that the true disciple is called to have for Jesus. The love that the Scriptures command that we have for God himself, a total love of mind, heart and soul, is to be directed to Jesus himself. This love is to permeate everything we do in life, our daily prayer, work, sufferings. He is what our hearts are made for. We show this love for him by listening to his teaching and putting it faithfully into practice in our daily life.

By contrast, Martha is distracted and worried with many things. It is a particular moment in her life and is in no way a judgment on her life in general, for Martha is a saint whose feast we celebrate every year on July 29. But that Gospel scene is meant by the inspired author, and hence by the Holy Spirit, to teach us something very important in the Christian life. Our Lord said to Martha that she was not to be fretting about so many things. Only one was necessary, and that is to have Jesus as the object of our heart’s desire, to hear the word of God as it comes from Jesus, to hear it with love for him and in recognition that he is God, and then to put it into practice in our daily life. In our daily life we must abide in the person, the word and the love of Jesus Christ. There are so many things that fill up the lives of people, about which they worry and fret, apart from the presence of Jesus. Jesus is thus reduced to being but one of these things. The true friends of Jesus who abide in his love will have worries, but the one thing necessary, their love for Jesus, will be the great anchor of their life. He is the joy of every man and woman. He is what our hearts are made for. So what must we do? We must, as it were, sit at the feet of Jesus, learn to gaze at him in faith with all our heart, listen to him speaking to us, and out of love for him put his word into practice in our daily life. It is possible for a Christian to go right through life living in the way Martha was at that moment, worried and fretting about so many things, and never gaining possession of that necessary thing, which is Jesus and his word coming to us in the Scriptures and in the teaching and sacraments of the Church. It is possible to be always doing what Martha did at that point, and never doing what Mary was doing then. We must put time into serious prayer with Jesus, especially the Eucharistic Jesus, into spiritual reading, into the overcoming of vices and growing in the virtues of Christ, into regular Confession, into a serious spiritual life.

While we ought be like Martha in assiduously serving our Lord in our neighbour, in everything we ought have him as the one thing necessary in our life. He is the supreme object of our hearts. For the Catholic, this especially means making the Eucharist Jesus the summit and source of our daily life. Let us build up a strong daily life of prayer, and a life of service of others for love of Jesus Christ. We must bring an undivided love for, and obedience to, Jesus into our life, into our prayer, our work, our all. This is symbolized by the figure of Mary in our Gospel scene.
                                                         (E.J.Tyler)

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A second reflection    (Luke 10:38-42)

Prayer     In the moment encapsulated by our Gospel scene today, Mary gives her whole attention to our Lord, while Martha, who loved our Lord, frets and worries over many things. Our Lord’s words to Martha (Luke 10:38-42) show that he wants the attention of our heart. He wants our love. He wants our lives to be founded on love for him and attention to his word. Love for Jesus is the basis of the life of the Christian, and in God’s plan all are called to this love for Jesus. The catechism asks, why did

God make us? God made us to know, love and serve Him here on earth and as a result of this to see and enjoy Him for ever in heaven. The order of that statement of life is significant: We must know Him, love Him, and then on that basis, serve Him. But if we are to know and love Him we must think of Him and spend time with Him. At the core of our daily lives, our hearts have to be finding their centre, their peace and their happiness in Him. ‘Come to me, all you who labour and are burdened,’ he said elsewhere, ‘and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden light.’ All is founded on a personal love for Jesus, and this depends on personal prayer. We must decide to be with Jesus, which is to say to spend time with Him. In any personal friendship, nothing will develop if we do not spend time with the person whose friend we wish to be. As a plan of life, regular time, indeed prime time, must be spent in thought and prayer in the presence of Jesus Christ.

We ought begin every day prayerfully by recalling God’s special love for us and by offering the day to Him. The morning offering of ourselves to God is fundamental for growth in God’s love, an offering we ought renew numerous times each day by means of short prayers to Jesus who is always within. We ought pray repeatedly to our Lady, St Joseph , our Guardian Angel, and other saints to whom we are drawn. Apart from these brief prayers that are so important, there are two great elements of piety which are necessary to develop a personal relationship with our Lord. They are spiritual reading and daily meditation, and these two things are best done each day. The spiritual reading would include a gradual reading of the Scriptures, especially the New Testament. Perhaps something else from some other spiritual book could be included in the moments of spiritual reading immediately after the Scriptures, such as a life of a saint. Then apart from spiritual reading, I would urge some prayerful meditation in the presence of God during the day, say about ten minutes straight. Meditation is prayer, the prayer that comes from a prayerful consideration of, say, a Gospel scene which could be the Gospel of the liturgical day. Turn to the Gospel scene. Read it slowly and in the presence of Christ. Visualize the scene of the Gospel as if present, and put yourself in the company of Jesus in that Gospel scene. Just be with him for those minutes. Listen to him, and present your heart to him with all its desires, its needs, its difficulties. Give to Him those ten or fifteen minutes each day. You can then take the experience of Jesus in that scene into the day’s work, and return briefly to it often. Spiritual reading and the prayer of meditation each day — let us say, ten or fifteen minutes of each — is the key to spiritual growth. Far more is involved, but with this, the foundation will be there.

A further help may be to commit yourself, as well, to an hour of prayer each week perhaps in your Church before the Tabernacle, all the while making your day’s work the expression of your love for Jesus whom you are coming to know more and more in prayer. If you follow these practices faithfully, things will happen. You will discover the presence of Jesus in your life. You will come to know his love for you and you will come to love him in return.
(E.J.Tyler)

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Lord, I ask for a gift from you: Love… a Love that will cleanse me. — And another gift as well: self—knowledge so that I may be filled with humility.
(The Forge, no.185)

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Ours is not an age of temporal glory, of dutiful princes, of loyal governments, of large possessions, of ample leisure, of famous

schools, of learned foundations, of well-stored libraries, of honoured sanctuaries. Rather, it is like the first age of the Church, when there was little of station, of nobility, of learning, of wealth, in the holy heritage; when Christians were chiefly of the lower orders; when we were poor and ignorant, when we were despised and hated by the great and philosophical as a low rabble, or a stupid and obstinate association, or a foul and unprincipled conspiracy. It is like that first age, in which no saint is recorded in history who fills the mind as a great idea, as St. Thomas Aquinas or St. Ignatius fills it, and when the ablest of so-called Christian writers belonged to heretical schools.

JHN, from Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England, Lecture 9 – Duties of Catholics Towards the Protestant

Monday of the sixteenth week in Ordinary Time C/II

(July 19) Servant of God Francis Garces and Companions (c. 1781)
Government interference in the missions and landgrabbing sparked the Indian uprising which cost these friars their lives. A contemporary of the American Revolution and of Blessed Junipero Serra, Francisco Garcés was born in 1738 in Spain, where he joined the Franciscans. After ordination in 1763, he was sent to Mexico. Five years later he was assigned to San Xavier del Bac near Tucson, one of several missions the Jesuits had founded in Arizona and New Mexico before being expelled in 1767 from all territories controlled by the Catholic king of Spain. In Arizona, Francisco worked among the Papago, Yuma, Pima and Apache Native Americans. His missionary travels took him to the Grand Canyon and to California. Friar Francisco Palou, a contemporary, writes that Father Garcés was greatly loved by the indigenous peoples, among whom he lived unharmed for a long time. They regularly gave him food and referred to him as "Viva Jesus," which was the greeting he taught them to use. For the sake of their indigenous converts, the Spanish missionaries wanted to organize settlements away from the Spanish soldiers and colonists. But the commandant in Mexico insisted that two new missions on the Colorado River, Misión San Pedro y San Pablo and Misión La Purísima Concepción, be mixed settlements. A revolt among the Yumas against the Spanish left Friars Juan Diaz and Matias Moreno dead at Misión San Pedro y San Pablo. Friars Francisco Garcés and Juan Barreneche were killed at Misión La Purísima Concepción (the site of Fort Yuma). (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Micah 6: 1-4.6-8; Psalm 49; Matthew 12: 38-42

Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to Jesus, Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you. He answered, A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here. The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon's wisdom, and now one greater than Solomon is here. (Matthew 12: 38-42)

Faith Our passage today is from the twelfth chapter of St Matthew, and it gives yet another episode in the conflict between Jesus Christ and the Pharisees and lawyers. Of course, in respect to this or any chapter, the original manuscripts did not contain the chapter and verse divisions in the numbered form familiar to modern readers. It is agreed that it is on the system of Archbishop Stephen Langton (1150-1228) in the early thirteenth century that the modern chapter divisions (and even

arrangements of books) are based. That said, let us take chapter twelve as a context for our passage today and notice the attacks on our Lord by the scribes and Pharisees. At the outset, there is the complaint of the Pharisees that our Lord’s disciples were violating the Sabbath by picking ears of corn (12:2). Our Lord’s refutation of this being given, the Pharisees are shown in the synagogue watching if he would heal on the Sabbath Day, which he did. Our Lord publicly refuted their muted criticism, leading them to plan his death (12:9-14). At that, our Lord withdrew from the place and crowds followed. The next episode is an exorcism, and the man thus freed spoke and could see. But when the Pharisees heard of it, they accused our Lord of having his power by collaboration with Satan. This too was refuted by our Lord, who warned them that they were blaspheming against the Holy Spirit (12: 22-38). They were a generation of vipers. There then follows the encounter of today (Matthew 12: 38-42), in which certain of the scribes and Pharisees require a sign, a miracle, from our Lord. With the exception of the event at the end of the chapter when the mother and relatives of Jesus ask to see him, the entire chapter narrates attacks on him by the scribes and Pharisees, and his repulsion of them. It is a portion of what was happening on a grander scale. The Pharisees — though not all (consider, for example, Nicodemus) — refused to give our Lord their faith. The refusal was deliberate, studied, and demanding.

“Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you.” In their own minds they constituted, as it were, a court of judgment. Jesus was asked to fulfil their requirements of proof, after which they would deliver their judgment. Our Lord told them that this showed they were an evil and adulterous generation. They were wicked (12:45). He pointed to the Scriptural figures of Jonah and the people of Nineveh. Jonah was not the ideal person to represent Yahweh God. He strove to avoid doing what God wanted of him. But despite his limitations, his word was immediately accepted by the people of Nineveh. He preached repentance, and the pagan city responded with obedience. Jonah worked no miracles, nor did he display moral perfection — as did Jesus Christ. But his word was sufficient because of the good heart of the people of Nineveh. People could tell that what he preached was true and divine in origin. They could tell, because of their moral disposition. If the people of Nineveh could and did do that, how much more ought the scribes and Pharisees accept the word of Christ, for in him someone far greater than Jonah was here. Or again, the queen of the South in the Book of Kings came to hear the wisdom of Solomon. She listened, was grateful, and learned. If she, a pagan, had faith in the word of Solomon, who worked no miracles and who in later life was unfaithful to Yahweh God, how much more ought one have faith in the word of Jesus Christ. The demand of the scribes and Pharisees for a proof by miracle could not be reduced simply to a request for adequate grounds of belief. It primarily involved moral corruption and failure. It was an evil request they had made of Christ. The people of Nineveh had faith. So did the queen of the South. They, the Pharisees, ought have faith also. Our Lord’s condemnation of the Pharisees shows that the act of faith is a moral matter, a matter of responsible choice, for which each person will be held accountable. The Pharisees failed the test.

The Pharisees had all the grounds they needed for faith in Jesus Christ. Miracles were not needed, just as miracles were not needed for the people of Nineveh nor for the queen of the South. What was needed was a good heart, a heart to perceive the goodness and complete trustworthiness of Jesus Christ himself. But of course, plenty of miracles were provided as well. These too bore witness to Christ’s transcendent goodness. Let us all our lives live near to Jesus, with the eyes of our heart contemplating his person day by day. This we should do because of our faith, and this contemplation of him will increase our faith. Faith is the foundation, and it takes us to sanctity.
                                                                             (E.J.Tyler)

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Second reflection   (Micah 6: 1-4.6-8)

The sacrifice of a holy life       It is clear that in the ancient world religion consisted very largely in performing the right

ceremonial and sacrifices to the gods. This acknowledged to the gods their dignity and sway over man. This ceremonial and religious acknowledgment was deemed to ensure their protection. Sacrifices were especially important. Of course, there was an element of real truth in this, and we see elements of it in the religion revealed by God to his chosen people. Sacrifice, ritual and the observance of constant honour to God himself was at the kernel of true religion. But distinctive to revealed religion, especially when compared with the religion of other ancient peoples, was the importance of holiness of life in God's sight — for, in the words of the prophet Micah (6: 6-8): "What is good has been explained to you, man; this is what the Lord asks of you: only this, to act justly, to love tenderly and to walk humbly with your God." Be holy, God said, because I am holy.

