DAILY READING and REFLECTIONS For Wednesday, July 16, 2014 15th Week in Ordinary Time - Psalter 3 (Green/White) Optional Memorial of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Readings: Isa 10:5-16; Ps 94:5-15; Matt 11:25-27 Response: The Lord will not abandon his people. Rosary: Glorious Mysteries Key Verse: I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and of earth. SAINT OF THE DAY: Saint Carmen According to my resources, the name Carmen is a derivation of Carmel which is one of the titles given to Our Blessed Mother, namely, Our Lady of Mount Carmel. This is the patronal feast of the Carmelites. The Order of Carmelites takes its name from Mount Carmel, which was the first place dedicated to the Blessed Virgin and where a chapel was erected in her honor before her Assumption into Heaven. July 16 is also the feast of the Scapular of Mount Carmel. On that day in 1251, pious tradition says, the Blessed Virgin appeared to St. Simon Stock, General of the Carmelites at Cambridge, England, showed him the scapular and promised supernatural favors and her special protection to his Order and to all persons who would wear the scapular. To obtain the indulgences and other benefits promised to those who wear the Carmelite scapular, a person must be invested by a priest who has the requisite faculties and must lead a consistent Christian life. TODAYS READING FROM THE NEW AMERICAN BIBLE: READING 1: Isaiah 10:5-7, 13-16 5 Woe to Assyria, rod of my anger, the club in their hands is my fury! 6 I was sending him against a godless nation, commissioning him against the people who enraged me, to pillage and plunder at will and trample on them like the mud in the streets. 7 But this was not his intention nor did his heart plan it so, for he dreamed of putting an end to them, of liquidating nations without number! 13 For he thinks: By the strength of my own arm I have done this and by my own wisdom: how intelligent I have been! I have abolished the frontiers between peoples, I have plundered their treasures, like a hero, I have subjugated their inhabitants. 14 My hand has found, as though a birds nest, the riches of the peoples. Like someone collecting deserted eggs, I have collected the whole world while no one has fluttered a wing or opened a beak to squawk. 15 Does the axe claim more credit than the man who wields it, or the saw more strength than the man who handles it? As though a staff controlled those who raise it, or the club could raise what is not made of wood! 16 That is why Yahweh Sabaoth is going to inflict leanness on his stout men, and beneath his glory kindle a fever burning like a fire. RESPONSORIAL PSALM, Psalms 94:5-6, 7-8, 9-10, 14-15 5 They crush your people, Yahweh, they oppress your heritage, 6 they murder the widow and the stranger, bring the orphan to a violent death. 7 They say, Yahweh is not looking, the God of Jacob is taking no notice. 8 Take notice yourselves, you coarsest of people! Fools, when will you learn some sense? 9 Shall he who implanted the ear not hear, he who fashioned the eye not see? 10 Shall he who instructs nations not punish? Yahweh, the teacher of all people, 14 Yahweh will not abandon his people, he will not desert his heritage; 15 for judgement will again become saving justice, and in its wake all upright hearts will follow. GOSPEL, Matthew 11:25-27 25 At that time Jesus exclaimed, I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and of earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to little children. 26 Yes, Father, for that is what it pleased you to do. 27 Everything has been entrusted to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, just as no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. REFLECTIONS: Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (To the Greater Glory of God) OPENING PRAYER: Come, Holy Spirit, fill our minds with your light so that we can understand the true sense of your Word. Come, Holy Spirit, enkindle in our hearts the fire of your love to inflame our faith. Come, Holy Spirit, fill our being with your force to strengthen what is weak in us, in our service to God. Come, Holy Spirit, with the gift of prudence to control our enthusiasm which prevents us from loving God and our neighbor. Amen. ON READING 1: Isaiah 10:5-7, 13b-16 (Assyria Condemned) The prophet sees the Assyrians doings as evidence of Gods control over the fate of nations: Assyria is the rod that the Lord uses to punish his people for their unfaithfulness (cf. vv. 5-6). The Catechism of the Catholic Church uses this passage from Isaiah, and others from Holy Scripture, to point out that we see the Holy Spirit, the principal author of Sacred Scripture, often attributing actions to God without mentioning any secondary causes. This is not a primitive mode of speech, but a profound way of recalling Gods primacy and absolute Lordship over history and the world (cf. Is 10:5-15; 45:5-7; Deut 32:39; Sir 11:14) (no. 304). However, Assyria went beyond its brief, by treating Judah the same way it did pagan nations: it did not realize that its strength was on loan from God, and it took pride in its own might: v. 9 carries a list of important cities captured by the Assyrians (vv. 7-I I). So, in due course, God will judge and humble their pride (vv. 12-18); Assyria will be reduced to a shadow of its former glory. There is a call here to acknowledge that God is Lord of human affairs, and to be docile to his purposes (cf. vv. 15-16). The sin of pride is denounced, for it involves arrogating to oneself what belongs to God, and putting oneself in Gods place. Therefore, reading the spiritual meaning of the passage, Origen notices that it applies to every sinner: Every evildoer makes an idol of what he desires, and serves his sin; by melting down the work of a craftsmans hands and sculpting the idol in secret, he becomes subject to its curse. We make many idols in the depths of our hearts when we sin (Homiliae in Isaiam, 8, 1). ON THE GOSPEL: Matthew 11:25-27 (Jesus Thanks His Father The liturgical passage of Mt 11, 25-27 represents a turning point in the Gospel of Matthew: Jesus is asked the first questions regarding the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven. The first one to ask the first questions on the identity of Jesus is John the Baptist, who through his disciples asks him a concrete question: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to