For at least two reasons, today’s Gospel Reading may be used (erroneously) to criticize Catholic beliefs. The first is that Jesus seems to downplay the significance of His birth mother, Mary. The second is that Jesus refers to His “brothers”, which seems to contradict the Church’s teaching about Mary’s perpetual virginity. In replying to both concerns, we can not only help those with misunderstandings, but we can ourselves move closer to the heart of Jesus’ words.
First, is Jesus downplaying the significance of Mary in saying that “whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother”? On the contrary, Mary is the perfect example of what Jesus is talking about here. It’s true that Jesus doesn’t go out of His way on this occasion (at least, as recorded by the St. Matthew the Evangelist) to point to Mary as the perfect embodiment of doing the will of God the Father. There are several possible reasons why Jesus did not think it prudent on this occasion to highlight Mary’s human perfection, but none of these suggest that Mary is not the perfect human creature that all the Church’s Marian dogmas describe her as being.
Second, the word in today’s Gospel passage that is translated into English as “brothers” is the Greek word “adelphoi”. Apologists have noted that other New Testament uses of this word show that the word can have meanings other than the strict sense of “siblings”. Others have noted the logical fact that Jesus having brothers doesn’t mean that Mary had other children besides Jesus, since Jesus’ “brothers” may have been step-brothers from an earlier marriage of Joseph, who may have been a widower. Ultimately, however, such arguments can turn Jesus’ very intention in this Gospel passage on its head: Jesus is trying to get us to move away from worrying about His blood relations, so that you and I might be His brethren through the Church.
If one were to choose a saying of Our Lord from elsewhere in the Gospel to summarize today’s Gospel passage, one might choose: “Every one to whom much is given, of him will much be required” [Luke 12:48]. A more mundane way to express Jesus’ disapproval of the request for a sign would be to say that the scribes and Pharisees don’t know what they’re asking for. It’s dangerous to ask for a sign, because with the sign comes the responsibility to follow that sign. Signs command us to stop, or yield, or put a limit on our speed.
At the end of today’s passage, Jesus contrasts the scribes and Pharisees with “the men of Nineveh” and “the queen of the south”. This isn’t meant to flatter the scribes and Pharisees. The men of Nineveh and the queen of the south were not upstanding characters. Nonetheless, the men of Nineveh were given the sign of “the preaching of Jonah”, and they responded to the sign of the prophet by repenting. The queen of the south was given the sign of the “wisdom of Solomon”, and she responded by coming from “the ends of the earth to hear” him.
Jesus’ bottom line puts the scribes and Pharisees in their place. As bad as the men of Nineveh and the queen of the south were, they repented when given signs by Jonah and Solomon. Since the scribes and Pharisees will be given a far greater sign, by one who is far greater than Jonah and Solomon (not only a prophet and king, but the divine priest as well), they will be judged by a far higher standard. Should they not repent (as up to this point in the Gospel account they had not), the conclusion is that their culpability would be far greater. All of this reminds each of us, a Christian who has Jesus as our Way, our Truth, and our Life, how much responsibility we bear to order our life with Christ at its center.
The latter half of today’s Gospel passage is a quotation from the Old Testament. St. Matthew the Evangelist cites Isaiah 42:1-4, a passage which echoes God the Father’s declaration at the Baptism of Jesus. One way to reflect on these words—“my beloved in whom I delight….”—is to imagine God the Father addressing them to you. Of course, that is only possible if your life is lived in Christ. Understanding why God the Father might say these words to you demands reflecting on why the Father naturally says them to God the Son.
This quotation highlights a contrast between the Pharisees’ harsh opposition to Jesus and the delight God the Father takes in His servant and Son. One of the causes of the Pharisees’ opposition is Jesus serving both the Gentiles and the Jews. The first sentence of the quoted passage has God the Father speaking of Jesus (as the quote is applied by the evangelist) as His chosen servant. However, the last sentence points to the relevance of Jesus’ service to the Gentiles. It is the Father’s will that Jesus serve the Gentiles.
Of course, Jesus came not primarily to cure the sick, but to destroy the power of sin and death. Part of the power of sin is the division between the Jews and Gentiles. It is the power of the Spirit whom the Father “places upon” Jesus that can reconcile the races and nations of the earth.
The “something greater than the temple” of which Jesus speaks today is, of course, Jesus Himself. As the Old Testament priests served in the Temple, so the disciples of Jesus serve in His Presence. It is in serving Him, and especially in offering priestly sacrifice through Him, that all Christian works find their meaning and are rightly ordered.
Here the virtue of prudence shows its place. Prudence is sometimes called the “charioteer of the virtues”. A modern analogy would be to see prudence as the steering wheel of a car. Prudence is neither the engine (which could be correlated with divine charity) nor the gearshift (temperance) nor the GPS (hope). Nonetheless, as simple as the role of the steering wheel is, the whole vehicle depends essentially upon it. Likewise with prudence.
