Tag Archives: Matthew’s gospel

Black Friday and Christmas

7 Replies

photo
Now that Black Friday is over maybe we can get down to thinking about Christmas. For four weeks we prepare for that feast in the season of Advent.

The best place to look for the meaning of Christmas is the scriptural readings for these next four weeks. A timely source I suggest we add to them is the recent Apostolic Exhortation of Pope Francis, “The Joy of the Gospel.”

The Old Testament readings for today and all through the 1st Week of Advent are from Isaiah. Even if you can’t get to Mass, take a look at them, they make wonderful readings for Advent.

Isaiah promises salvation for all people, and one of his favorite images to describe God’s promise is found in this Sunday’s reading: Isaiah 2:1-5. All nations will stream to God’s mountain for instruction. “They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.” Wars are no more; a fragmented humanity becomes one.

Quite a claim, considering that Assyrian armies were laying waste the towns and cities of Israel and Judea as Isaiah spoke. But God’s promise trumps all human conquests.

For Isaiah, the mountain of the Lord is Jerusalem, on which the Jewish temple is built. All nations will come there; they will be fed a rich banquet (Wednesday), the poor will be welcomed there (Thursday), the blind will see there (Friday); it’s the rock where people will dwell safely, where children play around the cobra’s den, and the lion and the lamb lie down together (Tuesday). The prophet’s imagery in these readings is strikingly beautiful.

The Gospels for the 1st week point to the fulfillment of the Isaian prophecies in Jesus Christ. The Roman centurion humbly approaching Jesus in Capernaum represents all the nations that will come to him. (Monday) Jesus praises the childlike, who will enter the kingdom of heaven. (Tuesday) He feeds a multitude on the mountain.(Wednesday) He affirms that his kingdom will be built on rock. (Thursday) He gives sight to the blind. (Friday)

Remember, too, that Matthew’s gospel, source of many of our Advent readings, portrays Jesus teaching on a mountain (Isaiah’s favorite symbol) and working great miracles there that benefit all who come. He is the new temple, the new Presence of God, Emmanuel, God with us.

Prophets like Isaiah were brave people, brave enough to speak when all seemed lost. They’re strong people, strong enough to hope when hope seems gone. And something of that prophetic spirit is in Pope Francis, I believe, who last week issued an important exhortation to the church.

He says that we can’t bring the gospel to the world if we don’t know what our world needs. We can’t bring greater human life to our world if we don’t realize what disfigures human dignity now.

What disfigures human dignity today is social inequality. Money had become our god. He speaks of the “tyranny of the financial markets.” We pay attention to a 2% drop in the stock market and ignore the death of a homeless man who dies in the cold. We’re a throw-away society. Not only do we discard things, we discard people. We tend to exploit immigrants and then throw them away. We ignore the economically unproductive, who may be without jobs or skills or socially deprived through sickness or being displaced.

The pope’s message is a hard-hitting restatement of traditional Catholic social teaching. It’s interesting to see a papal document quoted so freely on Tweeter, Facebook and the social media. It’s because he’s touched on something we need to hear.

The front page of the Asbury Park Press this morning seemed to echo the picture the pope painted in his recent address. There’s the big picture of smiling shoppers fresh from the stores on Black Friday holding their precious treasures. Next to it is a story of a homeless man who died in the cold yesterday.

No picture of him at all.

Friday, First Week of Advent

4 Replies

  Readings:

Isaiah 29:17-24:  The deaf shall hear and the blind shall see.

Matthew 9:27-31:  Jesus gives two blind men sight.

Two blind men are among the many healed by Jesus in Matthew’s gospel. They’re healed together and they represent the blind who will see when the Messiah comes, Isaiah says.

Notice there are two of them, not one. Do the two blind men represent a collective blindness, a group blindness, perhaps a group prejudice against certain people, or a way of thinking that distorts how others are seen? Is it more than    physical blindness they share?  The cures Jesus worked touched more than the ills of body.

When John Newton, the former 18th century captain of an African slave ship, wrote the famous hymn “Amazing grace,” he said he “was blind, but now I see.” It wasn’t physical blindness he described. The tough seaman was converted on a voyage after reading Thomas a Kempis’ “The Imitation of Christ,” and gradually came to see the horrific evil of slavery as well as other vices he had fallen into.

In 1788 after years of debate over the issue in England, Prime Minister William Pitt formed a committee to investigate the slave trade which, until then, was largely seen by the nation as good for their country’s economic welfare. One of its star witnesses was John Newton who described in detail the slave trade and the horrendous practice it was.