expect someone else?” (11, 3). Instead, the Pharisees, together with the Scribes, address words of reproach and judgment to Jesus: “Look, your disciples are doing something that is forbidden on the Sabbath” (12, 2). Up until now in chapter 1 to 10, the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven in the person of Jesus did not seem to find any obstacles, but beginning with chapter 11, we find some concrete difficulties. Or rather many begin to take a stand before Jesus: sometimes he is “the object of scandal”, of fall (11, 6); “this generation“, in the sense of this human descent, does not have an attitude of acceptance regarding the Kingdom that is to arrive; the cities along the lake are not converted (11, 20); concerning the behaviour of Jesus a true and proper controversy springs up (chapter 12), and thus they begin to think how to lead him to death (12, 14). This is the climate of mistrust and of protest in which Matthew inserts this passage. Now the moment has arrived in which to question oneself about the activity of Jesus: how to interpret the “works of Christ” (11, 2.19)? How can these thaumaturgic actions be explained (11, 20. 21.23)? Such questions concern the crucial question of Messiah ship of Jesus, and judge not only “this generation” but also the cities around the lake which have not converted as the Kingdom of Heaven gets closer in the person of Jesus. The wise and understanding of this world, that is, those who rely on their own judgment, cannot accept the revelation which Christ has brought us. Supernatural outlook is always connected with humility. A humble person, who gives himself little importance, sees; a person who is full of self-esteem fails to perceive supernatural things. Here Jesus formally reveals His divinity. Our knowledge of a person shows our intimacy with Him, according to the principle given by St. Paul: For what person knows a mans thoughts except the spirit of the man which is in him? (1 Corinthians 2:11). The Son knows the Father by the same knowledge as that by which the Father knows the Son. This identity of knowledge implies oneness of nature; that is to say, Jesus is God just as the Father is God. To becomes small. The most efficacious itinerary to carry out this conversion is to become “small”. Jesus communicates this strategy of “smallness” in a prayer of thanksgiving (11, 27) which has a wonderful parallel in the witness rendered to the Father on the occasion of the Baptism (11, 27). Experts love to call this prayer a “hymn of rejoicing, exultation”. The rhythm of the prayer of Jesus begins with a confession: “I praise you”, “I confess to you”. Such expressions of introduction render Jesus’ words quite solemn. The prayer of praise that Jesus says presents the characteristics of an answer addressed to the reader. Jesus addresses himself to the God with the expression “Lord, of Heaven and earth”, that is, to God as Creator and guardian of the world. In Judaism, instead, it was the custom to address God with the invocation “Lord of the world”, but did not add the term “Father“, a distinctive characteristic of the prayer of Jesus. The reason for the praise and the disclosing of God: because you have hidden..., revealed. The hiding referred to the “wise and intelligent” concerns the Scribes and the Pharisees completely closed up and hostile to the coming of the Kingdom (3, 7 ff; 7, 29; 9, 3.11. 34). The revelation to the little ones, the Greek term says “infants”, those who cannot speak as yet. Thus, Jesus indicates the privileged audience of the proclamation of the Kingdom of Heaven as those who are not experts of the Law, and are not instructed. Which are “these things” that are hidden or revealed? The content of this revelation or hiding is Jesus, the Son of God, the one who reveals the Father. It is evident for the reader that the revelation of God is linked indissolubly to the person of Jesus, to his Word, to his Messianic actions. He is the one who allows the revelation of God and not the Law or the premonitory events of the end of time. The revelation of God from the Father to the Son. In the last part of the discourse Jesus makes a presentation of self as the one to whom every thing has been communicated by the Father. In the context of the coming of the Kingdom, Jesus has the role and the mission to reveal the Heavenly Father in everything. In such a task and role he receives the totality of power, of knowledge and of the authority to judge. In order to confirm this role which is so committed, Jesus appeals to the witness of the Father, the only one who possesses a real knowledge of Jesus: “Nobody knows the Son but the Father”, and vice-versa “and nobody knows the Father but the Son”. The witness of the Father is irreplaceable so that the unique dignity of Jesus as Son may be understood by his disciples. Besides, the unicity or uniqueness of Jesus is affirmed in the revelation of the Father; the Gospel of John had already affirmed this: “No one has ever seen God; it is the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart who has made him known” (1, 18). To summarize, the Evangelist makes his readers understand that the revelation of the Father takes place through the Son. Even more: the Son reveals the Father to whom he wants. FINAL PRAYERS: Let us adore together the goodness of God who has given us Mary, the Mother of Jesus, as our Mother, and let us repeat in silence: Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be world without end. Amen. Lord, we claim the assurance that you desperately want us to respond to your personal invitation of love. Let us be mindful of opportunities so easy to pass over that will help us prepare the ground for your presence in our lives. We trust that you are sowing the seeds that will lead us to abundance. How lucky are we that you spare no expense to sow seeds at all times and in all places to remind us of your very real presence. We count on you in the questions we face, the decision we must make, in the people relying on us, and in those uncertainties tugging at our spirit. Amen. Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ. -- St. Jerome The Father uttered one Word; that Word is His Son, and He utters Him forever in everlasting silence; and in silence the soul has to hear it. -- St. John of the Cross
Posted on: Tue, 15 Jul 2014 18:26:36 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015