The most basic level of moral decision-making is to shun evil and to do good. Prudence is hardly needed at this level. But the upper echelons of morality depend greatly on prudence, where the moral agent faces many good choices, and is tasked with choosing not merely the good but the best. If we realize that Christ—that “somethinggreater”—is always with us, then His Presence will guide our prudent choices.
CCC 543-550: the Kingdom of God CCC 309-314: God’s goodness and the scandal of evil CCC 825, 827: weeds and seed of Gospel in everyone and in the Church CCC 1425-1429: need for ongoing conversion CCC 2630: prayer of petition voiced profoundly by the Holy Spirit
One day a sidewalk preacher proclaimed the Good News to passersby. Most kept walking. One fellow, however, listened to him preach for a few minutes. At a strategic moment, the preacher paused and then said, “Brother, why don’t you join us Sunday at my church?” The fellow scowled and growled, “Not a chance: your church is full of hypocrites.” The preacher replied, “Don’t worry yourself about that. We can always make room for one more!”
Weeds and wheat are everywhere. Jesus’ first parable in Sunday’s Gospel Reading can help you sort through the weeds and wheat. Like the grain of wheat, this parable can bear much fruit.
Saint Augustine of Hippo wrote one of his three greatest works—On the City ofGod—on this parable’s theme. St. Augustine shows how complex and messy the world can be as weeds and wheat grow together in the same field.
St. Augustine’s masterpiece is actually a contrast between “the city of God” and “the city of man”. This contrast is similar to the parable’s consideration of the wheat and the weeds. But it’s not that Heaven is the City of God while earth is the City of Man: that would be a contrast that condemns this world in which we live. Nor is the Church the City of God while the state is the City of Man: that would be a contrast that presents the Church as flawless.
In the 21st century, the Church lives in a precarious setting. Not only are foundational moral truths being attacked by Western society. The Church herself is at pains to preach the fullness of Christ’s moral teaching. This difficulty stems in part from her credibility being diminished by the scandalous actions of some of her leaders. Mindful of this two-fold attack—from without and from within—we can consider Jesus’ parable.
We have to start with a question like the one raised by St. Augustine’s masterpiece. Who exactly are the weeds and who are the wheat? At the end of the long form of Sunday’s Gospel Reading, Jesus explains the parable: “the good seed” are “the children of the kingdom”, while the “weeds are the children of the evil one”. But how are we practically to apply this explanation to our own day?
Perhaps another saying from our Lord could help us. “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye” [Luke 6:42]. In other words, in seeking to apply the parable of the weeds and the wheat to our experiences today, each of us ought first to apply the parable to his or her own soul. After we start with the real weeds in our own souls, we can move on to consider the weeds elsewhere: in one’s family, parish, country, world, and even the Church.
Short of the Blessed Virgin Mary, there is no disciple without weeds in his soul. In your case as in mine, then, the parable first of all describes the tension within the individual Christian’s spiritual life. You are a “child of the kingdom” by the grace of God, beginning on the day of your baptism. Yet you are also a “child of the evil one” by your sins: actions, thoughts, and words, done and left undone.
Between the day of your baptism and the day of your death, you are free to cultivate your spiritual life. You are free to break up the hard soil of your soul through acts of penance and humility. You are free to soak the soil with tears of repentance and the Blood of Christ.
Yet you must also be patient, like the parable’s householder, who is God our Father. For you are free also to sin in this life, allowing weeds to proliferate in your soul. God, in His paternal love, does not force anyone to reform his life.
Jesus’ first parable in Sunday’s Gospel passage lets us focus upon three of the times that God, in His providential and merciful love, judges the human person. The first is when we present ourselves for judgment in Confession, the second is at the hour of our death, and the third is at the Last Judgment.
In his loving judgment, God—if you will—sifts the dead similar to the parable’s description of sifting. This parable highlights the importance of human free will, and its consequences. In the end, however, even more important is God’s free will, by which He offers forgiveness, redemption, and sanctification.
The Parable of the Tares by Domenico Fetti (1589-1623)
Our Lady of Mount Carmel Zechariah 2:14-17 + Matthew 12:46-50
“Here are my mother and my brothers.”
The Blessed Virgin Mary has many feasts throughout the course of the year. Some honor events in her life: for example, her Immaculate Conception on December 8, her birth on September 8, her Assumption on August 15, and her Coronation on August 22.
Other feasts of Our Lady honor her under various titles that she holds. Many of these titles come from places throughout the world where she has appeared to the faithful: for example, Our Lady of Lourdes, Our Lady of Fatima, and Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Today’s feast is different. Today’s feast honors Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Mount Carmel is a mountain in northern Israel, on which, in the late 12th century, Christian hermits began to live. In time, these hermits formed a religious order known today as the “Carmelites”. The rule—which is to say, the order of life—of the Carmelites fosters devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
Each major religious order within the Church—for example, the Dominicans, the Franciscans, and the Benedictines—has its own unique approach to Christian spirituality. Each of these approaches holds to the essentials of Christian spirituality, but each differs in ways similar to how different children within a family develop different personalities and temperaments, even though they all have the same parents.
