Sunday
July 14th

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time
St. Kateri Tekakwitha

1st Reading: Am 7:12-15:
Amaziah, priest of Bethel, said to Amos, “Off with you, visionary, flee to the land of Judah! There earn your bread by prophesying, but never again prophesy in Bethel; for it is the king’s sanctuary and a royal temple.” Amos answered Amaziah, “I was no prophet, nor have I belonged to a company of prophets; I was a shepherd and a dresser of sycamores. The Lord took me from following the flock, and said to me, Go, prophesy to my people Israel.”

2nd Reading: Eph 1:3-14 or 1:3-10:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him. In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ, in accord with the favor of his will, for the praise of the glory of his grace that he granted us in the beloved. In him we have redemption by his blood, the forgiveness of transgressions, in accord with the riches of his grace that he lavished upon us.

In all wisdom and insight, he has made known to us the mystery of his will in accord with his favor that he set forth in him as a plan for the fullness of times, to sum up all things in Christ, in heaven and on earth. In him we were also chosen, destined in accord with the purpose of the One who accomplishes all things according to the intention of his will, so that we might exist for the praise of his glory, we who first hoped in Christ. In him you also, who have heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and have believed in him, were sealed with the promised holy Spirit, which is the first installment of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s possession, to the praise of his glory.

Gospel: Mk 6:7-13:
Jesus summoned the Twelve and began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over unclean spirits. He instructed them to take nothing for the journey but a walking stick— no food, no sack, no money in their belts. They were, however, to wear sandals but not a second tunic. He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave. Whatever place does not welcome you or listen to you, leave there and shake the dust off your feet in testimony against them.” So they went off and preached repentance. The Twelve drove out many demons, and they anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.

Reflection:
We see a facet of Jesus’ character shining through this gospel snapshot. First, He equips His disciples with the necessary power and authority so they may do their task with confidence. Secondly, He asked them to bring only the essentials in their mission work. Everything else can be foregone without any slight effect on the mission work. Thirdly, they need not grope in the dark. He gave them a manual to follow so they would know what to do in given circumstances. He did not scrimp on the provisions He prepared for them. They may have been travelling light in earthly goods, but surely had heavy weight provisions from Jesus’ own largesse. Being in control and the one who decides my own faith is a good thing. It means taking responsibility over my own life course.

But there are moments when I have to step back and give way to God’s gentle promptings. But have I ever been courageous enough to let go of the control button for God? Perhaps today, I will allow God to take over my actions and decisions and do what He wants me to do with enthusiasm and joy. Lord, oftentimes, I make my presence larger than life in the control room. I don’t want to let go of the push button. How many times have I overridden Your gentle suggestions and extended help to make me feel that I am truly in control? Help me to realize that with You helping me navigate my life’s journey, I will never go wrong. Amen.

Monday
July 15th

St. Bonaventure

1st Reading: IS 1:10-17:
Hear the word of the Lord, princes of Sodom! Listen to the instruction of our God, people of Gomorrah! What care I for the number of your sacrifices? says the Lord. I have had enough of whole-burnt rams and fat of fatlings; In the blood of calves, lambs and goats I find no pleasure. When you come in to visit me, who asks these things of you? Trample my courts no more! Bring no more worthless offerings; your incense is loathsome to me. New moon and sabbath, calling of assemblies, octaves with wickedness: these I cannot bear. Your new moons and festivals I detest; they weigh me down, I tire of the load. When you spread out your hands, I close my eyes to you; Though you pray the more, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood! Wash yourselves clean! Put away your misdeeds from before my eyes; cease doing evil; learn to do good. Make justice your aim: redress the wronged, hear the orphan’s plea, defend the widow.

Gospel: MT 10:34-11:1:
Jesus said to his Apostles: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s enemies will be those of his household. “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

“Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever receives a righteous man because he is righteous will receive a righteous man’s reward. And whoever gives only a cup of cold water to one of these little ones to drink because he is a disciple– amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward.” When Jesus finished giving these commands to his Twelve disciples, he went away from that place to teach and to preach in their towns.

