July2 in Year A 11

Saturday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time to Eighteenth Sunday 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 Christians may contribute to alleviating the material and spiritual suffering of AIDS patients, especially in the poorest countries."

His mission intention is: "For the religious who work in mission territories, that they may be witnesses of the joy of the Gospel and living signs of the love of Christ."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Entrance Antiphon: Cf. Ps 17 (16):15 As for me, in justice I shall behold your face; I shall be filled with the vision of your glory.

Collect: O God, who show the light of your truth to those who go astray, so that they may return to the right path, give all who for the faith they profess are accounted Christians the grace to reject whatever is contrary to the name of Christ and to strive after all that does it honour. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

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)

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)

Hope of the nations The Gospel passage today opens with a formal mention of the response of the Pharisees to Christ. Let us step back a little. Following Matthew’s presentation of the Sermon on the Mount (chapters 5 to 7) there is a brief notice of the comparison made by the people between Jesus and “the scribes” — Jesus taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes (7:29). In the following chapter “a certain scribe came” and declared his intention to follow Jesus “wherever you go” (8:19). In the next chapter “certain of the scribes,” on seeing Jesus forgive the sins of the paralytic, think that “this man is blaspheming” (9:3). In the same chapter, “the Pharisees” approach Christ’s disciples and complain at his eating with publicans and sinners — which drew an immediate response from our Lord, directing their attention to the teaching of the prophet Hosea on God and his will (9: 11-13). Again, in the same chapter, the Pharisees accuse our Lord of casting out demons by means of an alliance with Satan — and our Lord refers to this accusation in the next chapter in his directions to the Twelve (10:25). In the twelfth chapter, the Pharisees go directly to our Lord and tell him that, in their plucking ears of corn on the Sabbath, his disciples are doing what is not lawful (12:2). But our Lord, by citing the Scriptures, shows them that they have completely missed the spirit of the divine Law. He also made, in passing, what must have seemed a most striking claim: “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath” (12:8). No-one had ever said this before. The temperature, as we might say, is rising, but there is no ringing denunciation of the Pharisees by our Lord as yet. At that, St Matthew tells us that our Lord entered the synagogue and there before them was a man whose hand was withered. We read that “they” — obviously the Pharisees again — questioned him whether it was lawful to heal. They wished to have something definite with which to accuse and condemn him. Appealing to common sense, Christ cured the man. In Matthew’s account, the Pharisees perceived Jesus to be a major threat to all that they stood for, and in particular to their authority in respect to the observance of the Sabbath. He was a great religious force that had suddenly arisen, manifesting unparalleled authority as a teacher.

In the Gospel of St Matthew, this incident was a turning point in that the Pharisees “went out, took counsel against him so as to destroy him” (12:14). Their rejection of Jesus Christ was total — of course, we must not assume that this included all of the Pharisees. We know from the Gospel of St John that Nicodemus was a Pharisee, and in his conversation with Christ he said that “we” know that you are a teacher who comes from God (John 3:2). So, others beside himself recognized this. However, here we have in our passage from St Matthew (12: 14-21) a firm statement of the iron determination of a very influential element in the nation to eliminate Jesus Christ. He was to be destroyed. There are more references to the opposition of the Pharisees following this notice — such as in 12:24, when they repeat their accusation of a league between Satan and Jesus, and when certain of the Pharisees demanded a sign from Jesus (12:38). Now — and this introduces our main point here — what was our Lord’s response to this unyielding hostility? He did not pummel them with his unanswerable arguments, nor overwhelm them with his miracles, nor rout them by increasing his sway over the people. He did not meet force with greater force, nor did he act in kind — with the kind of action they were taking towards him. He responded with humility, and, we might say, with meekness. “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.” His whole style in the face of injustice and persecution, St Matthew tells us, was a fulfilment of what the prophet had predicted of the One who was coming. “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). The “servant” (pais) is the chosen Servant of Isaiah, the Messiah, who would save the nations by his meekness and his obedient suffering.

Let us contemplate Christ’s mounting sufferings, and the obedient submission with which he endured them. The Passion is in sight, and he summons his disciples to come after him. The road to glory is marked by the Cross, and we who count ourselves as his disciples must understand the plan of God. It is manifested in the person and life of Jesus Christ who saved the nations by means of his sufferings. In him the nations put their hope because he is the Saviour of the world. Let us recognize the absolute uniqueness of Jesus Christ, God, Man and our Redeemer — in his name the nations will put their hope.

“The Pharisees went out and began to plot against Jesus” In our Gospel passage today we are told that “The Pharisees went out and began to plot against Jesus, discussing how to destroy him.” A great persecution of our Lord was beginning, and it would culminate in his saving death on the cross. Our Lord, we are told, “knew this, and withdrew from the district.” He did not react in frustration and anger, but in meekness and in doing good. One detail is left unsaid by the evangelists, but it is something we may safely presume. We cannot adequately imagine the bond between Our Lord and his holy mother, the two holiest persons in the history of the world. They would have had various contacts during his public ministry and as the storm clouds were gathering. But Our Lord must have found very great solace and support in his mother’s holy faith and understanding. The thought of her must have accompanied him everywhere, right to his death.

Let us imitate Mary in being a source of consolation to Jesus. St Paul speaks of us making the Holy Spirit sad by our sins. In some sense Christ must still suffer at the sight of so much infidelity and ingratitude. We ought strive to make up for our own sins and those of others, and by our fidelity bring joy and consolation to the heart of Christ.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I wrote to you: Though I can understand that it’s not an uncommon way of talking, I’m not happy when I hear people describe the difficulties born of pride as “crosses.” These burdens are not the Cross, the true Cross, because they are not Christ’s Cross. So struggle against those invented obstacles, which have nothing to do with the seal Christ has set on you. Get rid of all the disguises of self!

Entrance Antiphon: Ps 54 (53): 6, 8 See, I have God for my help. The Lord sustains my soul. I will sacrifice to you with willing heart, and praise your name, O Lord, for it is good.

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

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: Wisdom 12: 13.16-19; Psalm 85; Romans 8: 26-27; Matthew 13: 24-43

Jesus told them another parable: The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed ears, then the weeds also appeared. The owner's servants came to him and said, 'Sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come Shroud of Turin

from?' 'An enemy did this,' he replied. The servants asked him, 'Do you want us to go and pull them up?' 'No,' he answered, 'because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.' He told them another parable: The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches. He told them still another parable: The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough. Jesus spoke all these things to the crowd in parables; he did not say anything to them without using a parable. So was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet: I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things hidden since the creation of the world. Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field. He answered, The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons 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. As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear. (Matthew 13: 24-43)

Faith In our parable today, “the good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom” — and they are those who accept Christ’s word in faith. One of the signs of a good education, as opposed to, say, just acquiring a lot of information, is that a person does not take things simply on faith. As the years of schooling proceed, the pupil is increasingly expected to provide reasons for his or her statements. A Fr. Ted Tyler

good essay in English Literature, or History, or Economics will argue a thesis, and provide persuasive reasons. Apart from formal studies, it is expected that while a child and youth will have placed his faith in the word of his parents, as he grows up he will not simply rely on them but will himself see the reasons for his positions and act on the basis of personal conviction. The child necessarily acts on a natural faith because he lacks experience and a formed mind. But all expect that in due course reason will come into its own in his life. Sometimes, though — and more often than we perhaps imagine — the notion of “faith” in something or someone is silently despised — especially in respect to religion. A culture which places a high store on scientific proof, on rational justification, on a healthy scepticism as to the views of “authorities,” can look askance at religion which, on the contrary, places considerable emphasis on faith. Religion, being concerned in the main with things which cannot be seen or empirically tested, depends normally on the word of the one who has “seen” the matter in question. It recognizes the authority of the one whose word is accepted as authoritative. It is accepted, or presumed, or known, that the person on whom we rely has “seen” (in some sense) what we have not seen. His word on the matter is, then, dependable. Now, it ought be plain that in itself this is a reasonable principle, even if in particular cases (of, say, superstition and excessive credulity) it is not reasonable. Even in academic matters we accept a certain level of faith in the high authority of a particular author in some field. Aquinas is a renowned authority in matters philosophical and theological — and to quote him on a point as an authority on how things stand, is taken to be reasonable. The same is the case with Aristotle in, say, Metaphysics — and other authorities could be cited in their respective fields. This presence of faith in ordinary life ought open us to the reasonableness of faith in things of religion.

Many religions have developed from some great soul’s quest for the Ultimate. Because of his quest, that person has attained certain outstanding perceptions that have then become the guide for millions of others (such as Buddha, Confucius, Mahomet). In such cases, it is reasonable to have “faith.” It is faith in the word of another whose authority is deemed to be vindicated by his religious achievement. It is faith in a person judged to have possessed exceptional religious insights, not unlike the faith we exercise in other authorities of ordinary life. But where it is a question of a revealed religion, involving the acceptance of mysteries the knowledge of which could never have been attained by anyone, we are speaking of a faith that is absolutely fundamental. Our acceptance of those mysteries depends totally on faith in the word of the One who has made them known and declared them to be true. It is only by faith in him that we can know those mysteries. In the previous case, that of a religion which is simply the teaching and insights of a great religious leader — well, theoretically his disciples could come to see for themselves the truth (or otherwise) of his teaching. They can, by dint of following his path, eventually see what he, their teacher and leader, saw. They can judge its truth for themselves. His teaching is not beyond the mind and religious reason of man. But this is not so for a religion that is revealed by God and which involves realities beyond the capacity of the human mind to attain. In this case, the foundation is simply and entirely faith, faith in the word of the One who has revealed it. That person is, of course, Jesus Christ. He was preceded by the patriarchs and prophets of the chosen people, but their crown and fulfilment was Christ and his divine revelation. In this case, faith is imperative. It is the foundation of living the religion.

Faith is the foundation of the life of Christians — the “sons of the kingdom” — and their faith is in the word of Christ, recognized as the Son of God made man. This faith is not of the order of human faith, for it would be beyond the capacity of man to place in Christ the total, unreserved faith in him and in absolutely everything he has revealed. This faith is God’s gift. It is the seed of today’s parable (Matthew 13: 24-43), available to the well-disposed and especially those who pray for it. By means of this divine faith we are disposed by grace to place our faith in Christ, accepting all that he has revealed. This is the basis of holiness, of eternal life possessed now in its beginnings, and in its fulness hereafter.

Further reading: The Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.163-165. (Faith as the beginning of eternal life)

“The harvest is the end of the world; the reapers are the angels.” There is no getting around it: Fr. Ted Tyler

things will inevitably come to an end and then there will be the judgment of God. Our Lord tells his parable of the sower sowing good seed in his field (Matthew 13: 24-43). The weeds appear with the wheat and in God’s plan, these weeds are allowed to remain. But life is short and eternity long, as Blessed John Henry Newman writes at the end of one of his books (The Development of Christian Doctrine). In our daily life we ought live in view of this reality. We are transient and our true eternal life will depend on the judgment that is coming. Let us use the gift of time well by using our freedom well. We have been given time and the capacity to choose. Time passes on. The present moment is with us and then gone forever, with the choices we made during that moment that has now gone. Consequences flow from choices, though, and they affect the present and the future.

Let us then give everything to God by giving to him our time and our choices in fulfilling well the work he has entrusted to us during the passing moment we now have. Life is short, eternity long. Eternity is near, and with it the harvest. What will our harvest be?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Even on those days when you seem to be wasting time, in the prose of the thousand details of the day there is more than enough poetry for you to feel that you are on the Cross: on a Cross which no one notices.

