Tuesday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time
Matthew 5:43-48

“… pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father ….”

Today’s Gospel passage is from the first third of the “Sermon on the Mount”.  This “inaugural address” is recorded in full only in Matthew, in Chapters 5-7.  Today’s Gospel passage forms part of a series in Chapter 5 of five contrasts between the commands of the Law and Jesus’ commands to love.  Each contrast uses a variation of the form, “You have heard it said… but I say to you.”

The contrast presented in today’s Gospel passage is the last of these five contrasts.  You could argue that Jesus saved the hardest for last!  How are we to love our enemies?  The simple answer is:  “As Jesus did on Calvary.”

We might begin by asking how our enemies got to be our enemies in the first place.  We ought to be mindful that we sinners gain enemies because of our sins.  So one way to shorten the list of our enemies is to sin less.

Jesus, of course, was sinless, but still had plenty of enemies.  In fact, Jesus had enemies for just the opposite reason that sinners do:  because of His unwillingness to compromise with evil.  To whatever extent we may, through God’s grace, bear holiness in our own lives, we will win enemies for this reason also.  Yet we must love all of our enemies unto the Cross.

Monday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time
Matthew 5:38-42

“Give to the one who asks of you, and do not turn your back ….”

As we continue to hear Our Lord preach the Sermon on the Mount, it is striking how practical and down to earth His words are.  He does not speak fluff:  the sort of words that we hear from so many teachers of the spiritual life.  He gives very practical advice about how to treat others.  In doing so, Our Lord is drawing us into a deeper relationship with the Father.

Our Lord slowly tries to teach us how intimately related are the commands to love God and neighbor.  It is in Christ Jesus that the divine Word of God is made flesh.  It is in Christ’s Sacrifice on the Cross—the sacrifice of the altar—that we share sacramentally in Christ’s life, in order that we might share morally in His life by loving both God and neighbor fully.

However, we must be honest with ourselves, and be mindful that we are hardly advancing in the spiritual life if repentance is the largest part of our prayer.  Our penance merely disposes us to be God’s servants rather than His rivals.  When we consider the words of Christ in today’s Gospel passage, we see how completely we are to give of ourselves to others.

If our own spiritual houses are in order, how devoted are we to helping others build theirs?  How willing are we to be patient with others, with those who cannot be patient in their own prayer?  How will others learn the need for patience if not by seeing our example?  How willing are we to accept insults in silence and pray for the one who insults?  How will others learn the need for forbearance if not by seeing our example?  As we share in the sacrifice of the altar, may Almighty God help us see in our daily lives who it is in most need of a Christian witness.  Then, may Almighty God strengthen us through the Body and Blood of Christ to be the one to offer that witness.

St. Barnabas, Apostle
Acts 11:21-26;13:1-3  +  Matthew 5:33-37
June 11, 2022

“Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes’, and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’”

Saturday is the day of the week dedicated to Our Blessed Mother Mary.  We ought, each Saturday morning or afternoon, spend time in devotion to her.  One way to foster such devotion is to reflect on the Scriptures from that morning’s Mass in light of Mary’s life and vocation.

In today’s Gospel passage Jesus continues His Sermon on the Mount.  We could listen to the entire sermon picturing Our Lady, reflecting upon how she fulfills in her life and vocation everything Jesus is saying.

By way of example, consider Jesus’ fulfillment of this command of the Law:  “Do not take a false oath, but make good to the Lord all that you vow.”  Immediately there comes to mind the scene of the Annunciation, and the words that Our Blessed Mother spoke:  “I am the maidservant of the Lord.  Let it be done unto me according to your Word.”

As Jesus offers His teaching in today’s Gospel passage about how disciples need to be faithful to their word, we can see in Our Lady the fulfillment of the Law.  We see in Mary that being faithful to one’s word means being faithful to the Word who became Flesh for us, and who offers us that Gift in the Sacrifice of the Mass.

St. Barnabas Healing the Sick (click HERE)

Friday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time
Matthew 5:27-32

“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife must give her a bill of divorce.’”

Jesus continues in today’s Gospel passage to give examples of the Law being fulfilled.  Today’s two examples are about adultery and divorce.  While both examples concern human sexuality, Jesus’ teachings about these two grave sins take different approaches.

Regarding adultery, in order to show the fulfillment of God’s Law Jesus takes us within the human person.  Jesus teaches us that not only outward actions can condemn.  So also can inner actions of the mind and heart.

Regarding divorce, Jesus reverses Moses’ allowance of this practice.  Not only does Jesus not permit divorce.  He also clarifies that when a divorced person enters another relationship, adultery is the result.

