9th Week: June 3-8:
June 3 Monday (Charles Lwanga and Companions, Martyrs):
The context: Today’s Gospel presents the last in
a series of five healing stories. This one demonstrates the power of Faith, and
in this particular case we learn what others can do for us if they are persons
of Faith. As soon as Jesus got back to Capernaum after a preaching tour of
Galilee, the crowds gathered in and around the house where he was staying, so
that there was no room to get in or out. Four men, carrying their paralyzed
friend, tried in vain to get to the house through the crowd. Here is the wonderful
picture of a man who was saved by the Faith of his friends. His friends weremen
who had trusting Faith in the healing power of Jesus, and they were men with
initiative, tenacity, and creativity. So they carried their friend to the flat
roof of the house and removed a number of roof tiles, opening a long wide area
which allowed them to lower the man on his mat, and place him at Jesus’ feet.
Luke tells us that there were in the crowd Pharisees and Doctors of the Law
from Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem sent to check out Jesus, the new preacher,
and to report back to the Sanhedrin.
The sick man’s paralysis was seen by the people around as a
punishment for some serious sin in his own life or the lives of his parents. It
was a common belief that no major sickness could be cured until sin was
forgiven. For that reason, Jesus began the young man’s healing by audibly
forgiving his sins, so that he might feel no longer estranged from God. Then
the young man was able to receive the physical healing he and his friends
desired for him. But the Pharisees judged that, in forgiving sin, Jesus had
insulted God by blasphemy, because forgiving sin is the exclusive prerogative
of God. Jesus insisted that if he healed the man, then his enemies must
recognize his authority to forgive sin, and consequently his Divinity. He then
healed the young man with a single command, but we do not know whether any of
the objectors responded by believing in Jesus.
Life message: We are called to intercede for others
and to bring them to Christ. 1) In the Old Testament, it is Moses who
constantly begs God’s mercy and forgiveness for the Israelites’ sins. Later, we
find the prophets interceding for the unfaithful Israelites. 2) In the New
Testament, the dramatic role played by the friends of the paralyzed man in the
healing story reminds us of the continuing need for, and power of, intercession
for/by others. The text gives us encouragement to intercede for those who are
ill or in special need. When we pray and invite God into the situation, healing
takes place.
Fr. Tony (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
June 4 Tuesday:
The context: Today’s Gospel describes how Jesus
ingeniously escaped from a trap set for him by the Pharisees. The tax
issue: The Jews were forced to pay three separate taxes to the Roman
emperor: the ground tax, the income tax, and the census tax. Here, the question
concerned the census tax. If Jesus said that it was unlawful to pay the tax,
the pro-Rome Herodians and their allies would report him to the Roman officials
who would then arrest him as a revolutionary. If Jesus said that it was lawful
to pay the tax, the insurgents and their supporters would turn against him, and
he would be discredited in the eyes of the people who were against paying taxes
to a pagan emperor on religious grounds.
The defense goes on the offensive. Jesus
defeated their scheme by asking his challengers to show him “the coin of
tribute” – the coin they would give to the tax-gatherer. Rather than answering
their question directly, Jesus asked them a question, thus turning their trap
inside out and upside down: “Whose image[eikon in Greek]and
inscription are these?” “Caesar’s,” they said. Jesus then said, “Give
back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar — and to God what belongs to God.” In
other words, we give to the emperor the coin because his image is on it, and we
give to God our own selves because we are created in the image of God (Gn
1:26). By this answer Jesus reminds his questioners that if they are so
concerned and careful about paying taxes to the state, they should be much more
concerned and careful about their direct service of, and obligations to, God,
their Creator and Lord.
Life messages: The episode teaches us the nature
of our obligations to God and to our country, and it shows us how, with God’s
help, we can be ideal citizens of both earth and Heaven. 1) Since everything is
God’s, we must give ourselves to Him 100%, not just 10% on Sundays. 2) We
should be generous in fulfilling our Sunday obligations and find time every day
for prayer and worship in the family, for the reading of the Bible and the
proper training of our children in Faith and morals. 3) As citizens of a
country, it is the duty of Christians to pay for the services and the
privileges that government provides, like paved roads, police and fire
departments, banks, and other necessities. 4) Another way of giving to Caesar
what is Caesar’s is to participate actively in the running of the government,
electing the most suitable candidates and influencing them through frequent
contacts. Fr. Tony (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
June 5 Wednesday (Saint Boniface, Bishop and Martyr): The
trap: Sadducees did not believe in resurrection of the dead because they
claimed that Moses wrote nothing about it. Hence, in their
hypothetical question (which strongly recalls the Book of Tobit and the
plight of the seven times widowed and still childless Sarah — the
woman Tobias later married –), they asked Jesus to tell them who, in Heaven,
would be the husband of the woman who, widowed and childless, had then been
married, in succession, to her six brothers–in-law (levires), and
had finally died childless.
