St. Maximillian Mary Kolbe, Priest and Martyr
Deuteronomy 10:12-22  +  Matthew 17:22-27
August 14, 2017

“‘Give that to them for me and for you.’”

Jesus sometimes worked grand spectacles through His miracles.  But as impressive as they are, spectacles were not the norm for Jesus.  Much more frequent is what, in the life of one of His saints—St. Thérèse the Little Flower—was called the “Little Way”. Continue reading →

The Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time [A]
I Kgs 19:9,11-13  +  Rom 9:1-5  +  Mt 14:22-33
August 13, 2017

“After the fire there was a tiny whispering sound.”

This Sunday’s First Reading is iconic in the Church’s spiritual tradition.  Its most obvious lesson appears in light of the fact that the All-Powerful Lord, Creator of the heavens and the earth, chooses to manifest Himself to Elijah through a tiny, whispering sound rather than by more dramatic means.  This lesson encourages us to be mindful of God’s presence amidst what is small, simple, and seemingly insignificant.

Two scriptural contexts frame this lesson, setting the stage for the Gospel passage.  Consider first the Lord’s self-revelation to Moses on the same mountain centuries earlier, when He entrusted the Ten Commandments to him (Exodus 19).  The Lord did manifest Himself on that occasion through dramatic means:  thunder and lightning, fire and a heavy cloud of smoke, and the violent trembling of the whole mountain.  The radically different ways in which the Lord revealed Himself to Moses and Elijah offer complementary views of the Lord’s power in all things, great and small.

However, that contrast also draws our attention to the similarity of Moses’ and Elijah’s responses.  Elijah hid his face in his cloak and went and stood at the entrance of the cave on Mount Horeb.  He recognized the tiny, whispering sound for what it was, and so adhered to the divine warning:  “my face you cannot see, for no man sees me and lives” (Ex 33:20).  Elijah’s awe-filled reverence for the Lord echoes that of Moses, who on the same mountain had been commanded by the Lord:  “Take care not to go up the mountain, or even to touch its base.  If anyone touches the mountain he must be put to death” (Ex 19:21).  Both Moses and Elijah show their reverence to the Lord Himself, not to the manner of His appearance. Continue reading →

Saturday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Deuteronomy 6:4-13  +  Matthew 17:14-20

“‘The Lord is our God, the Lord alone!’”

The beginning of today’s First Reading starts a prayer called the Shema.  To this day, devout Jews pray the Shema each morning and evening.  Some make these words the last they speak before falling asleep.  In the broader context of Jewish liturgy, the Shema consists of verses from both Deuteronomy and Numbers.  But reflect here on just the first two verses. Continue reading →

St. Clare, Virgin
Deuteronomy 4:32-40  +  Matthew 16:24-28
August 11, 2017

“‘What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?’”

Our souls need nourishment and healing before we spend our selves trying to solve the problems of our own lives and those of the world.  We must be willing to admit, first of all, that we are sinners, and that our sins seriously wound our souls.  Our souls need not only the nourishment of prayer, but the healing that comes from the forgiveness of our sins.  After all, it is in this regard that Jesus is our Messiah, our Savior.  God the Son became human not to save us from the Caesar, or from the IRS, or from our neighbors:  Jesus died to save us from the snares of the Devil.  God the Son became human not to take away our worries, financial debts, or arguments with others:  Jesus died to take away our sins. Continue reading →

St. Lawrence, Deacon and Martyr
2 Corinthians 9:6-10  +  John 12:24-26
August 10, 2017

“‘…whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.’”

In the year of Our Lord 258, Saint Lawrence offered the wealth of the Church to those who had nothing of their own.  Lawrence was the chief deacon—the arch-deacon—of the Diocese of Rome.  Part of the responsibility of a deacon is to proclaim the Word of God, to look after the material goods of the Church, and to care for the poor, and so as the chief deacon of a diocese as large as Rome, Lawrence held a great deal of responsibility. Continue reading →

Wednesday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Numbers 13:1-2,25—14:1,26-29,34-35  +  Matthew 15:21-28
August 9, 2017

“‘Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.’”

When the Israelites entered the Promised Land after the Exodus, they met up with the Canaanites, whom they considered to be wicked and godless, a race of people that they should exterminate.  This outlook persisted until the time of Jesus.  In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus explains that this outlook cannot be held by His followers. Continue reading →

St. Dominic, Priest
Numbers 12:1-13  +  Mt 14:22-36 or Mt 15:1-2,10-14
August 8, 2017

“Those who were in the boat did Him homage, saying, ‘Truly, you are the Son of God.’”

The Church bears a rich treasury of interpretation of Sacred Scripture.  By that I don’t simply mean that the Church has accumulated many different, though equally insightful, interpretations of Scripture from the writings of her many members (although that’s true).  The Church’s treasury of Scripture interpretation is based upon a four-fold view of the Holy Bible. Continue reading →

Monday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Numbers 11:4-15  +  Matthew 14:13-21

“…His heart was moved with pity for them….”

Being compassionate, Jesus was certainly concerned with the physical well-being of the people who had come to hear him preach.  Just how deep Christ’s compassion was is made obvious when we consider again something the first verse of this passage tells us.  Jesus is told about the hunger of the crowds right after He had heard of the death of John the Baptizer, and had withdrawn by boat to a deserted place by Himself.  If we were to take time to imagine this, we could very clearly see just how human Christ was, responding in grief and perhaps anger at the death of His own cousin.  He withdrew from others to be alone.  And yet, even at this point in His life, the needs of others pressed upon Him.  His response was that of God himself:  he turned away from Himself, and towards those in need. Continue reading →

The Transfiguration of the Lord [A]
Dn 7:9-10,13-14  +  2 Pt 1:16-19  +  Mt 17:1-9
August 6, 2017

“‘Do not tell the vision to anyone until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.’”

It’s rare that the vestments of the priest and chalice are not green on a Sunday during Ordinary Time.  But August 6^th is the date of the Transfiguration of the Lord on Mount Tabor.  This fourth of the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary is so important for understanding our faith in Jesus Christ that the 18^th Sunday in Ordinary Time will not be celebrated this year.

In today’s account of the Transfiguration, we have a miniature of the entire Gospel, and a miniature of the manner in which God has always made His Divine Revelation known.  God, like any loving parent, wants us to share in His love, but at the same time He wants us to enter into that love as freely as possible.  In other words, God wants us to come to Him of our own accord, because the more freely we come to Him, the more we grow in His love.

But as a loving parent, God knows we are often weak and need His help.  God gave us an intellect by which we could of our own power reason that God exists, that He loves us, and that He wants us to imitate that love.  God also gave us a free will by which to imitate Him.  Our human intellect and will are often very weak, however, and so God constantly gives us signs of His presence, in order to remind us of Who God is and how much He loves us. Continue reading →