Undoubtedly, both of Jesus’ examples in today’s Gospel passage seem to make following Jesus more difficult than following the letter of the Law.  In our own day, there are some who find the Church’s consistent teaching that the divorced and remarried may not receive Holy Communion too difficult.  Yet in the midst of all such perceived difficulties, Jesus sets us on the right road to healing from our sins and the many negative effects of our sins.  For our part, we need to turn around and begin travelling in the right direction.

The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity [C]
Proverbs 8:22-31  +  Romans 5:1-5  +  John 16:12-15

“I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.”

The Church celebrates today the central mystery of our Christian Faith.  The life of the Most Holy Trinity is the mystery from which all the other mysteries of our Catholic Faith flow.  Yet the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is difficult to wrap our heads around.

The Church, however, has learned over the centuries a simple means by which to explore this awesome mystery.  The Church reflects upon who God is by looking at what God has chosen to do.  This principle has a very technical name:  “The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far From The Tree”.

This principle is readily seen in families.  You have a parent, and you have a child, and about the child you say, “That apple didn’t fall far from the tree”.  When you say that, everyone knows what you mean.  The child resembles his parent.

We hear a divine example of the “apple principle” in today’s First Reading from the Old Testament Book of Proverbs.  In this passage is a discourse given by “the wisdom of God”.  In the second half of the discourse, we hear two intriguing statements.  Wisdom not only says, “When the Lord established the heavens I was there,” but also, “then was I beside Him as His craftsman… and I found delight in the human race.”

Wisdom is the Lord’s “craftsman”, who “found delight in the human race.”  Everything God created in the universe was created with wisdom—that is, was created in an ordered way—because God Himself is All-Wise, and His apples don’t fall far from the tree.

Nonetheless, out of all of God’s creation, it’s “in the human race” that wisdom takes particular delight.  In the beginning—in the Book of Genesis—we hear the Lord say, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” [Genesis 1:26].  In other words, the apple that is the human race didn’t fall far from the tree, and in fact is the apple of God’s eye [see Psalm 17:8].

In today’s Responsorial Psalm the psalmist cries out in wonder to God, asking, “When I behold Your heavens, the work of Your fingers… What is man that You should be mindful of him… ?  [Yet] You have made him little less than the angels…  You have given him rule over the works of your hands”.  In other words, because God created mankind in His Image and likeness, God gave mankind a share in His “rule over the works of [God’s] hands”.  Or as we might rather put it today, God entrusted to man the stewardship of the works of God’s hands.

All this, of course, begs two questions that lead us into the heart of today’s feast:  #1: what is the Image and likeness of God; and #2: what is God’s work?  The answer to both is simple, because the answer to both is the same:  to love.  The image and likeness of God is love, and God’s work is the work of love.

“God is love” [1 John 4:8].  Because God is love through and through—because God is 100% love—everything that God does is loving.  There’s no divorce between who God is and what He does.  The divine Image is to be love, and so we also are called always to do what is loving in every circumstance.

To help us in this regard, Holy Mother Church teaches us by means of the Sacred Liturgy.  We could say that last Sunday, this Sunday, and next Sunday form a triptych:  a three-paneled icon that focuses our devotion.  Pentecost, Trinity Sunday, and Corpus Christi display before us the Holy Spirit within the Church, the Father Who is the Source of the Trinity, and the Blessed Sacrament of Our Savior’s Real Presence.

Prepare for next Sunday’s feast of Corpus Christi with an eye to growing in your capacity to love:  to be love through your daily choices.  The Sacrifice of Christ on Calvary, made present sacramentally through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, shows us sinners our clearest example of what it means to “be love” through a human will and heart.  Rather than love only those who are lovable, and only when circumstances make it easy to do so, Christ calls and strengthens us through the Eucharist to live and love from within His sacrificial love, and so enter more deeply into the Life of the Trinity.

Thursday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time [II]
I Kings 18:41-46  +  Matthew 5:20-26
June 9, 2022

“But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment ….”

In yesterday’s Gospel passage, Our Lord stated that He had come not to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it.  Beginning today, in the Gospel at weekday Mass we hear examples of Jesus fulfilling the Law.

Jesus uses a phrase today that He repeats several times throughout the fifth chapter of Matthew.  The phrase “You have heard that it was said…” signals that Jesus wants to present a contrast to us.  First, Jesus presents a basic teaching that comes from the Jewish Law:  for example, in today’s Gospel passage, “You have heard that it was said… ‘You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment.’”

