[The Dedication of the Basilica of Saint Mary Major]
Nm 11:4b-15/Mt 14:13-21
6 Tue The Transfiguration of the Lord Feast
Dn 7:9-10, 13-14/2 Pt 1:16-19/Lk 9:28b-36
7 Wed Weekday
[Saint Sixtus II, Pope, and Companions, Martyrs; Saint Cajetan, Priest]
Nm 13:1-2, 25—14:1, 26-29a, 34-35/Mt 15:21-28
8 Thu Saint Dominic, Priest Memorial
Nm 20:1-13/Mt 16:13-23
9 Fri Weekday
[Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Virgin and Martyr]
Dt 4:32-40/Mt 16:24-28
10 Sat Saint Lawrence, Deacon and Martyr Feast
2 Cor 9:6-10/Jn 12:24-26
11 SUN NINETEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Wis 18:6-9/Heb 11:1-2, 8-19 or 11:1-2, 8-12/Lk 12:32-48 or 12:35-40
Feast days, as the Old Testament readings last week reminded us, are our teachers. We begin this week with the Dedication of the Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome, and important church built to honor Mary for her role in the disputes over the nature of Jesus in the 4th century. Mary is the witness that Jesus is human and divine.
Interesting saints all this week. I’ll comment on them as we go along.
A Garden was our first home, but the human family was banished from that garden, Genesis says. Yet the ancient story offers hope in God’s call through the Jews, first of all. Then, Christianity further proclaims God’s promise of life, through Jesus Christ, God’s Son..
The psalms constantly recall the promise of God in the imagery of Genesis. Psalm I is an example:
The just are like “a tree
planted near streams of water,
that yields its fruit in season;
Its leaves never wither;
whatever they do prospers.” (Psalm 1)
“The just shall flourish like the palm tree.
They shall grow like a cedar of Lebanon.
planted in the house of the LORD,
they shall flourish in the courts of our God.”
The temple in Jerusalem continued to recall the Garden of the Lord, according to Psalm 80 and the Prophet Ezekiel. (Ez. 48)
As God banishes the human family from the first garden, God also makes a promise in the Book of Genesis itself:
“I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
They will strike at your head,
while you strike at their heel.” (Genesis 3,15)
More than just a declaration of enmity between the human family and the devil, or hostility of humanity towards snakes, Christianity saw the promise of Jesus Christ in these words. He blesses the human family and all creation again.
Jesus rose from the dead in a garden; the Cross he died on was a tree of life. Mary, his mother, is the new Eve, “mother of all the living.” In Christian tradition, she’s often represented crushing the serpent beneath her feet.
Our Mary Garden expresses this Christian vision. Mary holds her Son, who looks out on the garden as a place of promise, under the sky, through the seasons of summer, winter, spring and fall.
Millions of years ago, volcanic rock thrust up from the underland; a glacier brought rocks here from far to the north thousands of years ago. Flowers bloom for a season, trees and plants weather the days and the nights.
And the human family comes to this garden to remember what God has done and to pray.
At the name of Jesus every knee must bend, in the heavens, on earth and under the earth, and every tongue profess to the glory of God the Father–Jesus Christ is Lord!
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death Amen.
Mary stands in our garden holding her Son. Do we make too much of her?
We call Mary Mother of God in our prayers and creeds. “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you…Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.” She is “our life, our sweetness and our hope.”
We honor Mary because her role in the life and mission of Jesus Christ is beyond any other creature’s. We pray to her that “we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.” She leads us to him.
Mary, Witness to his Life, Death and Resurrection
Mary witnessed the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. She knew him, like Peter and the other disciples, but she knew him in a unique way. How do we know of Jesus’ birth and early life unless from her? She stood by the cross of her Son on Calvary. “She kept all these things in her heart and pondered over them,” St. Luke says. She was among the witnesses of his resurrection who gathered after he rose from the dead, the same evangelist states. Her memories of Jesus surely have a special place in the gospels.
