The Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time [B]
Joshua 24:1-2,15-17,18  +  Ephesians 5:21-32  +  John 6:60-69

“This saying is hard; who can accept it?”

Today’s Second Reading is hard.  Many Christians do not accept it.  It can seem that the Church herself is not completely convinced that today’s Second Reading is worth hearing, because there’s an option for a shorter version that omits the less provocative parts.

“Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord.”  Many Christians in the 21^st century would say about this sentence what “[m]any of Jesus’ disciples” said about His teaching in John 6:  “‘This saying is hard; who can accept it?’”

Now, you may think that it’s comparing apples and oranges to hold up today’s Second Reading to the light of today’s Gospel passage.  One is preaching about Holy Matrimony, and the other about the Holy Eucharist.  But what if these two Scripture passages have more in common than it seems at first hearing?

The Second Reading’s context is summarized by the first sentence of the longer version:  a sentence which very strangely is not included in the shorter version.  “Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ.”  This sentence makes clear that in Holy Matrimony, the husband submits himself to his wife in addition to the wife submitting herself to her husband.

The context is illuminated even more profoundly by the reading’s final sentence.  Fortunately, this sentence is included in both the longer and shorter forms:  “This is a great mystery, but I speak in reference to Christ and the Church.”  The subordination of husband and wife to each other is a mystery that receives its inspiration and its strength from the mystery of Christ and His Church being subordinate to each other.  This truth connects today’s Second Reading to the Gospel passage, and indeed, to all the Gospel passages of the five Sundays that conclude today.

“‘This saying is hard; who can accept it?’”  What exactly is so hard about Jesus’ teaching in John 6?  When Jesus says that His Flesh is true food, and when He says that if you do not eat the Flesh of the Son of Man you will not have life in you, are there some who took His words to mean that Jesus was commanding cannibalism?

Understanding the literal meaning of John 6 has always challenged Christians, just as it did the original audience of Jesus’ “Bread of Life” sermon.  Are these words of Jesus to be taken literalistically, as if Jesus were commanding cannibalism?  Or are they to be taken symbolically or as metaphors?  Or is there a “third way” of interpretation, the basis of which is Jesus’ own Incarnation?  The only adequate way to understand Jesus’ words here is in a sacramental sense, which of course would be an entirely new concept 2000 years ago.

Jesus knows that the disciples who leave Him after hearing about the Bread of Life—and the evangelist says that they were “many of His disciples”—do in fact understand what He’s saying.  The problem isn’t in their heads, but in their hearts.  They are not willing to subordinate their minds and hearts to Jesus Christ.  They are not willing to allow Jesus to serve them as their Lord in the sacrifice of His Flesh and Blood for His Bride, the Church.

For cradle Catholics, it’s really not very hard to accept the Church’s beliefs about the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.  But to integrate that belief into our daily life is profoundly hard, no matter how long you’ve been a Catholic.  To receive the Eucharist in Holy Communion on Sunday is a very simple action.  But to allow the grace of His Body and Blood to transform you from within, so that Jesus lives in you, and He leads your life 24/7:  that’s the life of a saint.

Too often in our modern day, we approach God from the perspective of a consumer culture, where God offers us deals, and His grace is like a cash-back program for participating in the sacraments.  Instead, God in truth calls each Christian to a divine marriage.  There are many New Testament writings on Holy Matrimony.  These include today’s Second Reading, but also include all of John 6, which is about Jesus subordinating His whole Self—Flesh, Blood, soul and divinity—for His Spouse, the Church, including you who are a member of His Church.

Thursday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Judges 11:29-39  +  Matthew 22:1-14
August 19, 2021

“Many are invited, but few are chosen.”

Today’s feast of Mary’s Queenship falls one week after the feast of her Assumption.  Seven days ago, we celebrated the Fourth Glorious Mystery of the Rosary, and today we celebrate the Fifth (Mary being crowned as the Queen of Heaven and earth).  These two feasts of Mary are connected, and teach us about who Mary our Mother is.  The Assumption and the Queenship of Mary also teach us what being a Christian is about.

When we think back on salvation history, there are many “marvelous deeds” to reflect upon.  We might consider the marvel of God parting the Red Sea, or the marvel of the walls of Jericho falling, or indeed the marvelous deeds of Creation that God wrought “in the beginning”.

