You can’t listen to the story of the Prophet Jeremiah, our first reading these days, without thinking about the passion of Jesus. In fact, readings from the Book of Jeremiah are common readings for Holy Week. We see Jesus in Jeremiah.
God tells Jeremiah to “hold nothing back,” but speak the truth to those in power and the false prophets of the day, no matter how unpopular it is. Jesus did the same.
Like Jeremiah, Jesus was innocent, but was framed by the powerful as guilty. They questioned his authority, but he would not deny his mission.
Only a few voices seem to stand up for Jeremiah and only a few stood up for Jesus. Neither had many faithful followers at their time of trial. Yet both were carried along by God’s power and their names vindicated.
Jeremiah, like Jesus and John the Baptist, who suffered a lonely death at the hands of Herod Antipas ,belonged to a brave company.
Some would have us see our faith as a ticket to success, an inoculation against failure or suffering. Believe and nothing bad will happen to you. Yet, as you look at Jesus, the prophets and the saints, you see a more realistic profile of faith. We’re promised victory, yes, but only by accepting the mystery of the cross.
Keep an eye on Jeremiah and John. Keep an eye on the passion of Jesus. Follow them.
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.”
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.
We celebrate the Feast of Ann and Joachim today, parents of Mary, the Mother of Jesus. The New Testament says nothing about them, but an early 2nd century document called the Gospel of James tells their story,
Ann and Joachim lived in Jerusalem, the ancient source says, where Joachim, a descendant of David and a wealthy man, provided sheep and other offerings for the temple sacrifices. The two had ties to Bethlehem nearby and Nazareth in Galilee.
They were well off but for twenty years disappointment clouded their marriage: they had no child. Even after vowing to dedicate their child to God, no child came. And so, at a time when children were treasured, they were thought poor. Descendants of David, they were blamed also for failing to continue the line the Messiah would come from.
Stung by criticism, Joachim spent more time in the mountains, brooding among the shepherds and their flocks. As her husband distanced himself from her, Ann too grew sad. God seemed far away.
In the garden one day, noticing some sparrows building a nest in a laurel tree, Ann burst into tears: “Why was I born, Lord?” she said, “birds build nests for their young and I have no child of my own. The creatures of the earth, the fish of the sea are fruitful, and I have nothing. The land has a harvest, but I have no child in my arms.”
At that moment, an angel of the Lord came and said, “Ann, the Lord has heard your prayer. You shall conceive a child the whole world will praise. Hurry to the Golden Gate and meet your husband there.”
At the same time, In the mountains an angel in dazzling light spoke to Joachim, “Don’t be afraid, the Lord hears your prayers. God knows your goodness and your sorrow and will give your wife a child as he did Sara, Abraham’s wife, and Hannah, mother of Samuel. You will have a daughter and name her Mary. Give her to God, for she will be filled with the Holy Spirit from her mother’s womb. Go back to Jerusalem. You’ll meet your wife at the Golden Gate and your sorrow will turn into joy.”
Joachim and Ann met at the Golden Gate to the temple, the place of God’s presence. They embraced as they spoke of the angel’s promise. Returning home, Ann conceived and bore a daughter, and they called her “Mary.”
When she was three years old, Ann brought Mary to the temple to learn the scriptures, to pray and take part in the Jewish feasts. She watched her father bring lambs to be offered in sacrifice. She grew in wisdom and grace in God’s presence.
When Mary approached marriage age– then 15 or so–her parents arranged for her marriage as it was customary. They sought the high priest’s advice, tradition says, and Joseph of Nazareth was chosen as her husband. Nazareth was then their home.
The angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and announced that she was to be the Mother of Jesus. By the power of the Holy Spirit she conceived the Child.
After Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Mary and Joseph returned to Nazareth where Jesus grew up. He was raised in a large extended family that included his grandparents, Ann and Joachim, who cared for him as a child.
No one knows just when or where Ann and Joachim died, but Jesus must have treasured them in life and on their passage to God.
The 2nd century Protoevangelium of James repeats a fundamental theme of the Book of Genesis: God promises Adam and Eve many children who will enjoy the blessings of the earth. God repeats the promise to an aged, childless couple, Abraham and Sarah, and again to Hannah, who bemoans her childlessness to the priest Eli in the temple. In the same way, God gives a child to Ann and Joachim. Mary, their daughter, brings blessings to the nations through her son Jesus Christ, born of the Holy Spirit.
Giotto’s 14th century illustrations (above) from the Arena Chapel in Padua. helped popularize the story of the parents of Mary in Italy, Europe and the rest of the western world.
