Wednesday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time
Matthew 7:15-20

“So by their fruits you will know them.”

Today and tomorrow, Jesus brings to an end the Sermon on the Mount we’ve been hearing at weekday Mass.  In today’s Gospel Reading, He uses two images.

First, he discusses false prophets who wear the sheepskin garments of prophets, but inside are far from God, and who teach something opposed to God. False prophets can, like the Scribes and the Pharisees, make following God too much about external works, because of course, the Spirit who dwells within and animates authentic works is far from them.

By contrast, Jesus says that we need to focus upon a good tree bearing good fruit.  This image illustrates the fullness of following God.  Each of us becomes a good tree by uniting ourselves to Christ as branches to the Vine.  He alludes to this in the Alleluia Verse taken from his discourse on the Vine and the Branches:  if we remain in Him and He in us we will bear good fruit. For each of us to bear fruit in Christ, we need to trust in God’s word. 

We need to believe in the fulfillment of each of the beatitudes, that our poverty in spirit, meekness, purity of heart, peacemaking, and so on, will lead us to what Jesus promises.  We need to have enough charity within our souls to love our enemies, pray for persecutors, do good to those who do evil, to turn the other cheek, give our cloak and walk the extra mile.  We need to take out the plank from our eyes.  We need to serve God rather than mammon and store up treasure in heaven, knowing that God will provide for us as He does the lilies and sparrows.  We need—in short—to abide in Christ, and to allow Him to abide within us.

Tuesday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time
Matthew 7:6,12-14

“Do to others whatever you would have them do to you. This is the Law and the Prophets.”

Coming to the end of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, today we hear Him offer several brief proverbs.  It would be difficult to find a common theme among all of them.  Yet we could take any one of them and, brief as it is, commit it to memory and recite it throughout this day for reflection.

Of these proverbs, the second is best known.  The “Golden Rule” is taught to children early in life.  Of course it demands an ability to step back from a situation and reflect upon it from outside.  This is difficult if someone is used to acting impulsively, without reflection.

Perhaps today, though, we could reflect on the Golden Rule in a different light. 

Reflect on the Golden Rule as Jesus lived it; or rather, as He died by it.  Reflect on the Golden Rule in the light of the crucifix.  What Jesus did for you on the Cross is what Jesus would have you do for His sake.  This is what He calls you to, in fact, as a member of His Church:  “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me” [Matthew 16:24].

Monday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time
Matthew 7:1-5

“The measure with which you measure will be used to measure you.”

The Lord calls us, by means of the Ten Commandments, to serve both God and neighbor.  The first three command us to love God completely, with our whole self.  Then the last seven command us to serve our neighbor from our love for God, as we love our self.

In today’s Gospel passage, we hear Jesus commanding us to love our neighbor in a specific way:  that is, by forgiving our neighbor. But Jesus explains this command in an interesting way.  Regarding to what extent—or even whether—we forgive any individual neighbor of ours, Jesus declares:  “The measure with which you measure will be used to measure you.”

We should be mindful that our sins, as infinite offenses against Almighty God, will not permit us finally to enter into His Presence unless we are shown infinite mercy by Almighty God.  So it is that we ourselves, strengthened by God’s own infinite forgiveness, must forgive others if we hope to live in God’s sight.

In contrast to human sins against God’s infinite goodness, the sins of one human person against another are finite offenses, even if gravely serious. When you are challenged to forgive someone who has sinned against you, recall—in addition to Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel passage—the petition that Jesus taught us to pray in the Our Father: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

Saturday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time
Matthew 6:24-34

“You cannot serve God and mammon.”

These famous words from Jesus mark a clear divide between Heaven and earth, and between the spiritual and the material.  But to consider these words of Jesus seriously, we need first to address an underlying assumption.

The culture that surrounds modern persons in the West presumes that each person is his or her own boss.  Modern Western culture teaches children from an early age that they are not meant to serve anyone or anything.  In fact, both God and mammon serve me and my needs!

However, while the modern person may believe such ideas, so strongly reinforced as they are by modern culture, Jesus is offering a caution.  In fact, most of today’s Gospel passage is about the dangers of believing that mammon can serve oneself.

What begins in one’s mind as the idea of mammon serving oneself eventually ends in the servitude of the self to mammon.  The slave that mammon is thought to be becomes the master of the self.  This is the crippling servitude that Jesus is diagnosing, so to speak, through the examples He offers in this passage.

That we might live authentically, Jesus invites us to enter into a relationship with God as our Lord and Master.  This relationship of serving God is radically different than that in which one ends up serving mammon.  In the relationship that Jesus invites us to, through serving God, we become His “friends” [see John 15:15] and His “beloved children” [Ephesians 5:1].

Friday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time
Matthew 6:19-23

“… where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.”

Today’s Gospel passage from the Sermon on the Mount seems to have two distinct sections.  Nevertheless, a connection suggests itself.  The first section concerns wealth of different types.  The second concerns the human eye and light.  What does human vision have to do with human wealth?

