FrNikola

16th Week in Ordinary Time, Friday

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In today’s Gospel Our Lord he tells us about the obstacles that can keep us from having his Word bear fruit in our lives. As we can see, there is a lost of “noise” that can try to drown out his Word, and not all of it is self-generated. As he taught us yesterday, if we don’t understand what he is telling us, his Word stays on the surface and doesn’t penetrate our hearts, and the Evil One can easily sweep it away before it has any effect. We live in a culture today that can be shallow, superficial, and base: all of those things can form a sort of screen on our hearts that prevents God’s word from getting in. It’s also true that there is an active Evil presence out there that would like us to remain shallow and superficial and someday lose eternity with God forever, which is why we always need to watch and pray in moments of temptation and seek to understand God’s Word with profundity.

There’s a moment where an insight into his Word causes sensible consolations and warm feelings, but sentiments are often skin deep and change direction like the wind. If we only listen to feel good, when we start feeling bad we’ll stop listening–enthusiasm only lasts so long. God’s Word wants to be with us and help us in our ups and downs; he always has something to say, so whether we’re exultant about something or despondent, we need to keep listening, harder if needed. Lastly, there can also be a moment where we let our anxiety about something separate us from his Word: we become more concerning with the passing things of this world and not about the Kingdom: we worry about money, power, or pleasure. If we become attached to those things they won’t just drown out God’s Word, but they’ll make us deaf to many other things as well. A bad environment can choke out his Word in our lives, so we need to always consider whether there are certain places we should no longer go, certain people we should no longer see (if we’re too weak to change and to help them), certain things we should no longer do.

Let’s ask Our Lord to help us examine our “soil” today and let the seed of his Word fall on the rich spots, far away from thorns or rocky ground, in order to bear all the fruit we can.

Readings: Exodus 20:1–17; Psalm 19:8–11; Matthew 13:18–23.

16th Week in Ordinary Time, Thursday

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There’s probably been a moment in all of our lives when we wished the Lord would get his message across loud and clear, backed up by all the pyrotechnics we see in today’s First Reading. The Old Testament is full of these moments, and as believers we know that God has spoken to us and the people of Israel in this way throughout history. With the coming of Jesus the moment came to pass from one stage of learning about God and fathoming his almost unfathomable mystery to another: God in the Son took up human nature and revealed himself to us in a human way. Why did he do this, and why does he continue to do so today?

Pyrotechnics and great wonders and signs can attract attention, but for many, they don’t help grow in a robust faith. If the Israelites had grown in faith and an understanding of God we would not have inherited an Old Testament full of cases of infidelity and disbelief, sometimes right after enormous signs of God’s power and presence. Sometimes those signs didn’t go beyond provoking a servile fear, and the minute the signs were absent, people started going back to their own way of thinking and acting. In today’s Gospel Our Lord tells us to see the difference between hearing something and listening, between looking at something and seeing it. The parables present something from daily life, but are also doorways to other spiritual and divine insights about God, the “knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom of heaven.” It’s not enough to look at the door: it has to be opened to discover what lies beyond. When we see parables in this way, when we see the Word of God in this way, we see something from which we can draw profound truths regarding ourselves, our world, and Our Lord, not just once, but constantly. But that requires we make an effort in faith to listen and see, an effort to open our hearts and open that door into the greater world Our Lord wants to reveal to us.

Let’s ask Our Lord today to help us open that door: to open our eyes that we may see, our ears that we may hear, and our hearts that we may understand His Word.

Readings: Exodus 19:1–2, 9–11, 16–20b; Daniel 3:52–56; Matthew 13:10–17.

St. Mary Magdalene

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If one thing characterizes Saint Mary Magdalene is that she’s been blessed with the grace on multiple occasions to pass from desperation to hope against all odds. The evangelist Luke says in passing that Our Lord had cast out seven demons from Mary (cf. Luke 8:2): Mary was completely at the mercy of evil, at the hands of spiritual beings well beyond her abilities. Anyone who has lived in the grips of sin or the effects of evil can testify that it is one of the most miserable and powerless states imaginable. In that pit of despair Our Lord came into Mary’s life and rescued her. It’s no wonder that afterwards she would be completely devoted to him and become one of his closest disciples.