It’s an important story for grandmothers and grandfathers. Like Ann and Joachim they have a big role raising the next generation. More than they think.
Civil wars are hard to understand. The American Civil War, the war in Rwanda in the 1990s, the war in Bosnia. That’s true also of the Spanish Civil War, which took place from 1936-1939 between forces of the left and the right. Great numbers of innocent people lost their lives. Outsiders from Germany, Russia and Italy made the war a testing ground for their own war machines. The scars are still there.
Many Catholic clergy were killed, especially in the early months of the war, including 13 bishops, 4,172 diocesan priests and seminarians, 2,364 men religious and 283 nuns in a period referred to as Spain’s “Red Terror.” Today the Passionists remember their Martyrs of Daimiel, Spain.
Between July 22nd and October 24th, 1936, twenty-six religious from the Passionist house of studies, Christ, the Light, outside the city of Daimiel, about eighty miles south of Madrid, died at the hands of anti-religious militiamen at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War
They were: Niceforo Diez Tejerina, 43, provincial superior, who previously served as a missionary in Mexico and Cuba after being ordained in Chicago, Illinois.; Ildefonso García Nozal, 38; Pedro Largo Redondo, 29; Justiniano Cuestra Redondo, 26; Eufrasio de Celis Santos, 21; Maurilio Macho Rodríguez, 21; Jose EstalayoGarcia, 21; Julio Mediavilla Concejero, 21; Fulgencio Calv Sánchez, 19; Honorino Carraced Ramos, 19; Laurino Proáno Cuestra, 20; Epifanio Sierra Conde, 20; Abilio Ramos Ramos, 19; Anacario Benito Nozal, 30; Felipe Ruiz Fraile, 21; Jose Osés Sainz, 21; Felix Ugalde Irurzun, 21; Jose Maria Ruiz Martinez, 20; Zacarias Fernández Crespo, 19; Pablo Maria Lopez Portillo, 54; Benito Solano Ruiz, 38; Tomas Cuartero Gascón, 21; Jose Maria Cuartero Gascón, 18; German Perez Jiménez, 38; Juan Pedro Bengoa Aranguren, 46; Felipe Valcobado Granado, 62.
Most of those killed were young religious studying for ordination and destined for missionary work in Mexico and Cuba. Others were priests who taught them and brothers who served in the community. Father Niceforo, the provincial, was visiting the community at the time.
Militiamen entered the Passionist house on the night of July 21st and ordered the thirty-one religious to leave in one hour. Father Niceforo gathered them in the chapel, gave them absolution, opened the tabernacle and said:
“We face our Gethsemane. . . all of us are weak and frightened, , ,but Jesus is with us; he is the strength of the weak. In Gethsemane an angel comforted Jesus; now he himself comforts and strengthens us. . .Very soon we will be with him. . .To die for him is really to live. . . Have courage and help me by your example.”
He then distributed the sacramental hosts to them.
The militiamen ordered the group to the cemetery and told them to flee. At the same time, they alerted companions in the surrounding areas to shoot the religious on sight.
The Passionists split into five groups. The first group of nine was captured and shot outside the train station of Carabanchel in Madrid on July 22, 1936 at 11pm.
The second group of twelve, Father Niceforo among them, was taken at the station at Manzanares and shot by a firing squad. Father Niceforo and four others died immediately. Seven were taken to a hospital where one later died. Six of them recovered, only to be shot to death later on October 23, 1936
Three other religious, traveling together, were executed at the train station of Urda (Toledo) on July 25th. Two gave their lives at Carrion de Calatrave on September 25th. Only five of the thirty-one religious were spared.
Numerous eye-witnesses testified afterwards to the brave faith and courage shown by the Daimiel Community in their final moments, especially the signs of forgiveness they gave their executioners.
They were beatified by Pope John Paul II on October 1, 1989, who said of them: “None of the religious of the community of Daimiel was involved in political matters. Nonetheless, within the climate of the historical period in which they lived, they were arrested because of the tempest of religious persecution, generously shedding their blood, faithful to their religious way of life, and emulating, in the twentieth century, the heroism of the Church’s first martyrs.” (Homily: October 1, 1989)
Today their bodies are interred in the Passionist house at Daimiel, Spain.
A novena preparing for the Feast of Saints Ann and Joachim, the parents of Mary, the mother of Jesus, July 26 began on July 17, reminding us of the role parents and grandparents play in raising children. Some years ago I visited the ancient temple ruins in Jerusalem where Jewish women were fervently praying with their daughters before the temple’s western wall.
