16t Week: July 11-16:
July 11 Monday: St. Benedict, Abbot:
The context: Jesus makes the controversial
statement that he has come to inaugurate a series of divisions in families and
in the society as a whole between those who accept him as Lord and Savior and
those who oppose him, his ideas and his ideals. Then he concludes his great
“missionary discourse” with an instruction to his twelve Apostles on the cost
and the reward found in the commitment to be his disciple. The first half of
these sayings of Jesus is about the behavior expected from his disciples, and
the second half is about the behavior of others towards the disciple. “I
have not come to bring peace, but a sword”: Jesus clarifies that he
came to give people lasting peace, not temporary, worldly peace — the absence
of war and freedom from all conflicts in the family and society. Our role is to
keep fighting against our evil habits and addictions using the spiritual sword
of the word of God which is “lively and active, sharper than any
two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and
marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews
4:12). “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not
worthy of me….” : What Jesus means is that all loyalties must give
place to loyalty to God. In other words, we cannot condone immoral practices
even in members of our family. Jesus is not speaking against the family, but
rather reminding us that we are part of the larger family of our
fellow-Christians and, hence, we have more responsibilities. We must be ready
to lose our lives for Christ: By “losing one’s life” Jesus means that we must
stop living for ourselves alone. Instead, we must spend our lives for others
and care for those who are sick and hungry. We are to give hospitality to
strangers in Jesus’ name. (“offering a cup of cold water”): There are four main
links in the chain of salvation: i) God who has sent Jesus with His message,
ii) Jesus who has preached the “Good News,” iii) the human messenger who
preaches Jesus’ message through his words and life, and iv) the believer who
welcomes the message and the messengers. Hence, giving hospitality to a
preacher or a believer is the same as welcoming Jesus himself. The basis of all
hospitality is that we all belong to God’s family, and that every person is our
brother or sister.
Life message: 1) We need to be hospitable and
generous: Hospitality allows us to encounter the presence of God in others,
usually in those in whom we least expect to find Him, and to share our love
with them. We become fully alive as Christians through the generous giving of
ourselves to others. (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
July 12 Tuesday:
The context: Jesus reminds these cities that they
deserve God’s punishment because they have forgotten the responsibilities which
their numerous meetings with the Messiah in their midst have laid upon them.
They should have listened to his message, put it into practice, and borne
witness to the miracles he had worked for them.
Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum: Nothing is
mentioned in any of the Gospels about the “wonders” Jesus worked in these
cities. Bethsaida was a fishing village on the west bank of Jordan at the
northern end of the lake. Chorazin was a town one hour’s walking distance north
of Capernaum. Jesus expresses his holy anger and sorrowful pity from a broken
heart at the irresponsible disregard and indifference these three ungrateful
cities have shown to the Good News. Jesus warns them, “it shall be more
tolerable on the Day of Judgment for Tyre and Sidon .. [and] the
land of Sodom” than for them, because Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom were not
fortunate enough to hear Jesus and to receive the opportunity for conversion
given to Bethsaida, Chorazin, and Capernaum.
Life Messages: Privileges always carry responsibilities:
1) We are privileged to have the holy Bible, so we have the responsibility of
making use of it. 2) We have the Eucharistic celebration every day in our
Churches, so we have the responsibility of participating in it when we are able
to do so. 3) We have the Sacrament of Reconciliation, so we have the
responsibility of using it to be reconciled with Jesus and his Church. 4) We
are blessed with having the Holy Spirit to guide the teaching authority in the
Church, so we have the responsibility of studying and following the Church’s
directives and teachings. 5) We have Mary, the mother of Jesus, and numerous
saints as our role models, so we have the responsibility of following Jesus in
their footsteps. (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
July 13 Wednesday: St. Henry:
The context: Jesus knew that ordinary people
with large, sensitive hearts, rather than proud intellectuals like the Scribes
and the Pharisees, were able accept the “Good News” he preached. Such people
would inherit Heaven rather than the learned and the wise who prided themselves
on their intellectual achievements. Hence, in the first part of today’s Gospel
Jesus prays loudly, thanking God his Father and praising Him for revealing
Himself to the simple-hearted, thus condemning intellectual pride. A person who
is full of self-centeredness fails to perceive supernatural things.