Today’s Gospel narrates a second occasion where Mary passed from desperation to hope against all odds. She didn’t understand the teaching that Jesus would rise from the dead. For her, he was gone and she was trying to cope as anyone would at the death of a loved one. When you lose someone you love it leaves a hole in your life that nothing can fill, and visiting the tomb of the beloved is a small way of re-connecting and remembering. Mary was deprived of that, and she was resolved to find Jesus’ remains and pay him the honor and respect he was due after so much cruelty. When it seemed that would be impossible once again Our Lord appeared to her and bore her from the point of despair to hope.

We can venture to say that Mary had one last passage at the end of her life: after persevering in hope, waiting for her Lord to call her to himself, she achieved definitive joy–being with him forever–in Heaven. Mary Magdalene teaches us today that if Our Lord’s action seems to disappear from our lives in the face of evil and suffering we have only to wait in hope, knowing he’ll make his presence felt again. Like Mary let’s be witnesses of all those moments when Our Lord came out of nowhere and lifted us up from despair so that others may persevere in hope as well.

Reading: John 20:1-2, 11-18.

16th Week in Ordinary Time, Tuesday

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In today’s Gospel it may seem that Our Lord is showing disrespect toward his mother and his “brothers” (in the New Testament this expression refers to any blood relations), but he is inviting them to go from considering what it means to be a member of a family to being in communion with God and with others. When God explains his intimate being he describes it in terms of Father and Son, and even the Holy Spirit is considered often from the perspective of love, the hallmark of every good family. A healthy and happy family is not only a blessing for its members, but for those who have the grace to know them as well. One of the greatest compliments you can give a friend is to say he or she is part of the family.

We know Mary is a great mother who loved and supported her son from the Annunciation all the way to Calvary and beyond. It’s safe to say that the “brothers” were incredulous about Jesus and what he was doing; in Gospel accounts of Jesus’ visits to Nazareth he lamented how little he could do there due to their lack of faith. In his response today he is paying a compliment to his mother while inviting his “brothers” to go beyond their blood relation with him to a faith that brings them into a communion with him, his disciples, and God–to become part of the extended family of all believers, by striving to do God’s will. His mother is not only a good mother; she has lived her entire life in perfect harmony with God’s will, and therefore she’s already his biological mother and well along to path to being the mother of all believers.

Let’s pray today for all families to be healthy, happy, and holy, and for all believers to treat each other like brothers and sisters, knowing it is God’s will for us.

Readings: Exodus 14:21–15:1; Exodus 15:8–10, 12, 17; Matthew 12:46–50.

16th Week in Ordinary Time, Monday

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In today’s Gospel the scribes and Pharisees were seeking a sign in the way it doesn’t normally work: signs are a gift. If you demand a sign, often you won’t get it, because signs are a gift from God and he sends them when and how he pleases. In this case, Jesus has already worked various signs regarding his mission from the Father. When Our Lord responds with the story of Jonah he is speaking of his impending Death and Resurrection, a great sign, but by connecting it to the story of Jonah he is also sending a message: destruction is at hand if his listeners, the scribes and Pharisees, do not repent. His message from the beginning of his public ministry has been that the Kingdom is at hand, and repentance and belief are expected. The people of Nineveh did penance for their sins, and in the end the Lord did not destroy them or their city.

The scribes and Pharisees had to repent and believe in order to avoid a spiritual catastrophe. When Our Lord says something greater than Jonah is happening in this case, he’s referring to a spiritual destruction, something far worse than physical death or loss. He’s also referring to an unimaginable sign: Resurrection. If he is blunt in his response it is because he knows the stakes are much higher in this instance and there’s already been a lack of repentance and faith despite all the signs he has already worked. It’s no coincidence that after his Resurrection he only appeared to his disciples: they received a confirmation of their faith in witnessing the Risen Lord.

Let’s ask Our Lord to strengthen our faith today in whatever manner he chooses.

Readings: Exodus 14:5–18; Exodus 15:1b–6 Matthew 12:38–42.