Ann and her daughter Mary must have prayed here too.
The picture above, at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, is a model of the temple from Jesus’ time. Tradition says Ann and Joachim, parents of Mary, were closely associated with the temple and may have lived nearby. An ancient church honoring St. Ann stands today near the Pool of Bethesda, near the temple. There, a paralyzed man was healed by Jesus. (John 5, 1-18) That’s the church in the ruins below.
Church of St. Ann, Jerusalem
A statue of Ann and her daughter Mary is in the Jerusalem church. Ann is teaching her daughter at her side.
What is she teaching her? Some statues show her teaching Mary the scriptures, but I’ve seen a statue, like the one below, showing Ann teaching her the ABCs and numbers. That’s what parents and grandparents do, isn’t it? They teach children life’s basics: how to live and how to pray.
Cathedral, Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Still true today. We put the little statue below of the two of them under our chapel altar for the novena. Parents and grandparents, the next generation is at your side. Ann and Joachim pray for us; show us the way.
In 2016, Pope Francis raised the liturgical celebration of Mary Magdalene, July 22, from a memorial to a feast and directed she be referred to as an “Apostle to the apostles”. Today, the pope said, we must recognize more fully the dignity of women and their role in bringing the gospel to the world. Mary Magdalene is an example.
Gregory the Great, an early pope, got it wrong when he identified Mary Magdalene with Mary, the sister of Lazarus and the sinful women in Luke 7: 33ff, who washed Jesus’ feet. She is neither one. She was a star witness at his resurrection. Unfortunately, Gregory’s picture of Mary influenced the way western Christianity saw Mary. The eastern Christian churches, for the most part, have not seen her that way.
The composite view of Mary Magdalene in the western church could be found until recently in the Tridentine mass texts for her feast. The collect identified her as Mary of Bethany and the gospel was the story from Luke of the penitent woman anointing Jesus’ feet. That picture of her is often found in western Christian art.
Instead of the gospel of the sinful woman, our present lectionary offers John’s account of the appearance of Jesus to Mary after his resurrection. (John 20:1-18)
Unfortunately some recently, using flimsy evidence from 3rd and 4th century gnostic writings, want to “de-mythologize” Jesus and romanticize his relationship with Mary. Some even claim he was married to her. Their claims have been sensationalized in the media and unfortunately get a wide hearing.
Better to listen to the four gospels, especially St. Luke’s Gospel, and the evidence of the New Testament. They see Mary as a disciple among other important woman followers of Jesus who loved him. Their witness is older and more reliable. There’s also new archeological evidence about Magdala, Mary’s hometown, that helps us understand Mary Magdalene. Take a look.
Yet, Gregory the Great’s description of Mary’s spirituality is right on. Here’s an excerpt from his beautiful sermon in today’s Liturgy of the Hours:
“We should reflect on Mary’s attitude and the great love she felt for Christ; for though the disciples had left the tomb, she remained. She was still seeking the one she had not found, and while she sought she wept; burning with the fire of love, she longed for him who she thought had been taken away. And so it happened that the woman who stayed behind to seek Christ was the only one to see him. For perseverance is essential to any good deed, as the voice of truth tells us: Whoever perseveres to the end will be saved.
“At first she sought but did not find, but when she persevered it happened that she found what she was looking for. When our desires are not satisfied, they grow stronger, and becoming stronger they take hold of their object. Holy desires likewise grow with anticipation, and if they do not grow they are not really desires. Anyone who succeeds in attaining the truth has burned with such a great love. As David says: My soul has thirsted for the living God; when shall I come and appear before the face of God? And so also in the Song of Songs the Church says: I was wounded by love; and again: My soul is melted with love.
“Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek? She is asked why she is sorrowing so that her desire might be strengthened; for when she mentions whom she is seeking, her love is kindled all the more ardently.
“Jesus says to her: Mary. Jesus is not recognized when he calls her “woman”; so he calls her by name, as though he were saying: Recognize me as I recognize you; for I do not know you as I know others; I know you as yourself. And so Mary, once addressed by name, recognizes who is speaking. She immediately calls him rabboni, that is to say, teacher, because the one whom she sought outwardly was the one who inwardly taught her to keep on searching.”
Here’s Pope Francis on Jesus’ words to Mary in the garden, “Do not cling to me.”