This advent may Jesus bring light to our world, our nation, and our church. There are many things we don’t see.

What do you think they are?

Mission, Plainville, Ct. April4

Leave a reply

Jesus, our Teacher

Catechesis: Monday evening

Our church says Jesus Christ speaks to us through the scriptures, so to begin with, get a  good bible and use it.

My suggestion is the New American Bible. A good translation, good notes and it’s the version we read in church. The bible is going to be our ordinary catechism. Let’s learn from it.

We used to have a number of Catholic book stores where you could get some help in buying Catholic resources, but many are closed today. You can easily get lost in the big chains like Barnes and Noble and the online stores like Amazon.

 

Try to read some good commentaries on the scriptures. On line, the Passionists have daily reflections on the scriptural readings at www.thepassionists.org

I already mentioned the US Bishops site http://www.usccb.org/nab/

There’s a growing list of good commentaries available online and in print.

Try to learn as much as you can about biblical times and culture. But I have to say a few words of caution about some of the biblical programs you see on television from The History Channel and National Geographic. Sometimes these programs use sensationalism to attract viewers and are not always accurate.

Meditate on the gospels. Don’t be afraid to reflect on a story and become part of it. Some of the most beautiful insights into the gospels have come from ordinary people praying from the scriptures. I think of Brigid of Sweden, whose reflections on the Passion of Jesus gave us the Pieta, the image of the dead body of Jesus cradled in his mother’s arms beneath the cross. The gospels say nothing of that, but Brigid said it had to be.

You can meditate on the scriptures using a traditional prayer like the rosary. Recently, Pope John Paul suggested we meditate on other mysteries of Jesus’ life besides the 15 traditional mysteries. Spiritual writers in the past often suggested we join Mary, who “treasured all these things and kept them in her heart,” when we reflect on Jesus and his times.

Pope Benedict’s new book. Jesus of Nazareth, is an example of someone reflecting on Jesus in the light of the scriptures.  Some may find it difficult to read– the pope is a theologian, after all,  and he thinks like a theologian– but he’s giving the church an example of someone reflecting and praying about the mystery of Jesus Christ.

 

 

 

 

Loving Enemies

Leave a reply

Jesus is our Teacher in this Sunday’s gospel selection: Matthew 5,38-48.  He goes up a mountain, gathers disciples around him and teaches them.

His teaching about loving our enemies is hard to understand and hard to follow. Does he want us to like everyone we meet? Pretty hard to do that.  Does he want us to let people walk all over us? Is that what “turning the other cheek” and “going the other mile” mean?

In this, as in other things he taught, we look to Jesus’ own example for guidance, because he lived what he taught. He did not like some people’s narrowness and pride. He did not let others walk over him or stop him from fulfilling his mission. He spoke the truth and brought his blessings to others, even when powerful enemies tried to prevent him. His death on the cross witnesses his life of  fearless commitment.

Loving our enemies does not mean liking everyone or condoning their faults. It does not mean shrinking from our call to do good. It’s about ridding ourselves of  the pessimism that leads to condemning someone or some groups absolutely. It’s about a patience that’s like God’s patience. If we see no possible goodness or possible change in people, only intractable evil, then we don’t see as God sees.

This is a love we must grow into. We can’t reason our way into it, we need God’s grace to attain it. We grow to it through prayer, and so we need to rest in a loving God who loves us all this way.

We know we are growing in this kind of love when we see ourselves doing what St. Paul describes in his Letter to the Romans. Some  say  his words are the earliest commentary on the Sermon on the Mount:

“Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. Never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God. If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Romans 12,17-21

The prayer for today’s Mass asks for this kind of love:

Father,

keep before us the wisdom and love

you revealed in your Son.

Help us to be like him in word and in deed.

Christmas: A Call to Baptism

Leave a reply

Matthew’s gospel was the gospel most used for catechesis in the early church. It also plays an important role in the creation of our Christmas season. It gives us the Feast of the Epiphany, for example. Jesus Christ came for the gentiles as well as for the Jews.

I think Matthew’s gospel is also an important source for our upcoming Feast of the Baptism of Jesus which closes the Christmas season. Matthew sees baptism as a way of repentance. That’s how John the Baptist describes it in Matthew’s gospel: “In those days, John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming: ‘Repent, the kingdom of God is near.’” (Mt 3,1-2)

When Pharisee and Sadducees come for baptism, John calls them “a brood of vipers” because they presume they are saved as “children of Abraham.” “God is able to raise up from these stones children of Abraham, “ John says to them.

