10th Week: June 6-11:
June 6 Monday (Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church):
One of the most recent architectural additions to
Saint Peter’s Square is the mosaic of Mary “Mother of the Church,” with the
inscription Totus Tuus, yet another sign of Pope St. John Paul II’s
great love for Our Lady. On Saturday, March 3, 2018, Pope
Francis declared that, thenceforward, the Monday after Pentecost
Sunday would be celebrated as the Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother
of the Church. The Memorial was to be observed annually. It has been added to
the General Roman Calendar, the Roman Missal, and the Liturgy of the Hours with
the Holy Father’s wish that this new feast day foster Marian piety and the
maternal sense of the Church. Pentecost was the birth of the Church – the
Mystical Body of Christ. As Mother of Christ, the Head of the Church, Mary is
also the Mother of the Church, for she was with the apostles for that great
event. In Catholic Mariology, Mother of the Church (Mater Ecclesiae)
is a title officially given to Mary at the closing of the Second Vatican
Council, by Pope St. Paul VI. The title was first used in the 4th century by
Saint Ambrose of Milan. The same title was used by Pope Benedict IV in 1748 and
then by Pope Leo XIII in 1885. Pope St. Paul VI made the pronouncement of the
title Mother of the Church during his speech upon the closing of the third
session of the Second Vatican Council on November 21, 1964: “For the
glory of the Virgin and our consolation, we proclaim Mary the Most Holy Mother
of the Church, that is, the Mother of the whole People of God, both the
faithful and the pastors.” Later, the title was used by Pope St. John
Paul II, and is also found in the Catechism of the Catholic
Church which states that Mary joined in bringing about the birth of
believers in the Church, who are members of its Head.” (CCC #963).
“At once virgin and mother, Mary is the symbol and the most perfect realization
of the Church.” (CCC # 507).
Pope St. John Paul II used the encyclical “Redemptoris
Mater” (March 25, 1987), to explain how Jesus gave his mother
to the care of John the apostle and how she became the Mother of the whole
Church. The Pope said, “in her new motherhood in the Spirit, Mary embraces each
and every one in the Church, and embraces each and every one through the
Church.” Pope Benedict XVI addressed the issue of the relationship between
Roman Catholic Mariology and ecclesiology quoting the theologian Hugo Rahner,
SJ [elder brother of Karl Rahner SJ] that Mariology was originally
ecclesiology. The Church is like Mary. The Church is virgin and mother, she is
immaculate and carries the burdens of history. She suffers, and she is assumed
into heaven. She is carrying the mystery of the Church. That is why in 2018
Pope Francis decreed that the Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
Mother of the Church be inserted into the Roman Calendar on the Monday
after Pentecost and that it be celebrated every year. The decree was signed on
11 February 2018, the memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes, at the 160th anniversary
of the Lourdes apparitions. The decree was issued on 3 March 2018.
As St. Augustine once said: “Mary is more blessed because
she embraces Faith in Christ than because she conceives the flesh of Christ.”
As St. Ambrose taught, “The Mother of God is a type of the Church in the order
of Faith, Charity, and the perfect union with Christ.” She serves as the
ultimate role model for all Christians in her willingness to cooperate with
God’s will. So, while we rightfully acknowledge her as the Mother of God,
the Theotokos, we also acknowledge her sanctity and her willingness
to do God’s will. This is why another ancient name attributed to her will
officially appear on the Church’s calendar for the first time this year. “The
Cross, the Eucharist, and the Mother of God are three mysteries that God gave
to the world in order to structure, fructify, and sanctify our interior life
and lead us to Jesus.” (Robert, Cardinal Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for
Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments; retired February 20,
2021). Let us honor Mary the Mother of the Church by imitating her virtues of
faith, humility, and total surrender.
