Feb 27 Monday: (St. Gregory of Narek, Abbot & Doctor of the Church):
The context: Today’s Gospel describes the Last Judgment and its criterion using as an image the Palestinian shepherds’ practice of the nightly separation of the over-active, less docile goats from the docile sheep. Jesus promises that he will come in all his glory as a Judge (Christ’s Second Coming), to reward the good people and punish the bad people. This will be the final and the public separation of the good people from the evildoers.
The lessons: The parable teaches us that the main criterion of the Last Judgment will be the works of Christian charity, kindness, and mercy we have done, or not done, for others, in whom we have actually served, or not served, Christ, knowingly or unknowingly. The parable tells us that Christ, the Judge, is going to ask us six questions, and all of them are based on how we have cooperated with God’s grace to do acts of charity, kindness, and mercy for others because Jesus actually dwells in them. The first set of questions: “I was hungry, thirsty, homeless. Did you give me food, drink, and accommodation?” The second set of questions: ”I was naked, sick, imprisoned. Did you clothe me? Did you help me by visiting me in my illness or in prison?” If the answers are yes, we will be eternally rewarded because we have cooperated with God’s grace by practicing charity. But if the answers are negative, we will be eternally punished. Mother Teresa of Calcutta said, “If sometimes our poor people have had to die of starvation, it is not because God didn’t care for them, but because you and I didn’t give, were not instruments of love in the hands of God, to give them that bread, to give them that clothing; because we did not recognize Christ, when once more Christ came in distressing disguise.”
Life messages: 1) The Holy Bible, the Seven Sacraments, the Ten Commandments and the precepts of the Church are all meant to help us to practice corporal and spiritual works of charity (mercy), in this life so that we may become able to receive God’s love, our eternal reward of Heavenly bliss. 2) Sins of omission (in which, we fail to recognize those in need as our brothers and sisters in Christ, and we fail to serve them in love), are very serious matters leading us toward eternal punishment. (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
The context: In today’s passage from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus instructs the crowd that they should not pray like the Gentiles, repeating empty phrases. He means that true prayer is not so much a matter of the number of words as of the frequency and the love with which one turns towards God, raising one’s mind and heart to God. So, Jesus teaches them a model prayer. Jesus’ prayer, “Our Father,” consists of two parts.
In the first part, we praise and worship God, addressing Him as to our loving, caring, and providing Heavenly Father and begging that His Kingdom may come and that Holy Will may be done in us (and so by us) in our lives, that is, that He may reign in our hearts and we may always lovingly obey Him.
In the second part, we present our petitions before the Triune God. First, we ask God for our present needs, food, clothing, and shelter, (“give us this day our daily bread”), then for our past needs, especially for forgiveness of our sins (“forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”), and finally, for our future needs, protection against the tempter and his temptations (“and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”). In this part, we also bring the Trinitarian God into our lives. We bring in: 1) God the Father, the Provider, by asking for daily bread;
2) God the Son, our Savior, by asking forgiveness for our sins; and
3) God the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, Who is our Guide, Advocate, Comforter, and Illuminator, by asking for protection and deliverance from evil.
Special stress on the spirit of forgiveness: We are told to ask for forgiveness from others for our offenses against them, and to offer unconditional forgiveness to others for their offenses against us as a condition for receiving God’s forgiveness. Jesus clarifies, “If you forgive others their wrongs, your Father in Heaven will also forgive yours. If you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive you either” (Mt 6:14-15).
“For Thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, now and forever. Amen.” The manuscripts of the Gospel of Matthew do not contain this phrase, nor do any of the Catholic translations. Martin Luther added this doxology to the Our Father in his translation of Matthew’s Gospel, and the King James editions of the Biblekeep it. The doxology is actually taken from the Divine Liturgy or Catholic Mass. Known as the final doxology, it takes up the first three petitions to our Father. By the final “Amen,” which means, “So be it”, we ratify what is contained in the prayer that God has taught us.
Tony (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
The context: Since there had been many false prophets and false messiahs in the past, and since their pride and prejudice did not permit them to see the Messiah in a carpenter-from-Nazareth-turned-wandering-preacher, the Jewish religious leaders demanded that Jesus should show some “Messianic” signs and miracles taken from their list. They would not accept that Jesus’ numerous miraculous healings were the Messianic signs foretold by the prophets.