In the first part of today’s Gospel passage we hear one of the more famous of Jesus’ sayings:  “where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.”  The truth of this saying is so plain that it would surely be recognized by persons of all types of religious faith (or even by those with little or no faith).  It’s not necessarily a religious saying.  It’s a saying about human nature.  Of course, as the medieval principle puts it, “grace builds upon nature.”  God wishes for our sake that He be our treasure, but we are free to choose something merely human to serve as our treasure (or rather, as it turns out, for us to serve).

Whatever we choose as the treasure of our life, there will our heart gravitate.  There will we spend the energies of our heart, mind and soul.  But how does one go about choosing one’s treasure?  This is where the second half of today’s Gospel passage comes into play.

How does someone choose his treasure?  Is this process of choosing purely random and spontaneous?  Or does it come about by virtue of where we train the gaze of our soul?  Part of Christian realism is believing that knowledge comes through the human senses.  What we choose to look at has a profound influence on whether we choose something earthly as the treasure we will serve, or whether we choose God’s self-sacrifice of Jesus in the Eucharist as our treasure.  Spend at least five minutes today, then, looking at a crucifix and reflecting upon Jesus’ self-gift as given specifically for you.

The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ [C]
Genesis 14:18-20  +  1 Corinthians 11:23-26  +  Sequence  +  Luke 9:11-17

When the sacrament is broken, /
Doubt not, but believe ’tis spoken, /  
That each sever’d outward token /  
doth the very whole contain.

references to the Catechism of the Catholic Church cited for this Solemnity by the Vatican’s Homiletic Directory:

CCC 790, 1003, 1322-1419: the Holy Eucharist
CCC 805, 950, 2181-2182, 2637, 2845: the Eucharist and the communion of believers
CCC 1212, 1275, 1436, 2837: the Eucharist as spiritual food

On this solemnity, Eucharistic processions and Holy Hours will take place.  Furthermore, we ought to take time to reflect upon truths contained within the Most August Sacrament and Sacrifice of the Eucharist.

Such reflection might start by pondering why exactly we attend Holy Mass each Sunday.  If you were to survey a hundred Catholics and ask them why they have to go to Mass on Sundays, the most common answer might be either, “Because I’ll go to hell if I miss Mass” or “Because going to Mass is how we get to Heaven”.  While there’s truth in both of those answers, they need to be placed in a broader context.  Saint Paul puts us on the right track at the end of today’s Second Reading.  He explains to the Corinthians what it is that they’re doing when the Eucharist is celebrated:  “you proclaim the death of the Lord until He comes.”

St. Paul doesn’t say that celebrating the Eucharist is a proclamation of the power that Jesus showed in the miracle of the loaves and fishes.  He declares that the Eucharist is a proclamation of death:  of the death of God in the Flesh.

When you participate in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, “you proclaim the death of the Lord until He comes.”  At Holy Mass, when the Eucharistic Prayer is offered, you are transported mystically and sacramentally to the spot of Calvary, on the day of Good Friday some 2000 years ago.

But why does the Mass have such a focus?  Why is the Eucharist a proclamation of Jesus’ death?  For one thing, it’s because the death of Jesus is the price of our salvation.  Proclaiming the death of Jesus can help us to grow morally:  in our gratitude to God, and so also in our expressions of charity.  Of course, our human gratitude and charitable works pale in comparison to the sacramental grace that we may receive through a devout and worthy reception of Holy Communion.

Nonetheless, we might ask why God chose the death of Jesus as the particular means of our salvation and the vessel of His grace.  After all, God is All-Powerful.  God can accomplish whatever He wills in whatever manner He wills.  God created with nothing but His own Word when He said, “‘Let there be light’, and there was light” [Genesis 1:3].  Likewise, He could have re-created mankind in the same way.  God could simply have said, “Let there be forgiveness for mankind,” and mankind would have been forgiven.

On the other hand, there is a certain fittingness or aptness to God redeeming mankind through the death of God the Son.  St. Paul points out to the Romans that “just as through the disobedience of one man the many were made sinners, so through the obedience of one man the many will be made righteous” [Romans 5:19].  God is, if you will, into fittingness and aptness, so it’s no surprise that God would choose to redeem mankind by the death of God made Flesh, rather than by a spoken “Fiat”.

But the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist reveals yet another reason why God chose the death of Jesus as the means of man’s redemption.  This reason is the most loving reason possible, though at first glance it might not appear so.

By way of contrast, imagine that God set the price of man’s salvation at ten billion galaxies.  Imagine that God chose to redeem mankind from sin and death by destroying ten billion galaxies elsewhere in the universe, instead of by His divine Son’s death.  Where would that leave you?  It would leave you free.  It would leave you redeemed.  But it would not leave you with the ability to imitate our merciful God.  Can you offer ten billion galaxies to God?  You cannot, because such an action is beyond the capacity of a human being.

But every human being can die, and in many different ways.

Death is our means of entrance into the saving mysteries of Christ.  What could be simpler?  This is one important reason why, when the Eucharist is celebrated, “you proclaim the death of the Lord until He comes.”  This is why Jesus, at His Last Supper, willed to institute the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as the way of being present at Calvary.