Entrance Antiphon: Ps 54 (53): 6, 8 See, I have God for my help. The Lord sustains my soul. I will sacrifice to you with willing heart, and praise your name, O Lord, for it is good.

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.

Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to Jesus, Teacher, we want to see a Shroud of Turin

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)

Christ the fulfilment The study of Ancient History is fascinating and is the subject of unending interpretation. There are great bodies of texts available, and I remember when I was studying Ancient History at secondary school level, this discipline amounted to a study of classical Greece and Rome. I remember being intrigued at the time by the absence of any study of Ancient Israel, especially in view of its powerful influence on the religions of the world — and in particular on the religious life of the West. The school curriculum embodied an interpretation of what was important in the origins of Western civilization. I mention this merely to introduce the matter of interpretation. For any student of Ancient History, the texts of Israel should have a certain pride of place. Of course, for those who adhere to revealed religion, the inspired texts of the Hebrew Bible, what they would call the Old Testament, have supreme pride of place after the texts of the New Testament. Let us for a moment consider how the Christian looks upon what he calls the Old Testament — which is to say the inspired writings prior to Jesus Christ. The Christian looks upon them as Christ looks upon them. Jesus Christ was a Hebrew. He was raised in those inspired writings. He loved and treasured them, and used them in his preaching and instructions. He referred his disciples to them. So what was his relationship to them? How did he see himself in relation to them — because this is what the Christian will, or should, think about them too. St Paul writes, let this mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus. Our Lord said that he came to fulfil the Scriptures, and certainly not to destroy them. What is read in the Old Testament is brought to its fulfilment in him. That is to say, they revealed and expressed the word and will of God truly, but to a point. More was to come, and it came in the person and teaching of Jesus Christ. He himself brought all that had been revealed at that stage to its completion. Of course, to see how this is so in a comprehensive manner requires a lot prayerful thought. On rising from the dead, we read that our Lord took two of his disciples through the Scriptures, showing how they spoke of him.

Our Gospel passage today (Matthew 12: 38-42) gives us one instance of how the Sacred Scriptures prior to Jesus Christ find their fulfilment in him, and how he illustrated this fact. We read that “some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to Jesus, Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you.” It was far from a sincere request. Its purpose was to subject Jesus Christ to themselves, and certainly not to subject themselves to God through him. Our Lord rejected the specific request that they were demanding — just a showy display of power — but instead pointed to his very self. He did it by setting himself against the backdrop of the Scriptures, presenting himself as the fulfilment of what they offered and narrated. He pointed to the figure and ministry of Jonah the prophet — and, incidentally, there is something to be said about this particular Book of the Old Testament. It has, I think, been somewhat trivialized, but let us remember that it was here used in a very serious and specific fashion by Christ. Our Lord did not trivialize the Book of Jonah, so we ought not. Many important lessons, coming from God the Author of it, are expressed in it. But in particular, our Lord says to his enemies that he is to be regarded as another and greater Jonah. Specifically, he highlights Jonah’s being thrown into the sea and devoured by the whale. He was taken to be dead, and was put to death to save many others. Our Lord will be put to death for the salvation of the many. Jonah came forth to bring repentance, forgiveness and salvation to the pagans. So will Jesus Christ, but in a much greater manner than he. There is someone greater than Jonah here. Our Lord is the fulfilment of what happened to Jonah and of what he did. Our Lord points to another figure — and there is something greater here than that figure. The queen of the South came to visit Solomon to hear his wisdom, but Solomon as a wise man was as nothing compared to Jesus Christ. The wisdom of Solomon finds its fulfilment, its completion in Jesus Christ and in his teaching. Just as the queen of the South came to hear Solomon, how much more should all listen to Jesus Christ. He is the wisdom of God incarnate.

Let us observe how often in the Gospels our Lord refers to the Sacred Scriptures, and how he uses them. He was especially concerned to show that what God revealed in the Scriptures prior to him was a pointer to what was to come in him. He is the fulfilment of what God had revealed. He is God’s final word, but a word to be interpreted with the help of what God had said prior to him. Importantly, what God had said in the Scriptures was itself to be interpreted in the light of Christ's Person and teaching. The whole of the Scriptures, Old and New Testament — especially the Gospels — are the word of God. By means of them we come to know what God wants of us and for us, and thus we know the way to heaven with him.

“The Lord made Pharaoh, king of Egypt, stubborn” In our passage from Exodus today (14:5-18) we read how the Pharaoh “and his courtiers changed their minds about the people” of Israel. They “gave chase to the sons of Israel as they made their triumphant escape” from the land of Egypt. Observe, though, the following detail: “The Lord made Pharaoh, king of Egypt, stubborn.” What does this mean, and what are its implications? Obviously the all-holy God cannot be understood as having directly caused the king to sin — to be sinfully stubborn in relation to what God had told him through the mouth of Moses. Rather, inasmuch as God continually sustains by his creative act all that exists, he sustained (“made”) the heart of Pharaoh in his own freely chosen stubbornness. God permitted it, by creatively sustaining it. In his exercise of personal freedom, a freedom given to him and continually sustained by the Creator, the Pharaoh (as it were) dragged the all-holy God into sustaining him in his sin. It is part of the mystery of the gift of freedom. No wonder the punishment was great.

As we read this and reflect on its implications, let us advert to the fact this happens every time one of us sins. How great the offence to God is the sin of the world, and how great the need of a Redeemer — not only to save the world, but for the glory of God, so outraged by sin! God sustains his creatures while they freely sin and he is thus placed countless times into a form of proximity with sin. Great must be the horror and sadness of God. St Paul exhorts us not to make the Holy Spirit sad. No wonder sin is punished. Let us resolve never to offend God our Creator and Redeemer by deliberate sin. And when we do sin, let us profoundly repent and begin again, knowing God to be all-merciful. So then, Now I begin!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Do not fix your heart on anything that passes away. Imitate Christ, who became poor for us, and had nowhere to lay his head. Ask him to give you, in the midst of the world, a real detachment, a detachment that has nothing to soften it.

Entrance Antiphon: Ps 54 (53): 6, 8 See, I have God for my help. The Lord sustains my soul. I will sacrifice to you with willing heart, and praise your name, O Lord, for it is good.

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)

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)

Obedience Consider our Gospel scene today. Our Lord, we might say, is the religious celebrity of the populace — though incurring the increasingly implacable hostility of the religious leaders. He himself knows the ephemeral character of popular acclaim. In his case, people saw the manifest authority with which he taught, the extraordinary miraculous powers he exercised with such ease, the power over the underworld he manifested, and his control even over nature. He could subdue storms at sea at a word, feed vast crowds with Fr. Ted Tyler

practically nothing, change water into wine at will, and heal all kinds of illness. We repeatedly read that “multitudes” — “great multitudes” — followed him, that “great multitudes” gathered to hear him, that “Herod the tetrarch heard of the fame of Jesus,” and that “scribes and Pharisees from Jerusalem came” to him. At the time of his public ministry, clearly there was no-one in Galilee, Samaria or Judea who could compare with him in his dominance of the general scene. St Matthew speaks of Christ fulfilling the prophecy, “Land of Zabulon, land of Nephthalim, ... the people that sat in darkness has seen a great light” (Matthew 4:15-16). Though news travelled slowly because of the lack of communications, nevertheless within a short time news about him was passing beyond the boundaries of the nation. Matthew writes that “his fame went throughout all Syria” and great multitudes followed him, including from “beyond Jordan” (4:24-25). He was known and followed from the Decapolis region. When Christ went incognito to the region of Tyre and Sidon for some quiet time with his disciples, he was quickly discovered and pursued by the Canaanite woman, pleading that he heal her daughter of her demon-possession. Once our Lord “went public,” his name became quickly known not only throughout the land of the chosen people, but beyond. That is to say, our Lord’s international status (as we might put it) began not only after his death and resurrection, but even during his short public life. So this was the Person of our Gospel scene today. This acclaimed figure was speaking to the people when his mother and his relatives were discovered to be outside awaiting him. The message came: they wanted to see him.

I like to ponder on what this message from them implies. Jesus was a celebrity, as we might put it nowadays, yet his relatives had no hesitation in arriving on the scene and asking that he pause in what he was doing, and come on out, or through the crowds, to speak to them. It implies that they had little doubt that he would do this. This itself implies that he did just this, and many other things like it, during all those years of obscure living in Nazareth. We read in the Gospel of St Luke that after Mary and Joseph’s finding of the child Jesus in the Temple, he returned to Nazareth with them and was subject to their authority. He was quietly obedient to them, and subject to the exigencies of ordinary life, including the various demands and perceptions of his clan and circle of relatives, friends, acquaintances, and village life generally. This request, so unhesitatingly sent to Jesus through the crowds, provides us with yet another glimpse into the fundamental place of obedience in the life of Jesus Christ. He emphatically possessed a profound spirit of obedience. He entered the world to do the will of his heavenly Father, and this divine will was manifested in various ways in ordinary everyday life. It reminds us that a fully human life, a life of the best and most sterling human quality, entails at a basic level the spirit of obedience. What this can mean in practice may not be, though, a simple black-and-white matter. Christ recognized the authority of the scribes and Pharisees. At one point (Matthew 23:2) he told the crowds that they occupied the chair of Moses — but he condemned them and resisted their influence in various respects (23: 4-35). So, we ought not adopt a simplistic notion of obedience. It is, though, fundamental in a truly human and religious life. The broad lines of it are clear: legitimate authority must be recognized. The example of Jesus Christ must be before us always. In our Gospel today, our Lord takes the occasion to stress how important to him is this spirit of obedience to God in the living of our life: “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).

Let us also notice a detail in this scene. While Jesus was speaking “to the crowd” (tois ochlois) the message came to him. In his response, he stretches forth his hand “toward his disciples” (tous matheetas). It is not the crowd to whom our Lord points as doing the will of his Father in heaven, but to his disciples. If we are to be disciples of Jesus Christ we must have the holy ambition of being obedient to the will of God, and this spirit of obedience will be present in our everyday life, for it is there that the will of God is present and awaiting us. Obedience to God’s will is central to Christian discipleship.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Anyone who does the will of my Father in heaven, he is my brother and sister” In our day, a day of terrorism and conflict of various kinds, one of the greatest needs is to search for some basis of real and general brotherhood. At various points in the Gospels Our Lord mentions various ways in which we are all brothers — for instance, our Lord makes it clear that he identifies with the least of his brothers in need, and regards anything done to them as having been done to him (Matthew 25). But consider Our Lord’s words today (Matthew 12:46-50). Our Lord says that “Anyone who does the will of my Father in heaven, he is my brother and sister and mother.” There are many good people — in both the Church and outside of it — who seemingly try to do the will of God. They try to be good and to do good. Wherever there is such a person, Our Lord has told us that there is one whom he regards as his brother or sister or mother. Let us look at good people in that light. So let us respect such persons who without knowing it are close to Christ in a way known to God.

We ought be quick to notice the goodness in people, their goodwill, their good intentions, their acting according to their best lights, whoever they may be. Let us always remember our Lord’s words about them and strive to include them among those we regard as our brothers in God.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

One clear sign of detachment is genuinely not to consider anything as one’s own.

Entrance Antiphon: Ps 54 (53): 6, 8 See, I have God for my help. The Lord sustains my soul. I will sacrifice to you with willing heart, and praise your name, O Lord, for it is good.