In the religion revealed and established by our Lord himself — the Christian religion — holiness of life was itself a special sacrifice all his faithful are called to offer constantly to God. All the faithful share in a common priesthood, offering a holy life in union with that of Jesus himself.
(E.J.Tyler)

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The saints are those who struggle right to the end of their lives: those who always manage to get up each time they stumble, each time they fall, and courageously embark on their way once more with humility, love and hope.
(The Forge, no.186)

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The Gospel, then, as contrasted with all religious systems which have gone before and come after, even those in which God has spoken, is specially the system of faith and “the law of faith,” and its obedience is the “obedience of faith,” and its justification is “by faith,” and it is a “power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.”

JHN, from Lectures on the Doctrine of Justification Lecture 11.

Tuesday of the sixteenth week in Ordinary Time C/II

(July 20) St. Apollinaris (1st century)
According to tradition, St. Peter sent Apollinaris to Ravenna, Italy, as its first bishop. His preaching of the Good News was so successful that the pagans there beat him and drove him from the city. He returned, however, and was exiled a second time. After preaching in the area surrounding Ravenna, he entered the city again. After being cruelly tortured, he was put on a ship heading to Greece. Pagans there caused him to be expelled to Italy, where he went to Ravenna for a fourth time. He died from wounds received during a savage beating at Classis, a suburb of Ravenna. A beautiful basilica honouring him was built there in the sixth century. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Micah 7:14-15.18-20; Psalm 84; Matthew 12:46-50

While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you. He replied to him, Who is my mother, and who are my brothers? Pointing to his disciples, he said, Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother. (Matthew 12:46-50)

God so near A striking thing about religious belief is that, typically, the divine is remote. Aristotle saw actuality and potentiality as present in all things. The exception is the supreme unmoved Mover and Cause, in which there is no imperfection — which is to say, no potentiality. God is pure actuality (Actus Purus). He simply is. His life is self-contemplative thought, and he never leaves his eternal repose. Aristotle’s deductions are brilliant and have been used by great Christian thinkers, but, to say the

least, the abstract God whom he posits is very remote from man. If we turn to the polytheism of Greek religion, the gods were very concrete but to one with a philosophical cast of mind, simply unbelievable. A serious and profound thinker could not take them seriously as an explanation of the world. Zeus was the king of the gods and father of men, and may be looked on as something of a prototype of the high gods of the natural religions of mankind. Characteristically, the high god is remote, having receded after establishing the world. Man deals with heavenly underlings, which is to say the second-rate deities that busy themselves with arbitrary interventions in the course of affairs. Apart from the revealed religion of the Jews (and, of course, the Christians), the great contender for religious dominance was Islam, whirling furiously out of Arabia with Koran and Sword, only stopped in its tracks at Tours by Charles Martel the Hammer in 732. But what was Islam’s view of the supreme One? We might say it was that he is Master and utterly supreme. He is transcendent, beyond, ineffable. There is no god but Allah. He is great in a way no other is. While he is the Merciful and Compassionate one, what distinguishes him especially is that he towers above all else. Islamic teaching insists that Allah is the Yahweh of the Jews, but there are serious differences. The Islamic Allah seems to be viewed as more powerful than Yahweh and he is certainly not the Bridegroom of a chosen people. Allah is exciting, but he is above and beyond.

I mention this as a backdrop to our Gospel today, which itself must be set against the backdrop of revealed religion generally. The God of the Jews intervened to woo a people, which is to say, to be their Bridegroom. He entered into a covenant with them and asked them to be a faithful spouse. If they were faithful to his commands, he would be with them in undying fidelity. The prophets spoke of him as the Husband of his people, who were given a mission for the benefit of all the peoples. All the nations of the earth would be blessed through them, if they were faithful to the covenant. God remained with them and defended them. Their conviction was that he had chosen them, was with them, and helped them. He was all-holy and punished sin, but he was rich in mercy. There was only one God and he was not remote but very near. But now, he had become man, and in Jesus Christ he stands in our Gospel today in the midst of the people speaking to them. This is the great God, dwelling among men as one of them. The Incarnation is the mystery of mysteries, and the source of unending and prayerful wonder. It cannot be mentioned too much. Not least among the marvels of this adorable Fact — the Fact of Jesus Christ — is that God has become man’s Brother. What is to be said of this when set against the religions of the world, excepting that of Israel? It is in stark contrast with them. God is my Brother, because he is Jesus Christ. He is my Lord and my God — as Thomas the Apostle addressed him — but he is my Brother too. He is my Creator and my Judge, but he is my Friend as well. When our Lord rose from the dead he asked Mary Magdalene to “go to my brothers and tell them that I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” This is the point in our Lord’s words of today’s Gospel: “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers? Pointing to his disciples, he said, Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (Matthew 12:46-50). God the Son become man is our Brother, if we act as children of him who has made himself our “Abba,” dear Father.

One of the reasons why polytheism has been the characteristic religion of mankind is that it has always been so difficult to imagine how one God could create, sustain and rule all things. How immense he must be, if he does this! It is the most natural thing in the world to imagine the one God as remote from puny and vulnerable man. But he is not remote! He is our Father, our Brother and our Counsellor-Advocate, Father, Son and Spirit. We share in his very life. How beautiful has life become because of this! Nothing can now separate us from the love of God made visible in Christ Jesus. Let us then smile through life, carrying the cross after the one ahead of us.
(E.J.Tyler)

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Second reflection: (Micah 7:14-15.18-20)

Sin and the mercy of God Before the emergence of Rome well over 2000 years ago, the Etruscans developed a civilization

that dominated the Italian peninsular. By comparison with surrounding peoples their life was enjoyable. One feature of their religious belief was that they expected the Afterlife also to be very enjoyable. They do not seem to have had any fear of a judgment to come and of punishment for sin and crimes during life. This could indicate that they had little sense of sin and of the need for mercy. By contrast, and perhaps at the same time, the prophet Micah was preaching in far-away Palestine — we have an example of his preaching in Micah 7:14-20. In this passage he extols the mercy of God. God is a God of mercy, and the prophet appeals to him to "have pity on us, tread down our faults, to the bottom of the sea throw all our sins." It indicates a profound sense of sin. In revealed religion we are ever reminded of our sins, and we are constantly reminded that God is rich in mercy if we but repent of them. If there is no repentance, God will be angry.

Our Lord came to take on himself the burden of our sins, to expiate for them, and thus to show the mercy of God. Let us pray for a deep sense of sin and for a sense of the richness of God's mercy.
(E.J.Tyler)

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If your mistakes make you more humble, if they make you reach out more urgently for God’s helping hand, then they are a road to sanctity: Felix culpa! — O happy fault!, the Church sings.
(The Forge, no.187)

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All that God has made speaks of its Maker; the mountains speak of His eternity; the sun of His immensity, and the winds of His Almightiness.
JHN, from Meditations and Devotions

Wednesday of the sixteenth week in Ordinary Time C/II

(July 21) St. Lawrence of Brindisi (1559-1619)
At first glance perhaps the most remarkable quality of Lawrence of Brindisi is his outstanding gift of languages. In addition to a thorough knowledge of his native Italian, he had complete reading and speaking ability in Latin, Hebrew, Greek, German,

Bohemian, Spanish and French. He was born on July 22, 1559, and died exactly 60 years later on his birthday in 1619. His parents William and Elizabeth Russo gave him the name of Julius Caesar, Caesare in Italian. After the early death of his parents, he was educated by his uncle at the College of St. Mark in Venice. When he was just 16 he entered the Capuchin Franciscan Order in Venice and received the name of Lawrence. He completed his studies of philosophy and theology at the University of Padua and was ordained a priest at 23. With his facility for languages he was able to study the Bible in its original texts. At the request of Pope Clement VIII, he spent much time preaching to the Jews in Italy. So excellent was his knowledge of Hebrew, the rabbis felt sure he was a Jew who had become a Christian. In 1956 the Capuchins completed a 15-volume edition of his writings. Eleven of these 15 contain his sermons, each of which relies chiefly on scriptural quotations to illustrate his teaching. Lawrence’s sensitivity to the needs of people—a character trait perhaps unexpected in such a talented scholar—began to surface. He was elected major superior of the Capuchin Franciscan province of Tuscany at the age of 31. He had the combination of brilliance, human compassion and administrative skill needed to carry out his duties. In rapid succession he was promoted by his fellow Capuchins and was elected minister general of the Capuchins in 1602. In this position he was responsible for great growth and geographical expansion of the Order. Lawrence was appointed papal emissary and peacemaker, a job which took him to a number of foreign countries. An effort to achieve peace in his native kingdom of Naples took him on a journey to Lisbon to visit the king of Spain. Serious illness in Lisbon took his life in 1619. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Jeremiah 1:1.4-10; Psalm 70; Matthew 13:1-9

That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. Such large crowds gathered round him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. Then he told them many things in parables, saying: A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop — a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. He who has ears, let him hear. (Matthew 13: 1-9)

The soil As I have mentioned before, we must not take too seriously the division of the Gospel narrative into chapters. This division into chapters came long after the writing of the Gospels, and at times the division can be misleading. For instance, our Gospel passage today marks the beginning of chapter 13, but we notice that what Jesus does in this passage occurs on “that day” (en tee heemera, 13:1), the same day as the events of the previous chapter 12. So what goes on in chapter 13 is to be understood as flowing directly on

from what went before it. While in chapter 12 the setting is our Lord’s instructions to the multitudes (especially in the synagogue on the Sabbath day), much of the chapter is taken up with the conflict with the scribes and Pharisees. Our Lord’s judgment on the lack of faith of the religious leaders is given, together with his refutation of their accusations. At the end of this conflict, Christ describes the true disciple, the one who is a brother, sister and mother to him (12:48-50). That person is the one who does the will of the Father. Then the scene changes — but it is still “that day” (13:1). Jesus leaves the house and sits by the sea-shore to speak to “great multitudes.” So great were the numbers, that he decides to sit in a boat and address them from there. Just as in the previous chapter — earlier “that day” — he had dealt at length with the refusal of the religious leaders, so now — this same day — he deals with the refusal of the multitude. The connecting thread — the theme for this same day — is the refusal to believe, and who the true disciple is. At times it has been said that the Old Testament is a record of divine judgment and wrath on sin, while the New is a record of divine compassion — which is to say of a God who does not condemn. But even if we look only at these two chapters of the Gospel of Matthew (12 and 13), we can clearly see how our Lord is in the tradition of the prophets who condemn sin. Here our Lord is especially condemning the sin of unbelief, whether in the Pharisees earlier, or in the multitudes now. In each case the contrast is drawn with true disciples.

With that as our broader context, we turn to the parable with which this section of the Gospel begins, a section, as just said, which is especially concerned with the unsatisfactory response to the person and word of Jesus Christ. Our Lord has the multitudes before him and we are out in the open air by the Sea of Galilee. It is as if the multitudes represent the chosen people, and indeed the entire world. It is to all of these that our Lord directs his parable. Broad and simple in its strokes, there are two protagonists in the image being drawn. There is the seed which the farmer is sowing and there is the ground on which his seed is falling. The farmer and his seed is the constant, while the soil is the variable. Obviously, Jesus who is speaking to them from the boat is the farmer who is sowing the seed, and they are the soil on which it is falling. Christ’s preoccupation is not himself nor his word. His preoccupation is the multitude before him that is gazing at him and receiving his word. His word, like seed, is falling on their ears, but are they truly listening to it? A little before, earlier “that day,” his preoccupation had been with the religious leaders of the multitude. They were hard ground, hostile to his word and unlike the true disciple who does the will of the heavenly Father. Now it is the multitude whom our Lord considers and again, a striking contrast is drawn between many of them and the true disciple. There are various categories of soil. There is the path, trampled hard by the feet of people walking on it. The seed makes no impression, and remains on the surface to be taken by the birds of the air. There is the rocky land — of which there was a great deal in Palestine. The seed had no chance of striking real root. Then there were the briars in which the seed was smothered. But then there was the good soil which enabled the seed to produce a harvest (Matthew 13:1-9). This, then, is our Lord’s description of the world, and at the end of his picture he pinpoints the critical element. What matters is whether a person has ears with which to hear his word. Listen, he says, you that have ears to hear with!

The exemplar of the disciple who listens to the word is Mary, the mother of Jesus. She heard the word and pondered it in her heart, and it produced a harvest of holiness in her. Let us place ourselves in the Gospel scene, among the multitude listening to the Master. He speaks of the good soil that receives the word, and asks that we hear, that we listen. Let us resolve really to listen, and to have ears to hear with. Looking at him, we step forward from the crowd, resolving to be more than a mere viewer, but rather a true disciple. It is the disciple that produces the harvest through the power of the word and grace of Christ. With him we can produce the harvest.
(E.J.Tyler)

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Second reflection: (Jeremiah 1:1.4-10)

The power of God's word One of the things that man experiences and which has affected his religious culture is power. Man

has experience of things with power of various kinds. These things give him an inkling of heavenly power, the power of the gods, or of God. This power of God is manifested in various ways, but one way that recurs throughout Scripture is in and through his word. In a well known passage from the prophet Jeremiah (1:1.4-10) the prophet protests his weakness when God appoints him to be a prophet. But God says "There! I am putting my words into your mouth.." With them the prophet will be able to "tear up and to knock down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant." In receiving the word of God the prophet receives the power of God. Our Lord refers to this power of God's word in his parable of the sower (Matthew 13:1-9). The word of God is like a seed that has power for growth, and if the soil admits and allows it, growth will surely come.