“It is specifically in the garden of the resurrection that the Lord says to Mary Magdalene: “Do not hold on to me”. This is an invitation directed not only to Mary, but also to the entire Church, to enter into an experience of faith that surpasses any materialistic appropriation or human understanding of the divine mystery. A disciple of Jesus is not to seek human securities and worldly titles, but faith in the Living and Risen Christ! “
The article on Mary Magdalene in Wikipedia deals extensively, and generally fairly, with the interpretations of Mary in religious and popular culture through history. She is an importance reference for recognizing women’s role in the world and in the church today. An importance saint to know.
Our readings from St. Matthew this week deal with the growing opposition to Jesus as he preaches and performs miracles in Galilee. IT foreshadows his final rejection in Jerusalem. Concluding this section, Matthew adds another source of opposition to Jesus that may surprise us. His own family from Nazareth seems to oppose him.
“While he was still speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brothers appeared outside, wishing to speak with him. [Someone told him, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, asking to speak with you.”]*But he said in reply to the one who told him, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother.” (Matthew 12,47-50)
A little about family life at the time of Jesus may help us appreciate this gospel. For one thing, in Jesus’ day nuclear families– a mother, father and children living alone– were not the norm. In Jesus day families were extended families or clans, living and working together.
And so, the picture we sometimes have of the Holy Family– Mary, Joseph and the Child Jesus all by themselves in a small house in Nazareth– is not a realistic picture. Families in Nazareth, as we know from excavations in towns like Capernaum, lived in compounds, as they often do today in the Middle East, working together in the fields or in a business and offering each other support.
There were obligations to your extended family or clan. Everyone had to help in the harvest; you were expected to promote your family’s interest. The mother of James and John approaching Jesus looking for a good place for her sons in his kingdom was only doing what she was expected to do.
What we see in this gospel is the extended family of Jesus descending on him as he speaks to the crowds to remind him of his family obligations. What did they want to remind him of, we wonder? Were they off to a wedding or a funeral of a relative and were telling him to come along? Or, was the wheat harvest ready at Nazareth and they came looking for help? Or, they just wanted him for themselves for awhile? From Mark’s gospel we know some thought he was out of his mind.
Whatever it was, Jesus said that his family was those before him h meant to be with them. “ I belong here now,” Jesus seems to be saying to them. The kingdom of God, God’s family, God’s purpose, is greater than his family’s interests.
Today, of course, individualism is our predominant value, and it often stands in the way of family interests. It’s what “I” want that counts. But even today, family interests, family pressure can be strong and can get in the way of what God wants. Sometimes those closest to us, our own family, can be hard to manage, even though they want the best for us.
The gospel is supposed to be life at its best, but it also brings us to life at its worst. What’s worse than being a lamb among wolves? Than living with people who don’t support you and in fact hate you? Than having people beat you with whips? Than having your own brothers and sisters turn against you? Than having people throw you out of town?
Can it get worse than that? You’ll experience all these things, Jesus says in today’s gospel to the Twelve and those who go out with them.
Today’s gospel from Matthew is part of the commissioning of disciples whom Jesus sends as heralds of the kingdom of heaven. They have power to “cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers and drive out demons.” Great powers. But that’s not all. They must exercise these powers in the real world.
We can’t forget we live in the real world that Jesus describes in today’s gospel. His way of living in this world is unique. He doesn’t send out armed divisions or powerful super salespeople, but vulnerable lambs. Yet, his lambs are stronger than wolves. Don’t be awed by governors and kings or crushed by adversity or rejection, Jesus says. Just listen to the “Spirit of your Father speaking in you,” and you’ll have wisdom enough.
Even if you’re thrown out of one town, another town waits for the coming of the Son of Man. The real world is not as strong as it seems.
In our readings this 14th week of the year from Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus calls for laborers for a harvest: “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.” He gathers twelve disciples following that call.
When we think of laborers in the vineyard today, we might think of priests and religious. More priests and religious are certainly needed for the harvest in our church.
But they’re not the only laborers needed for God’s great harvest. What about laborers for places where priests or religious will never be? And what about the harvest itself, where does that happen?
I’m sure at one time or another you have overheard people at a restaurant or on a bus or at some gathering discussing religion. “What do you think of the pope?” “Do you think there’s life after death?” “Do you think Jesus is really God?” Often the questions go unanswered or wrongly answered because there’s no laborer there to speak the truth.
The harvest is waiting in a lot of places..
Jesus spoke about the laborers for the harvest as he moved from town to town in Galilee and saw “troubled and abandoned” crowds, Matthew’s gospel says. We need to ask for laborers among crowds like those of today. Maybe we need to recognize there’s a harvest not far from where we are, “troubled and abandoned,” at a table nearby.