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)

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 ways of God Nature films are a source of unending interest, and seem always to be popular. One fascinating feature of animals is their “character.” By that I mean that close attention to this or that animal shows its “character,” its way of acting, its characteristic response to what is before it — and this character can be very different from that of another animal of the same species and of the same family. Character, and characteristic action, is a feature of things that possess awareness — and in an analogous sense, of all living things. We could also speak of the characteristic action of non-living things, such as the weather, or whatever. We might say that when a tsunami destroys a coastal town, it is acting “in character” — in a way that we would have expected. Character is most evident among human beings, and is particularly plain within any large family where there are great differences in character. It is by virtue of his “character” that the person acts in certain ways. His ways of acting are “characteristic” of him. For instance, it might be that he reacts angrily to any slight, and hence people take care not to slight him. They know his character, and this particular way he usually acts. Again, it might be that he gives generously to the poor, and so people who are in need come to him. They are aware of this feature of his character. Were he not to give to the poor on some occasion, they would be surprised, and might think that he is not acting in character. Again, some things that are said of people are not believed because such things are thought to be so much out of character for them that they are not credible. Nothing of this is surprising because everything has a definite nature or structure to its existence. It does not just exist, but it exists as some definite thing which defines the shape, the form and the manner of its existence. It is something with a definite character, and acts in ways characteristic of it. Let us take this question to a higher level and ask, what of the Author of all things? Does he act in certain ways, ways that might be said to be somehow characteristic of him? Is there a pattern to the ways of God? It would appear that there are.

One could briefly point to the countless similarities that exist across the species and genuses of living things. In so many ways, man is similar to the animals, so much so that man has come to be defined as a rational “animal.” He is placed in the class of animals, with the distinguishing difference that he is “rational.” There is a pattern in what God has done in creation. Holy Scripture specifically says that God made man in his own image, in the image of God he created him (Genesis 1:27) — and yet man is also so like the animals. Therefore the animals are also, though more remotely, made in the image of God. God’s creative action leaves a divine imprint. Let us pass from the evidence in creation of a divine pattern of acting, to Sacred Scripture — the inspired record of God’s saving action in history. There is a pattern here too. The God of the patriarchs and prophets acts in “characteristic” ways. He repeatedly hates and punishes sin. He calls a certain people for a mission, and within this chosen people he calls certain individuals for their mission. God intervened and from the Burning Bush spoke to Moses, sending him to lead his people out of slavery to a promised land. In the event, this was a type of what was to come. It was a “characteristic” way in which God acts to save his people. Jesus Christ is portrayed in the Gospels as a new Moses, and his Passion and Death is a more glorious repeat of what God did in the past, but surpassing the past. So, in the liberation effected by Jesus Christ, God was acting “in character” — and this was itself a confirmation that it was the same God who was now doing this extraordinary work of salvation. The same divine hand can be recognized as had been working before. There is something of this in our Gospel today in which our Lord tells the people many things in parables. He takes ordinary natural processes and shows that they are types of much higher divine action. As God acts in nature, so his action in our souls can be discerned. “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). Nature is the voice of God, showing his ways.

Specifically, as our Lord will go on to say, God feeds the soil of the soul with the seed of his word, and if our heart and soul is good soil, that seed will produce a harvest. Let us, though, take a broad view and see all things as coming from the hand of the great Being we call God our Father. His ways are wondrous, they are mighty, they are holy and they are loving. Let us study to know him more and more, so as to love him the more dearly and follow him the more closely. The ways of God reveal his life and his nature. Let us use our days so as to come to know him, and knowing him let us love and serve him here on earth so as to see and enjoy him forever in heaven.

“That same day Jesus left the house and sat by the lakeside” The scenes of the Gospels are simple and marked by the ordinary. In our Gospel scene today (Matthew 13:1-9) Our Lord is presented as seated in the boat teaching the people who stand on the beach listening. Let us place ourselves in that scene, now watching the people, now watching Jesus who is teaching. Gazing at Jesus let us consider who he is. He is God. It is God in the flesh who is before those people, God so seemingly ordinary, so accessible, so immediate and so much part of the life of those listening. Almighty God made man — what a thought! If only we could realize this and take to heart his teaching! Just as the people were there listening to God, so we as members of the Church are able to listen to God made man teaching us in and through the teaching Church. But we must learn to recognise his presence and to maintain that recognition constantly. It is the mystery of the Incarnation. We must never take this mystery for granted, for if we do we might lose our respect for the person of Jesus. Without realising it, we could begin to treat Jesus as simply a very great man. We shall then treat his teaching as simply that of a very great man, rather than a divine revelation. Moreover, we shall fail to appreciate the mystery of the Church, for the Church is the body of Christ and not merely a human phenomenon. In its head, and in its soul, it is divine. Its head is Jesus Christ. Just as the crowds listened to Jesus seated in the boat, it is him to whom we listen when the Church speaks in his name. Its soul is the Holy Spirit, by whose power God became man, and by whose power the Church was born at Pentecost.

Let us base ourselves, our lives and all our thought on the mystery of the Incarnation.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Whoever really lives his faith knows that the goods of the world are means, and uses them generously, heroically.

Entrance Antiphon: Ps 54 (53): 6, 8 See, I have God for my help. The Lord sustains my soul. I will sacrifice to you with willing heart, and praise your name, O Lord, for it is good.

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, St Lawrence of Brindisi

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: Exodus 19: 1-2.9-11.16-20; Psalm Daniel 3; 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 Shroud of Turin

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)

Seeing and hearing John Henry Newman was born on February 21, 1801, and at the age of fifteen he enrolled in Trinity College, Oxford. This began an involvement with Oxford University that would last for nearly thirty years. A little over a year after receiving his bachelor's degree in 1820, he was admitted as a Fellow of Oriel College. Following his ordination as a deacon in 1824, then as priest in 1825, he became an Oriel tutor in 1826, and Vicar of St Marys Church (Oxford) in 1828. During 1826 there arrived on the scene of Oxford the unusual personage, Joseph Blanco White (born José María Blanco Crespo, 1775-1841), who was admitted as a Fellow of Oriel towards the end of the year. He and Newman quickly became friends, a friendship that was not destined to last when Newman’s thoroughgoing Catholic positions emerged. The fact was that Blanco White hated the Catholic Church and had published extensively in England against the Church of Rome. Indeed, he was awarded his academic diploma by Oxford University precisely because of these publications and their perceived effectiveness. He himself was a Spaniard, though of Irish descent, and had been ordained a Catholic priest in Spain in 1800 — the year prior to Newman’s birth in London. Following his ordination, deep-seated religious doubts emerged and he escaped to England during the Peninsular War. There he lived the remaining 31 years of his life passing from virtual atheism, to Anglicanism (during which he received Anglican Orders), to Unitarianism. He died in denial of the Incarnation, the Atonement, the doctrine of the Trinitarian godhead, and of course the divine institution of the Catholic Church. The one constant in his life from within a few years of his ordination in Spain was hatred for the Church in which he was raised and ordained. Newman and he were fast friends for the first few years of their period together at Oxford. But Blanco White was increasingly appalled as Newman’s true colours emerged, which included his championship of orthodox dogma and the divine foundation of the Church. For his part, Newman came to see the tragedy of Blanco White’s life. He was sincere, Newman judged, but profoundly blind to the truth, and this blindness was rooted in a spiritual and moral decay.

In a spiritual and religious sense, Blanco White’s tragedy was total. He was born into a devout Spanish Catholic environment, was baptized and lost everything. Nothing is impossible for God, as our Lord said to his disciples, but a person is playing with fire if he knowingly turns his back on God and his revelation. He may be rendering himself impervious to the intervention of God’s sovereign grace. This brings us to our Gospel today, in which our Lord, commenting on his use of parables in speaking to the people, warns of the consequences of spiritual blindness. The spiritual blindness of which our Lord speaks is not a mere accident of personal limitation. This form of it, conceivably, is possible. Our Lord is speaking of a blindness that is, obscurely, self-inflicted. “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.’” Because of this blindness, this deafness, this incomprehension, our Lord does not speak directly to them — they could not understand and, we might add, perhaps their guilt would increase were our Lord to speak more plainly. Thus he spoke to them in parables. They will always be hearing but never understanding, always seeing but never perceiving. But what is especially important is the reason our Lord gives, citing the prophecy of Isaiah, for their blindness. “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” (Matthew 13:10-17). In their heart of hearts they do not want to hear nor to see because this means listening to the divine demand to change. This they do not want to do. Thus have their hearts become hardened. Their will is opposed to the divine will. Perhaps they are not very aware of this moral position they have gradually adopted in the hidden chambers of their souls. Gradually the divine presence in their consciences has departed, and all that remains is the proud Self refusing the voice of God.

Blessed John Henry Newman, beatified by Pope Benedict in September 2010, went on to write and speak of the importance of the right moral ethos in a person, if that person is ever to arrive at religious truth. There have to be the right starting points, the right first principles, the right fundamental attitudes, if a person is ever to see and hear aright in respect to the things of God. If those fundamental premisses are inimical to the voice and will of God, what can be done? Only God can change them, and nothing is impossible to God. But how serious a matter it is, and our Lord’s words in today’s Gospel are a tremendous warning from on high about it.
(E.J.Tyler)

“Moses spoke, and God answered him with peals of thunder.” Among the great events described in the book of Exodus — a great event in world history — is the meeting between God and Moses on Sinai. We have the preparation for this meeting narrated in our passage today. God tells Moses that he is coming and he asks that the people prepare. They are to “prepare themselves today and tomorrow,” washing themselves and holding “themselves in readiness for the third day, because on the third day the Lord will descend on the mountain of Sinai.” It was God who was coming, coming in his grandeur and glory, and planning to make his glory manifest. “The mountain of Sinai was entirely wrapped in smoke...Like smoke from a furnace the smoke went up, and the whole mountain shook violently ... Moses spoke, and God answered him with peals of thunder.” The power and the glory of the one only God, the God of the Hebrews, was being conveyed. Now, this same God became man, one of us. He took on a lowlier condition still, dying on a cross. He continues with us as the Head of his body the Church — a people of saints and sinners. He is most present in the Eucharist where his glory is utterly concealed. But it is the same almighty God.

Let us resolve to be alive in faith to his presence with us and to give him constantly the recognition and respect that is his due.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The risen Christ, Christ in glory, has divested himself of the things of this earth, so that we men, his brothers, should ask ourselves what things we need to get rid of.

Entrance Antiphon: Jn 20: 17 The Lord said to Mary Magdalene: Go to my brothers and tell them: I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.

