Monday

12th Week in Ordinary Time, Monday

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The ancient Romans had a saying that no man is an apt judge of himself. We have a legal system, courts, and judges because when we enter into disputes we look for somebody to judge our case with impartiality and objectivity, based on the facts. Even then we know that sometimes justice is not done despite all those efforts, which is why alongside those courts and judges there’s a system of appeals. Our Lord in today’s Gospel reminds us to be on guard against making rash judgments and meting out condemnation. In the Lord’s Prayer he tells us to pray to be forgiven as we have forgiven others. When we let ourselves be drawn into a logic of mutual recrimination and condemnation no one remains unscathed, because so often we too merit condemnation for having judged and condemned another unjustly.

Jesus invites us today to examine ourselves and acknowledge that we have a lot of faults and failings, and we should focus on fixing them before we think of focusing on the faults and failings of others. Our own efforts to be good and holy people will give us an extra dose of objectivity in evaluating others’ actions in order to help them, not just to condemn them. Rash judgments are easily fired off about others in a world of quick and globalized communications. To counter our tendency to judge others rashly, harshly, and quickly we need to be as ready to forgive others as we would hope that they would forgive us. Tempering our judgments with virtue and mercy is the key to not being drawn into a logic of condemnation. It’s the difference between being judgmental and practicing fraternal correction out of concern for the person who has erred.

Let’s pray today for the grace to not get sucked into the blame game and to have a fraternal attitude toward others, especially those whom we feel have offended us in some way.

Readings: Genesis 12:1–9; Psalm 33:12–13, 18–20, 22; Matthew 7:1–5.

11th Week in Ordinary Time, Monday

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In a world that’s often focused on vendettas, avenging wrongs, trampled rights, and payback, Our Lord reminds us today of what has been a trademark of Christianity throughout the centuries: turning the other cheek. Meekness is often considered weakness, but it actually involves a very virtuous effort to not strike, or even dislike, the one who’s struck you, to give your time and possessions when someone doesn’t have a right to them, or to go out of your way beyond what any reasonable person would expect.

Our Lord has set the standard. How many blows did he receive? Being God, he didn’t have to become flesh and sacrifice himself for our salvation. When Adam and Eve sinnedGod could have left us to the mess they’d made of our lives, just as he could every time we sin and continue to sin. With all that baggage anything we ask, or sometimes demand, of Our Lord is something he is under no obligation whatsoever to to fulfill. And yet he does and continues to do so.

We often focus on the receiving end of the slights and offenses that he describes in today’s Gospel, but what he also teaches, through example, is how we should not be on the giving end of them either. Even today we have an eloquent testimony in so many Christians suffering persecution and death. Let’s ask Our Lord today for the meekness and humility of heart that enables us to turn the other cheek and to go out of our way for others.

Readings: 2 Corinthians 6:1–10; Psalm 98:1, 2b–4; Matthew 5:38–42.

9th Week in Ordinary Time, Monday

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grapevine

In today’s Gospel Our Lord invites us to imagine a group of men given the opportunity of a lifetime, both professionally and personally: not only a good place to live, but a great way to make a living. Imagine a business at a good location, with an abundant clientele, a great lease, and the job of making a lot of people happy (the vineyard is for producing wine, with throughout Scripture symbolizes joy). If that weren’t enough, the men running the business also have a wonderful place to live and a great landlord. Any outside observer would say that professionally and personally the owner has been very good to his tenants, even going beyond what a tenant would expect or deserve.

All the owner asks in return is a share of the joy that he hoped the tenants would produce. This is where the mystery of sin enters: mystery in the sense of sin, ultimately, following no logic but its own, a twisted logic that bends everything around it and denies greater truths eventually at its own expense. The tenants start beating up the people coming to collect the owner’s fair share and leaving him empty handed. There’s no remorse: gradually they start killing them too. And the owner shows a kindness that the tenants, to any outside observer, do not deserve. He keeps giving them opportunities until one day he gives them the greatest and most definitive opportunity: he sends the heir himself, a reminder that he is the owner and they are the tenants, and an extension of his very self. In their twisted logic they convince themselves that by eliminating the heir any trace of ownership will die with the owner, and he’ll also stop bothering them (the son was the last one he could send, as the parable narrates). The chief priests, scribes, and elders pronounce judgment on this “theoretical” case and their own words condemn what they themselves are doing.

Our Lord is the cornerstone. You can’t even speak of having a structure, having a building, without a cornerstone–it joins two walls together. Many “tenants” who’ve received so much kindness, personally and professionally, from God want to monopolize the joy they could give to God hand others, and as a result impoverish any joy they could really give. They deny something fundamental, something structural: that the owner and his heir are what make their life possible, whether they acknowledge it or not, and eventually second chances (and third, and fourth, etc.) are exhausted and mercy has to give way to justice. Let’s contemplate today the kindness of God in our lives and ask him to help us to see how we can work with him to bring joy to him, to others, and to ourselves.

Readings: Tobit 1:3, 2:1a–8; Psalm 112:1b–6; Mark 12:1–12.

8th Week of Ordinary Time, Monday, Year I

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In today’s Gospel we hear of the man who will go down in history as the Rich Young Man. Perhaps he wanted to make a name for himself, but in the end he anonymously provides an example down through the centuries of “don’t let this happen to you”: don’t leave anything off limits to God, because sooner or later it will come between you and him. In the spiritual life we can form unhealthy attachments to things–wealth, health, relationships, etc.–and we can lose sight of the fact that everything we have and are is a gift from God, and should be used to serve him and to serve others.

The Rich Young Man today was loved by Our Lord, and that was why Jesus told him he had to make a choice. He had put his possessions and what they could be put to use for off limits, and, like a jealous lover, Our Lord told him, “it’s me or them: pick.” The Rich Young Man made the wrong choice. Many of the first Christians were called by nicknames, and who knows if the Rich Young Man was called to be Saint Generous or Saint Magnanimous.

Let’s ask Our Lord to show us today whatever there is in our life that we may be putting off limits to God, or may come between us and him. What’s important is to make the resolution to change, and, as Jesus promises the disciples, with God all things are possible.

Readings: Sirach 17:20–24; Psalm 32:1–2, 5–7; Gospel Mark 10:17–27.

7th Week of Easter, Monday

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In today’s Gospel the disciples believe they have Our Lord all figured out, and for that reason they declare their faith in him. Within a few hours, as Jesus warns them, their faith will vanish as quickly as the appearance of a group of armed men in Gethsemane searching for Jesus. God is mystery, mystery in the sense that we can spend our entire life trying to fathom him and his designs and never completely exhaust what we can know about him. He’s not some little Internet factoid that we read, file somewhere, and then click to go on to the next thing that piques our curiosity.

Knowledge about God is not enough for a solid faith; it requires grace as well. These same men after the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus will be locked away in a room, still not quite sure of what God was asking of them, but waiting to receive power from on high, just as Jesus promised them before ascending into Heaven. Christian life is an ongoing communication with God not only of information, but of grace in order to live all he expects of us.

Let’s also take courage today from two promises Our Lord makes in today’s Gospel: first, that, like him, the Father is always with us, no matter how alone we feel, and that Jesus, amidst all the trials and troubles of this life, has conquered the world.

Readings: Acts 19:1–8; Psalm 68:2–3b, 4–5a, 5c–7b; John 16:29–33.