The context: Today’s Gospel presents Jesus
reacting with prophetic courage to the scepticism and criticism with which the
people of Nazareth, his hometown, responded to his “Inaugural Address” in
their synagogue that Sabbath.
Jesus’ reaction to his people’s scepticism: Jesus reacted to
the negative attitude of the Nazarenes with the comment, “No prophet is
accepted in his native place!” Next, he referred to the Biblical
stories of how God had blessed two Gentiles, while rejecting the many Jews in
similar situations, precisely because those Gentiles had been more open to the
prophets than the Jewish people were. First, Jesus reminded them of the Gentile
widow of Zarephath, in Lebanon (1 Kgs 17:7-24). The Prophet Elijah stayed with
her and her son during the three-and-a-half-year drought, fed them
miraculously, and later revived her son from death. Then Jesus pointed out that
Naaman, the pagan military general of Syria, was healed of leprosy by Elisha
the prophet (2 Kgs 5:1-19), while other lepers in Israel were not. Jesus’ words
implied that, like the people of his hometown, the Israelites of those former
days had been unable to receive miracles because of their unbelief. Jesus’
reference to the unbelief of the Jews and to the stronger Faith of the Gentiles
infuriated his listeners at Nazareth. They rushed to seize Jesus and throw him
over the edge of the cliff on which their town was built. But Jesus escaped
because, “His hour had not yet come.”
Life messages: 1) We need to face rejection with prophetic courage and optimism, especially when we experience the pain of rejection, betrayal, abandonment, violated trust, neglect, or abuse from our friends, families, or childhood companions. 2) Let us not reject God in our lives, as the people in Jesus’ hometown did. Are we unwilling to be helped by God, or by others? Does our pride prevent us from recognizing God’s direction, help, and support in our lives, coming to us through His words in the Bible, through the teachings of the Church and through the advice and example of others? 3) We must have the prophetic courage of our convictions. The passage challenges us to have the courage of our Christian convictions in our day-to-day lives in our communities, when we face hatred and rejection because of our Christian Faith. (Fr. Tony) (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
March 10 Tuesday: Mt 18:21-35:
The lessons taught by the parable: (1) We must
forgive so that we may be forgiven. Jesus explains this truth after teaching
the prayer, Our Father. He warns us, “For if you forgive men
their trespasses, your Heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not
forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses”
(Mt 6:14-15). As James states it later, “For judgment is without
mercy to the one who has shown no mercy” (Jas 2:13). Clearly, Divine
and human forgiveness work together.
(2) We represent the greater debtor in the parable; that is,
we owe God the ten thousand talents of the parable. We commit sins every day
and, hence, we need God’s forgiveness every day. The sum total of all the
offenses which our brothers and sisters commit against us is equivalent to the
small debt of the second debtor in the parable, namely 100 denarii. Yet,
shockingly and sadly, we are merciless towards our fellow human beings. The
moral of Jesus’ story is that, as members of a community, we must treat one
another as God has treated each of us. Here is a Divine call to throw away the
calculator when it comes to forgiveness. We must choose the more honorable path
and forgive one another “from the heart.” We have been
forgiven a debt beyond all human paying – the sin of man which God forgave
through the willing, sacrificial death of His own Son. Since that is so, we
must forgive others as God has forgiven us. Otherwise, we cannot hope to
receive any mercy ourselves.
Life messages: 1) We need to forgive: Having
experienced forgiveness at the hands of God and God’s people, we are then
called to make it possible for others to experience the same forgiveness. Let
us forgive the person who has wronged us before hatred eats away our ability to
forgive. 2) Forgiveness will not be easy, but God is there to
help us. We can call on God’s help by offering that individual to God, not by
sitting in judgment, but simply by saying, “Help so-and-so and mend our
relationship.” We may never forget the hurt we have experienced, but
we can choose both to forgive the one who harmed us and to join our hurt to
Jesus in His Passion and death, offering it for the conversion and salvation of
all of us for whom he died.
3) We need to remind ourselves that with God’s grace we
have already forgiven the one that hurt us. As life goes on, we may
remember the incident or occasion that was hurtful. Then let us offer the
offender to God’s mercy again, and pray for God’s blessings on him or her.