Collect: O God, whose Only Begotten Son entrusted Mary Magdalene before all others with announcing the great joy of the Resurrection, grant, we pray, that through her intercession and example we may proclaim the living Christ and come to see him reigning in your glory. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

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)

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, They have taken the Shroud of Turin

Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him! But Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the feet. They asked her, Woman, why are you weeping? They have taken my Lord away, she said, and I don't know where they have put him. At this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realise that it was Jesus. Woman, he said, why are you weeping? Who is it you are looking for? Thinking he was the gardener, she said, Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him. Jesus said to her, Mary. She turned towards him and cried out in Hebrew, Rabboni! (which means Teacher). Jesus said, Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: I have seen the Lord! And she told them that he had said these things to her. (John 20:1-2, 11-18)

Magdalene There are various personages of the New Testament, and in particular of the Gospels, who are celebrated in the Church’s liturgical year as Saints. For instance, there is Joseph the husband of Mary and foster-father of Jesus Christ. There are the infants who were murdered in Bethlehem by Herod out of hatred for Christ, celebrated a few days after Christmas as the Holy Innocents. John the Baptist is celebrated not only in his death, but in his birth. Each of the Apostles (at times combined), including Matthias who replaced Judas, is celebrated with a Feast Day. So too, Saints Paul, Barnabas, Luke and Mark all have their Feast Days. Martha, the sister of both Lazarus and Mary, has her Memorial Day. Various ones are missing, which is not to say that they are not saints — but the Church does not formally celebrate their holy lives. There is no celebration of Simeon and Anna, nor of Elizabeth and Zechariah, nor of Lazarus whom Jesus loved and whom he raised from the dead. The greatest of the New Testament figures apart from the Saviour himself is his own mother, the one whom the Angel addressed as being the one “full of grace.” “The Lord is with you,” he said to her. There are various celebrations of the mother of the Lord during the Church’s year — her birth, the Angel’s Annunciation to her, her Visitation to Elizabeth, her Assumption, her Sorrows, and other days such as our Lady of the Rosary, our Lady of Fatima and Mary Help of Christians. Today we are asked by the universal Church to contemplate the figure of Mary of Magdala. If we consider her in the context of others of Christ’s disciples in the Gospels, she stands forth as an especially celebrated disciple. In particular, in John’s Gospel she appears as the first one to speak to Jesus on his rising from the dead, and the first to bring news of the empty tomb and then of his resurrection. There is nothing to prevent us from presuming that the first to whom our Lord appeared was his own mother, but this had no public repercussion. Christ’s appearance to Mary of Magdala was, in St John’s vivid account (John 20:1-2, 11-18), the first step in the rapid spread of the news that Jesus had risen. In what has been called the “longer ending” of Mark, it is the same (Mark 16:9).

According to Luke 8:2, Christ healed “Mary called Magdalene out of whom went seven demons.” In reporting that when he rose from the dead Christ appeared “first to Mary Magdalene,” Mark (in the “longer ending”) adds “out of whom he had cast seven devils” (Mark 16:9). Some major Christian saints have interpreted this liberation from demon-possession as implying that she had been full of vices and sunk in the thraldom of sin. While this is possible, it does seem to be an assumption because the Gospels do not formally state that demon-possession was necessarily due to personal moral fault. In Luke 9:39 we read that a man in the crowd called out to our Lord asking him to heal his son who was often subject to demon-possession. He was his only son, and Jesus’ disciples could not cast the demon out. The symptoms as described by the father appear to us as some form of epilepsy, but it was the “demon” that was behind it. Christ cast it out at a word. This was a boy, and it would be presumptuous to assert that his helplessness at the hands of a demon was due to his own moral failure. We get the impression from the Gospels that the widespread demon-possession was due primarily to the general fallen condition of man rather than to the particular sins of this or that possessed person. People were exposed to the attack of the underworld, and Satan’s boast to Christ that all the kingdoms of the world were his (Luke 4: 6) had an element of truth in it. Christ came to reverse this situation, and his liberation of persons such as Mary of Magdala were portents of what was soon to come. So Mary of Magdala, as one who had been bound by seven demons, is a representative of the fallen family of man. Her spirit was helpless before the Enemy. But then came the stronger Man, and he effortlessly gained the victory and took out the spoils. Thus liberated, Mary of Magdala’s spirit marvellously blossomed and was flooded with love for her Master. She became the quintessential disciple of Jesus Christ, which is to say, one overflowing with a personal love for him. She followed him in love to Calvary, and stood there watching the Redemption being effected, in the company of Mary the mother of all the living.

St Mary of Magdala is among the first Christian saints, and we may presume that she will be celebrated as such in the Church’s liturgical year till the end of the world. She is a particularly attractive personage because of her being liberated by Jesus Christ from her bondage and her becoming totally given over to the love, the following and the service of Jesus Christ. We do not know with historical certainty the course of her life after the Ascension and spread of the infant Church, but the essential thing about her we do know. She was faithful unto death to her Master and Lord, and she never looked back in her growth in holiness. Let us imitate her, then!

“Jesus said, ‘Mary!’ She knew him then and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbuni!’” The Gospels tell us that Our Lord drove seven devils out of St Mary Magdalene. There was, then, a point where she reached the depths of degradation and helplessness. This leads us to think of human weakness and of the power of Christ raising up helpless man. Whatever be our moral weakness and the particular way in which we are prone to sin, Christ can set us free. Mary Magdalene, having been freed from the clutches of Satan, became an ardent follower of Christ — which involved her full cooperation. She became very good soil for the seed coming from Christ the Sower. She continued to grow in fidelity by personal choice.

Let us, considering the example of St Mary Magdalene, make the same choice to grow constantly in fidelity, renewing this choice each day, together with a persevering spirit of repentance. Consider how far Mary of Magdala had come along this road by the day of Christ’s resurrection, as we see it in today's Gospel! Let us resolve to do likewise.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We have to love the Blessed Virgin Mary more. We will never love her enough. Love her a lot! It shouldn’t be enough for you to put up pictures of her, and greet them, and say aspirations. You should learn to offer her, in your strenuous life, some small sacrifice each day, to show her your love, and to show her the kind of love that we want the whole human race to proclaim for her.

Entrance Antiphon: Ps 54 (53): 6, 8 See, I have God for my help. The Lord sustains my soul. I will sacrifice to you with willing heart, and praise your name, O Lord, for it is good.

From age seven on, Bridget had visions of Christ crucified. Her visions formed the basis for her activity — always with the emphasis St Bridget of Sweeden

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.”

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 E.E.Evans-Pritchard (1902-1973), the British anthropologist and specialist in the religion of the African Nuer people (and author of Nuer Religion), once wrote that a good way to assess and compare primal religions is to ask how its myths and rituals answer to the problem of evil and suffering, and then to compare those answers. At least this statement reminds us of how fundamental and universal is the problem of evil. Evil and suffering are inescapable, and it is the obvious difficulty with any proposition that there is an infinitely good, wise and powerful Being in whose hand lies the being, the fortunes and the course of the world. The world, many would claim, is a mess and we who are its inhabitants are in constant danger. It is as if one were to say that a magnificently expert builder was responsible for putting up one’s home, a home that abounds in safety hazards. There are frequent television programmes bringing shoddy work to the notice of the public. It could be a seriously defective bridge or building that causes great inconvenience and danger to the public. Not only does such work discredit the ability of the builder, but by it he stands accused of being unethical. He cannot do the job, and he should not have done it. In a world of earthquakes, famine, disease, war, death and countless tragedies and disappointments, how can one say that there is an all-holy and infinitely powerful Being in whose Hand all this lies? If there were such a Being, the atheist and utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer once said, he would have done a better job of it. So it is that we have the ever-recurring problem of evil and there is no doubt that it is a great philosophical and religious problem. In his Apologia (1864) Blessed John Henry Newman wrote that the fact of the ocean of evil in the world was the biggest problem for his own theism. But when all is said and done, there are many things in life we cannot understand and which we discover, all things considered, turn out for the best. We look back on many of the unpleasant events of life and observe how they work out. It is still a beautiful world — but the question remains, why is the bad allowed its presence on the scene?

As has already been said, this problem is one of the most intractable in religion and philosophy. There are many answers, and while most of them serve to illuminate this or that aspect of the problem of evil, none constitute the knock-out blow, as we may say. The greatest practical answer was that provided by God himself when he sent his divine Son to bear upon his shoulders the sin of the world. He atoned for it, and made of suffering a tremendous means of progress in holiness, if borne in a spirit of Christ-like obedience. If we wish to be perfect, we must take up our “cross” — the cross of suffering — and follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. That is a wondrous practical answer. We are still not informed, though, why suffering and evil had to be permitted in the first place — and our Lord said that he had to suffer in order to enter into his glory. Such was the inscrutable will and plan of God. Well, as the Book of Job reminds us, we must trust to the wisdom of the Lord. He knows best, and any experience of life will remind us that we know very little, and are all too often mistaken. However, in our Gospel today (Matthew 13:24-30) our Lord throws some light on the matter, as he does on other occasions. Where did the weeds come from? was the question. That is the question from age to age — where did the weeds come from? God planted a Garden, and in that Garden he placed man. But the weeds that are everywhere — where did they come from? An enemy has done this, was the answer. Evil and suffering did not come from God. Very well, granted that the Enemy has planted all these weeds which never die out but which are ever alive, well and spreading, what to do about it? Why not dig up the weeds, and be done with the problem? Why does not God eliminate evil at a word and by his invincible power? It is not that simple, our Lord informs us in his parable. If you dig up the weeds, the wheat may come with it. Could you not sidestep this problem precisely by your divine power? Our Lord does not answer this, but we are, in effect, told that the best thing is to leave the elimination of evil from the world to the final day of judgment. This, then, is one aspect of the practical answer to the problem of evil. It is best that the world continue with the consequences of the Original Sin, and Christ has shown the fruits that are thereby possible.

There were weeds all around our Lord as he strove to announce and establish the Kingdom. Those weeds were toxic and lethal. He did not eliminate them but in a spirit of obedience to his heavenly Father he gave himself up to the Cross. He bore witness to the truth before his enemies and atoned for the sin of the world. Evil and suffering were the circumstance of redemption. Let us be filled with the optimism of the Christian faith as we face the evil and suffering that is an unavoidable feature of our beautiful, broken and sinful world.

“Sir, ...where does the darnel come from? Some enemy has done this” Cardinal Newman once wrote that were it not for the unmistakable testimony of Conscience to the reality of a holy God, the fact of so much evil would lead him to be an atheist. The man in the parable was asked “where does the darnel come from?” So too many have asked, where does evil come from, for surely God can be the source only of good? The answer of the owner in the parable was, “Some enemy has done this.” Evil does not come from God but from fallen man and from Satan. It comes from sin and rebellion against God. In the parable the owner, when asked whether to uproot the darnel, replies “No, because when you weed out the darnel you might pull up the wheat with it.” We must be patient with what God is patient with, and work to produce good fruit despite the continued presence of evil and suffering. The harvest will be greater as a result.

Exactly why God permits evil to continue we do not know, but we do know that all is in his hands and that he certainly knows best what to do. At harvest time the darnel will be burnt, and the wheat gathered into the barn.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The truth of a Christian’s life is this: self-giving and love — founded on sacrifice. Love for God, that is, and, for God’s sake, love for one’s neighbour.

Entrance Antiphon: Cf. Ps 68 (67): 6-7, 36 God is in his holy place, God who unites those who dwell in his house; he himself gives might and strength to his people.

