17th Week, Thursday, Aug 1st; St Alphonsus Liguori
Jeremiah 18:1-6 / Matthew 13:47-53
We are clay in God's hands: He fashions us like a potter.
Rembrandt was a 17th-century Dutch painter. He is still regarded as one of the world's greatest artists. Rembrandt's wife, Saskia, died in the midst of his career. Following her death, he went into a period of deep mourning, in which he didn't paint at all. Eventually he resumed painting again. When he did, he painted with a new power and passion. Some critics suggest that the death of his wife was a turning point in his career. It transformed him into an outstanding artist. Rembrandt's story illustrates how God can use tragedy to fashion us into something better than we originally were.
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Do we believe God wants to make something beautiful of us? "It is by those who suffer that the world has been advanced." Leo Tolstoy
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When a ceramic or clay vessel is broken, it is of no use whatsoever. It ceases to be what it is made for and the only thing left to do is to discard it. But when it is first shaped and made, it was meant to be of service and to be used for what it is used for.
It is like what we read in the 1st reading, the potter shapes the clay into the required shape and heat it at high temperatures that lead to permanent changes including increasing its strength and hardening and setting its shape. But just as in the turns and tumbles of life, clay vessels get cracked and broken and they are rendered useless and hence discarded.
The gospel parable also talks about discarding the catch of fish that are of no use. But that is the imagery of the end of time. Meanwhile, what is there for those people who are cracked and broken? We must remember that Jesus came for them. He came for sinners. The Japanese have a centuries-old art of fixing broken pottery with a special lacquer of powdered gold, silver or platinum. The cracks or breaks are seamed together beautifully with the lacquer, giving the once cracked and broken pottery a special and unique appearance. We can learn something from that. And then we can understand why Jesus is called Savior.
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OLD AND NEW IN THE KINGDOM
Introduction
Jeremiah looks at the work of a potter. If the potter sees his work is misshapen, he destroys it and tries anew. God’s people are clay in God’s hands. If they are not faithful, God will break them, but when they are converted he tries again with them and they become precious. The parable about the net full of fish, good and bad, is very close to the parable heard a few days ago about the wheat and the weeds. It ends with the statement that the scribe in the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old. Jesus came “not to abolish the Law and the Prophets but to complete them.” Therefore the disciple, when he welcomes what is new, does not reject what is old. He treasures both.
Opening Prayer
Faithful God of tenderness and mercy, you want us to be your people on the march with Jesus your Son toward the new future of justice and love of your kingdom. Do not allow us to suffocate in being contented with old habits and sluggish ways. Help us to accept the pain of leaving the familiar behind us and open us to today’s challenge of the gospel to become more like your Son who guides our faltering steps, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Commentary
Once again Matthew includes a parable that speaks of the coexistence of good and evil, the worthy and the unworthy, within the community of believers. He further goes on to say that the community will contain new things and old, new departures as well as tradition. Like Israel, we too are like clay in the potter’s hands. He can fashion and mould us as he would. Of course, we are free to turn out well or badly, to be embraced or rejected. There are those in the Christian community who have separated themselves from the potter. Also, as the net is cast, some fish are good; others are not. But we should never lose sight of the efficacy of prayer. Christ speaks of sheep who have strayed, yet have found their way home. Remorse and contrition are not that unusual. Evil ways can be left behind. If we keep the wanderers in our hearts and prayers, good things may yet appear.
Points to Ponder
Clay in the potter’s hands
Fashioned according to God’s will
Open to conversion
Intercessions
– For the Church, that it may be a voice and a force promoting justice and love among people and among nations, we pray:
– For the politicians and economists of our day, that they may reform national and international structures to give equitable access to all to the material and spiritual treasures of our world, we pray:
– For all of us, that we may live in the hands of God and let him mould us, even through trials, into better Christians, we pray:
Prayer over the Gifts
Lord our God, with bread and wine we celebrate the covenant you renew with us in the blood of Jesus Christ. Make us indeed your new, faithful people bound to you in an everlasting union of love. Renew our hearts, make us your new wine of joy and hope, that we may rebuild this earth today and march with your Son toward your new heaven, where you will be our God for ever.
Prayer after Communion
God of hope, you have given us Jesus your Son as our companion on the road for understanding the old, familiar things with a new and young heart and for renewing ourselves and the world. Let him prod us on when we try to compromise by merely patching up the old here and there; let him curb our impatience when we try to rush people beyond their capacity for growth. Lead us forward through our trusted guide, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Blessing
We must make the Lord visible today in a way our times understand and make our world more and more God’s world and kingdom. May you do so with the blessing of almighty God, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
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Saint Alphonsus Liguori
Feast Day August 1
During sixty years of Christian service in central Italy, opposition of every sort stalked St. Alphonsus Liguori. His bullheaded father resisted his ordination. Powerful anticlericals battled the Redemptorists, his religious order. Jansenists denounced Moral Theology, his book that sought to correct them. Rheumatism bent his head into his chest, a deformity he suffered for his last twenty years. And for two years just before he died, Alphonsus was assailed with a dark night of doubt, fear, and scruples.
A successful lawyer before age 20, Alphonsus used his legal skills lifelong in his writing and the governance of his order and his diocese. He was ordained in 1717 and immediately became well-known as a compassionate confessor and down-to-earth preacher. “I have never preached a sermon,” he said, “that the poorest old woman in the congregation could not understand.” You can hear his gentle voice in the following excerpt that also suggests the secret behind his perseverance:
We are now at the end of 1761. Today the New Year of 1762 has begun. How many saw the beginning of the year that has just gone but did not live to see its end! We should give thanks to God that we are allowed to see its conclusion. But do we know whether we shall see the end of this year? Certainly, many will not see it. Who knows if we shall not be among this number? A year must dawn for us that will be our last. We should awaken our faith and strive for the remainder of our lives to live according to the maxims of our faith. Why should we wait until death overtakes us and finds us living according to the maxims of the world? Let us awaken our faith to realize that this earth is not our true home but that we are merely here as pilgrims.
Our faith will give us confidence in our difficulties, teaching us that whoever prays will be saved. May our faith make us always live with the thought of eternity. Let’s keep ever before our eyes this great thought—everything in this world comes to an end, whether it be prosperity or adversity. Eternity alone never ends.
In 1748, St. Alphonsus published his acclaimed Moral Theology that steered a middle way between the rigorism of the Jansenists and an irresponsible laxity. At age sixty-six, he reluctantly accepted appointment as bishop of Sant’ Agata and worked hard for thirteen years to renew his flock. His resignation in 1775 brought the saint no rest, as he had to fight to protect his community from the state. External politics threatened to divide and destroy the Redemptorists. But the community endured and today has missioners serving throughout the world. Exhausted by a life of extraordinary industry, St. Alphonsus Liguori died on August 1, 1787, two months before his ninety-first birthday.
