You may notice that the weekday and Sunday gospels in our lectionary these days are from the same chapters of Mathew’s gospel. The weekday gospels help us appreciate our gospel readings for Sunday.
For example, our Sunday gospel today– the Miracle of the Loaves and the Fish ( Matthew 14:13-21). That gospel begins “When Jesus heard of the death of John the Baptist, he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself.”
We read about the death of John the Baptist last Saturday in our lectionary. That reading was preceded by the rejection of Jesus in his hometown of Nazareth and by accounts of the opposition of the scribes and Pharisees. His own disciples also begin to question him.
Jesus’ answer is found in his parables in chapter 13, our lectionary readings all last week. His parables are not abstract lessons; they’re from the real world of his day.
The weekday lectionary prepares us for the reading for Sunday, the most important day of prayer in our church. It’s better to see what precedes and follows a scripture passage. like the Miracle of the Loaves and Fish, than to read it in isolation. The weekday readings offer context.
I also appreciate reading Jeremiah these weekdays. He helps us understand Jesus as a teacher facing rejection.
Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787) was born near Naples, Italy, into a noble family. He began life as a lawyer but gave up law to become a priest and devote himself to bringing the gospel to the poor. His sermons and instructions were simple. “I never preached a sermon that the poorest old woman in the congregation didn’t understand,” he claimed. In 1732 he founded the Redemptorists, the Congregation of the Holy Redeemer.
A prolific writer, poet and musician, Alphonsus authored a series of devotional books on Mary and important works on moral theology. He advocated leniency and mercy towards people, steering a course between severity and laxity. In hearing confessions, he said he never denied anyone absolution. We can see why he’s an example for pastoral workers today.
In 1762, he became bishop of Sant Agata dei Goti, a small diocese near Naples, where he worked to reform the clergy and renew its people in their faith. In 1775 he resigned his bishopric because of his health, but continued writing religious and devotional tracts till his death in 1787. In 1816 he was canonized by Pope Gregory XVI. Pope Pius IX declared him a doctor of the church in 1871.
“Hasn’t God a claim on our love? From all eternity God has loved us. ‘ I first loved you. You had not yet appeared in the light of day, nor did the world yet exist, but already I loved you. From all eternity I have loved you.’
God gave us a soul endowed with memory, intellect and will; he gave us a body equipped with the senses; it was for us that he created heaven and earth and all things. The truth is the eternal Father went so far as to give us his only Son.
By giving us his Son, whom he did not spare precisely so that he might spare us, he bestowed on us at once every good: grace, love and heaven; for all these goods are certainly inferior to the Son. He who did not spare his own Son, but handed him over for all of us: how could he fail to give us along with his Son all good things?”
The prayer for his feast day points out it’s our turn to do what Alphonse’s did:
O God who constantly raise up in your church new examples of virtue, grant that we may follow so closely in the footsteps of the Bishop Saint Alphonsus in his zeal for souls as to attain the same rewards that are his in heaven.
Conversion experiences of saints like Ignatius Loyola are important. His conversion came about as he was recuperating from a serious battle wound in his family’s castle.He was looking for something to read, and the only books his sister-in-law had available were a Life of Christ and Lives of the Saints.
The Life of Christ, by Ludolph of Saxony, was likely the book he read. It invites the reader to enter the gospel story, and so Ignatius, the battle hardened soldier who already knew the basics of faith from the time of his Baptism, began to know Jesus in another way. The soldier who showed no mercy, learned mercy. The man trained to be hard and unfeeling, became tender by knowing Jesus in his Passion. He became a soldier of another kind.
The Passion of Jesus was the gospel story Ignatius reflected on most . Go in and stand with someone there, the book said, and see what they see and listen to them. Most likely Ignatius the soldier would stand with the soldiers there, familiar as he was with those hard, efficient men finishing the job and anxious to head back to the barracks Yet the day Jesus was crucified, one of them, the one in charge, suddenly saw Another hanging on the cross with the criminals of the day.”Truly, this man was the Son of God.”