Collect: O God, protector of those who hope in you, without whom nothing has firm foundation, nothing is holy, bestow in abundance your mercy upon us and grant that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may use the good things that pass in such a way as to hold fast even now to those that ever endure. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

(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 Forty Martyrs

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: 1 Kings 3:5, 7-12; Psalm 119:57, 72, 76-77, 127-130; Romans 8:28-30; Matthew 13:44-52

Jesus said to his disciples: The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in Shroud of Turin

his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it. 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. (Matthew 13:44-52)

Christ in Christian marriage One of the most beautiful things in the world is rightly ordered human love. The love between human beings is celebrated in literature, music, song and the arts, and has been so, age after age. Such love reaches a high point in married love when a man and a woman give themselves to each other in an unbreakable bond of love, open to the gift of new life. At the same time marriage is the source of much pain and suffering. Beautiful yet difficult, it must be worked at. It is a high vocation requiring the best life-long efforts of those whose calling it is. Importantly, it requires the help of God — and our Gospel passage today has something to say about this. Our Lord said that the Kingdom of Heaven is within you. What was he referring to? St Paul writes in one of his Letters that this is the mystery now revealed, Christ in you, your hope of glory. The Kingdom of Heaven has its centre and basis in the person of Christ. It is in him and by means of him that the Kingdom of Heaven, or rule of God, is present in its perfection. Now, Christ abides within the soul of the Christian who is in the state of grace. He is within us as our hope of glory. This applies to married life. Today’s Gospel passage (Matthew 13:44-52) offers us an image that is full of meaning for married life. “The Kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field which someone has found; he hides it again, goes off happy, sells everything he owns and buys the field.” The treasure which is hidden in the field of a Christian marriage is the person of Christ. He is the important One abiding there, the One who gives hope to the marriage, like a treasure in the field. When two Christians marry, a third Person enters the relationship and brings his own life and love for them into their love for one another. That person is Christ. He is the greatest treasure of the marriage, their greatest source of hope. The Church teaches that God unites the two who are marrying. By the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ comes to dwell within the married life of the couple and gives them a share in his own love for them. Their love for one another is transformed into a sign and channel of Christ’s love for them.

That is to say, their love becomes something much greater than simply a mutual human love. It is made into a sacrament of Christ’s love. Christ is the bridegroom of the Church. In uniting the Church to himself he imparts to the Church a share in his own divine life and love. In a parallel way, and as part of this communion between Christ and his Church, the same conferral of Christ’s life occurs in a Christian marriage when the spouses are in the state of grace. They share Christ’s life and love, enabling them to love one another with a share in the love with which Christ loves them. Because of their joint union with Christ they become channels of Christ’s life and love to one another, and the divine grace which they impart to one another in their life of mutual love will mutually sanctify them. It will lead them on to holiness and transform them more and more into the likeness of Christ — provided they live according to this grace. And because of this, they themselves become an image and symbol to others of the union of Christ with the Church. This represents their primary apostolic mission to others: to show forth the love of Christ. If this great promise is to blossom, every married couple must recognise the treasure that is hidden in the field of their married life, the pearl of great price that has been given to them. It is Christ in you, Christ in each of you and in your married life, your hope of glory. Their work is to make Christ the centre and soul of their married life, their daily inspiration, their source of hope. Christ must not be forgotten in what we might call the dust and grime of daily life. He it is who makes of a humdrum life a thing of beauty. He it is who makes the ordinary life a life of grandeur: provided we live for him and according to his word and will. Let every married couple, then, make Christ their daily treasure and the treasure of their children. It means living daily in his presence together as man and wife, praying to him, constantly asking his help in living up to their vocation. It means following a true plan of life in the pursuit of holiness, knowing that Christ constantly dwells in their midst as their bond of unity.

Every family has a model: for the Christian family it is the Holy Family. Mary and Joseph were incomparable jewels of spiritual beauty, and they had in their midst the Star of all stars, the ineffable One, Jesus Christ. By virtue of the Sacrament of Matrimony, he, the same Jesus Christ, abides in the heart of every Christian family in order to sanctify the family and each member of it. Christ is the treasure in their field, their pearl of great price. Let each Christian family make it their work in life to allow Christ to reign in their hearts, and to bring him who is the Redeemer of man to their environments in the world of daily life.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jesus, I put myself trustingly in your arms, hiding my head on your loving breast, my heart touching yours: I want what you want, in everything.

Entrance Antiphon: Cf. Mt 4: 18, 21 As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, Jesus saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother mending their nets and he called them.

Collect: Almighty ever-living God, who consecrated the first fruits of your Apostles by the blood of Saint James, grant, we pray, that your Church may be strengthened by his confession of faith and constantly sustained by his protection. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

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. St James

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.

Then the mother of Zebedee's sons came to Jesus with her sons and, with an act of profound reverence, proceeded to ask something of him. What is it you want? he asked. She said, Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom. You don't know what you are asking, Jesus said to them. Can you drink the cup I am going to drink? We can, they answered. Jesus said to them, You will indeed drink from my cup, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared by my Father. When the ten heard about this, they were indignant with the two brothers. Jesus called them together and said, You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave — just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Matthew 20:20-28)

Drinking the cup Consider the first two sentences of our Gospel scene today. The mother of James and John approached Jesus with her two sons. She loved her two sons, and must have raised them with a profound religious faith. They were excellent sons of Abraham. At least John had been, we may conclude from the first chapter of St John’s Gospel, a disciple of John the Baptist. Today we think in a special way of his brother James. If John had been a disciple of John the Baptist, presumably his brother James was too. Together with Simon and Andrew they had been among the very first to be formally called by our Lord to follow him (Matthew 4: 18-22), and they had the full support of their mother. Their ambition, and that of their mother, was that they follow Jesus to the very hilt. They aspired to be on his right and his left in the fulness of his kingdom. He was their life, and their mother approached Jesus to present hers and their petition. Let us notice two things about this moment. Firstly, she presents the petition. She is the intercessor — it is her prayer and theirs, but there was a special strength, it seems, in her asking him on their behalf. It reminds us of the importance of our praying for people, including those who are close to God as her two sons doubtlessly were. It also shows that we ought gratefully accept the prayers of others on our behalf, and seek the prayers of those now with God in heaven. The angels and the saints share in the intercessory work of Christ our High Priest before the throne of God our Father. The mother of the sons of Zebedee approached our Lord, with her sons on her right and left, and interceded for them. We notice not only this feature of her prayer, but her profound reverence before the person of Jesus. The Greek word (proskunousa) implies a form of worship and going down on one’s knees. She approached Jesus with an act of the deepest reverence — showing us what it is to present our petitions to Christ. If we act with deep reverence when at prayer, the action itself assists us in being reverent in spirit. I have read that Pope John Paul II would pray at times prostrate on the floor before the Blessed Sacrament — and I have read that his own Archbishop (when Karol was a seminarian), Adam Stefan Cardinal Sapieha, was seen to do the same. Praying on one’s knees has a long pedigree in the tradition of physical posture during prayer.

Let us resolve to pray with deep reverence before Christ, the Holy One of God. Let us also resolve to intercede for others, as was the mother of the sons of Zebedee at this moment. But let our gaze turn now to the Lord who was being petitioned. We notice that at her act of reverence, he immediately asked her what she wished him to do for her — what do you want? (ti theleis;). She loved him, they loved him, and they were before him in genuine reverence with a petition. Granted the heart of Jesus Christ, it is as if he could not but want to grant the request, whatever it might be. That is what we ought expect to be the attitude of Christ our Lord in respect to our petitions too, especially if we, like them, have the ambition to love and serve him generously. They wished to be the friends and close followers of Jesus — well, let us have that same ambition. We can expect the same willing response. Their hopes were probably mixed with a little self-interest. Possibly they wanted to be prominent in the glory to come, and our motives may well — for all we know — be somewhat mixed, but still, let us resolve to love Jesus Christ just as they had this resolve. Do I wish to be a friend of Jesus Christ? Then I ought approach him with all my petitions, with all my ambitions to follow him closely, and with all my requests for others both living and dead with the same confidence in his willingness to hear my petition. He will assuredly ask me, “What do you want?” I ought have faith in Jesus Christ, expecting this kind of response. All too often people do not ask God for what they want and need because they do not think, in their heart of hearts, that God is able to answer their petitions, or that he wants to. But Christ manifestly wanted to answer the request of the mother of the sons of Zebedee. The problem was that they did not know what they were asking and what it would entail — from them. This is something we ourselves constantly overlook in the petitions we present to God. Our requests may entail difficulties of which we have no idea. Still, let us present them, with the readiness to do and to accept whatever God may ask of us in our turn. Can you drink the cup I shall drink? We can, they answered. They were ready to do whatever he wanted (Matthew 20:20-28).

James and his brother John did not get what they asked for in the precise terms of their request. It ran counter to the sovereign plan of God. But our Lord was pleased with what lay behind it, and they received from him the one thing that mattered: the assurance that they would drink his cup. This is the important thing. This, then, is what we ought be praying for: that it be granted us to drink the cup that Jesus Christ drank. There is nothing more important than this. If we share in the sufferings of Christ as his friends, then we shall share in his resurrection. On this feast of St James, let us resolve to approach Jesus Christ daily with the same profound reverence and confidence, and with this all-important petition on our lips.

“‘Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?’ They replied, ‘We can.’” When St Josemaria Escriva received his inspiration from God in 1928 to begin the great work of his life, he imposed on himself not only more ardent prayer but more penance. Furthermore, he solicited from as many as he could both prayer and penance for his great intention. He always taught that expiation is essential to the Christian life and to the successful outcome of God’s work. He lamented that for so many Christians there is a great fear and reluctance in respect to expiation. In our Gospel passage for today (Matthew: 20:20-28), the feast of St James the brother of John, Our Lord himself makes all this abundantly clear. The mother of James and John wanted him to give them a special share in his glory. Our Lord said that they did not know what they were asking. They had to drink the cup he was to drink. Were they ready to do this? They said, yes. It is wonderful that Our Lord assured them that they would. They would be faithful to him in sharing in his sufferings. That was the all- important condition for future glory.

Let us recognise our reluctance to follow Our Lord along the path of expiation and self-denial. Let us pray repeatedly for a profound appreciation of its indispensable character in the Christian life, and let us continually ask for the grace to follow Christ along his own road of self-denial.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nowadays the world we live in is full of disobedience and gossip, of intrigue and conspiracy. So, more than ever we have to love obedience, sincerity, loyalty, and simplicity: and our love of all these will have a supernatural significance, which will make us more human.

Entrance Antiphon: Cf. Ps 68 (67): 6-7, 36 God is in his holy place, God who unites those who dwell in his house; he himself gives might and strength to his people.

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. Sts Joachim and Anne

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."

Jesus dismissed the crowds and went into the house. His disciples approached him and said, “Explain Shroud of Turin

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)

Judgment Everywhere we see consequences at work. Things happen, and consequences flow from them. A cyclone suddenly arises, gathers size, strength and momentum, and vast numbers of people are left devastated. There have been terrible consequences of the passing through of the cyclone. Again, there is rain, wonderful rain, and the consequences are a great harvest and much joy. There are philosophers who deny the reality of consequence or causation. They think that there is only succession, and that there is no proof that one thing is the consequence of another — but this flies in the face of common sense and what we may call the voice of mankind. If you hit the cricket ball with the cricket bat, the ball will be made to travel in a certain direction. There you have an instance of causation and consequence — it is not a matter of mere succession. The universe abounds with an incalculable series of causes and effects — of consequences — to such an extent that one could say that the world is essentially a cauldron of consequences. So much is this the case that the world cries out for a First Cause to give to it a fundamental intelligibility. But let us pass on from this all-pervasive feature of the non-human world to mankind. Mankind itself, the dominant occupier of this world, is a vast phenomenon. No-one could possibly calculate the number of human beings there have been — but again, there is the phenomenon of consequences. Wherever man is, he acts, and there are consequences flowing from his action. Just as mankind is a tremendous fact, so are the consequences of man’s actions in history. There is a radical difference between the consequences flowing from the things that happen in the physical and non-human world and those that flow from the actions of mankind. Man acts freely. He can do one thing or another, whereas the non-human world must act in a certain way. The prowling lion must act in a certain way — in the way, that is, that its instinct dictates. Man has instincts, tendencies, and temperament. But he has the capacity to choose. He can choose to act according to his tendencies, or he can act according to what he perceives to be his objective duty. Whatever way he chooses to act, there will be consequences.