Baptism is not an entitlement. Baptism is a commitment to repentance. That’s important for us to realize too.

But repentance is a difficult path. Can we do it alone?  John continues in Matthew’s gospel with the promise that one more powerful than he is coming. “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” When we are baptized into Christ, we are given the Holy Spirit and his fire to continue on the path of repentance.

Christmas is not just for looking at the Child in a manger; it’s a call  to enter into the mystery of Jesus Christ.

 

Genealogies tell us who we are

Leave a reply

We may stumble over the names in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus, our reading for today’s liturgy, but  Pope Leo the Great says in our Office of Readings, the genealogies tell us who he is. “To speak of our Lord, the son of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as true and perfect man is of no value to us if we do not believe that he is descended from the line of ancestors set out in the Gospel.”

I reflected about this gospel elsewhere today, but here’s what Leo says about it:

“No doubt the Son of God in his omnipotence could have taught and sanctified us by appearing in a semblance of human form as he did to the patriarchs and prophets, when for instance he engaged in a wrestling contest or entered into conversation with them, or when he accepted their hospitality and even ate the food they set before him. But these appearances were only types, signs that mysteriously foretold the coming of one who would take a true human nature from the stock of the patriarchs who had gone before him. No mere figure, then, fulfilled the mystery of our reconciliation with God, ordained from all eternity…The divine nature and the nature of a servant were to be united in one person so that the Creator of time might be born in time, and he through whom all things were made might be brought forth in their midst.

For unless the new man, by being made in the likeness of sinful flesh, had taken on himself the nature of our first parents, unless he had stooped to be one in substance with his mother while sharing the Father’s substance and, being alone free from sin, united our nature to his, the whole human race would still be held captive under the dominion of Satan. The Conqueror’s victory would have profited us nothing if the battle had been fought outside our human condition.”

So that’s where the battle and the victory takes place today, in our human condition, where our names are found.

The Stone Rejected

1 Reply

Mt 21:33-43, 45-46

Jesus said to the chief priests and the elders of the people:
“Hear another parable.
There was a landowner who planted a vineyard,
put a hedge around it,
dug a wine press in it, and built a tower.
Then he leased it to tenants and went on a journey.
When vintage time drew near,
he sent his servants to the tenants to obtain his produce.
But the tenants seized the servants and one they beat,
another they killed, and a third they stoned.
Again he sent other servants, more numerous than the first ones,
but they treated them in the same way.
Finally, he sent his son to them,
thinking, ‘They will respect my son.’
But when the tenants saw the son, they said to one another,
‘This is the heir.
Come, let us kill him and acquire his inheritance.’
They seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.
What will the owner of the vineyard do to those tenants when he comes?”
They answered him,
He will put those wretched men to a wretched death
and lease his vineyard to other tenants
who will give him the produce at the proper times.”
Jesus said to them, Did you never read in the Scriptures:

The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
by the Lord has this been done,
and it is wonderful in our eyes?

Therefore, I say to you,
the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you
and given to a people that will produce its fruit.”
When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables,
they knew that he was speaking about them.

And although they were attempting to arrest him,they feared the crowds,

for they regarded him as a prophet.

(Friday, 2nd week of lent)

In Matthew’s gospel,  as Jesus enters Jerusalem before his death, a large crowd acclaims him as “the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee” and spread their cloaks and branches before him. “Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

Then, Jesus goes into the temple and drives out those who were buying and selling there, a symbolic act that restores it as a place of prayer. (Matthew 21, 1-18)

The Jewish leaders react strongly,  demanding to know by what authority he does these things. In response, Jesus accepts the testimony of the people; he has been sent by God. He is indeed the Son of David. But in the parable he directs to their leaders Jesus recognizes they will reject him, as others before them rejected prophets sent by God. They will put him to death.

All the gospels clearly state that Jesus saw himself as he does in this gospel passage. He knows he speaks in God’s name and the leaders of his people will reject him. Yet, the stone that the builders reject will become the cornerstone.

Still, the  conviction Jesus has about his mission will not insulate him from the pain he will suffer from being rejected and from having the the truth he speaks denied. Like the prophets before him he will suffer greatly from rejection. This will be especially acute as the crowds that acclaimed him when he entered the city fall silent and his own disciples deny and abandon him. He then is alone.

This parable from Matthew helps us to understand what Jesus suffered when he is arrested and brought to die on a cross. Those who follow him will know that suffering too.