Abbot
Biographical Information about St. Benedict[1]
Readings for Friday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time[2]
Readings from the Jerusalem Bible
Commentary:
Reading 1 Hosea 14:2-10
The Prophet Hosea continues to call Israel back to faithfulness and through repentance (“Forgive all iniquity, and receive what is good”). God is their only salvation and their strength. The message to the people is one of complete forgiveness if they but turn back to the Law of Moses. The passage’s conclusion is a possible inspiration for John the Baptist for which the message of forgiveness and repentance was central and whose role as precursor to Messiah echoed the message: “Straight are the paths of the Lord, in them the just walk, but sinners stumble in them.”
Responsorial Psalm Psalm 51:3-4, 8-9, 12-13, 14 and 17
R. My mouth will declare your praise.
Psalm 51 is an individual lament imploring God for mercy and forgiveness. We not the request is coupled with an explicit understanding that the singer has sinned in the eyes of God and complete dependence on His mercy for the expiation of those offenses.
Gospel Matthew 10:16-23
Jesus concludes his instruction to the Apostles in this selection from Matthew’s Gospel. Here also we begin to hear about the persecutions that attend the spreading of the Gospel. Those who spread that Good News are encouraged not to worry about an apologetic but rather to trust in the Holy Spirit, the Father “speaking through you.”
Matthew’s final statement, referring to the coming of the Son of Man, has a couple of possible explanations. First it could be referring to the return of Christ after his crucifixion. It could also be a reference to the punishment of the unbelieving Jewish people by the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 AD
Reflection:
“Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves”
Jesus sends his Apostles into the world with these words. His vision for them is that they should come into the communities, not like bulls charging, but with an unthreatening demeanor that would not frighten those in authority. If they were perceived as a threat immediately, the Good News would be immediately suppressed and the mission would fail.
Jesus sends the Apostles with a message that challenges the beliefs about God’s character and reinterprets (in fact reveals) the intent of the Law and Prophets. His predecessor, St. John the Baptist, came crying out in the wilderness with a message intended to prepare the way for this new understanding. He (St. John) took Hosea’s call to repentance, coupled it with Isaiah’s oracle of the Messiah, and called the people to expectation, repentance, and a willingness to accept this new understanding.
Using one of Jesus’ favorite analogies, St. John had tilled the soil, now he sends his Apostles to plant more seeds. But he knows that the seeds being planted with be seen as a threat to the unworthy stewards who keep those same fields. So the Lord warns his friends that they must be careful not to push to hard at this beginning time (Look what happened to the outspoken St. John). The Lord knows this is a long race and a difficult one.
It is this understanding about the nature of the message and the best means of bringing it to the world that we take away from the instructions he gives here. When we go into the world with the message of God’s love, we do not go charging in, challenging those in authority out of force or strength. Rather we go in humbly, like sheep among wolves. We are a spirit that affects those around us, not a mold into which they should be forced. We are welcoming invitation, not a directive forcing action upon the recipient.
We must also understand the other part of the Lord’s message. That is when we have had a significant impact and our cause does become obvious to those who would suppress the values we exemplify, those wolves will try to discredit us, refute us, remove us. The message of love we bring will not be welcome by those who need to control thought and push a different agenda.
Today, even as we seek to undo the harm they may have caused through our own expression of Christ’s love and peace, we pray for those who hate us and bless those who curse us. It is what our Teacher would do and what he has asked us to do in his place.
Pax
[1] The picture used today is “St. Benedict and the Cup of Poison” by an UNKNOWN Austrian Master
[2] After Links to Readings Expire
Biographical Information about St. Benedict[1]
Readings for Friday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time[2]
Readings from the Jerusalem Bible
Commentary:
Reading 1 Hosea 14:2-10
The Prophet Hosea continues to call Israel back to faithfulness and through repentance (“Forgive all iniquity, and receive what is good”). God is their only salvation and their strength. The message to the people is one of complete forgiveness if they but turn back to the Law of Moses. The passage’s conclusion is a possible inspiration for John the Baptist for which the message of forgiveness and repentance was central and whose role as precursor to Messiah echoed the message: “Straight are the paths of the Lord, in them the just walk, but sinners stumble in them.”
Responsorial Psalm Psalm 51:3-4, 8-9, 12-13, 14 and 17
R. My mouth will declare your praise.
Psalm 51 is an individual lament imploring God for mercy and forgiveness. We not the request is coupled with an explicit understanding that the singer has sinned in the eyes of God and complete dependence on His mercy for the expiation of those offenses.
Gospel Matthew 10:16-23
Jesus concludes his instruction to the Apostles in this selection from Matthew’s Gospel. Here also we begin to hear about the persecutions that attend the spreading of the Gospel. Those who spread that Good News are encouraged not to worry about an apologetic but rather to trust in the Holy Spirit, the Father “speaking through you.”
Matthew’s final statement, referring to the coming of the Son of Man, has a couple of possible explanations. First it could be referring to the return of Christ after his crucifixion. It could also be a reference to the punishment of the unbelieving Jewish people by the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 AD
Reflection:
“Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves”
Jesus sends his Apostles into the world with these words. His vision for them is that they should come into the communities, not like bulls charging, but with an unthreatening demeanor that would not frighten those in authority. If they were perceived as a threat immediately, the Good News would be immediately suppressed and the mission would fail.
Jesus sends the Apostles with a message that challenges the beliefs about God’s character and reinterprets (in fact reveals) the intent of the Law and Prophets. His predecessor, St. John the Baptist, came crying out in the wilderness with a message intended to prepare the way for this new understanding. He (St. John) took Hosea’s call to repentance, coupled it with Isaiah’s oracle of the Messiah, and called the people to expectation, repentance, and a willingness to accept this new understanding.
Using one of Jesus’ favorite analogies, St. John had tilled the soil, now he sends his Apostles to plant more seeds. But he knows that the seeds being planted with be seen as a threat to the unworthy stewards who keep those same fields. So the Lord warns his friends that they must be careful not to push to hard at this beginning time (Look what happened to the outspoken St. John). The Lord knows this is a long race and a difficult one.
It is this understanding about the nature of the message and the best means of bringing it to the world that we take away from the instructions he gives here. When we go into the world with the message of God’s love, we do not go charging in, challenging those in authority out of force or strength. Rather we go in humbly, like sheep among wolves. We are a spirit that affects those around us, not a mold into which they should be forced. We are welcoming invitation, not a directive forcing action upon the recipient.
We must also understand the other part of the Lord’s message. That is when we have had a significant impact and our cause does become obvious to those who would suppress the values we exemplify, those wolves will try to discredit us, refute us, remove us. The message of love we bring will not be welcome by those who need to control thought and push a different agenda.
Today, even as we seek to undo the harm they may have caused through our own expression of Christ’s love and peace, we pray for those who hate us and bless those who curse us. It is what our Teacher would do and what he has asked us to do in his place.
Pax
[1] The picture used today is “St. Benedict and the Cup of Poison” by an UNKNOWN Austrian Master
[2] After Links to Readings Expire
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