One might say that Carmelite spirituality is best understood by means of the greatest saints of the Carmelite order. Three Carmelite saints stand out: St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, and St. Thérèse the Little Flower. Both the writings of these saints as well as their biographies—that is, their living out the Carmelite understanding of the Gospel—helps us understand Carmelite spirituality. On our parish website I posted a playlist of videos made by Carmelite friars about Carmelite spirituality. I hope that you’ll watch one of more of these. I hope that our parish family will grow in devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
The Hebrew word “Carmel” literally means “garden of God”. Carmelite spirituality helps us cultivate our soul the way that a gardener cultivates the earth. Rain comes down from Heaven to allow seeds to blossom. Likewise, God’s grace from Heaven nurtures the soul, and the Christian in turn cultivates the life of Christ within the Christian soul.
St. John Paul II, in a 2001 letter to the Carmelite family wrote some words for you to reflect upon throughout this blessed feast day:
“Contemplation of the Virgin presents her to us as a loving Mother who sees her Son growing up in Nazareth, follows him on the roads of Palestine, helps him at the wedding at Cana and, at the foot of the Cross, becomes the Mother associated with his offering and given to all people when Jesus himself entrusts her to his beloved disciple. As Mother of the Church, the Blessed Virgin is one with the disciples in ‘constant prayer’; as the new Woman who anticipates in herself what will one day come to pass for us all in the full enjoyment of Trinitarian life, she is taken up into heaven from where she spreads the protective mantle of her mercy over her children on their pilgrimage to the holy mountain of glory” [St. John Paul II, Message to the Carmelite Family, March 25, 2001; 3.]
Click HERE for a PDF copy of the Novena to Our Lady of Mount Carmel and the Litany of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
“… no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.”
Today’s Gospel passage speaks to the power of divine revelation. Jesus speaks directly to His Father, something rare in the four Gospel accounts. Along with this exclamation, Jesus says, “no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.”
But that’s not the only reference to divine revelation. In praising the Father, God the Son exclaims to Him that the reason for the Son’s praise is that “although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike.”
God the Son rejoices because His Father has revealed hidden things to the “childlike”. Here we have a complement to Jesus’ admonition that unless one becomes like a little child, he will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven. This entrance must be connected to those hidden things that escape the vision of the wise and the learned. The child has a capacity to see things as God wants them to be seen, and that includes the child who is God the Son, in all His divine humility.
“‘Will you be exalted to heaven? You will go down to the nether world.’”
“Teddy Bear Jesus” remains one of the more persistent myths within lands that are culturally Catholic (as distinguished from those that are Catholic by personal conviction, sweat, and blood). This mythic figure became flesh and dwelt among us to tell us how wonderful we are, and that we just need to have more self-esteem. As popular as this myth is within so much of the modern Western world, it has no basis in the New Testament. Today’s Gospel passage offers a helpful antidote.
In your hand missal, the two sentences that Jesus addresses to Capernaum may be printed in italics, drawing attention to the fact that they are a quotation from the Old Testament. Specifically, Jesus here is quoting a very “un-teddy-bear-like” passage from the fourteenth chapter of the Prophet Isaiah.
What has prompted Jesus in today’s Gospel passage to thunder tides of woe against the cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum? Here is the more specific point for our reflection today: failure to repent.
Jesus has been preaching repentance because it’s a prerequisite for accepting the good news of the Gospel. No Christian should think that he doesn’t need to repent because he’s already been baptized, accepted the Gospel, and been saved. The gift of salvation first given in the Sacrament of Baptism certainly can be lost. But most importantly, we should remember that the motive for Jesus’ reproaches is the same as the motive for His carrying the Cross: love for each of us.
“Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
There is a big difference between a bribe and a gift. A bribe is something we give to another while demanding something in return. A gift is an expression of love with no strings attached. A gift-giver expects nothing in return, but merely gives the gift as a sign of love that already exists between the two.
This week the First Reading comes from the book of the prophet Isaiah. A prophet at roughly the same time as Hosea, whose prophecies we heard last week, Isaiah preached to the people of Judah, the southern half of the Kingdom. Isaiah was concerned with the sort of sacrifices that the people were offering to God. They viewed God as someone with a lot of power whom they could bribe.
The people of Judah had been influenced in this regard by their pagan neighbors. Jesus in the Gospel Reading, however, warns us that no one else should stand between ourselves and God. This seems very self-evident, but can in fact demand a lot of us as Catholics. Not even members of our family may be chosen above God.
This is a hard saying. It would seem that Jesus expects us to pit ourselves against our family in order to choose Him. But Jesus didn’t come to earth wanting to divide people, any more than He wanted to die on the cross for the sake of dying. He knew, though, that there are some who refuse to choose God in their lives, and that these people can only find peace in their own hearts when they come to God. Rather than look at Jesus’ words as pitting us against others, we realize that Jesus is telling us that if we want to draw others closer to God, we first of all have to firmly establish our own relationship with God. Out of that relationship with God, we can work at drawing others closer to God again.
Reflections on the Sacred Liturgy 