Jesus’ unique claim of God’s perfect reflection: “No
one really knows the Father except the Son, and him to whom the Son wishes to
reveal Him” (Matthew 11:27). The claim that Jesus alone can reveal God
to men forms the center of the Christian Faith. John records Jesus’ claim in
different words which He spoke at the Last Supper: “He who has seen me
has seen the Father” (Jn 14:9). What Jesus says is this: “If you want
to see what God is like, if you want to see the mind of God, the heart of God,
the nature of God, if you want to see God’s whole attitude to men–look at me!”
Life message: We need to know and love God better by
studying Jesus’ revelation about God his Father. We do it by daily reading the
Holy Bible, especially the Gospels, by meditating on the passages read and by
applying them to our lives. The more we study the Bible, the more we learn
about the Triune God, and especially about Jesus our Savior. This knowledge
will help us to love Jesus more, experience his presence in our daily lives,
see his face in everyone around us and surrender our lives to Jesus by
rendering humble service to everyone around us. (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
July 14 Thursday: St. Kateri Tekakwitha, Virgin, U.
S. A.
The context: In today’s Gospel, Jesus
offers rest to those who labor and are burdened, if they are
ready to accept his easy yoke and light burden. For the
Orthodox Jew, religion was a matter of burdens, namely, 613 Mosaic laws and
thousands of oral interpretations, which dictated every aspect of life. Jesus
invites the overburdened Israel, and us, to take his yoke upon our shoulders.
In Palestine, ox-yokes were made of wood and were carved to fit the ox
comfortably. The yoke of Christ can be seen as the sum of our Christian
responsibilities and duties. Jesus’ yoke is light because it is given with
love. It is the commandment to love others as Jesus did. Besides, the yoke of
Christ is not just a yoke from Christ but also a yoke with him.
So, we are not yoked alone to pull the plow by our own unaided power. We are
yoked together with Christ to work with him using his strength. Jesus is
inviting each one of us to be yoked with him, to unite our life with him, our
will with his will, our heart with his heart. By saying that his “yoke is
easy,” Jesus means that whatever God sends us is made to fit our needs
and our abilities exactly.
The second part of Jesus’ claim is: “My burden is
light.” Jesus does not mean that his burden is easy to carry, but that
it is laid on us in love. This burden is meant to be carried in love, and love
makes even the heaviest burden light. By following Jesus, one will find peace,
rest, and real refreshment. We are burdened with many things: business,
concerns about jobs, marriage, money, health, children, security, old age, and
a thousand other things. Jesus is asking us to give him our burdens and take on
his yoke. By telling us, “Take my yoke . . . and you will find rest,”
Christ is asking us to do things the Christian way. When we are centered in
God, when we follow God’s commandments, we have no heavy burdens.
Life messages: 1) We need to be freed from
unnecessary burdens: Jesus is interested in lifting off our backs the burdens
that drain us and suck the life out of us, so that he can
place around our necks his own yoke and his burden, that bring to us, and to
others through us, new life, new energy, new joy.
2) We need to unload our burdens before the Lord. One of the
functions of worship for many of us is that it gives us a time for rest and
refreshment, when we let the overheated radiators of our hectic lives cool down
before the Lord. This is especially true when we unload the burdens of our sins
and worries and evil addictions on the altar and offer them to God during the
Holy Mass. (Fr. Kadavil) (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
July 15 Friday: St. Bonaventure, Bishop, Doctor of
the Church
The context: Today’s Gospel passage gives Jesus’
teaching on the purpose of the Sabbath and on its proper observance. This was
his response to a criticism and a silly accusation made by Pharisees against
his disciples who, on a Sabbath, to satisfy their hunger, plucked ears of grain
from a field and ate the grains after removing the husks by rubbing the grains
between their palms and blowing away the chaff. The Pharisees accused them of
violating Sabbath laws by performing three items of work forbidden on Sabbath,
namely, harvesting, threshing and winnowing.