Not only does man see that there are consequences flowing from the free choices he makes, but everywhere he sees facing him a judgment on his free choices. In fact, very commonly the judgment that is made on him as a result of his choices is regarded as their principal consequence. He freely chooses to raise a large family, spends himself on the proper upbringing of his children, is successful in their spiritual and moral formation — and is judged by others to be a good man, and is praised and respected as a result. His ordinary human experience is that everywhere he is judged on his actions and their consequences — indeed, that judgment is itself a principal consequence of his actions. More seriously, in many areas of life he is rewarded or punished by society for his free actions and their consequences. The reward or the punishment is a consequence of his actions, which is to say his free choices insofar as they bear on society and its wellbeing. A person chooses to bring prohibited drugs into a country and is apprehended, tried, condemned, and is either executed or imprisoned for life. In fact, we could say that the principal consequence of man’s free choice, of the actions he chooses to do, is the judgment that will be made on him, and the consequences of that judgment. The human being is one who can choose freely, and as a result is one who will be judged — and rewarded or punished accordingly. That reward or punishment is deemed to be the due consequence of his own choice. So it is that man is the being in the universe who is always facing a judgment in one form or another. The crown and climax of this is nothing other than the judgment of God. But we ought not think that this divine judgment is something simply at the end — in the way there is a final test and judgment at the end of a long course of study. All that we do is being continually judged by God. In all of our choices, we stand in the presence of our divine Judge. While we live, we are able to repent, change, reform our free choices (with divine grace), and do better. At the end, no such opportunity will lie before us. We shall go before our Judge for a final, eternal judgment.

In our Gospel today our Lord speaks in the simplest terms of the consequences of our actions and of the divine judgment we shall all face. “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” (Matthew 13:36-43). Let us look to the consequences of our actions and to the final judgment that they will assuredly attract. Death, judgment, heaven and hell — it all hinges on our free actions, which determine their consequences.

“When they saw the pillar of cloud .... all the people would rise and bow low” Our first reading today from Exodus consists of three distinct passages (Exodus 33:7-11; 34:5b-9, 28) each of which conveys a different point rich in meaning. Let us think briefly of the first of the three (Exodus 37:7-11) which describes what happened whenever Moses went to the Tent of Meeting to converse with the Lord. The people would rise and stand at the door of their tents watching Moses till he reached the Tent of meeting. When they saw the pillar of cloud at the entrance of the Tent, they would bow low, standing. This entire procedure was filled with reverence and a sense of the presence of God. Now, let us ask, to what degree is this careful and manifest reverence present in our churches, our own “Tent of meeting”? If it is lacking, presumably it is because of a lack of a sense of the presence of God. Yet we know and believe that Christ is God, and that he abides in our Tabernacles. He makes himself and his one Sacrifice of Calvary present at Mass. We accept this great and pivotal truth as revealed by God.

What then is missing? Of course, we do not physically see what we accept to be true. We do not depend on sight to know this reality. Rather we depend on faith in the authority of God’s word. To have a living faith we must realise what we believe, and this realisation requires persistent thought, prolonged and frequent meditation and contemplation of the truths of our faith. We have to take time to read, ponder and pray over what God has revealed if we are to reach a true realisation of it, the kind of realisation which will show itself in manifest reverence. A practical resolution then: daily spiritual reading and regular prayerful study of the truths of the faith.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You say yes, you are determined to follow Christ. All right. Then you should walk at his pace, not at your own.

Entrance Antiphon: Cf. Ps 68 (67): 6-7, 36 God is in his holy place, God who unites those who dwell in his house; he himself gives might and strength to his people.

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)

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)

The Kingdom For a long time one of the most marketed and marketable products has been news. News and its commentary is the source of unending and vast business, careers, profits and interest. The press and its equivalents in the various forms of media are a central component of the modern society. Modern life is almost unimaginable without the news media and journalistic and editorial commentary on the news. The news media can bring down governments, disrupt economies and can seriously disturb the practice of religion and the life of churches. Pope Paul VI, during his visit to Australia in 1970, told the journalists assembled to hear him that they were world power number one. A major focus of the media is politics and the fortunes of, we might say, the kingdoms of the world. The image that is projected of the world by its most powerful modern influence, the media, is of the ebb and flow of kingdoms. Societies, republics, nations rise and fall, they interact, they enter into conflict or alliances. They pass away and are succeeded by others. History is the story of the kingdoms of this world — that is the impression we gain from our various sources of information. Two thousand years ago, the mightiest kingdom was that of Rome. So strong was the Roman Empire that when it began to crumble at the onslaught of the barbarian hordes, many thought the end of the world was nigh. It evoked one of St Augustine’s greatest works, De civitate dei (The City of God, consisting of 22 books). But it passed away, as did so many “kingdoms” that followed it. Modern man probably thinks of his times as an unfolding contest between competing regimes, including the one of which he is part by birth and nationality. He may wonder what it all adds up to, and whether all this has any ultimate meaning. Is there anything final and ultimately worthwhile under the sun? Well now, what has God revealed of all this? God has revealed that history is indeed made up of the ongoing ebb and flow of kingdoms and regimes. But there is more than this. A kingdom has arrived on the earth that is in this world but not of it. It is an eternal kingdom, one destined to prevail over all others, and which will be eternal. Its throne is occupied by one Man, and all mankind is called to enter that Kingdom.

Every Christian knows what is being referred to here. There were powerful hints of the coming Kingdom in various of the Old Testament books of the Bible. God’s Kingdom was coming, and there would be a King. David was promised that his dynasty would never end. The New Testament interprets these various prophecies and the great Promise of the Old Testament. Christ is its interpretation and its fulfilment. He is the King who established the Kingdom. Speaking simply, the promised Kingdom is God’s promised rule, now and in eternity. Pope Benedict XVI in his book Jesus of Nazareth (Vol I), gives us three dimensions of the idea of the Kingdom of God. The first is Jesus himself. He is the Kingdom in person. By entering into a union of obedient friendship with him, one enters the Kingdom. This necessarily involves man’s interior — for that reason, Jesus said that the Kingdom is within you. That is the second feature of the Kingdom. The third involves the Church, for Christ established his Church by means of which people would be enabled to enter into union with him, and so enter into the Kingdom of God. That Church was and is a visible body — for instance, he gave to Peter, the Rock of his Church, the keys of the Kingdom of heaven, with power to bind and loose. The one who has entered into the Kingdom and partaken fully of its life is the Christian saint. He is united with Christ and shares in his life, as it is available to him in his body the Church. All of this brings us to our Gospel today, in which our Lord gives images of the Kingdom of God. “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). No one parable attempts to exhaust the full meaning and richness of the Kingdom of God — our two brief parables today tell us that the Kingdom of God is the supreme treasure of our life, for which we should be prepared to forego all in order to gain it. This is what the saint does so generously.

If we are to make of the Kingdom — which is union with the person of Jesus Christ our Lord and King — the supreme treasure of our life, we have to be detached from other treasures. The problem is that we tend to make other things the supreme treasures of our life. At least our heart is set on other treasures to a point, and this distracts them from the supreme treasure which is Christ. We, each of us, were the treasure of the heart of Jesus — let us think of this, the love of Jesus Christ for each of us. St Paul wrote, Christ loved me and gave himself up for me. Let us think of that. It will help us to accept Jesus Christ as the supreme treasure of our lives. He is our pearl, the one thing necessary, the treasure beyond imagining.

“Moses .. would tell the sons of Israel what he had been ordered to pass on to them” Our first reading for today from the book of Exodus continues the fundamental texts of the Old Testament which narrate the meeting of God with Moses, and how Moses passed on to the chosen people the commands of God. Moses was one of the great personages of human history, and was endowed with a very great mission. He spoke to God the Creator, and received personally from him his commands — commands not only for his chosen people, but in the Ten Commandments, his commands for all mankind. As we think of Moses the bearer of God’s teaching and wishes, we think of the One who was far greater still: Jesus Christ. Moses bore with him the Law of God. Christ came with the fullness of God's truth and with the grace to live according to it. But, then, thinking of Christ, we think of the body — the mystical body, we might say — which bears Christ and his Law and grace within it, just as Moses bore within him the Law of God. That is to say, we think of the Church, the Catholic Church which possesses within her the person of Christ and all he has brought to man. The account from Exodus today shows forth the reverence and attention of the people towards Moses: after their hesitation, “all the sons of Israel came closer, and he passed on to them all the orders that the Lord had given him on the mountain of Sinai.” We in our turn ought preserve in our hearts a profound reverence and attention to the Church, Christ’s body and oracle. The Church is the oracle of Christ, just as Moses was the oracle of Yahweh to the people.

Let us not take the Church for granted, but keep alive our realisation of the divine presence within the Church that distinguishes it from all other institutions. Let us think with the Church, and by our fidelity to her teaching advance towards holiness of life.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You want to know on what our faithfulness is founded? I would say, in broad outline, that it is based on loving God, which makes us overcome all kinds of obstacles: selfishness, pride, tiredness, impatience... A man in love tramples on his own self. He is aware that even when he is loving with all his soul, he isn’t yet loving enough.

Entrance Antiphon: Cf. Ps 68 (67): 6-7, 36 God is in his holy place, God who unites those who dwell in his house; he himself gives might and strength to his people.

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. St Leopold Mandic

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).

esus 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)

Good and bad Years ago I knew a man whose work was to shear sheep — on Mondays he would travel to a sheep station (what an American would call a “ranch”) and spend the rest of the week there shearing sheep. He would then return to his family for the week-end, and would attend Sunday Mass with his family in his parish. He told me that on one Monday when he was travelling to his place of work, his shearing companion sarcastically referred to his going to Sunday Mass. “You think you are good, do you, in going to church on Sundays?” In response, he told his companion that he did not go to “church on Sundays” because he was “good,” but because he needed to. That shearer happened to be a good man — I knew him. But it is a common accusation by those who do not go to church, that those who do go, are not good. They appear good on Sundays, and are not good during the week. Now, there is no reason why we need not admit that, to a point, this may be the case. Further, the fact of the matter is that most who are baptized do not formally practice their religion in any recognizable, let alone notable, sense. For instance, most Catholics do not go to Mass every Sunday, despite the Third Commandment and the corresponding precept of the Church requiring Sunday Mass under pain of serious sin. This is not to speak of the lack of a Christian life during the workaday week. What is to be said of this situation, and of a Church which Christ founded being thus populated by so many who are anything but saints? Again, among the images of the beatification Mass of Pope John Paul II in Rome, on May 1, 2011, was one of the then-President of Zimbabwe, receiving Holy Communion. All across the world these images were seen and they shocked many Catholics in Africa who, together with others, charged the President with responsibility for the persecution and destruction of many. Setting aside the question of whether a particular person ought be admitted to Holy Communion, and the fact that the reception of Holy Communion is generally a matter for the “internal forum,” the point here is the general anomaly of so many sinners making up the Holy Catholic Church, sinners within and beyond the Sunday worshipping congregation of the faithful.

