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10th Week in Ordinary Time, Monday

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Today’s readings are a source of encouragement and a reminder that we in turn are called to encourage others, because that is the eternal mission of the saints. The Beatitudes Jesus teaches us in today’s Gospel are a checklist for seeing whether someone is holy, whether someone is a saint–they’re the attitudes and dispositions we’re called to have. That’s why the Church calls her process of recognizing the heroic sanctity on one of her children a process of beatification, and usually before someone is declared a Saint, they are declared a Blessed. We are all called to be saints, whether the Church officially recognizes it or not: saints encourages others by their example and their intercession in recognition of the encouragement they themselves have received from God, as St. Paul points out so eloquently in the First Reading.

The Beatitudes are also an encouragement for us: if we strive to be poor of spirit we’ll inherit the Kingdom of God. If we mourn we shall be comforted. If we hunger and thirst for righteousness, that hunger and thirst will be satisfied. It’s wonderful to consider how the saints have taken these promises and lived holy lives in completely different ways: no one can deny that there’s a difference of style between saints such as St. Francis, St. Ignatius Loyola, St. Philip Neri, and St. Therese of the Child Jesus. If we live these Beatitudes as promises, as Saint John Paul II encouraged us to do in Veritatis Splendor (see n.16), we’ll enjoy a life filled with good works from here to eternity.

Let’s thank Our Lord today for the encouragement he has given us along the path of holiness, both through his own example and the example of the saints, and let’s ask him to help us to be an encouragement to others.

Readings: 2 Corinthians 1:1–7; Psalm 34:2–9; Matthew 5:1–12.

Solemnity of Corpus Christi

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In the Gospel for today’s solemnity Our Lord seals a new covenant with his own blood. The old covenant, recalled in today’s First Reading, involved the shedding and sprinkling of blood; the altar represented God, and by sprinkling the blood on it and the people a communion of life was established and would be maintained as long as they followed the precepts that were stipulated. The Lord didn’t need to do it, but after the sins of humanity the people of Israel did. That covenant was renewed over and over again in Jewish worship through the sacrifice of animals and the shedding of blood, and the violations atoned for.

That covenant was just a foreshadowing of the covenant to come. When God became man he chose to become that sacrifice, to shed his own blood in order to establish a new and everlasting covenant. If the blood of animals produced a spiritual benefit for those who were offering it, the Second Reading today reminds us how much more spiritual benefit from the blood of Christ, the sacrifice of himself for the sins of  the world. Moses in the First Reading ratified the covenant with the blood of bulls; the Second Reading reminds us that Jesus has ratified the new covenant with his own blood. It’s one thing to sacrifice something of value in order to make amends; it’s a whole other level to sacrifice your very self, body and blood.

We celebrate today the Body and Blood of Christ because they are now the one sacrifice to restore and maintain our communion with God. We offer and receive this sacrifice in an unbloody manner, under the appearance of bread and wine, in part because Our Lord didn’t want our squeamishness to keep us from coming to him as the Bread of Life. We remember today that the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Christ so that we never forget that a sacrifice has been made once and for all the forgiveness of sins: our sins, not his. Today let’s remember the love for us that powered that sacrifice.

Readings: Exodus 24:3–8; Psalm 116:12–13, 15–16, 17–18; Hebrews 9:11–15; Mark 14:12–16, 22–26.

9th Week in Ordinary Time, Saturday

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In today’s Gospel Our Lord reminds us that with prestige and recognition comes expectation: the expectations we have, but also the expectations of others. When we seek recognition or prestige for their sake, climbing the social ladder, trying to get ahead in life, at some point we come to the realization, if we’re fortunate, that we’re milking past glories instead of doing the things that’d merit recognition. That’s vainglory. If we don’t realize it we can be sure that others do.  Jesus puts us on guard against resting on our laurels, as some scribes did, who focused on maintaining and increasing their prestige instead of helping people to understand God’s word, which is what they were trained to do, and what was expected of them.