March 11 Wednesday: Mt 5:17-19:
The context: Today’s Gospel passage, taken from Jesus’
Sermon on the Mount, presents Jesus as giving the highest compliments to the
Mosaic Law. These words of Jesus, which Matthew reports, touched the
communities of converted Jews, helping them to overcome the criticism of the
brothers of their own race who accused them saying, “You are unfaithful
to the Law of Moses.” Ironically, Jesus himself would be falsely
condemned and crucified as a Lawbreaker. Jesus says that the Old Testament, as
the Word of God, has Divine authority and deserves total respect. The Mosaic
Law was ultimately intended to help people honor God by practicing love. Its
moral precepts are to be respected and obeyed because they are, for the most
part, specific, Divine-positive promulgations of the natural law. But Christians
are not obliged to observe the legal and liturgical precepts of Old Testament
because God laid them down for specific stages in Salvation History.
Jesus’ teaching: In Jesus’ time, the Law was
understood differently by different groups of the Jews to be: 1) The Ten
Commandments, 2) The Pentateuch, 3) The Law and the Prophets, or 4) The oral
(Scribal) and the written Law. Jesus, and later Paul, considered the oral Law
as a heavy burden on the people and criticized it, while honoring the Mosaic
Law and the teachings of the prophets. At the time of Jesus, the Jews believed
that the Torah (Law given to Moses), was the eternal, unchangeable,
Self-Revelation of God. In today’s Gospel, Jesus says that he did not come to
destroy the Torah but to bring it to perfection by bringing out its inner
meaning because He IS the ultimate self-Revelation of God, the
Lawgiver. That is why the Council of Trent declared that Jesus was given to
us, “not only as a Redeemer, in whom we are to trust, but also as a
Lawgiver whom we are to obey” (“De Iustificatione,” can. 21).
Jesus honored the two basic principles on which the Ten Commandments were
based, namely the principle of reverence and the principle of respect. In the
first four commandments, we are asked to reverence God,
reverence His holy Name, reverence His holy day, and reverence our father and
mother. The next set of commandments instructs us to respect life,
the marriage bond, one’s personal integrity and others’ good name, the legal
system, another’s property and spouse, and one’s own spouse. Jesus declares
that he has come to fulfill all Divine laws based on these principles. By “fulfilling
the law,” Jesus means fulfilling the purpose for
which the Law was given: that is, justice, or “righteousness,” as
the Scriptures call it – a word that includes a just relationship with God).
Life messages: 1) In obeying God’s laws and Church
laws, let us remember these basic principles of respect and reverence. 2) Our
obedience to the laws needs to be prompted by love of God and gratitude to God
for His blessings.
Fr. Tony (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
March 12 Thursday: Lk 11:14-23:
The context: Today’s Gospel passage gives the
crushing reply of Jesus to the Scribes’ slanderous denigration of Jesus’
miracle, namely, that Jesus expelled devils by using the assistance of the
leader of devils, Beelzebul.
Jesus refutes the false allegation raised by the Scribes
against him with four counter-arguments. 1) A house divided against itself will
perish, and a country engaged in civil war will be ruined. Hence, Satan will
not fight against Satan by helping Jesus to expel Satan’s coworkers. 2) If
Jesus is collaborating with Satan to exorcise minor demons, one must admit that
the Jewish exorcists are doing the same. 3) Jesus claims that he is using the
power of his Heavenly Father to evict devils, just as “when a strong man,
fully armed, [the devil] guards his own palace, his goods are
in peace,” he[the devil] can be routed when “one stronger than
he”[Jesus, using the power of God]assails him[the devil]and
overcomes him [the devil], he [Jesus] takes away his [the
devil’s] armor in which he[the devil]trusted, and divides his[the
devil’s] spoil.”
4) Finally, Jesus delivers a crushing blow to his accusers
as described in Mark’s Gospel (Mk 3:22-30), warning them that by telling
blatant lies, they are blaspheming against the Holy Spirit; their sins are
unforgivable because they deny they are sinning, and so will not repent and ask
for forgiveness.