Let us maintain a deep respect in our hearts for the word of God in the Scriptures and in the Church's Tradition, a respect that leads us to work on becoming good soil. Good soil is the readiness to hear the word and to put it into practice. If we are good soil, God’s power will do the rest.
(E.J.Tyler)

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Prayer — even my prayer! — is all-powerful.
(The Forge, no.188)

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All things have an end, but the earth will last its time, and while the earth lasts Holy Church will last; and while Holy Church lasts may the Oratory of Birmingham last also, amid the fortunes of many generations, one and the same, faithful to St. Philip, strong in the protection of Our Lady and all Saints, not losing as time goes on its sympathy with its first fathers, whatever may be the burden and interests of its own day, as we in turn now stretch forth our hands with love and with awe towards those our unborn successors whom on earth we shall never know.

JHN, from “Sayings of Cardinal Newman”, anon., “Mr. Ouless’s Portrait of him”

Thursday of the sixteenth week in Ordinary Time C/II

(July 22) St. Mary Magdalene

Except for the mother of Jesus, few women are more honoured in the Bible than Mary Magdalene. Yet she could well be the patron of the slandered, since there has been a persistent legend in the Church that she is the unnamed sinful woman who anointed the feet of Jesus in Luke 7:36-50. Most Scripture scholars today point out that there is no scriptural basis for confusing the two women. Mary Magdalene, that is, “of Magdala,” was the one from whom Christ cast out “seven demons” (Luke 8:2)—an indication, at the worst, of extreme demonic possession or, possibly, severe illness. Father W.J. Harrington, O.P., writing in the New Catholic Commentary, says that “seven demons” “does not mean that Mary had lived an immoral life—a conclusion reached only by means of a mistaken identification with the anonymous woman of Luke 7:36.” Father Edward Mally, S.J., writing in the Jerome Biblical Commentary, agrees that she “is not...the same as the sinner of Luke 7:37, despite the later Western romantic tradition about her.” Mary Magdalene was one of the many “who were assisting them [Jesus and the Twelve] out of their means.” She was one of those who stood by the cross of Jesus with his mother. And, of all the “official” witnesses that might have been chosen for the first awareness of the Resurrection, she was the one to whom that privilege was given. She is known as the "Apostle to the Apostles." (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Jeremiah 2: 1-3.7-8.12-13; Psalm 35; Matthew 13: 10-17

The disciples came to Jesus and asked, Why do you speak to the people in parables? He replied, The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance.

Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. This is why I speak to them in parables: Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand. In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: 'You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people's heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.' But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it. (Matthew 13:10-17)

Unwilling During the decade between 1844 and 1854 numerous Anglicans entered the Catholic Church in England. The most famous of them was John Henry Newman who had led the Oxford Movement, but there were many others of ability and considerable education. They injected a new life and culture into the Catholic body. One was John Moore Capes (1813-1889), an M.A. from Balliol College, Oxford; Anglican curate of Long Newnton, co. Wilts., then Anglican Rector of St John's, Eastover,

Bridgwater, Somersetshire. He entered the Church not long before Newman, having sacrificed position, personal wealth and much else. As a Catholic his most notable activity was to begin The Rambler periodical. In an article of 1849 he asserted that his own conversion could be justified by the same reasoning which is employed in any human science: that "the balance of probabilities" was decidedly in favour of Rome, and that he had embraced "the most probable of two alternatives". In a private letter to Capes, a Catholic theologian criticized this "probabilistic" argument on the ground that it was a point of doctrine that the certainty with which a Catholic believes in the Church was an absolute, not merely a moral, certainty. The doctrines of the Catholic Church could not be held as merely highly probable. They were absolutely certain, and one who had the faith held them as such. Capes regarded it as an absurd position, holding that a conclusion can be no more certain than its premises. In the nature of the case, the premises of the faith were but probable, so therefore was the conclusion. He subsequently abandoned the Catholic Church and returned to Anglicanism. Many things can be said about his denial of the absolute certainty of faith and his reduction of it to high probability, but I introduce this only to draw out but one aspect of it. Capes seemed to look on faith as a purely intellectual or logical process — subject, therefore, to the laws simply of logic. As he spoke of it, faith seemed to be little more than a process of the reason.

Faith is a process of the reason, but it is not simply this. It involves the will, what a person secretly wants and chooses. It involves a moral dimension for which he will be held responsible. It involves a personal choice — the choice to believe, having perceived that there are excellent grounds for belief. This brings us to our Gospel passage today (Matthew 13:10-17). It seems that our Lord was especially conscious of this moral dimension in the act of belief, and it was guiding his method of discourse and preaching. He did not simply set out his case before the people along the lines of a full and logical system, expecting his hearers thereby to be led to faith. Rather, we see him telling them only so much, perhaps hoping that the moral disposition of various among them would lead them on to understanding. What do we see? He has told the parable of the sower going out to sow, and how the results of his sowing depended on the quality of the soil on which the seed fell. That is all he said to them, at the end of which he told them to listen! — to hear what he had said. Of course, our Lord did not always teach in this somewhat obscure fashion — in John chapter 6, in a very public setting he is remarkably explicit about the Eucharist, to the point of losing many of his disciples. But in our Gospel today he goes no further than present his parable. There is no public explanation of it — that is left to the time he will have with his disciples. So the disciples themselves ask our Lord why he spoke to the crowds only in parables. His answer is revealing, and it is a warning to us. The crowds are not disposed to see. “In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: 'You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.' For this people's heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes.” They have closed their eyes, so they cannot see. Why is this? It is because they fear to see: “Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.” In their heart of hearts they are unwilling to receive the word of Christ, because of what it will entail. Faith is not just logic.

It gets back to the parable our Lord has just told. It is the good soil which, once it has received the seed, produces the harvest. That harvest is holiness of life and a share in the mission of Jesus. But the seed has to be received, and in the multitude it seems that there was not the willingness to receive it — according to the explanation our Lord gives his disciples. The multitude, consciously or unconsciously, was unwilling to receive the word with a full and ready heart, lest they understand and turn — repent — and receive the grace of healing. Let us ask our Lord to give us a heart that truly welcomes his word, with the ready disposition to do all that it requires.
                                                                  (E.J.Tyler)

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Second reflection:   (Matthew 13: 10-17)

Spiritual sight     “Why do you talk to the crowds in parables?" (Mt.13:10). In reply our Lord spoke of the mystery of the

human heart. Through one's own fault it can become blind, with serious consequences following. In our Lord's description of the "crowds," “their ears are dull of hearing and they have shut their eyes for fear they should see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their heart, and be converted and be healed by me." This will have serious consequences, "for anyone who has will be given more, and he will have more than enough; but from any one who has not, even what he has will be taken away." By contrast the disciples saw and heard, and how blessed they were! "But happy are your eyes because they see, your ears because they hear!" They were more blessed than the holy ones before them who had not laid eyes on Christ.

Let us think of the Gospel examples, such as St Mary Magdalene, of those who looked on Christ and heard his word with a willing heart. Let us then strive to hear and to see, whatever be the cost of its implications. We will only do this if we truly want it. Let us choose Christ, then!
(E.J.Tyler)

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Humility teaches each soul not to lose heart in the face of its own blunders.

—True humility leads us… to ask for forgiveness!
(The Forge, no.189)

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So will it be with us after death. When we come into God’s presence, we shall be asked two things, whether we were in the

Church, and whether we worked in the Church. Everything else is worthless. Whether we have been rich or poor, whether we have been learned or unlearned, whether we have been prosperous or afflicted, whether we have been sick or well, whether we have had a good name or a bad one, all this will be far from the work of that day. The single question will be, are we Catholics and are we good Catholics? If we have not been, it will avail nothing that we have been ever so honoured here, ever so successful, have had ever so good a name.

JHN, from the sermon ‘Preparation for the Judgment’ (1848)

Friday of the sixteenth week in Ordinary Time C/II

(July 23) St. Bridget of Sweden (1303?-1373)
From age seven on, Bridget had visions of Christ crucified. Her visions formed the basis for her activity—always with the

emphasis on charity rather than spiritual favours. She lived her married life in the court of the Swedish king Magnus II. Mother of eight children (the second eldest was St. Catherine of Sweden), she lived the strict life of a penitent after her husband’s death. Bridget constantly strove to exert her good influence over Magnus; while never fully reforming, he did give her land and buildings to found a monastery for men and women. This group eventually expanded into an Order known as the Bridgetines (still in existence). In 1350, a year of jubilee, Bridget braved a plague-stricken Europe to make a pilgrimage to Rome. Although she never returned to Sweden, her years in Rome were far from happy, being hounded by debts and by opposition to her work against Church abuses. A final pilgrimage to the Holy Land, marred by shipwreck and the death of her son, Charles, eventually led to her death in 1373. In 1999, she, Saints Catherine of Siena and Edith Stein were named co-patronesses of Europe. Bridget’s visions, rather than isolating her from the affairs of the world, involved her in many contemporary issues, whether they be royal policy or the Avignon papacy. She saw no contradiction between mystical experience and secular activity, and her life is a testimony to the possibility of a holy life in the market place. Despite the hardships of life and wayward children, Margery Kempe of Lynn says Bridget was “kind and meek to every creature” and “she had a laughing face.”

Scripture today: Exodus 20:1-17; Psalm 19:8, 9, 10, 11; Matthew 13:18-23

Jesus said to his disciples: “Hear the parable of the sower. The seed sown on the path is the one who hears the word of the Kingdom without understanding it, and the Evil One comes and steals away what was sown in his heart. The seed sown on rocky ground is the one who hears the word and receives it at once with joy. But he has no root and lasts only for a time. When some tribulation or persecution comes because of the word, he immediately falls away. The seed sown among thorns is the one who hears the word, but then worldly anxiety and the lure of riches choke the word and it bears no fruit. But the seed sown on rich soil is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields a hundred or sixty or thirty fold.” (Matthew 13:18-23)

Our response Our Gospel passage today provides us with our Lord’s explanation to the disciples of the parable which he had told the crowds. The crowds were given the parable and nothing more, other than the request that they mull it over with real attention. Later he gives a straightforward explanation, and in it there is described what it is that contends against the word of God in man’s life. There are three kinds of persons who receive Christ’s teaching. There is the one on whom Christ’s teaching

can make not a dent. So hard is his heart that it must lie on the surface of his life, unable to have any influence. That person is like the pathway on which some of the seed will fall, resistant to all that comes to it from above. Like a bird of the air, Satan comes easily and quickly to take away the word. Satan frustrates the power of the word, but this is because the person who heard it has become spiritually impenetrable. Obviously there are degrees of this hardness of heart, but we see examples of it in the Gospels, especially in some of the religious leaders. No matter what Christ did before their very eyes, they were beyond influence. The more Christ displayed the divinity which his humanity normally veiled, the more implacable became their opposition to him. They were, our Lord says in the Gospel of St John, children of their father the devil who was a liar and a murderer from the beginning. Let us notice that while the word does not penetrate this set of persons at all, with each of the other categories the word of God does gain an access. There is the person who receives the word at once, and with joy. The teaching of Christ penetrates to his heart. The critical question, though, is what happens to it then. Just because it gains access does not mean that it will do its work because even then it can be frustrated by forces inimical to it. Two instances are given: the one whose heart “has no root” (ouk echei de hrizan), and the one whose heart is entangled in other matters such as the cares of this world and the deceit of riches (merimna tou aioonos kai he apatee tou ploutou).

While many of the religious leaders may be regarded as instances of the impenetrable ground, examples appear in the Gospels of the other categories of soil. On one occasion an excellent young man came with haste to our Lord to ask what he must do to gain eternal life. The word of God was able to penetrate his heart, for he was eager to hear it. Our Lord looked on him with love and proceeded to extend to him a priceless invitation. If you wish to be perfect — and you are in effect saying to me that this is what you want — then sell all and give to the poor and have me instead. Come, follow me. But the young man went away sad, because he had great wealth. His heart, it was then discovered, was entangled in the deceit of riches. He wanted eternal life, but he wanted the riches of this life too. It was a deceit and it led to the loss of the pearl of great price. The word of Christ was quickly choked out of his life by the briars that overlaid his soul. On one dramatic occasion our Lord spoke in the synagogue of Capernaum. He announced the doctrine of the Holy Eucharist, and there must have been many disciples in the congregation for we read that they began to murmur against him and his teaching. How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Our Lord proceeded to teach it more explicitly — he did not tone it down or drop the subject out of a “prudent” judgment that now was not the time to speak of such matters. He, filled as he always was by his own Holy Spirit, proceeded to speak even more explicitly. At this there was virtually a walk-out of many of his disciples. They went home and walked no more with him. What was to be said of their initial acceptance of him? They were his disciples. They had no root in them. They accepted him and his word at once with joy but when difficulties arose — such as difficulties in understanding — they fell. Perhaps too there was a disappointment in their dreams of what their new Messiah would do. His flesh would have to be eaten! The Greek is “skandalizetai.” They were “scandalized,” which is to say, they fell from following him. Many others both lack root and are enmeshed in other hopes. Perhaps Judas Iscariot was of this kind.