Jesus goes on the offensive as defense:
First, Jesus provided positive Biblical proof for the reality of resurrected
existence. Jesus is presuming that Yahweh’s burning bush statement about being
the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was in the present tense. This would prove
these three patriarchs were still alive at the time of Moses, 600 years after
their deaths. Thus, Jesus uses the Sadducees’ sacred text of the Torah to
refute their anti-resurrection belief. Since God declared Himself
to be God of the patriarchs, He must somehow still
be sustaining the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, thereby
granting them resurrection and eternal life. Thus, Jesus proved the
resurrection of the body from the Torah itself. Second, Jesus explained that
the afterlife would not be just an eternal replay of this life. Things would be
different after death. Normal human relations, including marriage, would be
transformed. Then Jesus told the Sadducees that those to whom God granted
resurrection and Heavenly life with Him would be immortal, like the angels and,
hence, “children of God.”
Life message: 1) We need to live
the lives of resurrection people: That is, we are not to lie
buried in the tomb of our sins and evil habits. Instead, we are to live joyful
and peaceful lives, constantly experiencing the real presence of the Risen Lord
Who gives us the assurance that our bodies also will be raised. The salutary
thought of our own resurrection and eternal glory should also inspire us to
honor our bodies, keeping them holy, pure, and free from evil
habits and to respect those with whom we come in contact,
rendering them loving and humble service. Tony (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
June 6 Thursday: [Saint Norbert, Bishop]: The
context: A scribe who believed in both the written Law and the
oral tradition was pleased to see how Jesus had defeated the Sadducee who had
tried to humiliate him with the hypothetical case of a woman who had married
and been widowed by seven husbands in succession. Out of admiration, the
scribe challenged Jesus to summarize the most important of the Mosaic Laws in
one sentence. In the Judaism of Jesus’ day, there was a double tendency:
to expand the Mosaic Law into hundreds of rules and regulations and to condense
the 613 precepts of the Torah into a single sentence or few sentences.
Jesus’ novel contribution: Jesus
gave a straightforward answer, quoting directly from the Law itself and
startling all with his profound simplicity and mastery of the Law of God and
its purpose. He combined the first sentence of the Jewish Shema prayer
from Deuteronomy 6:5: … Therefore, you shall love the Lord, your God,
with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength” with
its complementary law from Leviticus 19:18: “You shall love your
neighbor as yourself.” Thus, Jesus proclaims that true
religion is to love God both directly and as living in our
neighbor. Jesus underlines the principle that we are to love our
neighbor as we love ourselves because both of us bear God’s image. For, to
honor God’s image is to honor both Him Who made it and Him Whom it resembles.
Besides, our neighbors, too, are the children of God our Father, redeemed by
the Blood of Jesus. Love for our neighbor is a matter, not of feelings,
but of deeds by which we share with others the unmerited love that God lavishes
on us. This is the agape love for neighbor that God
commands in His Law. Jesus then uses the parable of the Good Samaritan, as
reported in Luke’s Gospel, to show them what God means by “neighbor.”
Life Messages: 1) We need to love
God whole-heartedly: Loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and
strength, means that we should place God’s will ahead of our own, seek the
Lord’s will in all things, and make it paramount in our lives. It also
means that we must find time to adore Him, to present our needs before Him, and
to ask His pardon and forgiveness for our sins. 2) God’s will is that we
should love everyone, seeing Him in our neighbor. This means we have
to help, support, encourage, forgive, and pray for everyone without regard to
color, race, gender, age wealth, social status, intelligence, education, or
charm.
Fr. Tony (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
June 7 Friday: (THE MOST SACRED HEART OF JESUS): Devotion
to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is the second most popular Catholic devotion among
Catholics, the first being the Rosary. The infinite love and mercy of God is
shown in many different metaphors and symbols like the Baby in the manger, the
Good Shepherd, the Crucifix, the Sacred Heart, and the Divine Mercy Picture.