Mary knew Jesus in a unique way. She knew him as his mother; he was subject to her as her son. When he began his public ministry and called disciples, she remained in Nazareth– although John’s gospel says she had a key role in his first miracle at Cana in Galilee, when he changed water into wine. As Jesus drew followers and performed great deeds, she was in Nazareth, living among those who mostly rejected him.
Mary was especially involved in two periods of Jesus’ life: his birth and early life at Nazareth, and his death on the cross and resurrection. Both periods belong mostly to his hidden life when his power was concealed. The Word of God humbled himself, taking the form of a slave, St. Paul says, hidden except from those with eyes of faith. Mary knew him by faith, and she guides those who walk by faith to know her Son.
Mary’s Mission in the Church
Mary has a special place in the communion of saints, who from their place in heaven, “guide us still.” When doubts and confusion occurred in the early church about the identity of Jesus, Mary was called on to give witness, and she spoke through the Spirit that Jesus, her Son, was both human and divine. By the 5th century, churches and feasts honoring Mary, the Mother of God, appeared throughout the Christian world.
Through the centuries Christians called on her to be their companion and guide in prayer and in faith. They recognized the graces she received and her place among the blessed. She was conceived without sin and assumed body and soul into heaven. She reveals the sublime destiny awaiting us, “poor banished children of Eve.”
Mary, the new Eve, “mother of all the living”, has a special role when her children’s faith is threatened. Her appearances in recent times of unbelief to children and ordinary individuals at Fatima and Lourdes raised their hopes, and those of the church, in the promises of Christ.
What about today? We seem to be entering an age when, in face of climate change, not only faith is God is questioned, but also faith in science and in the earth itself is shaken.
In the 14th century, when the Black Death took countless lives in Europe, Christians turned to Mary. They prayed the rosary. They planted Mary Gardens, reminders of Eden, where God blessed the first human family with blessings. Mary had a special role in renewing their faith in a God of Life.
Read again the Book of Genesis and other promises of faith, Pope Francis said in his Encyclical Laudatò Si, about climate change and the care of the earth. Mary is the woman of faith, who holds in her arms the God of Life.
Can old stories throw light on new stories? Science speaks now about Deep Time, how the earth evolved over billions of years. Plants, animals, human beings came into existence long ago. Besides things evolving, mass extinctions have also taken place through the ages. An exhibit at the Smithsonian in Washington called “Deep Time” explores the recent findings of science..
Our ancestors wondered about these things long ago. The Genesis story in the bible pictures the beginnings in poetic terms. But, can an old story throw light on the story science tells us now?
The most important light it offers is its claim to know the ultimate source of everything, a claim made in the opening sentence of our Christian creed: “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth.” God is the One who creates and cares for all things.
How does God Create?
Creation of Birds, Fish c.1455 BL
The Genesis story describes in a poetic way God’s creation of the world. Beginning with chaos, God creates light, then separates the waters from the earth, brings forth the night and the day, the sun and moon. God then creates plants, trees of every kind on the earth, the living creatures of the sea, birds of the air and animals of the land.
Creation of humanity, c.1455 BL
Then, “God said: Let us make human beings in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the tame animals, all the wild animals, and all the creatures that crawl on the earth. God created mankind in his image; in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1, 28)
And “God looked at everything he had made, and found it very good.” (Genesis 1,31)
An Interdependent World
Everything’s connected in the ancient creation story. Though human beings stand out in the story, we’re still connected to and dependent on the rest of creation. We come from the dust of the earth and depend on its life-giving waters; we need its soil, its plants and animals for our support.
In the creation narrative everything is connected. One thing prepares for and supports another.
That’s something we human beings must remember today.
Everything’s important in the early creation story. Though human beings have dominion over all, it’s a God-given dominion to see things as God does. God sees everything as good and with a right to be. Made in God’s image, our task on earth is to care for creation as God does. We’re caretakers of God’s world.
Something else to remember.
The Garden
In chapter 2 of the Genesis account, God creates a garden, where nothing grew before and where no rain fell. There God places man. The garden is our first home.
