Wednesday of the 15th Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Exodus 3:1-6, 9-12  +  Matthew 11:25-27
July 17, 2019

   “Come no nearer!  Remove the sandals from your feet….”   

Both the First Reading and the Gospel Reading today proclaim the power of divine revelation.  Jesus in today’s Gospel Reading makes an exclamation to His Father, something rare in the four Gospel accounts.  During this exclamation, Jesus says, “no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.”

Reflect on Jesus’ exclamation in light of today’s First Reading.  This week we’re hearing some of the most profound readings of the Old Testament.  The origin of Moses’ vocation has been a treasure-trove for saints who’ve wanted to explore the riches of the Christian Faith.  Today’s passage from Moses’ “vocation story” proclaims the “what and how” of God revealing Moses’ vocation.  What do Jesus’ words today have to do with Moses’ “vocation story”?

In today’s passage from Exodus, God the Son wishes to reveal His Father.  That might seem an odd claim.  Nowhere does the God who speaks in the third chapter of Exodus say that He is either God the Father or God the Son.  There is, of course, no notion of “God the Son” in the Old Testament.

Nonetheless, we can begin today to consider how God the Son wishes to reveal the Father to Moses by considering that God is calling Moses—through Moses’ vocation to liberate Israel—to be His son.  In this, Moses’ fidelity or infidelity to his vocation can be measured by the degree to which Moses’ thoughts, words and actions correspond to those of Jesus Christ in His vocation.  Reflect on this in the coming days as we continue to hear from Exodus at weekday Mass.