17th Week: Jul 29-Aug 3
July 29 Monday: (Saints Martha, Mary, and Lazarus):
Context July 29th was traditionally celebrated as the feast day of St. Martha, sister of Mary and Lazarus. But on February 2, 2021, Pope Francis expanded this memorial to include Martha’s sister and brother, Mary and Lazarus. They were close friends of Jesus. Since they lived in Bethany, less than two miles from Jerusalem, Jesus visited their home each time he with his disciples participated in a major feast in the Temple of Jerusalem, and Martha prepared meals for them. It was during one of those meals that Jesus praised Mary for finding time to listen to him and lovingly scolded Martha for being too much anxious and busy in the kitchen.
Pope Francis decided in February, 2021 to include all three siblings, Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, in today’s feast. Martha is presented as a woman of great dynamism and action who despite her deep sorrow at her brother’s death, believed in Jesus as the Lord of life and death and proclaimed him by her strong profession of Faith as the Messiah and God. Mary is included in the feast as a model of the attentive listener of the word of God who was keen on applying the word she heard into her life. Correcting the unbiblical belief that Mary of Magdala and the sinful woman who anointed the feet of Jesus at the house of a Pharisee was Mary the sister of Lazarus, the Pope approved the unanimous opinion of modern Bible scholars that these three are distinct and different Marys. Lazarus is included in the feast because of the courageous and strong testimony of his resuscitation by Jesus, despite the Pharisees’ threat to arrest him. When this memorial was established, the Congregation for Divine Worship said, “In the household of Bethany, the Lord Jesus experienced the family spirit and friendship of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, and for this reason the Gospel of John states that he loved them.”
Life messages: 1) Let us invite Jesus into our families by consecrating our families to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and by allowing him to rule our lives. 2) We need both Marthas and Marys in the Church – women of action and women of contemplation. How would the Church survive if not for the Marthas and Bills who sing in the choir, teach in the Sunday school, work with the youth, run the altar guild, work with the homeless, and build the Church? The same is true with the family. We need responsible people to do the work in the house: to cook, to clean, to keep the house operating, to pay the bills, to keep the cars running, not to speak of rearing the children and loving the spouse. Households can’t survive without Marthas and Bills. Nor can offices, schools, or businesses. 3) But we must all find time to listen to God speaking to us through His word and time to talk to God. Where would we all be without the cloistered monks and nuns who spend their lives praising God and praying for all of us? Jesus clearly told us to be hearers and doers of the word; he never reversed that order.
Fr. Tony (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
July 30 Tuesday: [Saint Peter Chrysologus, Bishop and
Doctor of the Church] ): The context: Today’s Gospel text is Jesus’ explanation of the parable of the wheat and weeds. This parable teaches us that a very patient and compassionate God is hopeful that the so-called “weeds” among us will be converted, and that we should not be in a hurry to eliminate such elements from the Church, society, or the family, on the basis of unwarranted and hasty judgment.
Through the parable of the wheat and the weeds, Jesus assures us that we are the field of God. We are the ground Jesus works as well as the seed he plants, and the seedlings he nurtures. We are the people upon whom Jesus rests his hopes, and the folks in whom he plants the seed — the Word of God. We are the congregation He anoints with the Holy Spirit. In today’s parable, Jesus shows us a wise and patient God Who allows the good and the evil to coexist in the world, so that the ones who do evil may come to conversion before their time ends and He must punish them: “Let the seed and the darnel grow together till the harvest time.”In other words, God awaits repentant sinners, giving them the strength to acknowledge their weakness: “God’s delays are not God’s denial.” God calmly recognizes that there is evil in the world but sees that evil as no excuse for the good people who have God’s grace at their disposal not to do good. Through the parable of the wheat and the weeds in today’s Gospel, Jesus calls us to be patient with those who, as we see them, fail to meet the high ethical standard expected of a Christian. If we don’t spend all our time wondering why there is so much evil in the world, we will have more left for wondering why there is so much good!
