Ordinary Time

13th Week in Ordinary Time, Thursday, Year II

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In today’s readings we see two reminders that power and authority come from God, not from men. If we do any good work on the Lord’s behalf it is because the Lord empowers us to do so. In today’s First Reading the priest Amaziah trash talks the prophet Amos and implies that he has come to Bethel as a prophet as a career change, not a mission from the Lord. Even if the Northern Kingdom did not have faith in Amos, events would show that he had been sent by the Lord: everything he prophesied in today’s First Reading came to pass.

In today’s Gospel the main wonder is not that Our Lord could heal a paralytic. The healing of a paralytic is a sign ratifying the true teaching of the day: that the ministry and power of forgiveness could be entrusted to a man. When Our Lord uses the expressions “Son of man” and “authority on earth” he is not referring to his divine power to forgive, but his human authority entrusted to him by his Father as part of his mission on earth. The crowds understand perfectly: they glorify God for giving “such authority to men.” This ministry of reconciliation continues in the Church even today, but through the power and authority given by the Lord.

Our Lord has blessed us with many means to know his will and to be reconciled with him and with others. Let’s glorify him today for all the good he has done for us through his ministers.

Readings: Amos 7:10–17; Psalm 19:8–11; Matthew 9:1–8. See also 1st Week in Ordinary Time, Friday, 2nd Week of Advent, Monday, 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B, and 13th Week in Ordinary Time, Thursday.

13th Week in Ordinary Time, Monday, Year II

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In today’s Gospel Our Lord reminds us not to worry about where we’re going to stay or our family when we follow him and help him extend his Kingdom. Everything we seek, God willing, will be awaiting us at the end of our journey: true rest and everyone we love in Heaven.

Readings: Amos 2:6–10, 13–16; Psalm 50:16b–23; Matthew 8:18–22. See also 13th Week in Ordinary Time, Sunday, Cycle C, 10th Week of Ordinary Time, Saturday, Year II and 26th Week in Ordinary Time, Wednesday.

13th Week in Ordinary Time, Sunday, Cycle C

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A superficial reading of today’s First Reading and Gospel may give us the impression that Elijah is easier on his disciple than Our Lord is with his, but the Second Reading can shed a little light on the apparent difference. Paul reminds us in the Second Reading that life is a battle between the flesh and the Spirit; the Christian life presents a new way of living, living in a way that you are not enslaved to things and situations, but alive in the Spirit and focused on the spiritual goal. Even good things, if sought for the wrong reasons, can oppose a life of the Spirit.

A common denominator in today’s First Reading and Gospel is that the disciple asks to do something before following his master. The subtle difference is that, unlike Elijah, Our Lord can always read hearts and see whether that heart is speaking from the flesh or from the Spirit. Elisha is “liquidating his assets” and doing one last gesture of love for his family before departing; the hearts of disciples in today’s Gospel are only known to Our Lord, and it is in his response to them that we see a potential conflict between Spirit and flesh that he is trying to help them address.

The first disciple in today’s Gospel perhaps doesn’t understand that following Our Lord is a something lifelong: he’s not just headed to the Rabbi’s house instead of his own, he is committed to permanently follow Jesus, just as every Christian is called to do. The second wants to attend to important family business, but sometimes following Our Lord requires sacrifice and self-denial: in telling the dead to bury their dead Our Lord perhaps is telling him too that the family business he is concerned about can already be attended to by another member of his family. The last potential disciple wants to go home and say goodbye first: Our Lord sees something in that request that would put flesh over Spirit. Perhaps the disciple would go home and stay there. Following Christ is the best thing we can do for ourselves and our family, and we must never lose sight of that.

Whatever path Our Lord calls us to walk, not just priesthood or consecrated life, it is a path where we follow him. Let’s ask him today to show us the path we should take and how we should take it.

Readings: 1 Kings 19:16b, 19–21; Psalm 16:1–2, 5, 7–11; Galatians 5:1, 13–18; Luke 9:51–62. See also 10th Week of Ordinary Time, Saturday, Year II and 26th Week in Ordinary Time, Wednesday.

12th Week of Ordinary Time, Saturday, Year II

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Today’s First Reading captures the sentiments of the Israelites undergoing the Babylonian Captivity, recalled two days ago. They’re trying to come to grips with why the Lord handed them over to their enemies. What a great contrast with today’s Gospel, when a Roman centurion, part of the people who are occupying Israel centuries after their return from the Babylonian Captivity, is showing more faith in Our Lord and his power to heal than the Lord’s Israelite contemporaries.

Today we live a far different type of “conquest” and expansion. Today, thanks to Our Lord, all of us, whatever our ethnic background, are invited to form a part of the Kingdom of heaven, Christ’s Kingdom, and we pray with every Our Father that it come. That centurion foreshadows all of us with no drop of Jewish blood who met and became disciples of Our Lord and children of God through baptism. The Jews are not excluding from this opportunity, but as Our Lord taught them in today’s Gospel, faith is what will usher them into a lasting Kingdom that is secure from their true enemies: sin and death. Even the healing today of the centurion’s servant is a foreshadowing of the power of Christ the King.

Let’s thank Our Lord today for inviting us to form a part of his Kingdom, and help him to make his kingdom come and reconquer hearts for God.

Readings: Lamentations 2:2, 10–14, 18–19; Psalm 74:1b–7, 20–21; Matthew 8:5–17. See also 12th Week in Ordinary Time, Saturday.

12th Week of Ordinary Time, Thursday, Year II

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In today’s First Reading the Southern Kingdom of Judah also succumbs, just as the Northern one did, due to its infidelities. Its young, new king, instead of being a force for change and zeal, was just as wicked as the kings who had preceded him. Jeremiah warned Judah about relying on the Lord to always intervene, even when they were not doing his will, and, as Our Lord warns us in today’s Gospel, they built their lives on sand, generation after generation, king after king, and when the storm of Babylon came Judah was easily swept away: the best and brightest of Judah were led captive into Babylon to begin what Israel remembered forever after as the Babylonian Captivity.

Today’s Gospel concludes a series of teachings by Our Lord, teachings that we’ve been considering in recent weekdays. He reminds us that if we want to build our life on something solid we need to put his words into practice and, in so doing, do his will and the will of Our Heavenly Father. Things can be done in the Lord’s name, but they have to be things that the Lord desires, not just us, or else we too will hear those dreaded words one day: “I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers.”

We have nothing to fear if we rely on the Lord. Let’s ask him for the grace of a deeper knowledge of him so that, whatever he asks of us, we will strive to do his will as our will.

Readings: 2 Kings 24:8–17; Psalm 79:1b–5, 8–9; Matthew 7:21–29. See also 1st Week of Advent, Thursday and 12th Week in Ordinary Time, Thursday.