Monday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time [I]
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18  +  Luke 4:16-30

…the dead in Christ will rise first.

Today’s First Reading is often proclaimed at funerals.  It’s full of teaching from St. Paul about death and the afterlife.  Unfortunately, some of these teachings has been distorted, and demand clarity from the wisdom of holy doctors of the Faith, and the Tradition and Magisterium of the Church. Continue reading →

The Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time [A]
Jer 20:7-9  +  Rom 12:1-2  +  Mt 16:21-27
September 3, 2017

You duped me, O Lord, and I let myself be duped; you were too strong for me, and you triumphed.

The human person must stand solidly against death.  This is the truth that Peter denies in the Gospel passage we hear this Sunday.  This is the truth that the prophet Jeremiah wanted to avoid for so long.

Jeremiah had begun his role as a prophet during easy times, during the reign of a king who stood up for goodness, and who inspired others to follow him in the way of goodness.  Only years later, when a corrupt man became the king of Judah, did Jeremiah begin to realize the bigger picture of God calling him to be a prophet.  It was for the sake of a decaying society that God had called him.  He was to speak out against the evil which so many people had made their own.  Yet he was initially unwilling.  Jeremiah could only cry, “You duped me, Lord, and I let myself be duped.”  But we can be sure that God saw things differently.

Jeremiah’s frustration was similar to the frustration of Peter in the Gospel.  We heard last weekend how, after Peter confessed his faith in Jesus as the Messiah, Jesus handed over to him the keys to the kingdom of heaven.  It’s easy to see how confusing Jesus’ next words to Peter must have seemed.  Jesus seemed to have given him the power to make all things right with the world.  But then Jesus tells Peter that he, the Messiah, would have to suffer at the hands of world leaders.  What kind of power was this that Peter had been given?  Not much, apparently.  We can be sure, though, that Jesus saw things a little differently. Continue reading →

Saturday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time [I]
1 Thessalonians 4:9-11  +  Matthew 25:14-30

“A man going on a journey called in his servants and entrusted his possessions to them.”

It’s helpful to remember that the parables proclaimed at Holy Mass yesterday and today come from Chapter 25 of Matthew.  This is the final chapter before Matthew’s account of the Last Supper and the events that follow.  The section from which these parables come is sometimes called “the Olivet discourse”, in which Jesus’ attention is fixed on the judgment of Jerusalem. Continue reading →