16th Week: July 22-27:
July 22 Monday: Saint Mary Magdalene:
The context: Today’s Gospel presents the great
recognition scene in the New Testament when Mary Magdalene, at the tomb early
in the morning, was not able to recognize the Risen Jesus until Jesus called
her by name. Gradual recognition, or misunderstanding, as a stage on the path
to belief and understanding occurs frequently in the narratives of John’s
Gospel. [See, for example, the
conversations Jesus had with Nicodemus (ch. 3), and the Samaritan woman 4).] In
today’s passage, we find it once again: Mary thought at first that Jesus was
the gardener.
Mary Magdalene failed to recognize Jesus because of her
false assumption that Jesus’ dead body had been taken away from the tomb. Her
attention was concentrated on the now-empty tomb. Her tears of intense grief
could also have blurred her vision. Once Mary heard Jesus call her by name, she
recognized him, exclaiming “Rabboni!” Jesus told her, “… go
to My brethren and say to them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father,
to my God and your God.’”Mary obeyed at once, her introduction to the
apostles being, “I have seen the Lord,”with Jesus’ message following. This
procedure and message became the basis and essence of the later preaching of
the apostles and of all Christian witness-bearing. St. Thomas Aquinas said that
one old lady (una vetera), might have more Faith than a host of learned
theologians.
Life messages: 1) We need to be open in mind and
heart to experience the presence of the Risen Lord in our lives through our
prayer, our Sacramental life, and our meditative reading of the Bible. These
all enable us to bear witness to Jesus, the Risen Lord. 2) Jesus, risen from
the dead, is truly alive and present under the appearances of the consecrated
Bread and Wine. 3) Jesus, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, is also
present, in our souls, and so in our daily lives; it is the indwelling TriUne
God Who gives us the strength to fight temptations and to serve our brothers
and sisters in corporal and spiritual works of mercy with love. (Fr.
Tony) (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
July 23 Tuesday: [Saint Bridget, Religious]:
The context: As Jesus became a strong critic of
the Jewish religious authorities, family members brought Jesus’ Mother with
them when they came to take Jesus to Nazareth by force. Perhaps they did so
because they feared that he was “out of His mind,”would be arrested
and put to death — and so would they! Jesus’ plain statement: Today’s Gospel
episode seems to suggest that Jesus ignored the request of the family and
Jesus’ Jesus’ Mother, who had traveled such a long distance. But everyone in
the audience knew how Jesus had always loved and, working as a carpenter, had
taken care of Mary. Besides, Jesus’ plain answer, “My mother and My
brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it,”was indeed a
compliment to Mary who had always listened to the word of God and obeyed it.
Jesus was declaring “Blessed are those who have heard and kept the word
of God, as she is faithfully doing” (Vatican II, Lumen Gentium,
58). Jesus was also using the occasion to teach the congregation a new lesson
in their relationship with God. Being a disciple of Jesus, a Christian, means,
first and foremost, being in a relationship of love and unity with God the
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and with all who belong to God
as His children. Jesus changes the order of relationships and shows us that
true kinship is not just a matter of flesh and blood. God’s gracious gift to us
is His adoption of us as His sons and daughters. This gift enables us to
recognize all those who belong to Christ as our brothers and sisters. Our
adoption as sons and daughters of God transforms all our relationships and
requires a new order of loyalty to God and to His kingdom. Everyone who does
the will of the Father, that is to say, who obeys Him, is an adopted brother or
sister of Christ, and is like Jesus who fulfilled the will of His Father.
Life messages: 1) Let us be aware of our status
and responsibility: By Baptism we become the children of God, brothers and
sisters of Jesus and members of the Heavenly family of the Triune God. Hence,
we have the obligation to treat others with love and respect and to share our
love with them by corporal and spiritual works of mercy. 2) Let us also be
hearers as well as doers of the word of God as Mary was.