In our Gospel today, our Lord describes what the Kingdom of God is like — and it is about this Kingdom that our Lord spoke so much, and which by his Death and Resurrection he established on this earth. “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” (Matthew 13:47-53). So there are all sorts of fish in the net, both good and bad. In the parable itself, the “fishermen” are the “angels” separating the good and the bad at the end of the age. In another and extended sense, the “fishermen” may be taken as being all those who engage in Christ’s apostolic mission, most especially the Twelve and those who succeed the Twelve or who are their direct collaborators. Our Lord in calling Simon Peter to follow him, said, Follow me, and I will make you into fishers of men. So the “fishermen” of the parable we can take to be all those who share in Christ’s apostolic mission. They bring in numbers of fish, and there are bad and good. Christ called the Twelve, but even one of them turned out so bad as to betray him into the hands of his enemies. However we might understand it, Christ pronounced a terrible woe upon him, saying that it would have been better had he not been born. In its essence, the Kingdom of Heaven consists of those who are in union with Jesus Christ, and Christ is present wherever his Church is. The Church is his body, and he is its Head. But associated with Christ, just as Judas was associated with Christ, are many “fish” who are “bad.” So we must not be surprised that there are within the Fold of Jesus Christ many black sheep, let us say. There are many bad fish. He came to call sinners to repentance, he said. In another parable about the Kingdom, Christ spoke of weeds appearing with the wheat. Christ does not take to the whip and cast them all out. He did not expel Judas once his heart had become disaffected — our Lord referred to him as “a devil” following his announcement of the doctrine of the Eucharist. But he did not throw him out of the Apostolic band. He gave him time, and right to the end, in the Garden at the point of betrayal, he addressed him as “Friend.” God is patient.

Because of Jesus Christ its divine Head, and because of the Holy Spirit its divine Soul and Life, the Church is holy. It cannot be reduced simply to a vast body of broken, fallen human beings. It is not the ecclesiastical equivalent of a united nations with all their vagaries. Ordinary human beings are there, but the reality of the Church is far greater than her human members. The Church is principally the Person of Jesus Christ here on earth, sharing his divine Spirit with those who are associated with him as members of his body. Nevertheless, it is like the net with good and bad fish, like a field with wheat and weeds. Nearly 10% of Christ’s Twelve turned out badly. I refer to Judas. Simon, the future Rock of his Church, denied him three times. We are sinners, but the Good News is that if we keep close to Christ, he can make us saints. Let us keep close to him then!

“Moses did this; he did exactly as the Lord had directed him.” Let us consider the care with which Moses did everything that related to God’s presence in the Tabernacle (Exodus 40: 16-21). The first reading of today from Exodus tells us that Moses “did exactly as the Lord had directed him.” These words refer to Moses’ construction of the Tabernacle. Then our passage describes God’s presence shown by the cloud covering the Tent of Meeting: “Whenever the cloud rose from the tabernacle the sons of Israel would resume their march” (Exodus 40: 34-38). We too are on the march, and our journey has as its destination our homeland of heaven. God has his Tabernacle among us — it is the Tabernacle of our churches where the Eucharistic Jesus constantly dwells. All that God has ordained that relates to worship and prayer in our churches — as laid down by the Church — ought be fulfilled with the religious care that we see exemplified by Moses in our passage today. Moses, in this as in other things, points to what was to come.

But all of this hinges on our degree of faith. We cannot rise to this level of religious observance and reverence if in effect we are living by sight and not by faith. How then shall we maintain a life of living faith, believing in what we cannot see as if we do see? Living by faith requires contemplation of the mysteries of our faith, assiduous spiritual reading, study of Scripture and the Church’s teaching, and personal prayer based on what is thus revealed. Let us make it our business to include these fundamental things in our daily plan of life.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I heard — and I write it down, because it’s very beautiful — something that was said by a goodly nun from Aragon, in her gratitude for God’s fatherly goodness: “How ‘smart’ he is! He’s got his eye on everything.”

Entrance Antiphon: Cf. Lk 10: 38 Jesus entered a village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home.

Collect: Almighty ever-living God, whose Son was pleased to be welcomed in Saint Martha’s house as a guest, grant, we pray, that through her intercession, serving Christ faithfully in our brothers and sisters, we may merit to be received by you in the halls of heaven. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

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)

Many

Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home. Lord, Martha said to Jesus, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask. Jesus said to her, Your brother will rise again. Martha answered, I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this? Yes, Lord, she told him, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world. (John 11:19-27)

Martha’s example “Martha” is a Greek translation of the Judeo-Aramaic word which means “the Lady,” the feminine form of “the Master.” There is an inscription with the name dated about 5 AD, now in the Naples Museum. In the Gospel of St Luke, Martha and her sister Mary appear in one scene (Luke 10: 38-42) which is an alternative Gospel for today, the Memorial day of St Martha. In this scene, Martha is doing the serving while Mary is at the feet of Jesus listening to him speaking. Lazarus is not mentioned by St Luke in that passage. In the Gospel of St John both sisters appear in two scenes, the raising from the dead of their brother Lazarus (John 11: 43-44) and the anointing of Jesus at the home of Simon the Leper (John 12:3). In this latter scene from John 12, as in the scene from Luke 10, Martha is doing the serving while Mary is at the feet of Jesus — this time anointing his feet (John 12:2). In the past, many have interpreted Mary the sister of Martha to have been Mary Magdalene, but there is no specific warrant for this in the Gospels. I myself must regard it as unfounded and I welcome the current departure from that traditional view. But our subject here is Martha whom the Church formally recognizes as a saint of the Church’s liturgical year — there is no such celebration for Lazarus and Mary, unless we accept that Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, is Mary Magdalene. In Luke’s mention of the two sisters, Martha is described first: Martha received Jesus into her house, and she had a sister named Mary. While Mary is praised by Christ, Martha is the object of attention. She actively serves Christ whom she has received, but in her service we are given a teaching from Jesus Christ. Altercating mildly over the inactivity of her sister, she receives from him his gentle correction in which he holds up the example of Mary who has chosen the good thing, the one thing necessary. We may take Martha, then, to be an instance of the active disciple and lover of Jesus Christ who must remember that in all this busy service, one’s heart must be kept directed to Jesus and his word. It is a lesson from the Lord which Luke included for the Church’s children in the ages to come.

In our Gospel today (John 11:19-27), once again Martha is the active one. Interestingly, at the beginning of the incident (John 11:1) Mary is mentioned before Martha — “There was a certain man ailing, Lazarus from the town of Mary and her sister Martha.” But this could be because John wishes immediately to refer to the scene soon to come of Mary’s anointing the feet of Jesus (11:2). However, we notice a few verses later that Martha is mentioned first: “Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus” (11:5), and again, “Many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother” (11: 19). Further, as soon as Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him, “but Mary remained seated in the house” (11: 20). She welcomed him, and was the first to say, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (11:21) — a statement repeated by Mary when she went to meet Jesus (11: 32). The most notable thing about Martha as presented by St John in this chapter is her striking profession of faith. One wonders whether this is not the centrepiece of the chapter. In other chapters our Lord expects faith before he works his miracle, and it is following this profession of Martha’s faith that Christ works one of his most spectacular miracles of his public ministry. He does this right under the nose of his enemies in the City who were poised to arrest him wherever he could be found. The miracle is a proclamation of his Person before his great act of self-offering at Calvary. Christ states to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life: the one who believes in me, even though he be dead, will live ....” Then he asks with insistence, Do you believe this? Time and again in his Gospel, St John shows that everything pivots on faith in Jesus and his word. In the plan of God, faith in the word of Christ is the foundation. It is on this basis that Christ acts time and again. At the end of his Gospel John tells the reader that he has written it so as to show that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. Believing this, he will find life in his name (20:31). This is the teaching of Christ in his words to Martha (11: 25-26). It is the faith Martha professes: “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God”. Martha gives a magnificent profession of faith, one that was the exemplification of the faith in Jesus Christ about which the Gospel of St John was written.

In the Gospel of St Matthew (16: 16) Simon Peter gave the same profession of faith before our Lord that St Martha gives in the Gospel of St John: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” It evoked high praise from Christ and occasioned his appointment of Simon as the Rock of the Church he would build. To him Jesus would give the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. Martha has that same fulness of faith, and is a grand model for us. Simon stands for the Apostles and, we might say, for the Church’s ordained hierarchy. Martha stands, we might say, for the far larger component of Christ’s Church, the lay faithful. Let us take her inspiring example to heart!

"I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who was to come...." On one occasion (Luke 10:38-42), Our Lord is in the home of Martha and Mary. Mary is saying little, perhaps nothing, for she is engrossed in every word that our Lord utters. Martha is busy — at that moment, far too busy as far as our Lord is concerned. She is serving him with love but is frustrated with what appears to be Mary’s thoughtlessness and inactivity. She complains to our Lord about her sister, and receives a gentle (and perhaps smiling) rebuke. She is worrying about too many things rather than the one thing necessary. The scene does show Martha’s confident familiarity with our Lord. She unhesitatingly complains to him. In a later scene (John 11:19-27), that of our Lord’s raising of her brother Lazarus to life, we see her boundless faith in our Lord. She believes that he can do anything, and she believes that he is the Christ the Son of God, the one who had to come into this world. St John wrote his Gospel precisely in order that people might believe just this (John 20:31), and so Martha is presented to us by the Evangelist as a great example of Christian faith. Moreover inasmuch as time and again our Lord acted when he saw the faith of those who requested something of him, we can presume that it was at least partly because of her great faith in him that he proceeded to raise Lazarus from the dead.

Martha actively served our Lord’s Person with a heart brimful of faith in his power and in his true identity. Let us fill our days with a similar faith in Jesus, a faith like that of Martha’s.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Like all God’s children, you too need personal prayer. You need to be intimate with him, to talk directly with Our Lord. You need a two-way conversation, face to face, without hiding yourself in anonymity.

Entrance Antiphon: Cf. Ps 68 (67): 6-7, 36 God is in his holy place, God who unites those who dwell in his house; he himself gives might and strength to his people.

(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)

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 Shroud of Turin

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)

Conscience In Plutarch’s account of Alexander the Great, we read of Alexander’s slaying of his friend Clitus. At the feast Alexander put on for his friends, “some of them started to sing a song making fun of some Macedonians who recently had been defeated in a battle with the barbarians.” Clitus objected, at which Alexander joked at Clitus’s complaint. At this, Clitus got to his feet and said, “Those poor Macedonians you laugh at have, by their wounds fighting for you, made you so great now that you disown your father Philip and call yourself the son of Ammon." Alexander was stung at his words, but Clitus persisted. At that, Alexander killed him with a spear. What was the issue? If Plutarch’s account is correct, I contend it was because Alexander’s corrupted conscience could not bear the words of Clitus, and he killed his friend for it. So it has been down the ages. Whatever about the merits of Clitus’s accusation, the incident may stand as an image of the contest between might and right. Power has been confronted by Conscience, and Conscience has repeatedly been struck down. So it is in our Gospel passage today (Matthew 14: 1-12). Herod the tetrarch had violated the laws of marriage by taking his brother’s wife, and John the Baptist arrived from Judea to confront the civil ruler. What mattered to John was God and his holy will. What mattered to Herod was his own convenience and indulgence, powered by Herodias, his wilful, unlawful wife. Did John confront him publicly, and perhaps in the presence of Herodias as well? Perhaps — I think it is probable. Clitus was but a friend of Alexander, and perhaps not much better as a man than his famous friend. But John the Baptist was one of the most moral men of all time — and we have that on the word of Jesus Christ. In hearing John, Herod Antipater was hearing a very holy man who uttered the voice of God in both Nature and the revealed Law. He could not bear it. Herodias hated him, and Herod imprisoned him for it. Time and again in human life and in the course of history, the voice of Conscience appears as supreme, while being constantly struck down by the action of Might.