Jesus’ negative response: Calling them an apostate generation who refused to believe in their own prophets and denied the hand of God in the miracles he worked, Jesus warned these religious leaders that they would be condemned on the Day of Judgment by the people of Nineveh and by the Queen of Sheba from the South. (Sheba, or Saba, was a southern kingdom centred on Yemen or Ethiopia, and possibly including both. The distance from Yemen to Jerusalem is 2084 miles). This is one of the instances in which Jesus held up Gentiles as models of Faith and goodness (other examples: the Canaanite woman in Mt 15, the centurion in Lk 7, the Good Samaritan story in Luke 10; etc.). The pagan Ninevites heard the voice of the Lord God in the prophet Jonah, repented, and were spared. The Queen of Sheba recognized God’s Wisdom in King Solomon, and she traveled to Israel to receive more of it. Nevertheless, Jesus gave the religious leaders challenging him, “the sign of Jonah.” It was the undeniable Messianic sign of his own Resurrection from the tomb on the third day after his death, just as Jonah had spent three days in the belly of the giant fish before finally going to Nineveh to accomplish the mission God had originally given him.
Life messages: We need to recognize God-given signs in our lives: 1) Each Sacrament in the Church is an external sign representing God’s grace. 2) On the altar we re-present Christ’s sacrifice on the cross using liturgical signs and prayers. 3) Everyone living with us or working with us is a sign of God’s living presence in our midst, inviting us to love and honor him or her as God’s child and the living Temple of the Holy Spirit. 4) All world events and all the events in our lives are signs of God’s care and protection for us, His children. 5) The Holy Bible is a sign of God communicating His message to us every day. So, let us learn from these God-given signs instead of looking for signs in weeping Madonnas, bleeding crucifixes and daily messages of visionaries. Fr. Tony (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
The context: In today’s Gospel, taken from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus outlines the conditions for fruitful and effective prayer.
1) The first condition is trusting Faith and confidence in the goodness and promises of a loving Father. As a loving Father, God knows what to give, when to give, and how to give, irrespective of what we ask for. As One Who knows our past, present, and future, God knows what is best for us at any given time. He is a loving Father, and He will not give us evil things as the grudging and mocking gods in Greek stories did to their worshippers. Jesus explains this with two examples. Even a bad parent would not give a bread-shaped piece of limestone to his child asking for bread, or a stinging scorpion instead of a fish. So, all the experiences in our lives, including illnesses and tragedies, are permitted by a loving God with a definite purpose – to work in us for our ultimate good
2) Persistence in prayer is the second condition Patient, trusting persistence reflects our dependence on, and trust in, God. That is why Jesus asks us to keep on asking, seeking and knocking.
Life messages: 1) Let us remember that we can’t have a close relationship with anyone, especially with God, without daily, persistent, and intimate conversation, by lifting up our hearts and minds to God. 2) We need to remember the fact that prayer is a conversation with God, by, listening to God speaking to us through the Bible and the Church and talking to God by our personal, family and liturgical prayers. 3) We need to stop giving lame excuses for not praying, like a) we are too busy; b) we believe that prayer doesn’t do that much good, other than giving us psychological motivation to be better persons; c) a loving God should provide for us and protect us from the disasters of life, such as disease or accidents, without our asking Him; or d) prayer is boring. Fr. Tony (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
March 3 Friday(St. Katherine Drexel, Virgin (U.S.A.)
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 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 go and forgive those who have injured us Fr. Tony (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
March 4 Saturday: (St. Casimir)
The context: Today’s Gospel passage is perhaps the central and the most famous section of the Sermon on the Mount. It gives us the Christian ethic of personal relationship: love one’s enemies as well as one’s neighbors and show one’s love for one’s enemies by forgiving them and praying for them. Above all, it tells us that what makes Christians different is the grace with which we interact with others, treating them with loving kindness and mercy, especially when those others seemingly don’t deserve it. The Old Law never said to hate enemies, but that was the way some Jews understood it. Jesus commands us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us in order to demonstrate that we are children of a merciful Heavenly Father. From the cross, Jesus, living what he preached, did as he commands us to do, and prayed for Mercy to God His Father for all of those who were responsible for the Crucifixion – which includes all fallen humankind, and so ourselves — saying, ‘Father forgive them; they know not what they do.’” (Lk 23:34). A Christian has no personal enemies. If we only love our friends, we are no different from pagans or atheists.
We need to love our neighbors and our enemies, too: The Greek word used for loving enemies is not storge (= affection or natural love towards family members), or philia (= friendship, love of close friends), or eros (= romance) (passionate love between a young man and woman), but agápe (= unconditional love) which is the invincible benevolence, or good will, for another’s highest good. Since agápe, or unconditional love, is not natural, practicing it is possible only with God’s help. Agápe love is a choice more than a feeling. We choose to love our enemies because Jesus loved them enough to die for them, and they, too, are the children of our God. We have in the Acts of the Apostles the example of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, who, like Jesus on the cross, prayed for those who were putting him to death.
Life Messages: We are to try to be perfect, to be like God: 1) We become perfect when we fulfill God’s purpose in creating us: with His help, to become God-like. 2) We become perfect when, with His ongoing help, we try to love as God loves, to forgive as God forgives and to show unconditional good will and universal benevolence as God does. Perfection means we are striving to live each and every moment doing God’s will, using or cooperating with the grace of God.
Fr. Tony (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