Reflection:
The family is a beautiful institution, one of the pearls of God’s creation. And so, the love of one’s family is certainly a good and beautiful thing—in fact, God made it one of the ten commandments when he said, “Honor your father and your mother” (Ex 20:12). However, love for one’s family, like anything human, can be distorted into something ugly. Some people place their family above everything else, even their conscience. Examples of this are numerous. Nepotism is one of them.

When a person gives a position of responsibility to an incompetent or dishonest relative just because he or she is a relative, that person places love of family above love of God and neighbor. When a person sides with a relative in a quarrel while knowing perfectly well that the relative is in the wrong, that person loves his or her family more than truth and justice. When families pressure two young people themselves above the respect of these young people’s freedom and happiness: they sin against God and man. Here we must examine our consciences most carefully.

Tuesday
July 16th

Foundation Day of the Claretian Missionaries
Our Lady of Mount Carmel

1st Reading: Is 7:1-9:
In the days of Ahaz, king of Judah, son of Jotham, son of Uzziah, Rezin, king of Aram, and Pekah, king of Israel, son of Remaliah, went up to attack Jerusalem, but they were not able to conquer it. When word came to the house of David that Aram was encamped in Ephraim, the heart of the king and the heart of the people trembled, as the trees of the forest tremble in the wind. Then the Lord said to Isaiah: Go out to meet Ahaz, you and your son Shear-jashub, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, on the highway of the fuller’s field, and say to him:

Take care you remain tranquil and do not fear; let not your courage fail before these two stumps of smoldering brands the blazing anger of Rezin and the Arameans, and of the son Remaliah, because of the mischief that Aram, Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, plots against you, saying, “Let us go up and tear Judah asunder, make it our own by force, and appoint the son of Tabeel king there.” Thus says the Lord: This shall not stand, it shall not be! Damascus is the capital of Aram, and Rezin is the head of Damascus; Samaria is the capital of Ephraim, and Remaliah’s son the head of Samaria. But within sixty years and five, Ephraim shall be crushed, no longer a nation. Unless your faith is firm you shall not be firm!

Gospel: Mt 11:20-24:
Jesus began to reproach the towns where most of his mighty deeds had been done, since they had not repented. “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. And as for you, Capernaum: Will you be exalted to heaven? You will go down to the nether world. For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.”

Reflection:
Contrary to popular belief, miracles do not automatically produce faith (because faith results from an essentially free decision), but it is rather faith that produces miracles. Let us consider these two ideas in turn. The first idea is perfectly illustrated by Jesus’ comparison between, on the one hand, Tyre and Sidon (the traditional archetypes of impiety—cf. Is. 23; Ez 26—28) and, on the other hand, the lake towns of Chorazin and Bethsaida. The latter had witnessed many miracles of Jesus, yet had refused to believe in him. Jesus compares Tyre and Sidon to them favorably because their evil deeds resulted more from ignorance than from sheer malice.

The second idea is constantly illustrated by Jesus’ response to people who ask him to perform a miracle: “Let it be done to you according to your faith” (Cf. Mt 8:13; 9:29; Lk 7:50…). At Lourdes (France) people witness the same miracles, yet some believe and some do not. Nothing can force faith—not even God, who respects our freedom too much to do that. The mindset of some basically honest and decent people is sometimes so conditioned (by a secular education, years of atheistic propaganda, etc.) that these people simply cannot make the leap of faith. Let us not look down on them. Maybe they would be better Christians than we are if they had experienced all that we have…

Wednesday
July 17th

1st Reading: Is 10:5-7, 13b-16:
Thus says the Lord: Woe to Assyria! My rod in anger, my staff in wrath. Against an impious nation I send him, and against a people under my wrath I order him To seize plunder, carry off loot, and tread them down like the mud of the streets. But this is not what he intends, nor does he have this in mind; Rather, it is in his heart to destroy, to make an end of nations not a few. For he says: “By my own power I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I am shrewd. I have moved the boundaries of peoples, their treasures I have pillaged, and, like a giant, I have put down the enthroned.