Life message: 1) We need to practice patience. We need to be patient with ourselves and with others, especially those who annoy us and those who offend us, Let us patiently and lovingly treat the “weeds” in our society as our brothers and sisters and do all in our power to put them back on the right road to Heaven, especially by our good example and our fervent prayer for their conversion. Fr. Tony (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
July 31 Wednesday (Saint Ignatius of Loyola):
The context: Today’s Gospel passage gives us twin parables with a common message. Both the pearl and the treasure represent the Kingdom of God, or God’s rule in human hearts, or our close relationship with God kept intact by our obedience to God’s will.
Treasure and pearl: Since Palestine was the most fought-over country in the world in the first century, people hid their valuables underground when they fled from invading armies. The owners did not always get a chance to return to their land. Some other farm workers occasionally found such treasures, and the rabbinic law gave the ownership of the treasure to the finder. In order to avoid any later legal problems, the intelligent treasure-finder bought the land containing the treasure, selling all his other possessions to do so, if he had to. Pearls were the most valuable of the treasures. A merchant who located a superior pearl would be wise to sell the rest of his stock and property to acquire it.
Acquiring a treasure or a pearl of great value means accepting the will of God in our lives and sacrificing everything to do God’s holy will — in other words, living as God wants us to live. That is God’s Kingship over us and within us in action. The Kingdom of God is also a group of people on earth who, with God’s grace, work to do the will of God as perfectly as it is done in Heaven. Hence, being in God’s Kingdom also means offering willing, loving obedience to God.
Life message: 1) A right relationship with God, or a state of Sanctifying Grace, is the most valuable treasure in the Christian life because it gives us a close relationship with God during this life and a life of everlasting bliss with God after our death. The Holy Spirit, the Holy Bible, and the Sacraments are the treasures in the Church which enable us to do the will of God and possess the Kingdom of God. Hence, we must be ready to make any sacrifice to use these treasures, to practice self-control and to offer to those we encounter generous loving service, mercy, and forgiveness, thus keeping a right relationship with God
Fr. Tony (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
Aug 1 Thursday: (Saint Alphonsus Liguori, Bishop and Doctor of the Church):
The context: Today’s Gospel presents the third in a set of three parables Jesus preached on the Kingdom of God/Heaven and the conditions for entering it. The parable of the fishing net: In Palestine, there were two main ways of fishing. The first was with the casting-net, which required a keen eye and great skill in throwing the net at the correct moment. The second was with a dragnet or seine. Galilean seine nets were tied to two boats and drawn through the water. The catch was sorted only afterwards, with edible (kosher) fish going to market and unacceptable fish being thrown away. Just as a dragnet collects good and bad fish indiscriminately, so the Church is bound to be a mixture of all kinds of people, good and bad, useless and useful. This parable encourages the Church to adopt an open approach to Evangelization. The parable also teaches that the time of separation will come only at the Final Judgment, when the good and the bad will be sent to their respective chosen destinies. This parable is, thus, a counterpart to the parable of the weeds and the wheat. The concluding simile or mini parable: Jesus concludes his parables by advising the listeners to imitate wise scribes (Jewish religious teachers who specialized in Sacred Scripture and its application to life). A scribe/scholar need not give up his scholarship when he became a Christian; rather he should use his learning for Christ. Christians are also expected to be like scholars who study both the old wisdom of their ancestors and the new vistas of knowledge. They have a duty to pass on to others the Christian teaching they have received in language their hearers can understand.
Life message: 1) We need to learn tolerance and compassionate understanding.) The lesson of this parable is that the Church is a mixed body of saints and sinners (good and bad fish). There will be always a temptation on the part of some who feel they are more “faithful” to separate themselves from the “unfaithful.” But Jesus reminds us that the final judgment resulting in reward or punishment is the work of GodThus, we must learn to be tolerant, patient, compassionate, and understanding of those who seem to us to fall far below the requirements of the Gospel and the Kingdom. Let us humbly admit the fact that only Jesus and Mary were not a mixture of good and evil. Let us also acknowledge as St. Paul did, “I am what I am with the grace of God.”