However, our Christian faith declares that even more marvelous than any of the deeds that God worked in the Old Testament are the marvelous “deeds” who are saints.  We might think it a bit odd to consider any human persons as “deeds” of God, but that is what they are:  not only because they were created by God, but also because of the redemption and sanctification wrought by God through the Paschal Mystery, and offered through the Church to “all the nations”.

Among all of “God’s marvelous deeds” in all of creation, then, the most marvelous is the Blessed Virgin Mary.  We can say of Our Lady what the Church prays in the first Preface of Saints:  “Lord, holy Father, almighty and eternal God… you are praised in the company of your Saints / and, in crowning their merits, you crown your own gifts.”

When we teach little ones about the twenty mysteries of the Rosary, do we teach them that these twenty mysteries are chapters in a single story, and that the Crowning of Our Blessed Mother is the final chapter of this marvelous story?  Certainly, all of the “marvelous deeds” of salvation history are ultimately for the Glory of God.  At the same time, these marvelous deeds were done for us poor sinners, and this includes the deed of creating, redeeming, and sanctifying so glorious a mother.

Wednesday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Judges 9:6-15  +  Matthew 20:1-16
August 18, 2021

“… the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

Clarity emerges from Jesus’ parable in today’s Gospel.  He teaches us who we are to live our lives for, and how we may serve them.

Jesus’ parable, of course, is not about economics, but about merciful love.  At the end of the parable, when the landowner rhetorically asks, “am I not free to do as I wish with my own money?”, we understand that Jesus is, so to speak, putting words in the mouth of God the Father.  When faced with us human sinners, God the Father asks, “am I not free to do as I wish with my own merciful love?”

You and I gripe and complain as we walk through life.  We’re just like the laborers in this parable.  We cannot understand why others should receive blessings in their lives when they don’t deserve them.  We notice, in fact, not only that “the rain falls on the just and the unjust”, and that “the Lord makes His sun to shine on the evil and the good.”   God actually shows mercy to those who do not deserve it.  In our pride, this gets to us, because it seems unjust.

When we find ourselves torn between what seems just, and what God chooses to offer, we need to reflect again on the answer that the Father gave us when He sent His eternal Son to become flesh and blood, in order to offer that flesh and blood on Calvary, and in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.  You might spend some time in prayer during this next week simply gazing at a crucifix, reflecting on this mystery of how Jesus on the Cross bound together the love of God and the love of neighbor.  God asks us to prefer His form of mercy to our own sense of justice.

Tuesday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Judges 6:11-24  +  Matthew 19:23-30
August 17, 2021

“What will there be for us?”

Peter often comes across as a less than stellar candidate for the college of apostles, much less the leader of the apostles.  Consider that after Jesus has declared that salvation is impossible for man to accomplish, but that “for God all things are possible”, what does Peter reply?  He replies, “We have given up everything and followed you.  What will there be for us?”  Obviously Peter is not embarrassed by his self-interest.  We might admire his honesty in expressing himself, even if he himself isn’t so admirable on this occasion.  Can you imagine a brand new postulant arriving at the convent and asking where she can find the hot tub and the coffee bar?

But Jesus answers Peter’s question with a forbearance that might leave us scratching our heads.  Perhaps we need to reflect on whether, and how, Jesus is acting pedagogically here.  Jesus offers Peter an impressive response, assuring us that great gifts are in store in Heaven for those who are saved by God.

But this begs the question:  how does God save us?  For man it is impossible to save himself, but for God it is possible to save man.  But how does God save man?  This question seems to pass over Peter’s head, and perhaps at times over ours as well.  The answer, simply, is the Way of the Cross.  Peter in time will walk there.  God invites you to do so today.

Monday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time
Matthew 19:16-22

“Teacher, what good must I do to gain eternal life?”

The young man in today’s Gospel Reading knows that something more is needed.  He’s very confident that he has observed the commandments, but knows that he still lacks something for the gaining of eternal life.  Jesus’ response aims for Heaven:  “to be perfect”, the young man must sell what he has in order to give to the poor, and then he must follow Jesus.