“My hand has seized like a nest the riches of nations; As one takes eggs left alone, so I took in all the earth; No one fluttered a wing, or opened a mouth, or chirped!” Will the axe boast against him who hews with it? Will the saw exalt itself above him who wields it? As if a rod could sway him who lifts it, or a staff him who is not wood! Therefore the Lord, the Lord of hosts, will send among his fat ones leanness, And instead of his glory there will be kindling like the kindling of fire.

Gospel: Mt 11:25-27:
At that time Jesus exclaimed: “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike. Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.”

Reflection:
Most people find questionable the practice of marrying someone because that someone is rich. And they are quite right. Marriage should unite for life two people who love each other enough to embrace the hardships which are an integral part of the married life. Only real love can sustain a real marriage. There is something incongruous in the idea of “buying” or “selling” married life. Likewise, since God is pure love by definition (1 Jn 4:8, 16), the only way to meet him in depth is through the gift of one’s heart, not through an intellectual, analytical study of his nature. Such an approach is unsuited for a deep relationship with God.

It is too cold, impersonal, detached and ultimately foreign to God’s infinite humility—a humility which inspired him to give himself to us through his Son made man. God will always resist attempts to “comprehend” (i.e. to intellectually seize him) by an effort of the mind. He gives himself to those who are humble enough to approach him with their hearts instead of only their minds. Here one is reminded of Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), that mathematical genius who discovered this “heart approach” in the course of a burning mystical experience, and after that, wrote that “the heart has its reason which reason knows nothing of.”

Thursday
July 18th

St. Camillus de Lellis

1st Reading: Is 26:7-9, 12, 16-19:
The way of the just is smooth; the path of the just you make level. Yes, for your way and your judgments, O Lord, we look to you; Your name and your title are the desire of our souls. My soul yearns for you in the night, yes, my spirit within me keeps vigil for you; When your judgment dawns upon the earth, the world’s inhabitants learn justice. O Lord, you mete out peace to us, for it is you who have accomplished all we have done. O Lord, oppressed by your punishment, we cried out in anguish under your chastising. As a woman about to give birth writhes and cries out in her pains, so were we in your presence, O Lord. We conceived and writhed in pain, giving birth to wind; Salvation we have not achieved for the earth, the inhabitants of the world cannot bring it forth. But your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise; awake and sing, you who lie in the dust. For your dew is a dew of light, and the land of shades gives birth.

Gospel: Mt 11:28-30:
Jesus said: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”

Reflection:
In this modern, hectic, complicated and haste-addicted world (think only of this new phenomenon called “multi-tasking”!), it is very easy to lose one’s peace of mind and begin to panic under the pressure of our many obligations and commitments. Those who have what has been called the “Type A Personality,” (translate: the doers, the earth shakers, the perfectionists, the competitive high-achievers) are easily victimized by their desire to “please everyone in every way” (1 Cor 10:33)—surely an impossible task for the ordinary person—and end up being psychologically all tied up in knots.

In today’s gospel reading, Jesus reveals to us a priceless insight, nay, more than that. He gives us a principle of spiritual discernment which should be a source of liberation for all his overly zealous followers: “My burden is light.” If you feel that Christian life has become a joyless round of duties, a tedious grind, a drag, a drudgery—then something is wrong. A lot, if the weight pulling you down, does not come from your Christian duties because “my burden is light.” Maybe it is time for you to drop a few items from your bursting-at-the-seams agenda?

Friday
July 19th

1st Reading: Is 38:1-6, 21-22, 7-8:
When Hezekiah was mortally ill, the prophet Isaiah, son of Amoz, came and said to him: “Thus says the Lord: Put your house in order, for you are about to die; you shall not recover.” Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord: “O Lord, remember how faithfully and wholeheartedly I conducted myself in your presence, doing what was pleasing to you!” And Hezekiah wept bitterly. Then the word of the Lord came to Isaiah: “Go, tell Hezekiah: Thus says the Lord, the God of your father David: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears.