Everything, everyone else on that dark hill changed then: the leaders shouting for death, the soldiers finishing up, the curious passing by, the women looking on from a distance. . Everything, everyone changed. The earth quaked and the tombs were opened. The Son of God saw them all as his Father’s children.
Too much to take in? Too much for the mind and moreso for the heart. That’s why the mystery of Jesus, especially his Passion, became a never-ending school for Ignatius. “Truly, this man was the Son of God,” who humbled himself to come among us, accepting even death on a cross. God loves us so.
It’s a school for our feelings too. Feelings of inferiority or superiority, resentment and judgment, futility and denial. The hard soldier and the women looking on learned compassion together. The passion of Jesus is a school of compassion, where we learn to see things and feel things as he did.
The antiphon for morning prayer for his feast sums up his experience. “Would that I might know Christ and the power of his resurrection and that I might share in his sufferings.”
The saints, from every time and place, invited Ignatius to be a disciple of Jesus too. You didn’t have to be a fisherman from Galilee to follow Jesus, they said, or a learned scholar. Just follow him day by day, And so Ignatius, the soldier, accepted the daily graces he was given.
Born in Spain, Ignatius Loyola was a soldier, severely wounded in battle, who experienced a remarkable conversion during his recuperation. He became the founder of the Jesuits. Here’s the story of his conversion described by an early follower :
Ignatius was passionately fond of reading worldly books of fiction and tales of knight-errantry. When he felt he was getting better, he asked for some of these books to pass the time. But no book of that sort could be found in the house; instead they gave him a life of Christ and a collection of the lives of saints written in Spanish.
By constantly reading these books he began to be attracted to what he found narrated there. Sometimes in the midst of his reading he would reflect on what he had read. Yet at other times he would dwell on many of the things which he had been accustomed to dwell on previously.
But at this point our Lord came to his assistance, insuring that these thoughts were followed by others which arose from his current reading. While reading the life of Christ our Lord or the lives of the saints, he would reflect and reason with himself: “What if I should do what Saint Francis or Saint Dominic did?” In this way he let his mind dwell on many thoughts; they lasted a while until other things took their place. Then those vain and worldly images would come into his mind and remain a long time. This sequence of thoughts persisted with him for a long time.
But there was a difference. When Ignatius reflected on worldly thoughts, he felt intense pleasure; but when he gave them up out of weariness, he felt dry and depressed. Yet when he thought of living the rigorous sort of life he knew the saints had lived, he not only experienced pleasure when he actually thought about it, but even after he dismissed these thoughts, he still experienced great joy. Yet he did not pay attention to this, nor did he appreciate it until one day, in a moment of insight, he began to marvel at the difference.
Then he understood his experience: thoughts of one kind left him sad, the others full of joy. And this was the first time he applied a process of reasoning to his religious experience. Later on, when he began to formulate his spiritual exercises, he used this experience as an illustration to explain the doctrine he taught his disciples on the discernment of spirits.
From Ignatius loyola’s own words, taken down by Luis González
July 30th is the feast of St. Peter Chrysologus, bishop of Ravenna in Italy, who died around 450 AD. The prayer for his feast describes him as “an outstanding preacher of your Incarnate Word.” You can see why in this excerpt from one of his sermons:
“Why do you look down on yourself who are so precious to God? Why think so little of yourself when you are so honored by him? Why do you ask how you were created, and don’t want to know why you were made?
“This entire visible universe is yours to dwell in. It was for you that the light dispelled the overshadowing gloom; for you the night was regulated and the day was measured: for you the heavens were brightened with the brilliance of the sun, the moon and the stars. The earth was adorned with flowers, trees and fruit; lovely living things were created in the air, the fields, and the seas for you, lest you lose the joy of God’s creation in sad loneliness.
“And the Creator is still devising things that can add to your glory. He has made you in his image that you might make the invisible Creator present on earth; he has made you his legate, so that the vast empire of the world might have the Lord’s representative.
“Then in his mercy God assumed what he made in you; he wanted now to be truly manifest in men and women, to be revealed in them as in an image. Now he would be in reality what he was in symbol.”