The are, however, many beautiful souls. They are good and promising soil. Their hearts are such that they willingly hear the word and understand its blessings, its bearings and its implications for now and hereafter. They understand that in Jesus Christ has come every heavenly blessing. Nothing is to be compared with him. What of you? our Lord asked the Twelve, following his discourse on the Eucharist when he lost his audience. Lord, to whom shall we go? Simon immediately answered. You have the words of eternal life, and we believe. He and the Twelve but one went on to bear a harvest. Let us be like them! Let us ask God to make us good soil!
(E.J.Tyler)

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If I were a leper my mother would hug me. She would kiss my wounds without fear or hesitation.

—Well then, what would the Blessed Virgin Mary do? When we feel we are like lepers, all full of sores, we have to cry out: Mother! And the protection of our Mother will be like a kiss upon our wounds, which obtains our cure.
(The Forge, no.190)

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Consider how distressing anxiety is; how irritating and wearing it is to be in constant excitement, with the duty of maintaining calmness and steadiness in the midst of it; and how especially inviting any prospect of tranquillity would appear in such circumstances; and then we shall have some notion of a Christian’s condition, under a persecuting heathen government.

JHN, from Plain and Parochial Sermons, Vol. 2, Sermon 4, “Martyrdom”

Saturday of the sixteenth week in Ordinary Time C/II

(July 24) Saints John Boste, George Swallowell, & John Ingram, Blessed Louise of Savoy
St. John Boste (or John Boast) Priest and martyr, born of good Catholic family at Dufton, in Westmoreland, about 1544; died at Durham, 24 July, 1594. He studied at Queen's College, Oxford, 1569-72, became a Fellow, and was received into the Church at

Brome, in Suffolk, in 1576. Resigning his Fellowship in 1580, he went to Reims, where he was ordained priest, 4 March, 1581, and in April was sent to England. He landed at Hartlepool and became a most zealous missioner, so that the persecutors made extraordinary efforts to capture him. At last, after many narrow escapes, he was taken to Waterhouses, the house of William Claxton, near Durham, betrayed by one Eglesfield [or Ecclesfield], 5 July, 1593. The place is still visited by Catholics. From Durham he was conveyed to London, showing himself throughout "resolute, bold, joyful, and pleasant", although terribly racked in the Tower. Sent back to Durham for the July Assizes, 1594, he behaved with undaunted courage and resolution, and induced his fellow-martyr, Bl. George Swalwell [or Swallowell], a convert minister, who had recanted through fear, to repent of his cowardice, absolving him publicly in court. He suffered at Dryburn, outside Durham. He recited the Angelus while mounting the ladder, and was executed with extraordinary brutality; for he was scarcely turned off the ladder when he was cut down, so that he stood on his feet, and in that posture was cruelly butchered alive. An account of his trial and execution was written by an eye-witness, Venerable Christopher Robinson, who suffered martyrdom shortly afterwards at Carlisle. In 1970, John Boste was canonized by Pope Paul VI among the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales, whose joint feast day is kept on 25 October. (Saints)
The Protestant minister and school teacher George Swallowell was born near Durham. He was condemned and executed at Darlington, for having been reconciled to the Church. At that same time at Gateshead, Father John Ingram, another convert to Catholicism, was martyred for his priesthood. Father Ingram was born at Stoke Edith, Herefordshire, converted to the faith, studied at New College, Oxford, and then prepared for ordination at Rheims and Rome. He was ordained a priest in 1589 and worked in Scotland until his death (Benedictines). Both died 1594; beatified in 1929.

Scripture today: Jeremiah 7: 1-11; Psalm 83; Matthew 13:24-30

Jesus proposed a parable to the crowds. “The Kingdom of heaven may be likened to a man who sowed good seed in his field.

While everyone was asleep his enemy came and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and then went off. When the crop grew and bore fruit, the weeds appeared as well. The slaves of the householder came to him and said, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where have the weeds come from?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ His slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ He replied, ‘No, if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them. Let them grow together until harvest; then at harvest time I will say to the harvesters, “First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning; but gather the wheat into my barn.” (Matthew 13:24-30)

The weeds One of the most interesting phenomena within the emerging Catholic community of England in the late 1840s was the founding of The Rambler periodical by a convert Anglican clergyman, John Moore Capes. It brought into prominence Capes himself, who is an interesting instance of one who at great sacrifice to himself and his interests left the Anglican Church, embraced Catholicism, and then in due course abandoned Catholicism and returned to Anglicanism. As a returned Anglican, he

wrote his book, To Rome and Back (1873), and in it he extols the broad liberty of opinion and dogma which is allowed in Anglicanism. The Catholic Church, he came to think, was impossibly repressive, tyrannical, and resistant of the claims of reason. One feature of his circuitous journey was that as a young Anglican clergyman he became disillusioned with the divisions and strife especially in matters of doctrine among his Anglican confreres. He began to think that because of this disunity (together with matters of doctrine) the Anglican communion could not be considered as the Church founded by Christ. But when he entered the Catholic Church (in 1845, not long before Newman), he gradually discovered that it too was marred by internal arguments and strife. It was all too human, and (together with other doctrinal difficulties he had, including the Catholic doctrine on the certainty of faith) he began to reconsider the validity of Catholic claims. He went on to reject the Catholic notion of religious faith, its doctrine on the Eucharist and the Sacrament of Penance, and many other things besides. The interesting thing is that a catalyst for all this was his disillusion with arguments and strife among both the clergy and laity of the Church. There were, we might say, so many weeds in the field. How could this be the Church that Christ founded! One cannot help but think that in his search for the Church Christ founded, he failed to notice the import of our Gospel text today.

In our Gospel passage today (Matthew 13:24-30), our Lord speaks of the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of God and of heaven was the goal of the entire Scriptures and of the history of God’s chosen people. All the nations of the earth would be blessed, Abraham had been promised. There was One coming to whom would pass the sceptre of Judah. In him, God intended to rule and to overcome evil. The Kingdom of heaven was the concrete ideal to which history was moving, and the Messiah would be its Agent. Now he had come in the person of Jesus. In another passage of the Gospels our Lord entrusts to Simon Peter, the Rock on which he would build his Church, the keys to the Kingdom of heaven. So the kingdom of heaven was present in his Church. How marvellous ought be his Church, then! How free of imperfection his Church must be, for this was the goal of God’s providence in history. How it must be the perfect home of man, the epitome of all his aspirations. But no — ultimately it will be so, but not yet. Our Lord explicitly says that the kingdom of heaven “may be likened to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everyone was asleep his enemy came and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and then went off. When the crop grew and bore fruit, the weeds appeared as well.” Now, if this is how the kingdom of heaven is here on earth — prescinding, of course, from this kingdom as it will be hereafter — then in many respects the experience of it will be like our experience of any “kingdom” or body of people. Anywhere we care to look there are good things and bad. There are pleasant, courteous, generous and helpful people, and there are people who are a painful burden. Our Lord is saying here that in his Church, the locale and seed-bed of his kingdom here on earth, one will encounter a similar situation. The good that is there comes from God, while the evil that is most certainly there and that will be experienced, comes from the Evil one. The Church is the Temple of God and the body of Christ, but it is also the abode of his very human and fallen children.

Why does not God get rid of the evil, and allow us to experience just the good of which he is the cause? Would this not make it much easier to believe that the Church is indeed a divine institution, indeed that it is the mystical body of Christ her divine head? It would have saved Capes! We do not know, but we do know that God has judged that this is best, for in our parable the master of the field says, “if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them. Let them grow together until harvest; then at harvest time I will say to the harvesters, ‘First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning; but gather the wheat into my barn.’” It is at the Judgement that all will out. After that, there will be no weeds, but God will be all in all.
(E.J.Tyler)

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Second reflection Jeremiah 7: 1-11

The Temple of the Lord The prophet Jeremiah spoke forthrightly to his own people in God's name, accusing them of seriously mistreating their fellow men, of worshipping other gods, and then, despite all this, of coming to worship in the Temple of the Lord without changing their lives (Jeremiah 7: 1-11). They were treating the Temple as if it were a robbers' den: "Do you take this Temple that bears my name for a robbers' den?" We remember how our Lord cleansed the Temple, saying to the buyers and sellers that they were using the Temple as if it were a robbers' den — the very words of Jeremiah so long before. He accused those frequenting the Temple of not recognising its sacred character and its requirement, therefore, of repentance when entering it.

How much more do our own churches, graced as they are with the real presence of Jesus in the Tabernacle, require that we recognise — by our whole demeanour, our behaviour and attitude of heart — the all holy Presence abiding there, and that we resolve to turn away from sin. Let us take warning from Jeremiah’s words, and from the action of our Lord in cleansing the Temple.
(E.J.Tyler)

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In the sacrament of Penance, Jesus forgives us.

—Christ’s merits are applied to us there. It is for love of us that he is on the Cross with his arms stretched out, fastened to the wood more by the Love he has for us than by the nails.
(The Forge, no.191)

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At some time or other of the life of every one there is pain, and sorrow, and trouble. So it is; and the sooner perhaps we can look upon it as a law of our Christian condition, the better. One generation comes, and then another. They issue forth and succeed like leaves in Spring; and in all, this law is observable. They are tried, and then they triumph; they are humbled, and then are exalted; they overcome the world, and then they sit down on Christ’s throne.

JHN, from Plain and Parochial Sermons, Vol. 6, Sermon 16, “Warfare the Condition of Victory”

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time C

Prayers this week: God is in his holy dwelling; he will give a home to the lonely, he gives power and strength to his people. (Psalm 67: 6-7. 36)

God our Father and protector, without you nothing is holy, nothing has value. Guide us to everlasting life by helping us to use wisely the blessings you have given to the world. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever.

(July 25) St. James the Greater
This James is the brother of John the Evangelist. The two were called by Jesus as they worked with their father in a fishing boat

on the Sea of Galilee. Jesus had already called another pair of brothers from a similar occupation: Peter and Andrew. “He walked along a little farther and saw James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John. They too were in a boat mending their nets. Then he called them. So they left their father Zebedee in the boat along with the hired men and followed him” (Mark 1:19-20). James was one of the favoured three who had the privilege of witnessing the Transfiguration, the raising to life of the daughter of Jairus and the agony in Gethsemani. Two incidents in the Gospels describe the temperament of this man and his brother. St. Matthew tells that their mother came (Mark says it was the brothers themselves) to ask that they have the seats of honour (one on the right, one on the left of Jesus) in the kingdom. “Jesus said in reply, ‘You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?’ They said to him, ‘We can’” (Matthew 20:22). Jesus then told them they would indeed drink the cup and share his baptism of pain and death, but that sitting at his right hand or left was not his to give—it “is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father” (Matthew 20:23b). It remained to be seen how long it would take to realize the implications of their confident “We can!” The other disciples became indignant at the ambition of James and John. Then Jesus taught them all the lesson of humble service: The purpose of authority is to serve. They are not to impose their will on others, or lord it over them. This is the position of Jesus himself. He was the servant of all; the service imposed on him was the supreme sacrifice of his own life. On another occasion, James and John gave evidence that the nickname Jesus gave them—“sons of thunder”—was an apt one. The Samaritans would not welcome Jesus because he was on his way to hated Jerusalem. “When the disciples James and John saw this they asked, ‘Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?’ Jesus turned and rebuked them...” (Luke 9:54-55). James was apparently the first of the apostles to be martyred. “About that time King Herod laid hands upon some members of the church to harm them. He had James, the brother of John, killed by the sword, and when he saw that this was pleasing to the Jews he proceeded to arrest Peter also” (Acts 12:1-3a). This James, sometimes called James the Greater, is not to be confused with the author of the Letter of James and the leader of the Jerusalem community.