It would not be accurate to take today’s passage as a proof that every Christian must abandon all his or her possessions.  Jesus was speaking on this occasion to an individual.  Individual members of the Body of Christ have different vocations, and are called in different ways.

What every Christian vocation does have in common with every other is to seek “to be perfect”.  In fact, Jesus commands us elsewhere to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect.  That might seem an impossibly lofty goal, were we not to understand the meaning of the word “perfect”.  From the Latin, it could be loosely translated as “to become what one is”, or in other words, “to become what one is meant to be”.  God “designed” each human person, and calls each human person, to spend himself in love for others, and above all, for God Himself as the ineffable Other.  However God may ask you to accomplish this, give thanks for His call.

Saturday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Joshua 24:14-29  +  Matthew 19:13-15
August 14, 2021

“Let the children come to me, and do not prevent them ….”

Our spiritual need for humility is like our body’s need for water:  it is foundational, in an on-going manner, and in a manner that we constantly have to attend to.  Some people think that humility is only for children.  This sort of thinking says, “Of course you should be humble when you’re small.  You should be humble, for example, when you’re applying for a job, and when you’re going to confession, and when you’re at the bank applying for a loan.  But… once you’re older, and you’ve made something of your life, and have money in the bank, and people who work for you… well, then, the time for humility is past.  At this point, you should take pride in yourself.”

But Jesus says just the opposite.  Jesus, as divine and the only-begotten Son of God, declared from Heaven at the moment of the Annunciation:  “I am willing to become even less than a tiny baby.  I will become a single-celled human being inside the womb of this 14-year-old girl, in order to grow up and die to take away the sins of all mankind.”

We can reflect on the example of the Annunciation as a concrete example of Jesus’ counsel today.  Both Mary and Jesus in the scene of the Annunciation show us to whom “the Kingdom of Heaven belongs”.  Both Mary and Jesus demonstrate humility, but from opposite ends of a spectrum.  Mary—a poor, weak girl—submits her self to God the Father, accepting from Him a vocation that she cannot possibly understand.  Jesus—God’s own divine Son—submits His self to God the Father, accepting from Him a vocation that we cannot understand.  Our Blessed Mother and Our Lord show us that humility is needed at every step of our lives:  from the beginning of our life on this earth, to the end of our life in Heaven.  We never outgrow the need for humility.

 

 

 

 

Friday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Joshua 24:1-13  +  Matthew 19:3-12
August 13, 2021

“So they are no longer two, but one flesh.”

In raising the institution of marriage to the dignity of a sacrament, Christ transformed it into a covenant reflecting His own love for His Church.  This transformation was symbolized at the wedding at Cana by Jesus transforming water into wine.  In the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, the natural is transformed by the supernatural into some third thing that is both.

Certainly there is a stark contrast between marriage during the Old Testament and the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony.  We might say something similar of the contrast between Christian marriage and what many today—including the federal government, and in collusion with them, state governments—are labeling “marriage”.  The former contrast can be easily seen through the example of Moses, who more than 1200 years before Christ  permitted the Israelites to divorce [Deuteronomy 24:1-4].  Moses’ concession to human sinfulness, however, is repudiated by Jesus in today’s Gospel passage, and the original will of the Creator is reaffirmed against that concession.

The indissolubility of marriage is due not only to the fact that it’s God Himself who is marriage’s origin, but also the One whose divine love marriage points to.  Thirdly, He is its mirror in the present, as spouses vow to help each other and their children each day to strive for Heaven.

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
VIGIL:  I Chronicles 15:3-4,15-16; 16:1-2  +  1 Corinthians 15:54-57  +  Luke 11:27-28
DAY:  Revelation 11:19;12:1-6,10  +  1 Corinthians 15:20-27  +  Luke 1:39-56
August 15, 2021

“… my spirit rejoices in God my Savior ….”

This Sunday the Church celebrates the Assumption of our Blessed Mother into heaven.  The Assumption was a gift that God gave to Mary at the end of her earthly life.  To put this gift into perspective, consider this.  We know that anyone who dies without sin and without attachment to sin is assumed into heaven when he or she dies:  but only that person’s soul.  When someone dies in a perfect state of grace, that person’s soul is assumed by God into Heaven.  That person’s body, of course, remains buried under the earth until the Final Judgment.  But at the end of her earthly life, Mary was taken up into heaven both in soul and body.