The feast of Martha, Mary and Lazarus, the family at Bethany, (once feast of St. Martha alone) is celebrated on July 29th. The famiywere friends of Jesus, who gave him hospitality in Bethany. He blessed them with one of his most important miracles– raising Lazarus from the dead. The church wants us to see them all together, for Jesus affected them all by his presence.
The revision of the feast enforces the historicity of the gospel story. Jesus resided iwith them n Bethany when he came for the feasts. The present revision also brings Mary to where she belongs: she’s Mary of Bethany, not Mary Magdalene or the sinful woman who washes Jesus’ feet.
But Martha still stands out in today’s feast. The gospel readings from St. John and St. Luke feature her. Martha met Jesus when her brother Lazarus died and spoke those beautiful words of faith when Jesus asked if she believed he could bring life to the dead. “Yes, Lord, I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.” ( John 11: )
Her faith was also the faith of Mary and Lazarus too. Jesus was at home with them.
Early Christians were curious about the fate of the family from Bethany, so closely linked with Jesus. What happened to them after he died and rose again? Nothing is said in the New Testament. One early legend sees them exiled in a boat at sea, eventually landing in France where they contribute to the conversion of that land.
Historians and blblical scholars today discourage stories like that. Better to stay with what the scholars tell us. But is our Christian imagination limited to what scholars say?
I hope not.
A favorite picture of the house in Bethany, by the 13th century Tuscan artist, Giovanni di Milano introduces this blog. Jesus is talking to Mary. The table’s set for four people. That would be Jesus, Lazarus, Mary and Martha.
But there’s a knock on the door and standing there are some of Jesus’ disciples, led by Peter. One of them gestures towards Peter, as if saying, “he told us to come.”
Poor Martha in her apron holds up her hands, “What am I supposed to do with them?” She is Martha who does everything and sometimes runs out of steam doing it. No matter how strong her faith, she is still Martha and this is her house.
There will be no miracle, except the miracle of Martha’s hospitality. More than four will be fed.
Not in the gospel, but our imagination, here led by an artist not a biblical scholar, tells us it could be.
Almighty ever-living God, your Son was welcomed to Bethany, Martha’s house, as a guest. Grant, we pray, that through her intercession and that of her brother and sister we may serve Christ faithfully in our brothers and sisters and finally be received by you into your heavenly home. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Let my eyes stream with tears day and night, without rest, Over the great destruction which overwhelms the virgin daughter of my people,over her incurable wound.
If I walk out into the field, look! those slain by the sword; If I enter the city,look! those consumed by hunger. Even the prophet and the priestforage in a land they know not. (Jeremiah 14:17-24
Today’s first reading from our lectionary is a classic picture of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 598 BC, from the Prophet Jeremiah. The dead still wait to be buried, people are starving for food, prophets and priests wander about bewildered by what’s happened.
Just as important as the description of the devastated city is Jeremiah’s reaction to it. He’s no distant onlooker, he’s there, part of it all, and his eyes are filled with tears, day and night.
That’s Jeremiah. It’s his city and his people that have been struck “a blow that cannot be healed.” Instead of the Babylonians or the Judean leaders whom he had warned, Jeremiah addresses God. “You alone have done all these things.”
Does Jeremiah have something to say about our situation today?
“Nowhere else in the Old Testament does the eternal, invisible God become so involved in human experience and communicate within it as in the person of Jeremiah,” Fr. Carroll Stuhlmueller, CP, writes in his commentary on Jeremiah in the Catholic Study Bible.
Jeremiah struggles with God. He “paradoxically combines exceptional obedience to God with vigorous argumentation against God, he struggles with doubt and anger, and at times succumbs to them, only to be purified and transformed (Jer. 9:1; 15:19).”
There are no quick answers for him, Fr. Carroll writes: “The biblical message comes not simply as a finished polished discourse, but as an intuition, or to use Jeremiah’s words , as ‘fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones’ ( Jeremiah 20:10). Jeremiah frequently provides us with a message on its way to becoming the final word of God, struggling to come to birth and seeming lost in the dark birth canal. “(Jeremiah, 20:17) (Reading Guide 304-305)
As we look at our own world in the grip of a devastating wars, climate change, global pandemics, what about Jeremiah’s words to God: “You alone have done all these things.”