Scripture today: Genesis 18: 20-32; Psalm 138:1-3, 6-8; Colossians 2: 12-14; Luke 11: 1-13

Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.” He said to them, “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us, and do not subject us to the

final test.” And he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend to whom he goes at midnight and says, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, for a friend of mine has arrived at my house from a journey and I have nothing to offer him,’ and he says in reply from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked and my children and I are already in bed. I cannot get up to give you anything.’ I tell you, if he does not get up to give the visitor the loaves because of their friendship, he will get up to give him whatever he needs because of his persistence. “And I tell you, ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish? Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg? If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?” (Luke 11:1-13)

Petition The study of the religions of man suggests to us certain things which prompt religion in individuals and in communities. There is the experience of guilt and the testimony of the conscience. There is the experience of change everywhere and of the fragility of all things. Very importantly, there is the sense of helplessness in the face of need and evil. This prompts man to turn to the higher, heavenly powers for assistance in gaining what he knows he desperately needs. Whatever be the reason for one’s sense of helplessness, it prompts a person to appeal to the great One above. But we also know that despite this,

many give up on praying for what they need. They pray, and as far as they are concerned, all remains silent. Nothing seems to happen as a result of their prayer. So many give up asking for what they began to pray for, while perhaps continuing to be religious, and continuing to turn to God at various times for what they need. Some even give up on prayer as being useless. Some give up even on God. Some abandon religion. There seems to be no answer to their problem of evil. Prayer does not seem to work. To this we have our Lord’s reply in today’s Gospel (Luke 11: 1-13), when he was asked by his disciples to teach them to pray. Notice this: the Lord’s Prayer that he taught them was a prayer of petition, made up of various petitions. Our Lord wants us to ask our heavenly Father for all we need. It is very pleasing to God to see us asking him for what we or others need. He wants to hear our petitions. And our Lord gives an extended commentary on just this fact, that God wants to hear our prayer and will hear it. Our Lord makes it very, very clear. “So I say to you: Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.”

We must, then, approach prayer with confidence and persistence, for this is the bearing of our Lord’s parable of the person persistently knocking on the door. We can expect God to hear our prayer — leaving it up to him, of course, for being God he clearly knows how our prayer is best answered. I tend to think that generally we approach prayer for our needs, or the needs of others, without very much confidence in God. Why? Because we are people of little faith and go simply by appearances. We do not accept our Lord’s word in faith. We ought trust him. But then too, our Lord’s instruction on how to pray tells us what are our true needs. Do we really know what to pray for, and what is in our best interests? Often we do, and if we can place ourselves in the presence of God and, with a clear conscience, feel confident that what we intend praying for will be pleasing to God, we ought pray for it. But so very often we do not know what is the best thing to pray for. In the Lord’s Prayer, though, we are told very clearly. We are told to pray that our heavenly Father’s name will be held holy, that his kingdom will come, that he will give us our daily bread and whatever else we need, that he will forgive us our sins as we forgive those who are in debt to us, and that he will keep us from falling into sin. Especially are we to pray for the Holy Spirit, for "how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" All this means that we ought ask God to enable us to live in a way that will most honour and glorify his name. Therein lie our best interests. If by our lives God is glorified, if by the way we live, no matter what be our situation in life, his kingdom comes and his name is hallowed, our own best and truest interests will be served. God's glory ought therefore be the object of our prayer.

The glory of God is our best interest. Apart from the Lord’s Prayer, let us every day pray that simple prayer petitioning that God be honoured and glorified. Let us say it morning and night and during the day: “Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.” Say this with Mary each day, in and through the Hail Mary.
(E.J.Tyler)

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A second reflection (Luke 11:1-13)

Answer to prayer Today we are presented with a wonderful Gospel passage: ‘So I say to you,’ our Lord assures us, ‘Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. For the one who asks always receives; the one who searches always finds; the one who knocks will always have the door opened to him’ (Luke 11:1-13). What our Lord says is encouraging. Consider how Abraham prayed, and what he prayed for, as told to us in the First Reading (Genesis 18:20-32). The sinfulness of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah was so great that God was about to destroy them. But

Abraham prayed persistently to God, bargained with him, and with profound reverence asked him to spare the two cities even for the few just ones there. And God agreed — the problem was that Abraham could not find the few numbers he agreed to. So then, God wants us to ask for things. Ask and you shall receive, our Lord promises. These are exciting words to hear, and they are addressed to all of us. But do we really believe them? A person might think, I have asked at various times and I have not received. This puzzle of mind could become a temptation to refuse belief in the word of Jesus Christ, without clearly realizing it. As a result one might fail to ask God for what we need in life, including very essential and important things which our Lord wants us to ask for. Because of this we may not receive them. An infant asks for a razor blade and does not get it. Is it not obvious that it would scarcely be wise and loving of God to give us whatever we ask for, simply because we ask for it? God is first and foremost our Father, so like a father he listens to us with wisdom and love. Again, someone hurts us by a wounding comment in public before others. In response to that injury we ask God to inflict a serious injury on that person in return. Must we be surprised if God does not answer that prayer? Apart from the question of God acting in character, in any case is that what we really need? Is the granting of that specific request the best answer to our prayer?

Let us take an instance of a request to our Lord presented by a few of his closest and most loyal friends. The mother of James and John came to our Lord with her sons. Our Lord asked, what is it that you want me to do for you? She said, put my two sons at your right and at your left — in the first positions, that is — in your kingdom. Our Lord replied that they did not know what they were asking. Can you drink the cup I must drink, he asked? Time and time again, we may not realize what we are asking for, and the cost it could involve. Our Lord says in another part of the Gospel, ‘What father among you would give his son a snake if he asks for a fish, or hand him a scorpion if he asks for an egg?’ God’s response to our requests is not to make things more difficult for us by disappointing us. He will answer it, if it is made in the right spirit recognizing that he is God and that we are his children. He will answer it, but in the way he knows best. The problem is that generally we do not know what is good for us. We do not always know what to pray for. Before asking God for anything, we ought put ourselves in his presence and ask him to help us to see what is best for us. We ought ask, what would God want me to ask for? Then, if we do indeed think what we want to ask for is likely to please God and be in accord with his plan, we ought pray for it. In fact, we should pray for numerous things in this spirit all our lives. If we ask God for more, he will give more. But we should pray in the way Jesus our Lord did when he was facing his Passion. He made his request that his cup be taken from him, but added, ‘not what I want but what you want.’ That is the perfect prayer of petition. It trusts in God our Father, it believes in God’s power, his wisdom, and his love, and it seeks guidance before even asking. In our Lord’s case, his heavenly Father did not take away the cup, but sent a great heavenly companion, an angel, to console and sustain our Lord in his Passion that was soon to begin.

Let us remember St Monica. Her son had abandoned the Catholic faith and was living in sin. Her prayers for her son’s conversion were persistent, ardent, long-lasting. As a result, he converted and became one of the greatest saints in the Church’s history, and one of the most influential thinkers and writers of all time. He is St Augustine of Hippo. Ask and you shall receive. Let us pray constantly for the things we need, such as, that we make daily progress in holiness; that we fulfill our responsibilities in a way that will be pleasing to God; that we raise our children well; that we shall spend ourselves in good work, doing it for God’s glory.

(E.J.Tyler)

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If ever you fall, my son, go quickly to Confession and seek spiritual guidance. Show your wound!, so that it gets properly healed and all possibility of infection is removed, even if doing this hurts you as much as having an operation.
(The Forge, no.192)

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The two natures, the divine and human, both perfect, though remaining distinct, are in the Christ intimately and for ever one.

JHN, from “Select Treatises of St. Athanasius”, Vol. 2, “The Incarnation”

Monday of the seventeenth week in Ordinary Time C/II

(July 26) Saints Joachim and Anne.
SAINT JOACHIM The lives of some saints must always remain hidden; so it is with Joachim, the husband of Saint Anne and the father of the Blessed Virgin. With no certain knowledge about him, we are forced to rely on such apocryphal documents

as the Book of James, which, unlike the canonical Scriptures, often mixes fiction with fact. This Book of James tells that Joachim and Anne were a rich, childless couple living in Jerusalem and far advanced in age. When Joachim was reproached by his fellow Jews for not having "raised up seed in Israel," he went into the desert to fast and pray, begging God to grant him a child. His wife prayed for the same blessing, and after Joachim returned to Jerusalem, their prayers were answered; Anne conceived and gave birth to a child, the girl Mary. There are other apocryphal details about the life of Joachim, but like the rest their authenticity is doubtful. The lone fact that he was the father of the mother of God makes him worthy of veneration. Joachim must have been a man wealthy in virtue to be chosen as the father of Mary, who was destined to be the mother of God's Son.
SAINT ANNE Into the hands of Saint Anne were placed the education, the training, and direction of this child. Anne was the starting point of the Redemption; through her the dawn began to break; in her the morning star was conceived, free from Adam's sin. Through our relation to Christ and His Mother, we become her grandchildren. There was little written about Saint Anne in the first two centuries of the Church. The details of her life, even her name, come to us through unreliable sources in which fact and fiction are intermingled. By the fourth century, devotion to Anne was widespread in the East, and several of the early Fathers of the Church sang her praises. Her fame expanded throughout the West after the Crusades and grew to great heights, especially in France. Her best-known shrines are still Saint Anne d'Auray in Brittany and Saint Anne de Beaupre in Canada. By many miracles at these and other places, God has been pleased to testify how highly He regards devotion to this saint, the model of all women in the married state and charged with the rearing of children. Anne is honoured today with the official title "Mother of the most holy -Mother of God."

Scripture today: Exodus 32:15-24, 30-34; Psalm106:19-20, 21-22, 23; Matthew 13:31-35

Jesus proposed a parable to the crowds. “The Kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a person took and sowed in a field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, yet when full-grown it is the largest of plants. It becomes a large bush, and the birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches.” He spoke to them another parable. “The Kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch was leavened.” All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables. He spoke to them only in parables, to fulfil what had been said through the prophet: I will open my mouth in parables, I will announce what has lain hidden from the foundation of the world. (Matthew 13:31-35)

Growth We could say that anything that has life will grow. A seed is planted, and the plant begins to grow. An animal’s offspring are born, and they begin to grow. A child grows. Yes, anything that has life will grow — provided the conditions are there that favour growth. A seed that is planted in poor soil will not result in much growth, and our Lord told one parable about the person who hears the word of the Kingdom of Heaven that featured this very point. It was only the seed that fell in good soil

that bore the harvest. A child born into extremely unfavourable circumstances may not grow — in fact that child may not even survive. Intellectual and moral growth usually require adequate and favourable conditions for growth. In our Gospel passage today our Lord gives us a parable explaining the Kingdom of heaven, and its emphasis is on the growth of this Kingdom. Almost the whole of this chapter is given over to parables explaining the Kingdom of Heaven — which is to say, the new regime of God’s lordship being established by Jesus Christ. There are different perspectives on the Kingdom being drawn out in these parables. The first parable of the chapter was that of the sower going out to sow: it is concerned with those who hear the word of the Kingdom (pantos akouontos ton logon, 13:19). Such persons vary in quality and depth, and it is those represented by the good soil who produce the harvest. The next parable, that of the weeds sown among the wheat, seems also to describe the range of those who are present in the kingdom. There are good and bad in the Kingdom and all will be resolved at the Judgment. Our parable today speaks more of the power of growth of God’s kingdom, with less focus on the varying quality of its subjects. The kingdom is like a tiny seed which grows and becomes a large bush, the home of the birds of the sky. It is also like the yeast that leavens the flour, making it rise to become beautiful bread. A distinctive note, then, of Christ’s Kingdom is that it has a striking power of growth, despite entirely adverse conditions.

When Christ was suddenly arrested and summarily tortured and put to his horrible and disgraceful death, that should have been the end of the matter. What would have happened to Buddhism if Buddha had, a mere three years into his career, been suddenly crucified? What would have happened to Islam if in the conflict between Mecca and Medina Mahomet had been captured and crucified or beheaded? Mahomet made sure that he was not captured, for he knew that it would have been the end of it had he been. He marched on his enemies and prevailed by force of arms. Then by the superiority of both his religious message and his military resources his hegemony spread. This set the stage for the rapid military conquest after he had gone. The early spread of Islam is seen by many, even most Moslems, as a divine vindication of their message and their prophet. But to the observer, the spread can be accounted for by the natural means employed. But what is to be said of Christianity? Its Founder came to an inglorious and sudden end, but that very end was like the mustard seed, the smallest seed of all, falling into the ground and surging forth with remarkable life. It became the biggest of bushes, and birds of the whole sky came to settle in its branches. The rejection and crushing of the Founder was the pattern followed by the body. The early Church was persecuted and crushed, but what resulted was further life. The infant church huddled in the Upper Room, was visited by the mighty Spirit of God, and surged forth with new life. On Peter’s preaching, the first proclamation of the Gospel following the Church’s birth at Pentecost, persons from all over the world were baptized. The Church, in them, had instantly reached the ends of the earth (Acts 2: 8-11, 2:41). In them, all the nations had become disciples, and Christ’s church was shown to be catholic. It was a remarkable exemplification of today’s parable of the mustard seed. Then came three centuries of persecution throughout the Empire. Christ was being crucified time and again, but the resurrection continued unabated, and finally the Empire found itself Christian. The Kingdom is one that will grow.

What each member of the Kingdom must say is, this means me. The Church has a divine power within it to grow. Its growth is for the purpose of giving glory to God and sanctifying man. God’s plan is that Christ be born within us and that he prevail in our hearts and in the world. This is the mystery now revealed to all, St Paul writes, Christ in you, your hope of glory (Colossians 1:27). The universal lordship of Jesus Christ is the goal of the Kingdom, and with that, God will be all in all. This wondrous goal has not just been left in the hands of weak human strength. There is a divine principle of growth, which is the life of grace, powering it forward. Let us entrust ourselves to this divine impetus, and so live that it will make saints of us.