Fr. Tony (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
July 24 Wednesday; [Saint Sharbel Makhlūf, Priest]: The
context: Today’s Gospel passage gives us the parable of the sower, the
seeds sown, and the yield depending upon the type of soil. It is the first
parable of Jesus in the New Testament about the Kingdom of Heaven. It is also a
parable Jesus personally interprets for the Apostles. This parable was intended
as a warning to the hearers to be attentive, and to the apostles to be hopeful
receivers, living out Jesus’ teachings and ideas. The sower is God, while the
Church (with the parents in their homes), is the teacher. The seed sown is the
high-yielding word of God, which has a cutting edge like “a sharp
sword” (Is 49:2), “two-edged sword” (Heb 4:12), and a purifying
and strengthening power like “fire and hammer” (Jer 23:29).
Soil type and yield: The hardened soil on the footpath
represents people with minds closed because of laziness, pride, prejudice, or
fear. The soil on flat rock pieces represents emotional types of people who go
after novelties without sticking to anything and who are unwilling to “put down
roots” surrendering their wills to God. The soil filled with weeds represents
people addicted to evil habits and evil tendencies and those whose hearts are
filled with hatred, jealousy, and greed. They are interested only in acquiring
money by any means and in enjoying life in any way possible. The good and
fertile soil represents well-intentioned people with open minds and clean
hearts, earnest in hearing the word and zealous in putting it into practice.
Zacchaeus, the sinful woman, and the thief crucified on Jesus’ right side, St.
Augustine, St. Francis of Assisi, and St. Francis Xavier, among others, fall
into this category of the good soil.
Life message: Let us become the good soil and
produce hundred-fold yields by earnestly hearing, faithfully assimilating and
daily cultivating the word of God we have received, so that the Holy Spirit may
produce His fruits in our lives. (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
July 25 Thursday: Saint James, Apostle: The context: Today
we celebrate the feast of James the Greater, Apostle. James was the son of
Zebedee the fisherman and Salome, the sister/cousin of Jesus’ mother, and the
brother of John, the Evangelist and Apostle. James was one of Jesus’ inner
circle of three disciples who had the privilege of witnessing the Transfiguration, the
raising to life of the daughter of Jairus, and Jesus’ agony in Gethsemane. He
is in the first three of every list of the apostles in the four Gospels. Jesus
called James and John “boanerges,” or “sons of thunder,” probably
because of their volatile character and high ambitions: they once offered
to “call down fire from Heaven”— the power he had given them for
their mission journeys — on the Samaritan village which had refused Jesus
permission to cross through their village because he was going to Jerusalem.
Jesus refused the offer. Later, James was known as James the Greater to
distinguish him from James the Less (the son of Clopas), who
was leader of the Church in Jerusalem and wrote the Epistle that bears his
name. James the Greater was probably the first apostle martyred — by
Herod in 44 AD, in that Tetrarch’s attempt to please the Jews (Acts 12:1-3).
The Gospel episode: The incident described in today’s
Gospel shows us how ambitious, far-sighted, and power-hungry James and his
brother John were in their youth with their impulsive and hot-tempered Galilean
blood. They asked their mother to ask Jesus to make them the second and
third in command when Jesus established his Messianic Kingdom after ousting the
Romans. They must have been shocked when their request prompted Jesus to
make a third prediction of his passion and death, promising them a share in his
sufferings. Jesus told the apostles that it was only the spirit of
service which would make his disciples “great,” because he himself had come “not
to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” St.
James the Greater is the patron saint of Spain.
Life messages: 1) The leaders in
Jesus’ Church must be the servants of all as Mary was (“Behold the
handmaid of the Lord“). That is why Pope is called “the servant of the
servants of God” and the priesthood of our pastors is called “ministerial
priesthood.” 2) Our vocation as Christians is to serve others sacrificially,
with agápe love in all humility, without expecting anything in
return, and our spiritual leaders must be humble, loving, selfless, and
serviceable, just as Jesus was, for our Lord loved and served us all Fr.