Fr. Tony (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
Aug 2 Friday: [Saint Eusebius of Vercelli, Bishop; Saint Peter Julian Eymard, Priest] :
The context: Today’s Gospel describes how, on a Sabbath, standing before his fellow-townsmen in the synagogue of Nazareth, Jesus read and interpreted what Isaiah had prophesied about the Messiah and the Messianic mission. Jesus claimed to be the One sent “to bring glad tidings to the poor, liberation to captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and freedom for the oppressed.” Declaring, to the great amazement and disbelief of fellow-townsmen, that Isaiah’s prophecy was being fulfilled at that very moment “in your hearing,” Jesus announced to them that the prophet was foretelling and describing his Messianic Mission ministry. Luke reports that the initial reaction of the people was surprise at the power and eloquence of this son of their soil. They were amazed that one of their fellow villagers could speak with such grace and eloquence and with such authority. Luke says they were “amazed at the gracious words that came from [Jesus’] lips,“ because they knew Jesus only as a carpenter from a poor family, with no formal training in Mosaic Law. But their amazement turned into displeasure when, during this “Inaugural Address” or “Mission Statement,” Jesus took on the identity of a prophet, different from the image of the miracle-worker that people wished to see. Then their displeasure turned into anger when Jesus claimed that to be the promised Messiah of Isaiah’s prophecy. They challenged his Messianic claim, asking, and “Isn’t this the son of Joseph?” They could not understand how a mere carpenter could be the Messiah who would liberate them from Roman rule and reestablish the Davidic kingdom. Jesus explained their attitude by saying “No prophet is accepted in his native place.”
Life messages: 1) We need to face rejection with prophetic courage and optimism. Perhaps we have experienced the pain of rejection, betrayal, abandonment, violated trust, neglect, or abuse, even from friends and family members, when we reached out to them as God’s agents of healing and saving grace. Perhaps we ourselves are guilty of the same rejection of God in His agents. Perhaps we, too, have been guilty of ignoring or humiliating people with our arrogance and prejudice. Let us learn to correct our mistakes and to face rejection from others with courage. 2) Let us not, like the people in Jesus’ hometown, reject God in our lives. We reject God when we are unwilling to be helped by God, or by others. Such unwillingness prevents us from recognizing God’s directions, help, and support in our lives, coming to us through His words in the Bible, through the teaching of the Church, and through the advice and examples of others. Fr. Tony (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
Aug 3 Saturday: Mt 14:1-12:
The context: Today’s Gospel presents the last scene of a tragic drama with three main characters, Herod, Herodias, and John the Baptist. Herod Antipas, (4 BC – AD 39), was a jealous, weak puppet-king with a guilty conscience. He feared the prophet John because John had publicly scolded him for divorcing his legal wife without adequate cause and for marrying his sister-in-law, Herodias, thus committing a double violation of Mosaic Law. Herodias was an immoral, greedy woman, stained by a triple guilt and publicly criticized by John. 1) She was an unfaithful woman of loose morals. 2) She was a greedy and vengeful woman. 3) She was an evil mother who used her teenage daughter for the wicked purposes of murder and revenge by encouraging her to dance in public in the royal palace against the royal etiquette of the day. John the Baptist was a fiery preacher and the herald of the Promised Messiah. He was also a Spirit-filled prophet with the courage of his convictions who criticized and scolded an Oriental monarch and his proud wife in public.
God’s punishment: After the martyrdom of John, Herod was defeated by Aretas, the father of Herod’s first wife. Later, both Herod and Herodias were sent into exile by Caligula, the Roman emperor.
Life messages: 1) As Christians we need to live out the moral integrity and the courage of our convictions as John did. 2) Let us remember that sins of revenge and cruelty will never go unpunished. Fr. Tony (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