                                                                                (E.J.Tyler)

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Second reflection (Matthew 13: 31-35)

Living by faith, not by appearances     We are creatures not just of intellect but of sense. We see, hear, touch, smell and we taste, and a hazard inherent in this is that we can tend to go only by appearances. However, in the Christian life we are called to live by realities we know, not by our senses, but by faith in God speaking to us, which is to say faith in his word. Our Lord tells us that the Christian life, this life which is Christ in us, is like a tiny (mustard) seed that has immense possibilities. It is like yeast that leavens the flour (Matthew 13: 31-35). If it is the case that the Kingdom of God is like a tiny seed, or like mere leaven — as it is because Christ has said it is — then for much of our Christian life we may find ourselves working without actually seeing much result. A tiny seed in the ground is not very obvious, nor is the yeast when it is in the flour. That is to say, in the life of faith we will not be able to go by mere appearances. But if the seed is to come to fruition we must keep at it, toiling with optimism at our daily duties, at our daily spiritual regimen, at everything else that God wants us to do, with energy and dedication.

We will only be able to do this if we live by faith. If we live by this faith, the harvest will come. The seed will become the tree "so that the birds of the air come and shelter in its branches."

                                                            `(E.J.Tyler)

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Sincerity is indispensable if we are to achieve greater union with God.

—If you have an ugly “toad” inside you, my son, let it out! As I have always advised you, the first thing you must mention is what you wouldn’t like anybody to know. Once the “toad” has been let out in Confession — how well one feels!
(The Forge, no.193)

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If then it be objected that Christianity does not, as the old prophets seem to promise, abolish sin and irreligion within its pale, we may answer, not only that it did not engage to do so, but that actually in a prophetical spirit it warned its followers against the expectation of its so doing.

JHN, from An Essay in aid of a Grammar of Assent (1870)

Tuesday of the seventeenth week in Ordinary Time C/II

(July 27) Blessed Antonio Lucci (1682-1752)
Antonio studied with and was a friend of St. Francesco Antonio Fasani, who after Antonio Lucci’s death testified at the diocesan hearings regarding the holiness of Lucci. Born in Agnone in southern Italy, a city famous for manufacturing bells and copper crafts, he was given the name Angelo at Baptism. He attended the local school run by the Conventual Franciscans and joined them at the age of 16. Antonio completed his studies for the priesthood in Assisi, where he was ordained in 1705. Further studies led to a doctorate in theology and appointments as a teacher in Agnone, Ravello and Naples. He also served as guardian in Naples. Elected minister provincial in 1718, the following year he was appointed professor at St. Bonaventure College in Rome, a position he held until Pope Benedict XIII chose him as bishop of Bovino (near Foggia) in 1729. The pope explained, "I have chosen as bishop of Bovino an eminent theologian and a great saint." His 23 years as bishop were marked by visits to local parishes and a renewal of gospel living among the people of his diocese. He dedicated his episcopal income to works of education and charity. At the urging of the Conventual minister general, Bishop Lucci wrote a major book about the saints and blesseds in the first 200 years of the Conventual Franciscans. He was beatified in 1989, three years after his friend Francesco Antonio Fasani was canonized. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Jeremiah 14: 17-22; Psalm 78; Matthew 13: 36-43

Jesus dismissed the crowds and went into the house. His disciples approached him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the

weeds in the field.” He said in reply, “He who sows good seed is the Son of Man, the field is the world, the good seed the children of the Kingdom. The weeds are the children of the Evil One, and the enemy who sows them is the Devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. Just as weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his Kingdom all who cause others to sin and all evildoers. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears ought to hear.” (Matthew 13:36-43)

The Future A couple marry in a farming district in a remote but somewhat idyllic valley. They have four children who grow up on the farm, going to the elementary school with one of them receiving secondary education as well. Their schooling passes and they each arrive at adulthood, close to one another but each of them being different in character and temperament from the other. They marry one after the other and their paths diverge and great differences in the paths of each become manifest. They

raise their children, and how different their children are! How different their spouses! One especially significant difference is the degree of religious faith which comes to characterise each. So it is that each reaches old age and passes on. The one has become profoundly religious and committed absolutely to God. The next less so, but with a living faith nevertheless. Another lives his religious faith but poorly, and the fourth has lost his religious faith altogether. They are buried in cemeteries far apart and scarcely known among the wider circle of their relatives, but there are a few in that wider circle who find themselves reflecting on the lives of those four brothers and sisters. The course of their lives could never have been predicted. The future as it unfolded turned out to be, on that small scale, remarkable and surprising, especially in the variety of religious faith which in the final event became apparent. But this is a feature of so much of human life. The details of the future cannot be foreseen. As each person looks back on life, how much of it would he have predicted? We are talking here of individual lives, but how much more is this the case of the world? In the eighteenth century, who would have predicted the terrible French Revolution and the rise of Bonaparte and the continental wars that marked his regime? It set the stage for a century of change. In the nineteenth century, who would have predicted the terrible carnage of two world wars in the following century and other wars besides, let alone the terrible suffering perpetrated by communist, fascist and Nazi regimes?

I mention these instances drawn from individual and public life to set forth the essentially unpredictable character of the future of man and the world. Absolutely speaking, only God knows the future. It is in his hands — and for that reason our Lord repeatedly warns us to stay awake and to be ready, for we do not know either the day or the hour when he will come. But ah! We do know the ultimate future, and so we can live accordingly. God has revealed that the most important thing about the future is the judgment of God. There will be a divine Judgment on each and all of us — each of us individually at our death, and all of us together at the very end of time. We have been told the future, and so we can get ready for it. Christ tells us in our parable today that there will be a judgment, and our Lord means those who are neglectful of God and of duty to take great notice of this fact. “Just as weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his Kingdom all who cause others to sin and all evildoers. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears ought to hear” (Matthew 13:36-43). Notice that while the parable speaks of both the wheat and the weeds, in his explanation our Lord speaks mainly of the fate of “the weeds.” Just as at harvest time the weeds are gathered up and burnt, so it will be for “all those who cause others to sin and all evildoer.” Their lot will be the fiery furnace, while the righteous will shine like the sun in the Father’s Kingdom. The whole world is heading for an awesome finale and every little thing in daily life counts with the eventual upshot. Every thought, word or deed that is the result of personal decision will be taking us in the direction of either heaven or hell. Life is not just a personal adventure, something we create for ourselves with no more ultimate consequences for ourselves.

Life is not something to be wasted in mere adventures, the upshot of arbitrary whims. If I build my successful business in no small measure on the basis of various forms of injustice, then I am heading towards the ultimate tragedy. If I am building my business on the basis of what Christ commands, I am heading towards the ultimate success. As St Paul writes in one of his letters, eye has not seen nor ear heard all that God has in mind for those who love him. Let us love God, then, and make every day count.

                                              (E.J.Tyler)

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Second reflection: (Matthew 13: 36-43)

Discipleship     Notice a detail in the passage giving our Lord’s explanation of his parable. It is that after "leaving the crowds, Jesus went into the house, and his disciples came to him and said, 'Explain the parable about the darnel in the field to us.'" That is to say, it was to his disciples that our Lord gave light as to the meaning of the parable. They asked to be helped to understand it, and he gave them this understanding. This suggests that it is not enough to be one of the crowd, as it were, just listening to our Lord's words and watching him, without being a disciple. It is not enough to be a relatively passive spectator of the things of the faith and a relatively passive hearer of its contents — passively attending Mass and passively engaging in other exercises that nourish our faith. Rather, we must have the spirit of a disciple. We must personally approach our Lord in a heartfelt way, as did the disciples. We must spend real time with him, giving him the attention of our mind and heart, taking real efforts to be with him. We ought read the Scriptures attentively, pursue various forms of spiritual reading, do some regular study of the Church's teaching, and seek some form of reliable spiritual direction.

In all these ways let us place ourselves in the position of the disciples in this passage (Matthew 13: 36). They heard his teaching as ones who lived in his company and who wished to understand his teaching, so as to live it more generously. Let us not just be one of the crowd, but his true disciples.

                                                                          (E.J.Tyler)

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Nam, et si ambulavero in medio umbrae mortis, non timebo mala — though I should walk through the valley of the shadow of death, no evil will I fear. Neither my wretchedness nor the temptations of the enemy will worry me, quoniam tu mecum es — for you Lord are with me.
(The Forge, no.194)

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Many is the man who has a drawing towards the Catholic Church, and resists it, on the plea that he has not sufficient proof of her claims. Now he cannot have proof all at once, he cannot be converted all at once, I grant; but he can inquire; he can determine to resolve the doubt, before he puts it aside, though it cost labour and time to do so. The intimate feeling of his heart should be: “What must I do, that I may be saved?” His best consolation is the promise: “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you.”

` JHN, from “Sermons Preached on Various Occasions”, Sermon 5, “Dispositions for Faith” (1856)

Wednesday of the seventeenth week in Ordinary Time C/II

(July 28) St. Leopold Mandic (1887-1942)
Western Christians who are working for greater dialogue with Orthodox Christians may be reaping the fruits of Father Leopold’s prayers. A native of Croatia, Leopold joined the Capuchin Franciscans and was ordained several years later in spite of

several health problems. He could not speak loudly enough to preach publicly. For many years he also suffered from severe arthritis, poor eyesight and a stomach ailment. Leopold taught patrology, the study of the Church Fathers, to the clerics of his province for several years, but he is best known for his work in the confessional, where he sometimes spent 13-15 hours a day. Several bishops sought out his spiritual advice. Leopold’s dream was to go to the Orthodox Christians and work for the reunion of Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy. His health never permitted it. Leopold often renewed his vow to go to the Eastern Christians; the cause of unity was constantly in his prayers. At a time when Pope Pius XII said that the greatest sin of our time is "to have lost all sense of sin," Leopold had a profound sense of sin and an even firmer sense of God’s grace awaiting human cooperation. Leopold, who lived most of his life in Padua, died on July 30, 1942, and was canonized in 1982. St. Francis advised his followers to "pursue what they must desire above all things, to have the Spirit of the Lord and His holy manner of working" (Rule of 1223, Chapter 10) — words that Leopold lived out. When the Capuchin minister general wrote his friars on the occasion of Leopold’s beatification, he said that this friar’s life showed "the priority of that which is essential." Leopold used to repeat to himself: “Remember that you have been sent for the salvation of people, not because of your own merits, since it is the Lord Jesus and not you who died for the salvation of souls.... I must cooperate with the divine goodness of our Lord who has deigned to choose me so that by my ministry, the divine promise would be fulfilled: ‘There will be only one flock and one shepherd’” (John 10:16).

Scripture readings: Jeremiah 15: 10.16-21; Psalm 58; Matthew 13:44-46

Jesus said to his disciples: “The Kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field, which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the Kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls. When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it.” (Matthew 13:44-46)

Freedom The animal acts by instinct. Indeed, it is driven by instinct and cannot help doing what it does. Its instincts can be shaped by its fellow animals or by man, to enable it to do many things it would not have done by following its instincts independently. For instance, the animal setting out on its life is trained by its parent to hunt — the parent itself acting on instinct. It learns to hunt skilfully by instinct. Alternatively, an animal in captivity may be trained by man to perform various activities by

instinct, activities it would never have learnt to do by instinct on its own. In all, the animal does not freely set its own goals. It cannot choose among goals and devote itself exclusively to one of pre-eminent importance. Its goals are set for it by its instincts, whether trained or untrained. I mention this by way of introduction to man. Man too has instincts — for instance, he has an instinct to preserve his own life. Accordingly, he will react to threats with instinctive anger, fear or whatever. He has an instinctive sense of moral obligation. He instinctively apprehends and makes rudimentary judgements. While the instincts of the animal develop in their scope due to influences external to it — such as its own herd or parent — man may freely subject his own instincts to the governance of his reason. In fact, his chosen values may absolutely override his natural instincts, including his instinct for preservation of life. For that matter, his chosen goals may be so evil that they could override his instinctive sense of moral obligation. That is to say, his deliberate choice may lead to his flourishing, or to his degradation. While the animal is entirely subject to its instincts, man need not be. If he is overwhelmingly subject to his instincts — as is the animal — then he is in a reprehensible and culpable situation. Provided his conscience has developed according to right reason, it will summon him to subject his instincts to what he knows to be objectively true and good. All this is to say — and this is the purpose of this consideration — that when we set man against other “animals,” his pre-eminent characteristic is he can judge what is true and good and choose to act and develop accordingly.