Why did God give this gift to Mary?  Why did He so highly privilege her at the end of her earthly life?  One way to get at an answer is to see how this gift was related to another of God’s gifts:  that is, the gift God had given Mary at the beginning of her earthly life, when Mary was conceived by Saint Anne.

Here you can see how the twin gifts of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption are bound together in meaning.  It was because Mary had never been touched by sin—either the Original Sin of Adam, or her own actual sin—that her body and soul were not torn in two by death.   On the one hand, God kept Original Sin from staining Mary, in virtue of the vocation He wanted her to accept:  to be the Mother of Jesus Christ.  For her part, throughout her earthly life, she never committed an actual sin, either mortal or venial.

Now, there might be some who consider Mary’s vocation and then scoff, saying, “How hard could it be to be the mother of God?”  From one perspective, it’s true that if your son was like Jesus, who in fact was God Incarnate, you would experience many consolations:  no reports from the principal about fighting; no yelling at and kicking his cousins; no backtalk or rolling of eyes; no breaking of curfews.

Yet there’s more to motherhood than keeping your children out of trouble.  In fact, mothers are not meant to keep their children out of all trouble, or even necessarily out of the most serious of trouble.  It’s here that the uniqueness of the Blessed Virgin’s vocation comes into sharper focus.

Motherhood is defined not by keeping children away from all evil, but in steering the child towards what is the greatest Good.  After all, for the Christian, sometimes the greatest good that needs to be embraced is an evil.  Does that sound strange?

Think of Jesus embracing the Cross on Good Friday.  Then think of Mary on Good Friday, and what her vocation meant that day.  She would have been naturally tempted to shield her Son from the Cross.  You who are mothers know instinctually the desire to shield your child from harm.  But Mary was supernaturally moved to join her Son in His vocation as the Messiah of the human race.

Sometimes you’ll hear both mothers and fathers who say, “I just want my child to be happy.”  But we need to stop and think about what that statement means in the end.  We need to ask ourselves:  “Was Jesus happy on Good Friday?”  Yet Good Friday was the Hour for which Jesus came into this world.  Good Friday was the day when His vocation reached its summit.  Here is what fathers and mothers must want for their children more than anything else, including earthly happiness:  namely, that one’s child embrace his or her vocation.  Only by faithfulness to one’s vocation on earth can a person be happy eternally in Heaven.

As we honor our Blessed Mother today, we recognize that there are many “good things” that mothers have and give to their children.  But with the eyes of Faith, we see that there’s something even more difficult that a mother has to give.  A mother has to teach her child what it means not only to embrace the Cross, but to love the Cross.  For in loving the Cross, we love Jesus Himself.

Of all the “good things” a mother has to give her children, a love of the Cross is the “best thing”, because that’s the only road that leads to Heaven.  To help us in accepting this as Gospel, Mary was given the fullness of grace.

Thursday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Joshua 3:7-10,11,13-17  +  Matthew 18:21—19:1
August 12, 2021

“So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives his brother from his heart.”

The home in which we find the deepest sort of forgiveness, a selfless and generous forgiveness that seeks to build up the one who has transgressed:  this is our truest home.  Christ speaks of this authentic forgiveness in today’s Gospel passage, helping us by His words to see what He will show us on Calvary.

The Church, in which we share in the Sacrifice of Christ’s Body, is our truest home.  By right, we should feel most at home before the altar, because it is there that we rejoice in the source of all forgiveness.  But in the Church during Holy Mass, we give thanks not only for the forgiveness wrought by Christ’s Sacrifice on the Cross.  We also give thanks for the fact that when we share fully in this sacrament, we receive not only a share in Christ’s forgiveness.  We receive a share in the life of Christ himself.  We receive not only the Forgiver’s forgiveness.  We receive the Forgiver.

To receive forgiveness is to be restored to our former self.  But to receive the Forgiver:  this means not simply that we’re restored to our former self, but that we’re raised from our state of sinfulness to a state even higher than our old self, to a share in the life of the Forgiver’s Self.  We share in the life of Christ, and so are given the power to forgive others as Christ offers forgiveness:  to all persons, in all circumstances, for ever and ever.