“I will heal you: in three days you shall go up to the Lord’s temple; I will add fifteen years to your life. I will rescue you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria; I will be a shield to this city.” Isaiah then ordered a poultice of figs to be taken and applied to the boil, that he might recover. Then Hezekiah asked, “What is the sign that I shall go up to the temple of the Lord?” Isaiah answered: “This will be the sign for you from the Lord that he will do what he has promised: See, I will make the shadow cast by the sun on the stairway to the terrace of Ahaz go back the ten steps it has advanced.” So the sun came back the ten steps it had advanced.

Gospel: Mt 12:1-8:
Jesus was going through a field of grain on the sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “See, your disciples are doing what is unlawful to do on the sabbath.” He said to the them, “Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry, how he went into the house of God and ate the bread of offering, which neither he nor his companions but only the priests could lawfully eat? Or have you not read in the law that on the sabbath the priests serving in the temple violate the sabbath and are innocent? I say to you, something greater than the temple is here. If you knew what this meant, I desire mercy, not sacrifice, you would not have condemned these innocent men. For the Son of Man is Lord of the sabbath.”

Reflection:
One of the ten commandments given by God to Moses runs like this: “No work must be done (on the sabbath)” (Ex 20:10). But what did God mean by “work?” In the course of the centuries the Jewish scribes or specialists of the Law had tried to answer that question by specifying what types of activities could be classified as “work.” Harvesting was obviously one of those. But the Pharisees, who were over scrupulous observers of the Law, believed that plucking heads of wheat while crossing a field was “harvesting” and, therefore, work. Hence their reproach to Jesus in today’s gospel reading. Naturally, Jesus does not agree with this nit-picking approach to the Law.

However, on this particular occasion he decides to humor the Pharisees by saying something like this: “Suppose you are right in your definition of what “work” is. But, even so, every rule has its exception, don’t you think?” Then he goes on to point to an occasion when the famous Kind David (one of God’s favorites) broke the Law for a good reason (hunger) and was not blamed by God for doing so. Priests also break the Law, Jesus then adds, by “working” on the Sabbath. Even good and wise rules must sometimes be broken when their application in particular set of circumstances becomes nonsensical.

Saturday
July 20th

St. Apollinaris

1st Reading: Mi 2:1-5:
Woe to those who plan iniquity, and work out evil on their couches; In the morning light they accomplish it when it lies within their power. They covet fields, and seize them; houses, and they take them; They cheat an owner of his house, a man of his inheritance. Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, I am planning against this race an evil from which you shall not withdraw your necks; Nor shall you walk with head high, for it will be a time of evil. On that day a satire shall be sung over you, and there shall be a plaintive chant: “Our ruin is complete, our fields are portioned out among our captors, The fields of my people are measured out, and no one can get them back!” Thus you shall have no one to mark out boundaries by lot in the assembly of the Lord.

Gospel: Mt 12:14-21:
The Pharisees went out and took counsel against Jesus to put him to death. When Jesus realized this, he withdrew from that place. Many people followed him, and he cured them all, but he warned them not to make him known. This was to fulfill what had been spoken through Isaiah the prophet: Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom I delight; I shall place my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. He will not contend or cry out, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory. And in his name the Gentiles will hope.

Reflection:
A reed is a tall plant which grows in swamps and shallow water and has a jointed hollow stalk. Compared to any tree, a reed is weak and fragile. It can easily be damaged or bruised if a person does not handle it most carefully. On the other hand, when the wick of a candle starts smoldering, this means that it will soon become extinguished if nothing is done to rekindle it. In today’s gospel reading, Matthew describes Jesus’ behavior towards the spiritually weak by borrowing a description of the future Messiah as provided by the prophet Isaiah.

According to the latter, the future Messiah will deal most gently with the spiritually weak who will not crush the already bruised reed nor snuff out the smoldering wick. And indeed Jesus himself reassures us on this score as he solemnly states at one point: “I will not reject anyone who comes to me” (Jn 6:37). Who among us has not been bruised by life? If so, let us go to Jesus. He will always welcome us with a warm embrace, whatever our spiritual state.