Tony (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
July 26 Friday: Saints Joachim and Anne, Parents of
the Blessed Virgin Mary: The context: Today’s Gospel
passage gives us Jesus’ interpretation of the parable of the sower, seeds sown,
and the yield depending upon the type of soil. This parable was intended
as a warning to the hearers to be attentive, and to the apostles to be hopeful,
about Jesus’ preaching in the face of growing opposition to his teachings and
ideas. The sower is God Who sows His word through the Church, parents,
friends, and teachers. The seed sown is the high-yielding word of God
which is “a sharp sword” (Is 49:2), “two-edged sword” (Heb
4:12), and “fire and hammer” (Jer 23:29).
Soil-type and yield: The hardened soil on
the footpath represents people with minds closed because of laziness, pride,
prejudice, or fear. So, “the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown
in his heart.” The soil on flat rock pieces represents
emotional types of people who go after novelties without sticking to anything
and are unwilling to surrender their wills to God. “I will remove
the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh” (Ez
11:19). Jesus interprets this to mean a man “who hears the word
and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but
endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of
the word, immediately he falls away.” The soil filled
with weeds represents people addicted to evil habits and evil
tendencies and those whose hearts are filled with hatred, jealousy, or the
greed that makes them interested only in acquiring money by any means and in
enjoying life in any way possible. Jesus tells us “…this is
he who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the delight in riches
choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.” The good and
fertile soil represents well-intentioned people with open minds and
clean hearts, earnest in hearing the word and zealous in putting it into
practice. For Jesus, “….this is he who hears the word and
understands it; he indeed bears fruit, and yields, in one case a hundredfold,
in another sixty, and in another thirty.” Zacchaeus, the sinful woman,
the thief on Jesus’ right side, St. Augustine, St. Francis of Assisi, and St.
Francis Xavier, among others, fall into this category of the good soil.
Life message: Let us become the good soil
and produce hundred-fold yields by earnestly hearing, faithfully assimilating
and daily cultivating the word of God we have received, so that the Holy Spirit
may produce His fruits in our lives.
Fr. Tony (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
July 27 Saturday: The
context: Today’s readings give us the warning that we should not
be in a hurry to eliminate the “weeds” or so called “bad people” from the
parish or society or the family on the basis of unwarranted or hasty judgment,
because our compassionate God patiently waits for them to be converted into
good people. The parable of the wheat and the weeds: The
weeds among the wheat in the parable are a variety of tares known
as “bearded darnel.” They resemble wheat plants so closely that
it is impossible to distinguish the one from the other except when the heads of
fruits appear. By that time, their roots are so intertwined that the tares
cannot be weeded out without plucking the wheat out with them. At
the end of the harvest, tares and wheat must be separated by hand, through
examining the color difference between darnel and wheat grains. The darnel grains
must be removed, not only because they are not wheat, but because they
are slightly poisonous.
Why we should be tolerant and patient instead of treating “weeds” as lost cases: The parable tells us why we should not treat others as “weeds,” i.e. evil or wicked. 1) Each one of us is a combination of wheat and weeds; as the saying goes, “There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, that it ill behooves any of us to find fault with the rest of us”.[James Truslow Adams from website: www.brainyquotes. com] Since it is impossible for us to judge people as evil or good, we must learn to be kind to them relying on the power of God to convert them. 2) Many people who do evil are converted at a certain time in their lives because of the grace of God. Our God awaits repentant sinners, giving them the strength to acknowledge their weakness and come to Him for Mercy. 3) Since the good example and the fervent, ongoing prayers and penances of practicing Christians can influence and occasion the conversion of people who do evil, it is the duty and the joy of all Christians to live exemplary lives and to treat them with love, compassion, and the spirit of forgiveness. Hence, let us grow up as healthy wheat in God’s field, leaving the weeds for Jesus to take care of. 4) There will be a separation of weeds and wheat, good and bad fish (13:47-50), sheep and goats (Matthew 25:31-46). But this separation will take place at the end of the world, on God’s timetable not ours. Hence, let us leave the judgment to God. (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