In the contest between the two, John the Baptist lost his life. The issue was the sanctity of marriage and the divine law regarding it. There have been many critical moments in the history of England — and England has been a critical player in the history of the West, and the West has been critical for the history of the world. One such “moment” was the contest between Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, and King Henry II of England. Murdered in 1170 at the instigation of the king, Thomas had persistently confronted the king over his violations of the rights and privileges of the Church. A more critical moment occurred some 350 years later when King Henry VIII assumed, by decree, the visible headship of the Church. This was to circumvent the papal refusal to allow his divorce of Catherine and remarriage, so as to gain an heir. The resignation by Sir Thomas More from his office as Chancellor of the Kingdom amounted to a public rejection of the royal claim. This was reinforced by More’s refusal to take the oath required by the First Succession Act. The other celebrity to follow the same path was Bishop John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester and Chancellor of the University of Cambridge — one of the most learned bishops in the world at the time. In 1535 both were tried for treason and executed. It was a confrontation between self-will and personal convenience, and the testimony of the conscience. Conscience was suppressed and its representatives snuffed out. Every human life can be seen in these terms, the contest between a rightly-ordered conscience and a disregard of the moral law as enshrined in Nature and the revealed Law of God. The story of human history can be understood in these terms. Our Gospel today may be viewed from various perspectives, but one is surely that each person is faced with the duty to heed a properly enlightened conscience. This does not mean simply one’s own sincere judgment because in the case of a corrupted person, a properly enlightened conscience will probably be impossible, if unaided. Herod Antipater, Henry II, and Henry VIII were not morally equipped to form, unaided, a right moral judgment. They needed the testimony of holy men such as St John the Baptist, St Thomas a Becket and St Thomas More.

Let us be alive to the supreme issue in life, which is the following before all else of an objectively correct and properly enlightened conscience. One’s so-called “conscience” can so easily be rationalized away into an approval of what are merely one’s own preferences. We need to be taught from on high, and this is done especially by divinely authenticated teachers. The Teacher of mankind, divinely authenticated as such, is supremely Jesus Christ. He is present in his body the Church, guiding reason and conscience in its search for the objective Truth. Let us live by a rightly-ordered Conscience. As St Paul writes, let this mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.

The influence of "the world" There are three great sources of temptation to sin: the world, the flesh and the devil. Each is powerful, and to resist the influence of each requires fortitude. Often sin involves all three, the devil using both the world and the flesh to tempt us. The “world” refers to the set of temptations and influences coming from outside of us, from the world of persons and things. The “flesh” refers to those temptations and influences arising from our fallen personal condition. Our Gospel scene today (Matthew 14:1-12) provides us with examples of both, but let us especially notice the influence of the “world”. Herod was “so delighted” at the dancing of Herodias’ daughter “that he promised on oath to give her anything she asked.” We notice immediately the influence of his audience on Herod. Thinking of his guests, Herod wanted to shine before others as one who delighted in such dancing. He succumbed to human respect. When the girl asked for John the Baptist’s head he had no fortitude to resist this worldly influence. “The king was distressed, but, thinking of the oaths he had sworn and of his guests, he ordered it to be given her”. Herod showed himself to be weak in the face of this influence, and so he committed a most grievous sin.

Let us resolve to practise the virtue of fortitude in the face of the influence of the "world".

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The first thing needed as far as prayer is concerned is to keep at it; the second thing is to be humble. Have a holy stubbornness, be trusting. Remember that when we ask the Lord for something important, he may want to be asked for many years. Keep on! But keep on with ever increasing trust.

Entrance Antiphon: Ps 70 (69): 2, 6 O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me! You are my rescuer, my help; O Lord, do not delay.

Collect: Draw near to your servants, O Lord, and answer their prayers with unceasing kindness, that, for those who glory in you as their Creator and guide, you may restore what you have created and keep safe what you have restored. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

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 St Ignatius Loyola

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. St 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: Isaiah 55: 1-3; Psalm 144; Romans 8: 35.37-39; Matthew 14: 13-21

When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on Shroud of Turin

foot from the towns. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick. As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, This is a remote place, and it's already getting late. Send the crowds away, so that they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food. Jesus replied, They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat. We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish, they answered. Bring them here to me, he said. And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children. (Matthew 14: 13-21)

Power and compassion There were at least two incidents in the public ministry of our Lord that involved the feeding of a multitude of people with a mere handful of food. In our Gospel passage today from St Matthew, Christ departed by boat to a desert place after hearing of the martyrdom of John the Baptist at the hands of Herod Antipater. The people followed him and he “was moved with compassion toward them and healed their sick.” At evening, with five loaves and two fish he fed a multitude of “about five thousand men apart from women and children.” Twelve baskets of scraps were gathered up. In the following chapter (Matthew 15:32-39), our Lord went up the mountain, sat down, and great multitudes came to him, bringing the sick. Once again Jesus had compassion on the multitude, took “seven loaves and a few fish,” and fed four thousand men, apart from women and children. Seven baskets full of left-overs were gathered. Both incidents showed forth Christ’s compassion for the crowds in need, and his great power. Mark, like Matthew, narrates both miracles, the second being given in chapter 8:1-9. The other two Gospels report the first miracle of the feeding of the five thousand, but not the second. Mark’s account of the feeding of the five thousand (6:31-44) places it after our Lord receives news of John the Baptist’s death (as in Matthew), and his general account of it is similar to that of Matthew. In the Gospel of St John, this miracle does not especially follow the martyrdom of St John, though it does follow our Lord’s crossing the Lake, as is the case in Matthew and Mark. In John’s Gospel, Jesus goes up a mountain (6:3), whereas this detail is not in Matthew and Mark. While Matthew and Mark narrate the incident as one of the miracles of Jesus Christ which show forth his compassion and divine power, only this time involving a multitude of people, St John dwells on its deeper meanings. Christ is a new Moses. The loaves and fishes are a new manna. It all points to a new Passover. Specifically, it bespeaks the Bread from heaven which is Jesus himself, given to us to be our food and drink in the Eucharist. Perhaps the incident was also reminiscent of Elisha, who fed 100 men with 20 loaves of bread in 2 Kings 4:42-44. Elisha followed Elijah, just as Christ followed the Baptist.

The modern age tends to dismiss miracles as being of little import. This is because they are assumed to be little more than fanciful legend. For a long time, the prevailing assumption among many scholars of the New Testament was that the miracles of Scripture were somewhat of a phantom. But this is, of course, a gratuitous assumption. Our miracle today (Matthew 14: 13-21) was plainly a vivid memory for the Evangelists and the early Church. There have also been those who reduce the second miracle of the feeding of the four thousand to a mere repetition of the same incident. But this cannot be the case because in Mark our Lord, on a separate occasion, specifically refers to the two incidents. “When I broke the five loaves among five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments did you gather up?” The disciples replied, “Twelve.” “And when I broke the seven among four thousand, how many baskets full of fragments did you gather?” And they said, “Seven.” And He said to them, “How is it that you do not understand?” (Mark 8:18-21). In this particular text, Christ himself gives an interpretation of the meaning of the miracle: it warned against the leaven of the Pharisees, which is to say their doctrine which was opposed to the teaching of Jesus. This was not quite the meaning given to it by John in his account, though not, of course, opposed to it. Whatever about these various meanings, it was a great miracle and manifested yet again the boundless power of Jesus Christ. Christ was capable of doing any good thing, and effortlessly so. The miracles of Jesus Christ are of various kinds. He heals the sick, and can deal with any kind of sickness — epilepsy, loss of speech, blindness, deafness, paralysis, even death itself. He can raise from the dead. He is master of the underworld, and the powers of hell are helpless before him. He has full power over the elements — he can walk on the turgid sea and reduce a raging storm to absolute calm. He can even feed the multitudes at a word, and with virtually nothing at hand — a mere five loaves and two fishes. Wonder of wonders! He can even raise himself from the dead, and predict that he will do so, and to the day.

Christ’s greatest “miracle,” if we wish to call it this, was his taking away the sin of the world. This was a labour of gigantic proportions, and it crushed him. He freely consented to the crushing, for it was the appointed way for the redemption of the world. He had to suffer if he was to enter his glory, and his entry to glory opened up the path to glory for the rest of mankind. This was the work of the Messiah, and the greatest manifestation of his power, his strength and his authority. All other miracles pointed to what would be his greatest work, the redemption of mankind. Let us go to Jesus Christ, then, and take our shelter under him. He is our true Friend.

Second reflection: “As he stepped ashore he saw a large crowd; and he took pity on them”

With Jesus at Sunday Mass We contemplate our Lord in today’s Gospel scene, with the large crowd before him. He moves among them as the centre and soul of the multitude. Let us think of all mankind and the calling that all have received to come to Jesus and to find life in him. We are called to live in union with Christ as a great family, not simply as individuals. Of course, each of us stands before God as an individual. I am responsible for how I stand before God and how I live in his presence. But I stand before God not as one isolated from others, but as a member of a great and vast family, the family of God. Let us, then, look on that Gospel scene as symbolic of our human position. We too are in that crowd. We come before God together. We go to heaven together. In God’s plan we go on our journey with others. At our baptism we are received into the community of the Church. We become members of a family. Most especially, the high point of our Christian life and its very source is the celebration of the Eucharist. The Eucharist is not simply a personal matter, between me and Jesus Christ who is the holy Eucharist. No, for we gather precisely as a parish family each Sunday, in union with the great family of the universal Church. The whole Church celebrates the Lord’s Day together around the Eucharist. Just as our Lord gathered around him the vast crowds and fed them, so too at Sunday Mass our Lord gathers us all together around him so as to feed us with his body and blood which was offered up for our salvation and sanctification. Throughout the universal Church it is especially on Sunday that there is repeated what happened in today’s Gospel. Christ gathers the multitudes to him to feed them — but now with himself. So then, with today’s Gospel in mind, let us think of Sunday. Pope Benedict XVI repeatedly stressed the importance of the Sunday observance in the life of the Church. What a difference it would make to our individual religious life, to the spiritual life of the parish and to the universal Church, were all of Christ’s faithful to observe Sunday truly as the Lord’s Day!

What a difference it would make were we to put our whole self into the prayerful and reverent celebration of Sunday Mass! Imagine everyone, the whole parish, approaching the Sacrament of Reconciliation frequently, in order to participate in Mass and receive our Lord in Holy Communion more perfectly and in a greater state of grace! Imagine the whole parish going away from Sunday Mass with the thought that we all of us have received our Lord in Holy Communion, perhaps after having spent some minutes in thanksgiving after Mass. Imagine then trying in some way to make the rest of Sunday the Lord’s Day, and refraining from unnecessary work and renewing one’s personal and family life for the week ahead. Then very importantly, what a difference it would make to the life of the parish if every one who comes to Mass were to make a personal apostolate of drawing to Mass those whom they know do not come to Sunday Mass. Mass is the centre and source of all. The spread of this truth from person to person is an apostolate in itself. As we think of our Lord in the Gospel gathering the crowds and feeding them, let us think of our Lord gathering the family of God around him, especially at Sunday Mass. Let us make it our business to bring others into this weekly event, the summit and source of our Christian life.

Further Reading: The Catechism of the Catholic Church no.1878-1885 (The communitarian character of the human vocation)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Persevere in prayer, as the Master told us. This point of departure will be your source of peace, of cheerfulness, of serenity, and so it will make you humanly and supernaturally effective.

Liturgical Season	Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
15th Week of Ordinary Time A-1							16
16th Week of Ordinary Time A-1	17	18	19	20	21	22 St Mary Magdalene	23
17th Week of Ordinary Time A-1	24	25 St James, Apostle	26	27	28	29 St Martha	30
18th Week of Ordinary Time A-1	31