Does that mean we should stop trying to achieve and reject any recognition? Our focus should be on what we can do with the talents that God gives us to glorify him and serve others. Just as most of us go from elementary school to high school and on to college, those diplomas are signposts of recognition along the road of life, but also the expectation that with all that education we’ll accomplish bigger and better things not only for ourselves, but for others. If we focus on giving the best of ourselves for the sake of others, receiving recognition for it or not doesn’t matter to us. This is a healthy way of keeping our accomplishments from getting to our heads.

Let’s try to be more like the unassuming widow in today’s Gospel who gives until it hurts, seeking nothing in return, and not like the rich people who only gave of their excess and were probably just trying to maintain their prestige. Let’s ask Our Lord to show is whether we should be giving more for the sake of others, and to give glory to him for whatever recognition or prestige that comes our way.

Readings: Tobit 12:1, 5–15, 20; Psalm 13:2, 6e; Mark 12:38–44.

9th Week in Ordinary Time, Friday

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In today’s Gospel Our Lord is having a little fun with the scribes and the crowd after having run a gauntlet of scribes trying to trip him up (with the exception of yesterday’s scribe). He presents a question from Scripture that apparently has no solution: quoting Psalm 109 (Psalm 110 in some editions of the Bible), which is attributed to David, he asks how David could have any Lord other than Yahweh, and how could the Messiah be greater than David, his father by lineage? The Messiah should call King David his lord, but it seems from the Psalm that David is doing the reverse: calling the Messiah his lord.

Jesus not only has the solution; he is the solution. He is God, and therefore he is David’s Lord, as well as being the Messiah, descended from the line of David, and therefore David’s heir. Our Lord came to help us to connect the dots and fill in the blanks for all those questions that have popped up throughout salvation history. He is the answer to so many of life’s quandaries and that’s why he became flesh and chose to dwell among us.

Let’s ask Our Lord today to help us fill in the blanks in our lives.

Readings: Tobit 11:5–17; Psalm 146:1b–2, 6c–10; Mark 12:35–37.

9th Week in Ordinary Time, Thursday

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Today’s Gospel reading brings us to the end of a series of debates with the chief priests, scribes, and elders, and it ends on an encouraging note. After various attempts to exploit discussion on God’s word in order to score political points or discredit Our Lord we find a refreshing change of pace: a scribe who is actually interested in seeking the truth and who acknowledges when someone has helped him to find it more fully. The scribes were debating about what the hierarchy of all the precepts were within Mosaic Law. They had already determined 613 precepts of the Law: 248 commands and 365 prohibitions.* Which were the most important?

Our Lord responds with the fundamentals not only for the Jews, but for us. When he tells the scribe that the Lord must loved above all else he is repeating the first words of the Jews’ profession of faith, the Shema, taken from the book of Deuteronomy (cf. Deuteronomy 11:13–21) and prayed by them every day. Their faith, and our faith, revolves entirely around the love of God. But Jesus connects this to another teaching from Leviticus (Leviticus 19:18): to love your neighbor as yourself. Connecting the two may have been a novelty for the Jews, but as Christians we know the two are closely linked: you can’t love God and not love your neighbor, or vice versa (cf. 1 John 4:20–21).

The scribe is also making the connections. In his response he draws not only from the part of Scripture considered the Law by the Jews, but also from the prophets. In the end Jesus tells him he is not far from the Kingdom of God. Could this be an invitation to become Jesus’ disciple?* Right now their conversation is at the level of peers, but the scribe is not far from becoming a disciple of Jesus in order to draw closer to the fullness of truth. Let’s pray today for all of those potential believers out there who are sincerely seeking the truth, so that they receive the grace to make that one last connection that convinces them to close the gap and become a disciple of Our Lord.

Readings: Tobit 6:10–11, 7:1b–e, 9–17, 8:4–9a; Psalm 128:1–5; Mark 12:28–34.

* Cf. J. A. O’Flynn (1953). The Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Mark in B. Orchard & E. F. Sutcliffe (Eds.), A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture. Toronto;New York;Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson 1953,924.