Life messages: 1) We can be influenced by the
evil spirit if we listen to him and follow him. 2) Hence, we have to keep our
souls daily cleansed and filled with the Spirit of God, leaving no space for
the evil spirit to enter our souls. 3) If we disregard and disobey God’s word,
we open the door to the power of sin. 4) When we fail to guard our five senses
properly we open ourselves, to Satan’s deception and control.
March 13 Friday: Mk 12:28-34: The
context: A scribe who believed in both the written Law and the oral
tradition was pleased to see how Jesus had defeated the Sadducee who had tried
to humiliate him with the hypothetical case of a woman who had married and been
widowed by seven husbands in succession. Out of admiration, the scribe
challenged Jesus to summarize the most important of the Mosaic Laws in one
sentence. In the Judaism of Jesus’ day, there was a double tendency: to expand
the Mosaic Law into hundreds of rules and regulations and to condense the 613
precepts of the Torah into a single sentence or few sentences.
Jesus’ novel contribution: Jesus gave a
straightforward answer, quoting directly from the Law itself and startling all
with his profound simplicity and mastery of the Law of God and its purpose. He
combined the first sentence of the Jewish Shema prayer
from Deuteronomy 6:4-5: Hear, O Israel, The Lord your God
is Lord Alone! Therefore, you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your
heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength” with its
complementary law from Leviticus 19:18: “You shall love
your neighbor as yourself.” Thus, Jesus proclaims that true religion
is to love God both directly, in Himself, and in directly, as living in our
neighbor. Jesus underlines the principle that we are to love our neighbor as we
love ourselves because both of us bear God’s image. For, to honor God’s image
is to honor both Him Who made it and Him Whom it resembles. Besides, our
neighbors, too, are the children of God our Father, redeemed by the Blood of
Jesus. Love for our neighbor is a matter, not of feelings, but of deeds by which
we share with others the unmerited love that God lavishes on us. This is
the agape love for neighbor that God commands in His Law.
Jesus then uses the parable of the Good Samaritan, as reported in Luke’s
Gospel, to show them what God means by “neighbor.”
Life Messages:1) We need to love God whole-heartedly:
Loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, means that we should
place God’s will ahead of our own, seek the Lord’s will in all things, and make
it paramount in our lives. It also means that we must find time to adore Him,
to present our needs before Him, and to ask His pardon and forgiveness for our
sins. 2) God’s will is that we should love everyone, seeing Him in our
neighbor. This means we have to help, support, encourage, forgive, and pray for
everyone without regard to color, race, gender, age, wealth, social status,
intelligence, education, or charm. Fr. Tony
March 14 Saturday: Lk 18:9-14:
The context: The main theme of today’s Gospel is
that true humility must be the hallmark of our prayers. However, the central
focus of today’s parable is not prayer, but rather pride, humility, and the
role of grace in our salvation. The parable was mainly intended to convict the
Pharisees who proudly claimed they obeyed all the rules and regulations of the
Jewish law, while they actually ignored the Mosaic precepts of mercy and
compassion. Through this parable of Jesus, Luke was reminding his Gentile
listeners that God values the prayer of any humble, contrite heart.
In the parable, Jesus tells us about two men who went to
pray, a Pharisee and a tax-collector. The Pharisee stood in the very front of
the Temple, distancing himself from his inferiors, and explained to God his
meticulous observance of the Mosaic Law, at the same time despising the
publican. But the tax-collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his
eyes to Heaven, but beat his breast, saying, “God, be merciful to me a
sinner!” Jesus declared that only the humble tax-collector went home
justified in the eyes of God.
Life messages: 1) We need to evict the Pharisee
and revive the publican in each one of us. There is a big dose of the
Pharisee’s pride in us and a small jewel of the tax-collector’s humility.
Hence, we have to make the pilgrimage from pride to humility daily, realizing
the truth that if we are not sensitive to other people, we are not sensitive to
God.
2) Let us have the correct approach in our prayer life. For
most of us, prayer means asking God for something when we are in need. We
conveniently forget the more important aspects of prayer: adoration, praise,
contrition, and thanksgiving. If we have forgotten God through our years of
prosperity, how can we expect Him to take Our day’s work, our sufferings, our
joys, and our day’s recreation, if offered for the honor and glory of God, are
prayers pleasing in His sight.
(Fr. Tony) (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