June 7 Tuesday: Mt 5: 13-16 (“You are the salt
of the earth and light of the world”): In the time of Jesus, salt
was connected in people’s minds with three special qualities. (i) Salt
was connected with purity because it was white and it came from the purest of
all things, the sun and the sea. Salt was the most primitive of all offerings
to the gods. Jewish sacrifices were offered with salt. As the “salt of the
earth,” the Christian must be an example of purity, exercising absolute purity
in speech, in conduct, and even in thought. God calls His children to preserve
and purify. The Church is to preserve modesty (1 Tm 2:9), morality (Eph
5:3-12), honesty and integrity (Jn 8:44-47). (ii) Salt was the
commonest of all preservatives in the ancient world when people did not have
fridges and freezers. It was used to prevent the putrefaction of meat, fish,
fruits, and pickles. As the salt of the earth, the Christian must have a
certain antiseptic influence on life and society, defeating corruption and
making it easier for others to be good. Christians are to be a preserving
influence to retard moral and spiritual spoilage in the world. (iii) Salt lends
flavor to food items. One of the main functions of salt is to season food, to
give it taste and flavor. To be the salt of society also means that we are
deeply concerned with its well-being. We have to preserve the cultural values
and moral principles Jesus has given us, and in this way to make a contribution
to the development of a “Culture of Life” to replace the “culture of death”
currently darkening our world. Thus, we will be adding flavor to the common
life, religious and social. As salt seasoned and preserved food, and as salt
keeps a fire burning uniformly in an oven for a longer time, the disciples were
to improve the tone of society (“season” it), preserve the Faith, and extend
the fire of the Spirit through their evangelization efforts.
The four roles of Christians as Christ’s light of the
world. (i) A light is something which is meant to be seen.
Christians are a lamp stand. Jesus therefore expects His followers to be seen
by the world (Jn 13:35; 17:21). In addition, they must radiate and give light.
“Let your light shine before men” (Mt 5:16). By this metaphor Jesus means that
our Christianity should be visible in our ordinary activities and interactions
in the world, for example, in the way we treat a shop assistant across the
counter, in the way we order a meal in a restaurant, in the way we treat our employees
or serve our employer, in the way we play a game, or drive or park a motor car,
in the daily language we use, and in the daily literature we read. (ii) A
lamp or light is a guide to make clear the way. So then, a Christian must make
the way clear to others. That is to say, a Christian must of necessity be an
example, showing the world what Jesus would do in every situation. iii) A
light can often be a warning light. A light is often the warning which tells us
to halt when there is danger ahead. It is sometimes the Christian’s duty to
bring to one’s brother/sister a necessary warning of dangers, present or ahead.
If our warnings are given, not in anger, not in irritation, not in criticism,
not in condemnation, but in love, they may be effective. iv) Light exposes
everything hidden by darkness. (Note Jn 3:19; 1 Cor 4:5; Eph 5:8–11). Let us
pause for a moment and ask ourselves whether we are carrying Jesus in our
lives, shining through our Christian living, as the Light Who lovingly warns
and guides.
June 8 Wednesday
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 that 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 because they are, for the most part, specific, Divine-positive
promulgations of the natural law. ButChristians are not obliged to observe the
legal and liturgical precepts of Old Testament because they were laid down by
God for a specific stage 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. Tony (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
June 9 Thursday: (St. Ephrem, Deacon, Doctor of the Church):
The context: For the Scribes and the Pharisees, the
external fulfillment of the precepts of the Mosaic Law was the guarantee of a
person’s salvation. In other words, a man saved himself through the external
works of the Law. Jesus rejects this view in today’s Gospel passage, taken from
the Sermon on the Mount. For Jesus, justification or sanctification is a grace,
a free, strengthening gift from God. Man’s role is one of cooperating with that
grace by being faithful to it and using it as God means it to be used. Jesus
then outlines new moral standards for his disciples.
Control of anger: Anger is the rawest,
strongest, and most destructive of human emotions. Describing three stages of
anger and the punishment each deserves, Jesus advises his disciples not to get
angry in such a way that they sin.
1) Anger in the heart (“brief stage of insanity” Cicero): It
has two forms: a) a sudden, blazing flame of anger which dies as suddenly. b) a
surge of anger which boils inside and lingers, so that the heart seeks revenge
and refuses to forgive or forget. Jesus prescribes trial and punishment by the
Village Court of Elders as its punishment.
2) Anger in speech: The use of words which are insulting (“raka“=“fool”),
or damaging to the reputation (“moros” = a person of loose morals).
Jesus says that such an angry (verbally abusive) person should be sent to the
Sanhedrin, the Jewish religion’s Supreme Court, for trial and punishment.
3) Anger in action: Sudden outbursts of uncontrollable
anger, which often result in physical assault or abuse. Jesus says that such
anger deserves hellfire as its punishment. In short, Jesus teaches that
long-lasting anger is bad, contemptuous speech or destroying someone’s
reputation is worse and harming another physically is the worst.
