Thursday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

“Sorting the Catch”
by Bernardus Johannes Blommers, c. 1900

Readings for Thursday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time [1]
 
Readings from the Jerusalem Bible [2]
 
Readings and Commentary: [3]
 
Reading 1: Jeremiah 18:1-6
 
This word came to Jeremiah from the Lord:
Rise up, be off to the potter’s house;
there I will give you my message.
I went down to the potter’s house and there he was,
working at the wheel.
Whenever the object of clay which he was making
turned out badly in his hand,
he tried again,
making of the clay another object of whatever sort he pleased.
Then the word of the Lord came to me:
Can I not do to you, house of Israel,
as this potter has done? says the Lord.
Indeed, like clay in the hand of the potter,
so are you in my hand, house of Israel.
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Commentary on Jer 18:1-6
 
The author of the book of Jeremiah has been dwelling on the source of life in God, and the importance of repentance. In the story of the visit to the potter, God symbolically demonstrates his absolute power to reshape civilization (to destroy and remake). This image recalls the creation of mankind from the clay of the ground in Genesis 2:7, and is used in other prophetic works of the Old Testament (Isaiah 45:9) and New Testament (Romans 9:20-23), in which it appears St. Paul may be reflecting on this very passage.
 
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Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 146:1b-2, 3-4, 5-6ab
 
R. (5a) Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob.
or:
R. Alleluia.
 
Praise the Lord, O my soul;
I will praise the Lord all my life;
I will sing praise to my God while I live.
R. Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob.
or:
R. Alleluia.
 
Put not your trust in princes,
in the sons of men, in whom there is no salvation.
When his spirit departs he returns to his earth;
on that day his plans perish.
R. Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob.
or:
R. Alleluia.
 
Blessed he whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord, his God.
Who made heaven and earth,
the sea and all that is in them.
R. Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob.
or:
R. Alleluia.
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Commentary on Ps 146:1b-2, 3-4, 5-6ab
 
Psalm 146 is from the wisdom tradition. Here we are given a vision of God’s salvation. His saving power (envisioned in the oracle of Isaiah and fulfilled in Jesus the Christ) lifts up the poor and downtrodden and heals those afflicted with every sort of malady.
 
CCC: Ps 146:3-4 150
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Gospel: Matthew 13:47-53
 
Jesus said to the disciples:
"The Kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea,
which collects fish of every kind.
When it is full they haul it ashore
and sit down to put what is good into buckets.
What is bad they throw away.
Thus it will be at the end of the age.
The angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous
and throw them into the fiery furnace,
where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth."
 
"Do you understand all these things?"
They answered, "Yes."
And he replied,
"Then every scribe who has been instructed in the Kingdom of heaven
is like the head of a household who brings from his storeroom
both the new and the old."
When Jesus finished these parables, he went away from there.
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Commentary on Mt 13:47-53
 
Jesus concludes his discourse about the Kingdom of Heaven with a final parable about the fisherman’s net. The parable borrows imagery from "The dragnet cast over the waters represents the moment of judgment at the end of time when all shall be summoned before God. The parable insists by this image on the universality of the call to salvation; but "salvation" is here conceived as the infallible recognition of what each "fish" has become within the total context of its particular nature and the environment in which it has  been  placed. Time and  again, the images of salvation in these parables are fundamentally images of growth (seed, dough, pearl, fish)." [4]
 
He next makes reference to the disciples’ (and their successors') role as “Christian scribes” or teachers of the Kingdom of God. In his description, he refers to the “new and the old” being brought out. This reference is to the new teaching from Jesus and the old from the Law of Moses and the prophets.
 
 
CCC: Mt 13:50 1034; Mt 13:52 1117
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Reflection:
 
We are given a perfect example to examine the deeper meaning of the parable of the fisherman's net today. In the reading from the book of the prophet Jeremiah, we see in the analogy of the potter, God’s ability to reshape mankind (he speaks specifically of Israel, but the important idea to understand is he is talking about destroying and remaking a society, not destroying mankind at an individual biological level). If we read the next six verses (Jeremiah 18:7-12), we see that God does not take this step on a whim, but rather considers the reflection, repentance, and conversion of the people. The message is clear: God has the power to tear down and build up until, like the potter, he reaches a form pleasing to himself.
 
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is speaking to his disciples about the Kingdom of God. In this passage he refers to their role as scribes or teachers. Indeed, this is what they became, spreading the Lord’s words of salvation and his promise of the Kingdom throughout the world. These words reshaped the world’s understanding of God. They tore down the old perceptions of God. They changed the perception of God into the idea of a loving Father, rather than a God of justice and vengeance and, through the story of Christ, God’s Son, showed the face of our Father’s inestimable love. He continues even now to use his word to reshape the world.
 
The most ancient and authentic words those Christian scribes left us are contained in Holy Scripture, which we study fervently. The precepts contained in those pages are most authentically captured by the teaching magisterium of the Church. It is the legacy of Christ himself, who appointed Peter, the first pontiff, as keeper of the keys to the Kingdom. It has been faithfully passed down to us, like a tool in the potter’s hand; a tool that has been molding clay, reshaping the world for two thousand years.
 
The shaping tool changes over time. Like those who have gone before us, we are given the guidance of the scribes, teaching us from the books of the Law of Moses and prophets in the Old Testament (the old we bring out), and those who chronicled the story of Christ in the New Testament (the new vision of God’s Kingdom). We thank God today for His guidance and pray for the strength to be his tool working to bring the world to a shape pleasing to him.
 
Pax

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[1] The picture is “Sorting the Catch” by Bernardus Johannes Blommers, c. 1900.
[2] S.S. Commemoratio
[3] The readings are taken from the New American Bible, with the exception of the psalm and its response which were developed by the International Committee for English in Liturgy (ICEL). This republication is not authorized by USCCB and is for private use only.
[4] Fire of Mercy Heart of the Word Volume II, Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, CA, © 2003 p. 305.