Jesus answers the opposition described in chapters 11-12 in Matthew’s gospel with a series of parables we are reading this week. (Chapter 13) The seed doesn’t always fall on good ground, he reminds his disciples. Sometimes it falls on the path where it quickly dries up– like the towns that welcome him enthusiastically and soon forget him.
The parable of the weeds and the wheat points to enemies who want to poison the power and beauty of his words and deeds. The Pharisees and scribes, for example, did that.
The kingdom of God comes in smallness. It’s like the mustard seed, not a full grown tree. You can miss it if you’re looking for something fully grown and done. The treasure is hidden in a field; you may discover almost accidentally. (Monday, 17th week)
Did Jesus’ own extended family and his neighbors in Nazareth see him as just the little boy they knew before and couldn’t t appreciate him now? We underestimate small things and what they can grow to be. (Friday 17th Week)
But the kingdom of heaven is also like a merchant in search of fine pearls. You have to keep searching for it all your life. You can’t give up that search. Keep looking, hoping, searching.
Jesus concludes his teaching with the parable of the net cast into the sea that catches fish of every kind, good and bad. At the end of time, the net will be dragged to shore and the good will be separated from the bad. God is the ultimate judge, leave judgment to him. (Thursday, 17th Week)
The parables of Jesus are about the real world, the world Jesus experienced. They also help us look at the world we live in, which is not far from his.
Jeremiah the Prophet, Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel
For the next week or so, we’re reading the Prophet Jeremiah from our lectionary. Born about 650 BC, Jeremiah spoke to a nation in its final days before the Babylonians captured Jerusalem and took away its leading citizens into exile in Babylon in 598 BC. He looks downcast in Michelangelo’s portrait. He was.
Jeremiah wasn’t accepted during his lifetime. Discredited, arrested and imprisoned by his enemies, he urged religious reform and wise political alliances to Judea’s kings and leaders. His influence grew only after his death as the exiled Jewish community in Babylon reflected on his words and actions.
Jeremiah influenced the prophets Ezekiel, Daniel, Isaiah 40-66, and some of the psalms. He remained in Jerusalem after its destruction and later was forced into exile in Egypt where he died, but there is no information about his death.
Our reading for Thursday from Jeremiah is a good summary of his message to Israel:
You were “as a bride following me in the desert…I brought you to a ‘garden land’ which you defiled,” the Lord says to the people of Jerusalem. “Two evils have my people done: they have forsaken me, the source of living waters. They have dug themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that hold no water. “ (Jeremiah 2:1-3, 7-8, 12-13)
A “garden land” — symbol for Jeremiah of God’s promise — comes from the Book of Genesis. God first gave humanity life in a garden. Now it’s offered again, but the “garden land” can be refused.
“Living waters” also is a favorite symbol of prophets like Jeremiah. The person who is just is like a tree planted by living waters, Psalm 1 says. A just people grow by God’s living waters.
“With you is the fountain of life, O Lord”, our responsorial psalm says today.
Jeremiah is mentioned in Matthew’s gospel when Jesus asks Peter “Who do people say I am?” They say you are Jeremiah or one of the prophets, Peter responds. (Matthew 16:14) Selections from Jeremiah are read in the lectionary in the 16th to the 18th weeks of the church year, year 2, as the readings from Matthew describe Jesus facing opposition as he begins his ministry in Galilee.
In lent and Holy Week we read Jeremiah as Jesus faces betrayal and death at the hands of his enemies.
Readings from Jeremiah occur in our Sunday readings, usually in the same context. He’s found also in the church’s morning prayers: Jeremiah weeps over a desolate land after Jerusalem’s destruction by the Babylonians. ( Jeremiah 3 10-14, Friday Morning, 3) The prophet proclaims God’s promise of a “garden land” . (Jeremiah 14 17-21, Thursday Morning 1)