The Christian who devoutly attends Holy Mass offers his human life in sacrifice to God, and joins this personal sacrifice to the sacrifice of Jesus offered by the priest at the altar.  While the Mass is offered this Christian says, “Lord, accept my life.  Help me to die to my self as Jesus did on Calvary.  Let my death to self prepare a place within me, so that by receiving Jesus in Holy Communion, His life might take the place of my life.  Help to receive Jesus in order to leave this church and go out into the world to live a life of self-sacrifice in my home, my workplace, and my community.”

Thursday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time
Matthew 6:7-15

“Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name.”

“Familiarity breeds contempt.”  You’ve heard that saying before.  If that saying is absolutely true, then the fact that Christians pray the Our Father so often suggests that we ought to be cautious regarding this prayer which is the only one that Our Lord taught to His followers.

The danger, however, is not in the content of the prayer, but in how we pray it.  The danger is not recognizing the Our Father for what it truly is.  The Our Father is like a jewel, but with an infinite number of facets.  We can turn it in any direction, and the light of faith shines through it to reveal to us new depths within the words of this prayer.

Put another way, if we pray the Our Father often, yet find that it does not move us, then the problem is the person praying, not the prayer prayed.  So to focus on this gift that Jesus gave to us during the Sermon on the Mount, consider just one point that this prayer ought to bring to our minds each time that we recite it. 

Today’s Gospel passage does not conclude with the last line of the Our Father.  Instead, Jesus follows up the Our Father by making a point.  He declares:  “If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you.  But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.”

Out of all the themes of the Christian life that the Our Father touches upon, why is forgiveness the topic that Jesus speaks to immediately after gifting this prayer to His disciples?  Certainly there are loftier topics within the prayer than that of forgiveness?

The answer is that just as humility is the first virtue of the Christian life, although not the most important, so forgiveness is the first “business” of the Christian, if you will.  Sin—both our own and that of those who have sinned against us—is the debris that blocks our path forward.  Dealing with sin is like clearing the brush from a path that leads to treasure.  The most important virtue of the Christian life is love, but without humility, our hearts cannot accept God’s gift of love.  Likewise, until we forgive others as the Father has already forgiven them, we cannot grow further as an authentic child of God the Father.

Wednesday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time
Matthew 6:1-6,16-18

“And your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you.”

Today’s Gospel Reading has three parts, but all three have one thing in common.  In fact, these three parts have something in common with the Gospel Readings of several recent days.

When we first listen to today’s Gospel Reading, we might consider it a good program for our spiritual lives.  The first part concerns the performance of “righteous deeds”:  in the Church, we might call these the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.  The second part concerns the offering of prayers.  The third part concerns fasting, which is but one type of self-denial or self-sacrifice, many types of which are important to the spiritual life.

However, what these three have in common is that they’re not about what Jesus is talking about.  Jesus is not preaching to us here about righteous deeds, prayers, and works of self-denial.  What is He preaching to us about?

Go back to the preaching of Jesus that we’ve heard at the past few weekday Masses.  Within the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus in last Wednesday’s Gospel Reading declared:  “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.  I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”  Then He gave a series of examples, beginning each by saying:  “You have heard that it was said…”, and then declaring, “But I say to you: ….”

In that light, consider again what Jesus preaches about in today’s Gospel Reading.  Were any of these three—righteous deeds, prayer, and self-denial—unknown in the days of the Old Testament?  Of course not.  The Old Testament is full of a variety of examples of righteous deeds, prayers, and self-denial.

So in commanding His disciples to carry out righteous deeds, prayers, and works of self-denial, Jesus was not preaching anything new.  Instead, Jesus is preaching today about why we carry out these three.  Do we carry them out to impress others?  Do we carry them out to feel better about ourselves?  Or instead, do we carry them out from love for God the Father?  In tomorrow’s Gospel Reading, Jesus will give His disciples the only prayer He ever taught:  the Our Father.  This prayer crowns everything that Jesus has been preaching about in the Sermon on the Mount, and sums up everything we need to know about following Jesus and acting in His Name.

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 concludes Jesus’ set of contrasts between the commands of the Jewish Law and Jesus’ commands to love.  Each contrast uses a variation of the form, “You have heard it said … but I say to you.”

You could argue that Jesus saved the hardest for last. The question that Jesus tackles concerns how we are to love our enemies. The simple answer is: “As Jesus did on Calvary.” This helps us understand Jesus’ final words in the fifth chapter of Matthew (that is, the end of today’s Gospel Reading): “be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

If we want to go further, we might ask how our enemies got to be our enemies in the first place.  We ought to be mindful that we sinners often 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.  Nonetheless, we must love all of our enemies as Jesus loved on the Cross.  On Calvary, Jesus gave His life in sacrifice not only for His Blessed Mother, the Beloved Disciple, and Mary Magdalen.  He just as willingly offered up His life for the salvation of those who drove the stakes through His sacred Body.