Counterarguments: Jesus gives three
counterarguments from Holy Scripture defending his apostles. (1) Basic human
needs, like hunger, take precedence over Divine worship and Sabbath observance.
Jesus cites from the Scripture the example of the hungry David and his selected
soldiers. They approached Ahimelech, the priest of Nob, who gave them for food
the “offering bread” which only the priests were allowed to eat (1 Sm 21:1-6).
(2) No law can stand against Divine worship. That is why the priests were not
considered as violating Sabbath laws although they did the work of preparing two
rams for sacrifice in the Temple (Nm 28:9-10). (3) God desires that we practice
mercy: Jesus quotes the prophet Hosea to tell the accusers God’s words: “I want
mercy, not sacrifice” (Hos 6:6).
Life messages: Like the Jewish Sabbath, the
Christian Sunday is to be 1) a day for rest and refreshment with members of the
family; 2) a day for thanksgiving and the recharging of spiritual batteries
through participation in the Eucharistic celebration for Catholics and through
worship service for the Non-Catholics; 3) a day parents should use for teaching
religious Faith and Bible lessons for their children; 4) a day for doing works
of charity in the neighborhood and in the parish; 5) a day for socializing with
family members, neighbors, and fellow parishioners. (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
July 16 Saturday: Our Lady of Mount Carmel: Mount
Carmel is a mountain in northern Palestine about twenty miles from Nazareth,
overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, three miles south of Haifa in modern Israel.
1 Kgs Chapter 18 describes how the prophet Elijah’s prayer on Mount Carmel for
rain was answered and how he defeated the 450 pagan priests of Baal on the same
mountain. He challenged them to bring fire from Heaven to burn the sacrificed
bulls placed on the altar, and he proved that only Yahweh was the true God.
According to the most ancient Carmelite chronicles, the Order had its origins
with the disciples of the prophets Elijah and Eliseus on Mount Carmel. They
lived very ascetic lives in caves on Mount Carmel honoring the “Holy Virgin” of
the Messianic prophecies who would give birth to the promised Messiah. When
the Apostles started preaching Jesus, the pious ascetics of Carmel accepted the
Christian Faith. In the 13th century, a group of pilgrims who followed the
Crusaders was impressed by the lifestyle of the disciples of Elijah. Hence,
they set up a religious community on the western slopes of Mount Carmel and
started living very ascetic lives. This was the beginning of the modern
Carmelite Order, whose members started leading a contemplative life under the
patronage of Mary, honoring her as the Mother of God and Our Lady of Mount
Carmel. The people began to call them Friars of the Blessed Virgin Mary
of Mount Carmel. Pope Honorius III approved the order’s rule in 1232 (or
1236?) . Since the Turks had started conquering Palestine by 1235, the hermits
decided to go back to Europe, where they built monasteries in Cyprus, Italy,
France, and England. Simon Stock, an English Carmelite, became the superior of
all the Carmelites in 1247. He helped the order expand and adapt to the times,
patterning the order on the Dominicans and Franciscans. The feast of Our Lady
of Mount Carmel was instituted first for the Carmelites in 1332 to commemorate
the 100th anniversary of the approval of the rule of the Carmelite Order. The
Order of Discalced Carmelites of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount
Carmel (OCD) resulted from 16th century reforms of the Carmelites by St. Teresa
of Avila and St. John of the Cross and later by reforms made by the order Carmelites
of Mary Immaculate (CMI) in the Kerala State of India
Our Lady of Mount Carmel and the Brown scapular: According a popular legend, Mary appeared to St. Simon Stock on July 16, 1251, and gave him the Brown Scapular with the following words: “This will be for you and for all Carmelites the privilege, that he who dies in this will not suffer eternal fire.” Mary promised her protection to all those who would wear the blessed habit and lead a life of prayer and sacrifice. Pope St. Pius X (1903 -1914) declared that that the common people could have the same blessings if they would wear the metal scapular medal carrying the picture of Our Lady of the Scapular on one side and the Sacred Heart on the other. The feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel challenges us both to imitate the simple and ascetic life of the Blessed Virgin Mary with her trusting Faith in God and her humility, and to seek her guidance and maternal protection in our Christian lives.