Indeed, man’s power to select and choose morally is his principal natural resource. A person may prefer the life of a quiet scholar, given over to an intense investigation of important matters of religion and philosophy. However, he may sense a greater call to enter some political action and fight a looming threat to society. He judges that this is a superior need and a more worthy goal for his energies, and so he foregoes what otherwise he would prefer. He devotes his not inconsiderable talents to a life of political struggle. After many years he fails in his political goals, and he comes to wonder whether it would have been better had he devoted himself to scholarship. Perhaps, but the point here is that he has exercised his power of choice to devote himself almost exclusively to that which at the time he judged to be the more right and worthy. It was a truly moral choice, and doubtless he was the better man for it, even though other good things were lost in the process. This is what a man can do. It is his glory and his responsibility to choose morally. Most importantly, he may devote himself not merely to determining what in his judgment is the project in life most worthy of his efforts, but to what is the will of God. This is the supreme exercise of his power of choice. This is the highest possible goal in life, to determine what is the will of God, and then to devote himself to doing it, whatever be the cost. It is the principal purpose of freedom and its major fulfilment. The exemplar is Jesus Christ whose food, he said, was to do the will of his heavenly Father who sent him. I always do what pleases him, he said. Father, take away this cup, but not as I will, but as you will. Jesus Christ came to establish the kingdom of God here on earth, and that kingdom is nothing other than the lordship of God — his rule over the hearts of men. It is found and embodied in the person of Jesus Christ, and those are in the kingdom who are in union with him. Who are in union with him — who are my brothers and my sisters? he asked. Anyone who does the will of my Father in heaven, that person is my brother and my sister and my mother. The choice of obedience to God is the noblest and true goal of life.

In our brief parables today (Matthew 13:44-46), our Lord speaks of the kingdom of God. It is the treasure of treasures, the one thing we should choose above all else. This “kingdom” is nothing other than God and his holy will, and man has the power to choose this — if, of course, he also possesses the grace of God. He must be like the merchant who foregoes all in order to possess that treasure. Let us then work at being totally attached to God and to anything else only insofar as it is pleasing to God. God wants us to love him with all our heart — this is the choice of life. Let’s make that grand choice, then. It will lead to our greatest flourishing.

(E.J.Tyler)

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Second reflection (Matthew 13: 44-46)

The very end There are not many things that are absolutely certain in life. We can't be sure how the job

we have taken will turn out, nor, say, despite all our efforts, how we will go in the exams. We can't be sure how long we will live. In fact, when we think of it, the most certain things in life are those which God has revealed. Among the things God has revealed are the very last things we will all have to face — in particular God's judgment and its consequences. Each of us will in the final analysis find ourselves in one or two categories: either among the just or among the wicked. That is as certain as the day. Therefore it is imperative that every day we make it our business to be among the just, among those who are with Jesus then and forever.

At the heart of this dramatic alternative with its eternal consequences is the exercise of a radical personal choice which our Lord describes in his brief parable about the person who has found the treasure hidden in the field (Matthew 13: 44-46). That person sells all he has to buy the field. We have found the treasure, and it is ours for the taking if we are prepared to make the sale of all else. Let's make that sale in our daily life so that it is all for Jesus.

(E.J.Tyler)

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Just now, Jesus, when I was considering my wretchedness, I said to you: Allow yourself to be taken in by this son of yours, just like those good fathers, full of kindness, who put into the hands of their little children the presents they want to receive from them… knowing perfectly well that little children have nothing of their own.

—And what merriment of father and son, even though they are both in on the secret!
(The Forge, no.195)

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Look back at the early Martyrs, my brethren, what were they? why, they were very commonly youths and maidens, soldiers and slaves;—a set of hot-headed young men, who would have lived to be wise, had they not been obstinately set on dying first; who tore down imperial manifestoes, broke the peace, challenged the judges to dispute, would not rest till they got into the same den with a lion, and who, if chased out of one city, began preaching in another!

JHN, from “Discourses to Mixed Congregations” (1849), Discourse 9, “Illuminating Grace”

Thursday of the seventeenth week in Ordinary Time C/II

(July 29) Saint Martha

Martha, Mary and their brother Lazarus were evidently close friends of Jesus. He came to their home simply as a welcomed guest, rather than as one celebrating the conversion of a sinner like Zacchaeus or one unceremoniously received by a suspicious Pharisee. The sisters feel free to call on Jesus at their brother’s death, even though a return to Judea at that time seems almost certain death. No doubt Martha was an active sort of person. On one occasion (see Luke 10:38-42) she prepares the meal for Jesus and possibly his fellow guests and forthrightly states the obvious: All hands should pitch in to help with the dinner. Yet, as biblical scholar Father John McKenzie points out, she need not be rated as an “unrecollected activist.” The evangelist is emphasizing what our Lord said on several occasions about the primacy of the spiritual: “...[D]o not worry about your life, what you will eat [or drink], or about your body, what you will wear….But seek first the kingdom [of God] and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:25b, 33a); “One does not live by bread alone” (Luke 4:4b); “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness…” (Matthew 5:6a). Martha’s great glory is her simple and strong statement of faith in Jesus after her brother’s death. “Jesus told her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’ She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world’” (John 11:25-27). (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Jeremiah 18: 1-6; Psalm 145; Matthew 13:47-53

Jesus said, Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Have you understood all these things? Jesus asked. Yes, they replied. He said to them, Therefore every teacher of the law who has been instructed about the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old. When Jesus had finished these parables, he moved on from there. (Matthew 13:47-53)

The Judgment The judgment of God, as presented in the Scriptures, is one of the foundations of Revealed Religion. God’s goodness was shown in his placing the first man and woman in the garden of Eden (Genesis 2:15) and endowing them with many good things. But they sinned (Genesis 3), and their terrible choice brought down on them the judgment of God (Genesis 3: 16-24). The action of the Serpent in tempting them also brought on it the divine judgment (Genesis 3:14-15). Let us notice, though,

that this divine judgment is expressed in terms of this world. Their lot — and that of the Serpent — is described as a degradation of this life. The sin of mankind becomes so great that God again judged and the flood came and swept all away, except for Noah who had kept God’s commandments. Again, the judgment of God is expressed in terms of the destruction of man’s temporal life and prospects. The wages of sin are death, and the death portrayed is death as experienced here and now. God promises salvation, and he establishes his Covenant with Abraham. Prosperity will come if there is obedience and fidelity to the Covenant. We see this pattern throughout the Old Testament. The Pharaoh is punished with terrible afflictions, and his forces die in the Red Sea which closes over them as they cross in pursuit of the Hebrews. The Hebrews themselves are given the reward of victories in the Promised Land, and when they disobey God they suffer humiliating reversals. The historical books are replete with temporal afflictions that are presented as divine judgments. The terrible destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple was above all a judgment: God had withdrawn his protection because of the infidelity of his people. The prophets exhorted the people to return to the Lord and they would experience his love and his favour. With this tradition and perspective behind them, we can understand the devastation of Christ’s disciples at the crucifixion. How could this be, for Jesus was the Holy One of God? — even the demons said as much. Christ’s enemies portrayed it as a judgment.

Even John the Baptist appears to portray God’s judgment primarily in terms of what will happen to sinners in this life. He speaks of the vengeance of God drawing near, and that “already the axe has been put to the root of the trees” (Luke 3:9). He was puzzled at our Lord’s ministry because, it seems, he could not see evidence of the divine judgment at work. But our Lord has a markedly different emphasis from all this. In speaking of God’s judgment with its reward and punishment, Christ depicts it as primarily occurring in the Hereafter. He does indeed make reference to the judgment of God working out in this life. He told one person he healed not to sin any more, or something worse would befall him. In Matthew 24, there are clearly passages about the eventual destruction of Jerusalem. On the way to Calvary he met the women who were sorrowing over him. He told them not to weep for him but for their children. A judgment was coming. However, his pre-eminent emphasis is that God’s judgment will come at the end, both of one’s own life and of the world. The parable in today’s Gospel is typical of many. At the end there will be the judgment of God. “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. This is how it will be at the end of the age.” Elsewhere he tells the parable of the rich man and the poor man Lazarus. Throughout their respective lives, there was no judgment, but after they die, their situation is completely reversed. This indicates that there is a particular judgment — a judgment by God on the individual immediately after death, together with his sentence. The rich man is forthwith condemned to the flames of Hell, while Lazarus is rewarded by being at peace with Abraham. Most notably, there is our Lord’s description of the General Judgment in Matthew chapter 25. The judgment of God on all those who ever lived will be the grand finale of human history. A very important and distinctive component of Christ’s revelation is his teaching on God’s judgment at the end.

Is it not foolish to live as if this does not matter? All of ordinary civil life is affected by the fact of sanctions. One cannot drive on the roads, nor conduct any business, nor do anything in society, without taking account of the law, and the sanctions which the law will impose on infringements. What Christ has revealed is part of a piece with the natural order, of which he is the Creator. There is nothing more important for us to bear in mind than the most certain of all things that is ahead of us, the judgment of God. It is inescapable, and this life is a trial in preparation for it. The result of that judgment will be eternal. The sensible man will bear it in mind every day.

(E.J.Tyler)

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Jesus, my Love, to think that I could offend you again! Tuus ego sum... salvum me fac. — I am yours: save me!
(The Forge, no.196)

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In these latter days … outside the Catholic Church things are tending,—with far greater rapidity than in that old time from the circumstance of the age,—to atheism in one shape or other. What a scene, what a prospect, does the whole of Europe present at this day! and not only Europe, but every government and every civilization through the world, which is under the influence of the European mind!

JHN, from the Apologia pro Vita Sua (1864), Chapter 5, ‘Position of my Mind since 1845?, p. 244 (1865 Edition)

Friday of the seventeenth week in Ordinary Time C/II

(July 30) St. Peter Chrysologus (406-450?)
A man who vigorously pursues a goal may produce results far beyond his expectations and his intentions. Thus it was with Peter of the Golden Words, as he was called, who as a young man became bishop of Ravenna, the capital of the empire in the West. At the time there were abuses and vestiges of paganism evident in his diocese, and these he was determined to battle and overcome. His principal weapon was the short sermon, and many of them have come down to us. They do not contain great originality of thought. They are, however, full of moral applications, sound in doctrine and historically significant in that they reveal Christian life in fifth-century Ravenna. So authentic were the contents of his sermons that, some 13 centuries later, he was declared a doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict XIII. He who had earnestly sought to teach and motivate his own flock was recognized as a teacher of the universal Church. In addition to his zeal in the exercise of his office, Peter Chrysologus was distinguished by a fierce loyalty to the Church, not only in its teaching, but in its authority as well. He looked upon learning not as a mere opportunity but as an obligation for all, both as a development of God-given faculties and as a solid support for the worship of God. Some time before his death, St. Peter returned to Imola, his birthplace, where he died around A.D. 450. (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Jeremiah 26: 1-9; Psalm 68; Matthew 13:54-58

Coming to his home town, Jesus began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers? they asked. Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother's name Mary, and aren't his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Aren't all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things? And they took offence at him. But Jesus said to them, Only in his home town and in his own house is a prophet without honour. And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith. (Matthew 13:54-58)

Decision to believe Our Lord had grown up there. His home town of Nazareth must have been dear to his heart, as having such long-standing human associations. Its synagogue he had frequented. Many of the people had been his childhood companions. He had worked on their homes, their tools and their furniture. He had gone to the feasts in their company. Doubtlessly they admired him for his exceptional human qualities and his manifest spiritual life. When John the Baptist was

approached by our Lord for baptism, he said to Jesus that he, John, ought be baptized by him. It suggests that Christ’s holiness was evident during the years prior to his public ministry. At the same time, our Lord was fully integrated into his family and his community. He was not a being apart, above and beyond them, but was very much one of them. From the baptism of John he had launched into his public ministry, marked by authoritative teaching, miracles and manifest holiness. He attracted vast crowds and many disciples. And so our Lord returned to his home, hoping that they, knowing this, would receive his mission and his claims in faith. Their faith would open the door to the blessings he wished to bestow on them. But they did not believe his word — in fact, they took offence at him. He was an upstart, and the result was, as we read, that “he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith” (Matthew 13:54-58). Let us consider the “lack of faith” in Jesus of his own townsmen. The fact is that there had been abundant indications of the truth of his claims prior to his return — and they knew of them. There were his miracles. He had healed the sick, raised the dead, cast out devils, calmed storms, fed thousands. Furthermore, there was his wisdom. He was an outstanding religious teacher, a prophet of the first order, and dominated any debate brought on by his enemies the religious leaders. He reduced the Sadducees to silence, and no one could better him. There were very good reasons to believe in him, and a right conscience would indicate the duty of faith.

