Tuesday

27th Week in Ordinary Time, Tuesday

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The story of Martha and Mary in today’s Gospel helps us take stock of our prayer life. Martha through serving the Lord is making her life a prayer; she’s busy, but she is doing it for him. The first step in any prayer life is the desire to know and to serve the Lord. Even when we’re busy we can remind ourselves that everything we do should be with Our Lord in mind. At the same time, Martha’s prayer life is a little tainted with activism: focusing on doing so much that she loses sight of why she is doing it. This is proved when she comes to Our Lord to complain and judge her sister: a lack of charity is a symptom of a lack of prayer life.

Our Lord is well aware of this, which is why he presents Martha her sister as an example of contemplative prayer: Mary just sits at the Lord’s feet, apparently “doing” nothing, but she is loving the Lord. Everyone needs this kind of prayer too: prayer no much of reciting words or doing things as simply “sitting” in the Lord’s presence and listening to whatever he has to say, or simply just being there and loving him while he loves us. This prayer can be difficult, so sometimes we need material for our conversation with him, such as a passage from Sacred Scripture, but that is the food for our conversation with him.

Try taking ten minutes today from your schedule to just sit down in a quiet place (at home, in a church, etc.) and simply recollect yourself and speak with Our Lord heart to heart. He will speak if you listen. It will help you more like Martha and like Mary in a good way.

Readings: Jonah 3:1–10; Psalm 130:1b–4b, 7–8; Luke 10:38–42.

25th Week in Ordinary Time, Tuesday

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In today’s Gospel Our Lord reminds us that hearing the word of God is not enough; it has to be acted upon. God has put a plan into motion through his son, and he invites us to take part in it. In today’s First Reading the Israelites are rebuilding their Temple after years of exile and foreign oppression. Hellenic invaders had just made concerted effort, aided by some Israelites, to wipe out their cultural identity, and failed. Now under Persian rule they find a ruler who supports them in their faith. Through the Persian rulers, in response to hearing God’s will through the prophets, the Israelites reconstruct their Temple again as a place for God. In the past they’d separated themselves from God’s will, thinking that as long as the Temple was there, God was with them, but the Lord showed them a building and his will are two different things when they were exiled and their Temple destroyed. If we don’t build with God, nothing lasts.

Our Lord invites us to hear his word and act upon it by growing in holiness and spreading his word through evangelization. When his mother comes looking for him in today’s Gospel he is in the middle of doing exactly that: teaching and sanctifying a people who’ll come together and be built into his Church, in order to spread his word throughout the world. So is Mary; she’s bringing their relatives to Our Lord in order to hear God’s word and, hopefully, to act upon it.

Let’s ask Our Lord today how he wants us to put his word into action in our lives today, and how we can help him in the work of evangelization.

Readings: Ezra 6:7–8, 12b, 14–20; Psalm 122:1–5; Luke 8:19–21. See also 16th Week in Ordinary Time, Tuesday.

22nd Week in Ordinary Time, Tuesday

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The first spin doctor in salvation history was the serpent, later identified as the Devil, in the Garden of Eden, and in today’s Gospel we see one of his buddies also trying to put some negative spin on Our Lord’s mission by sowing confusion about Our Lord and his mission. Jesus’ listeners are impressed by how authoritatively Our Lord speaks; he does not couch his expressions in disclaimers and qualifiers as the scribes often did, nor tries to put a spin on them. Things seem to be going well when the demon uses its possessed prey to make some noise.

Why does Our Lord silence it before casting it out of the possessed man? Not just because it is making a racket, but probably also because it is trying to identify who Jesus is at an importune moment–it is trying to ruin the surprise Our Lord wants to reveal in his time. Referring to Jesus as the “the Holy One of God” could be interpreted as being the Messiah or even God the Son, and the people were not ready for either of those revelations: there were many expectations about the Messiah that Our Lord had to address, and often correct, throughout his earthly mission, and in today’s Gospel he is barely starting. If the people in that moment realized that God the Son was standing before them, they would have become overwhelmed by fear. However, to be fair, it’s not clear whether the demon recognized Jesus to be anything more than the Messiah in that moment. In any case, the demon does not manage to frustrate Our Lord’s plans (as if it could), and casting it out becomes another sign testifying to the authority and power of Jesus.

There are many things in life that try to frustrate a deeper knowledge of and love for Our Lord in our lives. Let’s examine ourselves today by asking ourselves the question Our Lord once addressed to Peter and the disciples (see Matthew 16:15): “who do you say that I am?”

Readings: 1 Thessalonians 5:1–6, 9–11; Psalm 27:1, 4, 13–14; Luke 4:31–37.

21st Week in Ordinary Time, Tuesday

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In today’s Gospel Our Lord puts us on guard against the danger of legalism, where laws are made for the sake of making laws, bureaucracy is the order of the day, and the purpose of the law doesn’t go much beyond bean counting in order to maintain an air of respectability. Our Lord doesn’t condemn laws; rather, he condemns losing sight of the purpose of those laws.

As he teaches us today, law’s purpose is judgment: to ensure that parties in conflict each receive what justice says is their due. Its purpose is mercy: to be fair to the party in the wrong, but to try and help him or her to become a good citizen again, not just fill prisons or government coffers. Finally, its purpose is fidelity: fostering solid bonds of solidarity between members of society at all levels: marriages, families, corporations, etc.–when someone breaks the law they should realize that they’ve failed in something expected of them to ensure the common good. Taxes on spices may be useful, but they’re not at the heart of the law.

We also need to examine laws to see whether they ensure just judgments, leave room for mercy, and foster fidelity. Let’s pray for our legislators that they have these principles in mind when drafting laws, and let’s also ask Our Lord to help us not sacrifice the important things for a hollow legal compliance in empty things.

Readings: 1 Thessalonians 2:1–8; Psalm 139:1–6; Matthew 23:23–26.

20th Week in Ordinary Time,Tuesday

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Today’s Gospel must be understood in the aftermath of yesterday’s regarding the young man who did not want to give up his possessions. The disciples were taken aback by what happened: in the mentality of the time, material wealth was a sign of having the blessing of God, and Our Lord told the young man that it was an obstacle to attaining eternal life. We can succumb to the same mentality today: we think that if we are successful, healthy, and worry-free, God is blessing us. Those are gifts to be thankful for, but problems and difficulties are gifts as well, because they help us to imitate Christ through taking up our cross to follow him. That’s the lesson Our Lord is trying to teach us today.

If Our Lord asks us to separate ourselves from our loved ones, our possessions, or our country for his sake, he promises that we will be blessed a hundred fold and inherit eternal life. This is not just an investment with a promise of a good return; it is a promise that those people and places that we love will also be blessed through our sacrifice. We becomes part of a larger family that does not exclude the biological family from which we must spend time apart, and we are promised a greater home than we could have ever imagined, our true home: Heaven.

Let’s not be shy about separating from the people we love if Our Lord asks it of us, knowing that it will not only be an act of love for him, but a blessing for our loved ones as well.

Readings: Judges 6:11–24a; Psalm 85:9, 11–14; Matthew 19:23–30.