The devotion to the Sacred Heart is based on the apparitions of Our Lord from
1673 to 1675 to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, a nun of the Visitation
Convent at Paray-le-Monial in France. The Gospel passage, “They shall
look on him whom they have pierced” (Jn 19:35-37) is
at the foundation of the whole tradition of devotion to the Divine Heart. The
practices of the “Enthronement of the Sacred Heart of Jesus” in the
home and the “Consecration and Dedication of the Family to the Sacred Heart”
were begun by Fr. Mateo Crawley-Boevey of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts
of Jesus and Mary and later approved by the popes. Official and social
recognition of the rule of Jesus over the Christian family is the purpose of
the consecration of the family to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The “Holy
Hour,” the “Litany of the Sacred Heart,” “The Act of Consecration
of the Family and the Human Race to the Sacred Heart,” the “Nine First
Fridays” Devotion and the “Novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus”
are different forms of this devotion.
Life Messages: 1) An invitation
for a “heart transplant”: Our hearts become stony and insensitive through
our daily exposure to acts of cruelty, terrorism, injustice, greed, and
impurity. Hence, God prescribes a change of heart through His prophet Ezekiel
(Ez 11:19-20) to make our hearts soft, elastic, large, and
sensitive: ” I will give them a new heart and put a new spirit within them;
I will remove the stony heart from their bodies and replace it with a natural
heart.” The Sacred Heart of Jesus should be the ideal heart for this
“medical” procedure because Jesus said, “Learn of me, for I am meek and
humble of heart.” Let us have the heart of Jesus. 2) An
invitation to love. The Sacred Heart of Jesus challenges us to love others
as Jesus loved: selflessly, unconditionally and sacrificially (agape love),
and to express this love in humble and loving service done to others.
June 8 Saturday: (The Immaculate Heart of the
Blessed Virgin Mary): This feast commemorates the joys and sorrows
of the Mother of God, her virtues and perfections, her love
for God and her Divine Son and her compassionate love for mankind. … In 1969,
Pope St. Paul VI moved the celebration of the Immaculate Heart of Mary to
the Saturday, immediately after the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of
Jesus. Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is a special form of devotion to the
venerable person of Mary, similar to devotion to the Sacred
Heart of Jesus. Mary’s Immaculate Heart represents her interior
life and the beauty of her soul.
Devotion to the Heart
of Jesus is especially directed to the Divine Heart as
overflowing with love for
men. This devotion is an attempt to respond to Jesus’ love and to make
reparation for the lack of love on the part of mankind. In the devotion
to the Heart of Mary, on the other hand, what seems to attract us above all
else is the love of
Mary’s Immaculate Heart for Jesus and
for God.
The objective is to love God and Jesus better,
by uniting ourselves to Mary for this purpose and by imitating her virtues. In
this devotion, we think of the love,
virtues, and sentiments of Mary’s interior life and try to put them into
practice.
Scriptural basis of this devotion: It
was mostly the love, humility, faith, and other virtues of the Heart of Mary
that attracted early Christians to Mary, the mother of Jesus. They saw Mary’s
heart in its true colors at the foot of the Cross. Simeon’s prophecy
furnished this devotion with its most popular representation: the heart pierced
with a sword. St. Augustine remarks: “At the foot of the cross,
Mary cooperated with Jesus in the work of our redemption through charity.”
One Scriptural passage in support of this devotion is the twice repeated (Lk
2:19; 2:51) saying of St. Luke given in today’s Gospel, “Mary kept all the
things [the saying and doings of Jesus] in her heart,” that
she might ponder on them and live by them. A few of the sayings of Mary
recorded in the Gospel, particularly her Magnificat (Lk 1:46-55)
disclose new features in Marian psychology. Elizabeth proclaims Mary blessed
because she has believed the words of the angel. The Magnificat is
also an expression of Mary’s humility. The last words of Mary recorded in
Scripture were spoken at the wedding feast in Cana when the wine ran out, and
Mary approached Jesus, as usual, to tell them of this calamity. He had answered
her that this was not His responsibility any longer, nor was it hers, for His
Hour had not yet come. Mary understood that being the Messiah of God had
changed Jesus’ position radically, and she humbly accepted this necessary
change in their relationship as Mother and Son as God’s will for both of them,
turning to the serving boys telling them, “Do whatever He tells you!”
(Jn 2:5), the same instruction she gives all of us on every
occasion! Finally, answering the woman in the crowd who praised Jesus’
mother as blessed, Jesus commented, “Blessed rather are they that hear
the word of God and keep it” (Lk 11:28). It was Mary’s
readiness to hear and do the will of God that endeared her to God and caused
her to be selected as the Mother of Jesus.
Life message: Let us take Mary as our role model and practice her virtues of trusting Faith, serving humility and readiness to do God’s will in our daily lives, thus becoming immaculate children of an Immaculate Heavenly Mother. Tony (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)