Yes, there were very good grounds for belief in him and they were aware of them: “Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers? they asked. Isn't this the carpenter's son? Where then did this man get all these things?” What they lacked in facing these manifest reasons for belief — his miracles and wisdom — was a willing heart. They discovered themselves to be unwilling. Hence their mind turned by evil choice to other factors — that he was but one of themselves, that he was but the person they had known all along, that it was impossible that the Messiah should come from within their own midst. Their will refused to accept the call of their conscience to believe, based on the good grounds manifestly before them. Instead, their unwilling heart grasped at other considerations and gave to them all the weight of likelihood. So they refused to believe and cut themselves off by their lack of faith from receiving the blessings our Lord intended for them. Our Gospel passage today (Matthew 13:54-58) shows this unwillingness. Faith requires a willing heart. There are excellent reasons to believe, but the will must to decide to believe. Faith cannot be reduced simply to a conclusion of the reason and nothing more, because there are always other so-called “reasons” which a man may choose to regard as justifying non-belief. A man may be aware of the grounds for belief — as the townspeople of Nazareth were aware of the wisdom and miracles our Lord had displayed throughout Judea and Galilee prior to his return among them. But he is free to choose other so-called “reasons” apart from those good ones before him — “reasons” for withholding belief. His motive for doing so may be his own pride, and this would seem to have been the case with the people of Nazareth. Their pride did not permit them to acknowledge the lordship of Jesus of Nazareth, their own townsman and companion. After all, he was no more than they! He had a hide! as we might now say.

The refusal to believe on the part of the people of Nazareth shows the power of the fallen heart of man to vitiate and avoid the excellent reasons for believing in Jesus Christ. He had shown remarkable wisdom and remarkable powers to heal and restore. But no — after all, he was just one of us, a mere Nazarene, no more than our companion and acquaintance. Lurking behind this choice stood the hidden menace of pride. They were proud, so they would not believe. As Cardinal Newman often wrote, sin is at the root of unbelief. It must be renounced if we are to accept and profess faith in Jesus Christ.

(E.J.Tyler)

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Second reflection (Matthew 13: 54-58)

Surprise in life God has been called a God of surprises. One of the greatest surprises is what his grace can do, and repeatedly

does, in the midst of an ordinary life. The ordinary life brings forth saints, to the surprise of very many. The townspeople of Our Lord were most surprised to see and hear him teaching with such power and quality in their synagogue, having heard of his wisdom and miracles (Matthew 13: 54-58). It was not what they had been used to in their townsman. Our Lord's life at Nazareth had followed a very ordinary course, a path little different from those of others. The way they referred to Mary his mother indicates that she too followed (with him) a path that the ordinary man and woman can easily identify with. If only they had known the level of holiness that was being lived within that ordinary path by Jesus, by the carpenter whose reputed son he was, and by Mary his mother! What a surprise it would have been! Let us learn from this. We do not have to aspire in life to greener and different pastures than those in which the providence of God has placed us, in order for our lives to attain a true grandeur. When it comes to sanctity, God is the God of surprises.

What we can all aspire to, and what we absolutely must aspire to, is to fulfill our ordinary duties and to live our ordinary lives with as much love and obedience to God as grace makes possible. We can aspire to follow Christ closely in the midst of ordinariness. In following our "ordinary" paths we can become saints. In this way our ordinary life will attain its grandeur.

(E.J.Tyler)

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You, who see yourself so badly lacking in virtues, in talents, in abilities... Do you not feel the desire to cry out like the blind Bartimaeus, “Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!”?

—What a beautiful aspiration for you to say very often, “Lord, have pity on me!”

—He will hear you and come to your aid.
(The Forge, no.197)

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It is not God’s way that great blessings should descend without the sacrifice first of great sufferings. If the truth is to be spread to any wide extent among this people, how can we dream, how can we hope, that trial and trouble shall not accompany its going forth?

JHN, from the sermon ‘The Second Spring’ (1852)

Saturday of the seventeenth week in Ordinary Time C/II

(July 31) Saint Ignatius of Loyola, priest (1491-1556)
The founder of the Jesuits was on his way to military fame and fortune when a cannon ball shattered his leg. Because there were no books of romance on hand during his convalescence, he whiled away the time reading a life of Christ and lives of the saints. His conscience was deeply touched, and a long, painful turning to Christ began. Having seen the Mother of God in a vision, he made a pilgrimage to her shrine at Montserrat (near Barcelona). He remained for almost a year at nearby Manresa, sometimes with the Dominicans, sometimes in a pauper’s hospice, often in a cave in the hills praying. After a period of great peace of mind,

he went through a harrowing trial of scruples. There was no comfort in anything—prayer, fasting, sacraments, penance. At length, his peace of mind returned. It was during this year of conversion that he began to write down material that later became his greatest work, the Spiritual Exercises. He finally achieved his purpose of going to the Holy Land, but could not remain, as he planned, because of the hostility of the Turks. He spent the next 11 years in various European universities, studying with great difficulty, beginning almost as a child. Like many others, he fell victim twice to the suspicions of the time, and was twice jailed for brief periods. In 1534, at the age of 43, he and six others (one of whom was St. Francis Xavier) vowed to live in poverty and chastity and to go to the Holy Land. If this became impossible, they vowed to offer themselves to the apostolic service of the pope. The latter became the only choice. Four years later Ignatius made the association permanent. The new Society of Jesus was approved by Paul III, and Ignatius was elected to serve as the first general. When companions were sent on various missions by the pope, Ignatius remained in Rome, consolidating the new venture, but still finding time to found homes for orphans, catechumens and penitents. He founded the Roman College, intended to be the model of all other colleges of the Society. Ignatius was a true mystic. He centred his spiritual life on the essential foundations of Christianity—the Trinity, Christ, the Eucharist. His spirituality is expressed in the Jesuit motto, ad majorem Dei gloriam—“for the greater glory of God.” In his concept, obedience was to be the prominent virtue, to assure the effectiveness and mobility of his men. All activity was to be guided by a true love of the Church and unconditional obedience to the Holy Father, for which reason all professed members took a fourth vow to go wherever the pope should send them for the salvation of souls. Luther nailed his theses to the church door at Wittenberg in 1517. Seventeen years later, Ignatius founded the Society that was to play so prominent a part in the Catholic Reformation. He was an implacable foe of Protestantism. Yet the seeds of ecumenism may be found in his words: “Great care must be taken to show forth orthodox truth in such a way that if any heretics happen to be present they may have an example of charity and Christian moderation. No hard words should be used nor any sort of contempt for their errors be shown.” One of the greatest twentieth-century ecumenists was Cardinal Bea, a Jesuit.
Ignatius recommended this prayer to penitents: “Receive, Lord, all my liberty, my memory, my understanding and my whole will. You have given me all that I have, all that I am, and I surrender all to your divine will, that you dispose of me. Give me only your love and your grace. With this I am rich enough, and I have no more to ask.” (AmericanCatholic.org)

Scripture today: Jeremiah 26:11-16.24; Psalm 68; Matthew 14: 1-12

At that time Herod the tetrarch heard the reports about Jesus, and he said to his attendants, This is John the Baptist; he has risen

from the dead! That is why miraculous powers are at work in him. Now Herod had arrested John and bound him and put him in prison because of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, for John had been saying to him: It is not lawful for you to have her. Herod wanted to kill John, but he was afraid of the people, because they considered him a prophet. On Herod's birthday the daughter of Herodias danced for them and pleased Herod so much that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she asked. Prompted by her mother, she said, Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist. The king was distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he ordered that her request be granted and had John beheaded in the prison. His head was brought in on a platter and given to the girl, who carried it to her mother. John's disciples came and took his body and buried it. Then they went and told Jesus. (Matthew 14: 1-12)

Satan The scene of this Gospel will resound till the end of time. Just as Judas Iscariot will always be known as the one who betrayed Christ, so will the perpetrators of the death of St John the Baptist always be known. While the shining personage of our text is the Baptist, St Matthew keeps our eyes on those who brought about his end. They are mentioned in order: there is vain and pleasure-loving Herod, who gave the order. There is the girl who dazzled him with her dancing, which may have verged on

the erotic. There is her black-hearted mother, Herodias, who seized the opportunity to crush the one she hated. Finally, there are the worldly guests whose attitude was such as to precipitate Herod to sin grievously out of human respect. We have in that hall of feasting, an easy haunt of Satan and the demons. Invisibly, the Demon stalked among the tables of noise and merry-making. In the cauldron of laughter, illusion and self, the stench of sin filled the tetrarch’s palace. Conscience was entirely dormant, and Satan, grinning broadly, felt at home. His chance to strike at the prophet was approaching. We read in the Last Supper account by John that when Judas received the morsel from Christ, Satan entered him. He would have had easy entry into the hearts of those at this birthday celebration of Herod Antipas. Both Matthew and Mark simply refer to the bewitching girl as being the daughter of Herodias. Another source from Antiquity, Flavius Josephus's Jewish Antiquities, gives her name and some detail about her family relations. According to Josephus, the girl’s name was Salome (in Hebrew it is Shlomit, derived from Shalom, meaning "peace.") Josephus informs us that Herodias, the girl’s mother, was born of Mariamne, the daughter of Simon the high priest, and the third wife of Herod the Great. Herodias was exceedingly beautiful and she married the brother of Herod, and from him had a daughter, Salome. After Salome’s birth, Herodias spurned the religious law of the Hebrews and divorced her husband and married Herod Antipas the tetrarch, her husband's brother by the father's side. At this point John the Baptist intervened and, to Herod’s face, fearlessly denounced the situation.

Herodias is the quintessential Lady Macbeth of history. She was incisive in her deed, and unhesitatingly used her light-headed and foolish daughter to murder a paragon of holiness, whom Christ said was greater than any other born of woman. Her resolute will overrode any intimations of conscience which may have flickered in the darkness of her heart. What can be said of the daughter, Salome? Her father by the original marriage was Herod Antipas’s brother, and they were the sons of the notorious Herod the Great. This famous Herod, wheeler dealer between Mark Antony and Augustus, had put to death the Innocents of Bethlehem for fear of losing his throne. Salome, granddaughter of this Herod, was bereft of anything like a moral upbringing. Glamour and worldly success were the objects of her life, and so she was utterly subject to temptation. In our scene today, temptation came from her ruthless mother, the beautiful Herodias. What playthings they were for Satan and his insinuations! What with Salome and her seductive romp, Herodias and her seething heart, Herod Antipas with his laughter and liquor, the guests in all their worldly finery, Satan had it made. Satan was master of the busy hall, and the angels shook with horror. The deed was done, and it shocked Christ for we read in the following verse that when the disciples of John told Jesus what had happened, he “departed by boat to a desert place apart.” The light of the land prior to his own emergence had gone out. John was the greatest of the prophets and had gone the way of the prophets, as would our Lord himself. So it is that we see two great sides of the field, God and Satan. Who will win the field? Fifteen hundred years after John, Thomas More was rowing across the Thames to enter his trial because of the stand he had taken. As they rowed he said to his companion, I thank God that the field is won. He had won the field because his soul was with God. He had decided for Christ and his Church.

Subsequent to the events of our Gospel today (Matthew 14: 1-12), Salome was married to Philip the son of Herod, and tetrarch of Trachonitis; and as he died childless, Aristobulus, the son of Herod, the brother of Agrippa, married her; they had three sons, Herod, Agrippa, and Aristobulus. We can only assume that her life unfolded without the light of a godly conscience. Let us learn from the horrible example of those in the hall of Herod’s feasting. There are but two standards on the field. There is the standard of Christ, and there is the standard of Satan. The field has been won, so let us take our stand with Christ and bring that victory to the world of our everyday life.

(E.J.Tyler)

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Second reflection (Matthew 14: 1-12)

Be on guard! It does not take much to fall into sin, including serious sin. So we must be ever on guard. Consider the Gospel scene in which Herod throws his birthday party. He intended to have a good time, to please and impress his guests, and to be popular. But he was not on guard, on guard over himself. The daughter of Herodias danced. Herod acted with bravado to impress everyone, promising anything she asked for, so delighted he professed himself to be. He fell into temptation which he was unable to resist. So he committed a terrible sin and the life of a most holy prophet was ended. It all happened in a few moments.

It does not take much to fall into temptation if we are not on guard. We must avoid temptation and its occasions, and ever live in the presence of God. We must be determined to avoid any deliberate sin, no matter how venial or light it may seem. If we fall into deliberate sin, we must immediately repent. Spiritual progress will depend on constant repentance from venial sin.

(E.J.Tyler)

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Foster a desire for atonement in your soul, so that you may acquire greater contrition each day.
(The Forge, no.198)

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And at this time of year especially are we called upon to raise our hearts to Christ, and to have keen feelings and piercing thoughts of sorrow and shame, of compunction and of gratitude, of love and tender affection and horror and anguish, at the review of those awful sufferings whereby our salvation has been purchased … You will ask, how are we to learn to feel pain and anguish at the thought of Christ’s sufferings? I answer, by thinking of them, that is, by dwelling on the thought. This, through God’s mercy, is in the power of every one.

JHN, from the sermon ‘The Crucifixion’ (1842), Parochial and Plain Sermons Vol 7 (1842) Sermon no. 10, p. 134-5)

Liturgical Season	Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
Fifteenth week Ordinary Time C/II						16	17
Sixteenth week Ordinary Time C/II	18	19	20	21	22	23	24
Seventeenth week Ordinary Time C/II	25	26	27	28	29	30	31