The garden is a marvelous symbol of the interconnectedness of creation. We’re placed in a garden, which we share in common with trees and plants, with the birds of the sky and the animals of the fields. Together, we’re sustained by water from the earth and air from the heavens. Even clothing, setting us apart, is done away with there. We’re human, from the earth. We cannot exist without it. Our first home is a garden.
The Forbidden Fruit, Bible, c.830 BL
In the garden, the ancient story says, humanity is forbidden to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Why?
There are different interpretations. Some interpret eating from the tree as a decision of moral autonomy. To eat its fruit is to claim to know what’s good or evil, right or wrong. Some today claim absolute power to choose what’s right or wrong, good and evil. Rejecting human limits and finite human wisdom , they claim to know it all.
Another interpretation sees eating from the tree as a decision to trust only in human experience and the knowledge we gain as we grow as individuals and as a people. Like children distancing themselves from parents, we grow in self sufficiency, gradually relying on a wisdom of our own.
The danger is to have human experience and human wisdom become absolute. Some distance themselves from a timeless wisdom and trust only in the wisdom of today.
In his letter Laudato Si, on our common home, on climate change, Pope Francis speaks of the danger of “anthropocentrism,” putting human beings at the center of everything, a trend he traces back to the beginnings of the Enlightenment in the 16th century. It’s a way of thinking still with us today.
Trusting human knowledge and creativity, some believe that science and technology have the answer for a perfect world. But science and technology aren’t enough to meet our present environmental crisis, the pope says, we humans need to change. We need to humbly accept our place in creation, as God meant it to be.
We need to remember where we come from. Science tells us much, but let’s not forget an old story. Our first home was a garden.
[Saint Peter Chrysologus, Bishop and Doctor of the Church]
Ex 33:7-11; 34:5b-9, 28/Mt 13:36-43
31 Wed Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Priest Memorial
Ex 34:29-35/Mt 13:44-46
AUGUST 1 Thu Saint Alphonsus Liguori, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
Memorial Ex 40:16-21, 34-38/Mt 13:47-53
2 Fri Weekday [Saint Eusebius of Vercelli, Bishop; Saint Peter Julian Eymard, Priest]
Lv 23:1, 4-11, 15-16, 27, 34b-37/Mt 13:54-58
3 Sat Weekday [BVM]
Lv 25:1, 8-17/Mt 14:1-12
4 SUN EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Eccl 1:2; 2:21-23/Col 3:1-5, 9-11/Lk 12:13-21
Matthew places the parables of Jesus later in his gospel. Unlike Mark’s gospel which has Jesus addressing the crowds in parables, Mathew sees them addressed to the church of his day. This week we hear them from the 13th chapter of Matthew’s gospel. They’re addressed to us today too.
25 Thu Saint James, Apostle Feast 2 Cor 4:7-15/Mt 20:20-28
26 Fri Saints Joachim and Anne, Parents of Mary (Memorial) Ex 20:1-17/Mt 13:18-23
27 Sat Weekday Ex 24:3-8/Mt 13:24-30
28 SUN SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Gn 18:20-32/Col 2:12-14/Lk 11:1-13
Some important saints are remembered this week. Mary Magdalene, Bridget of Sweden, James the Apostle, and Joachim and Anne. They’re instruments God uses to teach and support the church. I will be commenting on them on their feasts.
The Passionists celebrate the Feast of their Martyrs of Damiel on July 24.
The readings from Exodus continue the story of Moses.
Just ended a week long retreat for the Sisters of Mercy at Parsons Boulevard in Queens, New York. I sat some time facing a small statue of Mary (above) and the image in a mirror of Catherine McAuley, the Irish woman who founded the community. Next to her image is what she wrote about the spirit and purpose of her institute:
“Each religious institute receives a grace particularly adapted to the service they are called to perform. We ought, then, to have great confidence in God in the discharge of all these offices of Mercy, spiritual and corporal, which constitute the business of our lives…visiting prisons and hospitals and by reconciling quarrels…the spirit of prayer should be most dear to us, yet such a spirit should never withdraw us from the works of mercy.”
May God give the Sisters of Mercy grace for that mission today. The world needs to be blessed by the works of mercy.
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