Life messages: 1) Let us try to forgive, forget,
and move toward reconciliation as soon as possible. St. Paul advises us “Be
angry (righteous anger), but do not sin” (Eph 4:26).
2) When we keep anger in our mind, we are inviting physical illnesses like
hypertension, and mental illnesses like depression. 3) Let us relax and keep
silence when we are angry and pray for God’s strength for self-control , and
for the grace, first to desire to forgive, and then actually to forgive, those
who have injured us Fr. Tony (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
June 10 Friday:
The context: In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus
outlines a new moral code for his followers, which is different from the Mosaic
moral code. He insists that adultery, the violation of the Sixth Commandment,
is also committed through willfully generated evil and impure looks, and evil
thoughts and desires purposely created and held in the mind.
Interpreting Jesus’ words about self-mutilation. Our hands
do not themselves sin, but are made the mind’s agents for sin according to what
we touch and how we touch, in lust or greed or violence. Our eyes become agents
of sins according to what they look at. In recommending mutilation of eyes and
hands, Jesus is not speaking literally because we have more sins than we have
body-parts. Besides, even if all offending parts were removed, our minds — the
source of all sins — would still be intact, causing us to sin by thoughts and
desires. So Jesus teaches us that, just as a doctor might remove a limb or some
part of the body like an infected gall bladder, an inflamed appendix, cancerous
colon sections, etc., in order to preserve the life of the whole body, so we
must be ready to part with anything that causes us to commit grave sin or which
leads to spiritual death (the “near occasions of sin.”) Hence, these warnings
are actually about our attitudes, dispositions, and inclinations. Jesus
recommends that our hands become agents of compassion, healing, and comfort,
and that our eyes learn to see the truth, goodness, and beauty that are all
around us.
Clear teaching on divorce: According Matthew’s account,
adultery is the only ground in the Old Testament for sanctioning divorce. Based
on the NT teachings given in Mk 10:1-12, Mt 5:31-32; Mt 19:3-9; Lk 16:18; and 1
Cor 7:10-11, the Catholic Church teaches that Marriage is a Sacrament involving
both a sacred and legal contract between a man and a woman and, at the same
time, a special Covenant with the Lord. “Divorce is also a grave
offense against the natural law. Besides, it claims to break the contract, to
which the spouses freely consented, to live with each other till death….”
Divorce is immoral also because it introduces disorder into the family and into
society” (CCC #2384, 2385).Fr. Tony (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
June 11 Saturday (St. Barnabas, Apostle):
The context: Today’s Gospel describes the
commissioning of the twelve apostles for the apostolic work of preparing the
towns and villages for Jesus’ coming visit to them. Sent out in pairs to preach
the coming of the Kingdom of God, repentance, the forgiveness of sins, and
liberation, they were to follow Jesus’ detailed action-plan and
bear witness to Jesus by their simple lifestyle.
Jesus’ instructions and travel tips. By his instructions, it
is clear that Jesus meant his disciples to take no supplies for the road. They
were simply to trust that God, the Provider, would open the hearts of believers
to take care of their needs. Jesus’ instructions also suggest that the apostles
should not be like the acquisitive priests of the day, interested only in
gaining riches. They should be walking examples of God’s love and providence.
The Jews supported their rabbis, and they judged doing so a privilege as well
as an obligation, seeing hospitality as an important religious tradition. The
apostles are told they should choose temporary accommodation in a reputable
household, should bless the residents with God’s peace, and should be satisfied
with the food and accommodation they received, not search for better. They are
to preach “’the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand,’ heal the sick, raise the
dead, cleanse lepers, and cast out demons.”
Life messages: 1) We, too, have a witnessing mission: Each Christian is called not only to be a disciple, but also to be an apostle. As apostles, we have to evangelize the world by sharing with others, not just words, or ideas, or doctrines, but our experience of God and His Son, Jesus. It is through our transparent Christian lives that we must show the love, mercy, and concern of Jesus to the people around us. 2) We also have a liberating mission: There are many demons which can control the lives of people around us, making them helpless slaves —the demon of nicotine, the demon of alcohol, the demon of gambling, the demon of pornography, the demon of promiscuous sex, the demon of materialism, and the demon of consumerism. We need the help of Jesus to liberate ourselves and others from these things. (Fr. Tony) (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