Then, Jesus explains how such a teaching of the Law is to be fulfilled.  He declares today:  “But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment….”  The rest of today’s Gospel passage is Jesus’ unpacking of His new teaching, which again, is the fulfillment of an ancient teaching from the Law.

Today, then, we strive to reflect on Jesus’ specific example of anger.  What is the means by which Jesus teaches His disciples to enter into the fulfillment of this teaching?  The means is reconciliation.  Jesus, in the examples He cites, gives two commands:  “go first and be reconciled with your brother”, and “Settle with your opponent quickly while on the way to court with him.”  Meditate, then, on reconciliation with your neighbor as a form of love of neighbor, and thus as a means to the love of God.

Wednesday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time [II]
I Kings 18:20-39  +  Matthew 5:17-19
June 8, 2022

“I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”

This week we’ve begun to hear Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, from the fifth chapter of St. Matthew’s Gospel account.  After the Beatitudes (in Monday’s Gospel) and the similes of the disciples as salt and light (in yesterday’s Gospel), Jesus today sets the framework for the teachings He’s about to offer the disciples.  We could sum up this framework with these words:  “I have come not to abolish [the Law] but to fulfill.” 

Having said that, in the rest of today’s Gospel passage He strictly directs His disciples to integrity in their lives.  There must be integrity between, as we would put it today, what they practice and what they preach.  With this demand Jesus issues a warning and promise:  “whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do so will be called least in the Kingdom of heaven”, while “whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.”

Every Christian is, by virtue of baptism, called to be a teacher.  We remember St. Francis’ admonition to “preach always, and if necessary, use words.”  As each of us makes our nightly examination of conscience, we look for the integrity Jesus has asked of us, in what we’ve taught others by our actions and words.

Tuesday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time [II]
I Kings 17:7-16  +  Matthew 5:13-16
June 7, 2022

“But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned?”

Yesterday at weekday Mass we began hearing from the Sermon on the Mount, which is found in the fifth through seventh chapters of the Gospel account of Saint Matthew (5:3—7:27).  In today’s passage from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls His disciples “the salt of the earth” and “the light of the world”.  Either of these could serve you as the basis for a long period of meditation.  But consider just one aspect of what Jesus sets before you today.

Salt has long been used as a preservative of food.  So one might be tempted to consider Jesus’ image of “the salt of the earth” as meaning that Christians are called to preserve life.  In other words, Christians are called to preserve what we already have.  But the following words of Jesus suggest something further.

Jesus speaks of salt in terms of its taste, as a seasoning.  As most of us know, salt isn’t meant to be tasted by itself.  Most of us would be repulsed by even the idea of putting a spoonful of salt in our mouths.  But it’s common to sprinkle salt liberally on one’s food in order to bring out the taste within the food.

Here we can reflect on Jesus’ image in terms of our own discipleship.  If Jesus’ disciples are “the salt of the earth”, Jesus is paying a compliment to “the earth”.  There is value—taste—in the world because it was created by God.  Even though the world that we live in is full of sin, our role as disciples involves bringing out what is good in God’s creation—cultivating that good—so that it might be elevated by God’s supernatural grace.

The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church
Genesis 3:9-15,20 [or Acts 1:12-14]  +  John 19:25-34

And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.

On the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes in 2018, Robert Cardinal Sarah—the prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments—announced the institution of a new obligatory memorial for the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church.  This memorial is to be celebrated every year on Pentecost Monday, which is to say, the day following Pentecost Sunday.  In the Extraordinary Form of Holy Mass, this is the second day of the Octave of Pentecost.

In his decree inscribing this new memorial into the General Roman Calendar, Cardinal Sarah noted the following:

“The joyous veneration given to the Mother of God by the contemporary Church, in light of reflection on the mystery of Christ and on His nature, cannot ignore the figure of a woman (cf. Gal 4:4), the Virgin Mary, who is both the Mother of Christ and Mother of the Church.”

“Indeed, the Mother standing beneath the cross (cf. Jn 19:25), accepted her Son’s testament of love and welcomed all people in the person of the beloved disciple as sons and daughters to be reborn unto life eternal. She thus became the tender Mother of the Church which Christ begot on the cross handing on the Spirit. Christ, in turn, in the beloved disciple, chose all disciples as ministers of his love towards his Mother, entrusting her to them so that they might welcome her with filial affection.”

“This celebration will help us to remember that growth in the Christian life must be anchored to the Mystery of the Cross, to the oblation of Christ in the Eucharistic Banquet and to the Mother of the Redeemer and Mother of the Redeemed, the Virgin who makes her offering to God.”