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Commentary on Isaiah 55:1-3; Romans 8:35.37-39; Matthew 14:13-21 Read Sunday of week 18 of Ordinary Time (Year A) »

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While there is no commentary for today’s feast, the prayer from the Book of Numbers (6:24-26) is always a beautiful blessing for us to pray:

The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face to shine upon you
and be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

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While there is no commentary for this Feast of All Saints of Ireland, this reading from Sirach seems appropriate to include to honor those Irish women and men who are so acclaimed on earth and in heaven:

Sirach 44:1-15 (NRSVue)

Hymn in Honor of Our Ancestors

Let us now sing the praises of famous men,
our ancestors in their generations.
The Lord apportioned to them great glory,
his majesty from the beginning.
There were those who ruled in their kingdoms
and made a name for themselves by their strength;
those who gave counsel because they were intelligent;
those who spoke in prophetic oracles;
those who led the people by their counsels
and by their knowledge of the people’s lore;
they were wise in their words of instruction;
those who composed musical tunes
or put verses in writing;
rich men endowed with resources,
living peacefully in their homes—
all these were honored in their generations
and were the pride of their times.
Some of them have left behind a name,
so that others declare their praise.
But of others there is no memory;
they have perished as though they had never existed;
they have become as though they had never been born,
they and their children after them.
But these also were men of compassion
whose righteous deeds have not been forgotten;
their wealth will remain with their descendants
and their inheritance with their children’s children.
Their descendants stand by the covenants;
their children also, for their sake.
Their offspring will continue forever,
and their glory will never be blotted out.
Their bodies are buried in peace,
but their name lives on generation after generation.
The assembly declares their wisdom,
and the congregation proclaims their praise.

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Commentary on Matthew 18:1-5,10

(Note: The Gospel reading today is proper to the memorial and must be used even if the ferial readings are otherwise chosen.)

Coincidentally, the Gospel reading for today’s Memorial to the Holy Guardian Angels is the same as yesterday’s for the feast of St Thérèse of Lisieux (unless her feast falls on a Sunday). The emphasis on St Thérèse’s feast was on the childlike qualities of Thérèse. In the related Gospel passage, Jesus was saying that true greatness only comes to those who in a spirit of complete docility and trust submit themselves totally to the will of their Father in heaven.

Today the focus is more on Jesus’ statement at the end of the reading where he says:

Take care that you do not despise one of these little ones; for, I tell you, in heaven their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven.

The meaning is that those considered as of least consequence—children, the poor, the marginalised—are all very special in God’s eyes and, through their angels, can be sure of God’s loving concern.

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Commentary on Mark 6:17-29

The story told in today’s Gospel comes from Mark. Not altogether coincidentally, it is sandwiched between Jesus’ sending his disciples out on a mission to do the same work he was doing, and their coming back full of enthusiasm for what they had been doing. As Jesus would tell them, the day would come when they, too, would be ‘handed over’:

Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues… (Matt 10:17)

After he had sent them out, Mark tells us that King Herod was getting reports of the wonderful things that Jesus was doing—healing the sick, liberating people from evil powers, even bringing people back to life. Herod, however, thought it must have been John the Baptist come back to life with new powers who was responsible. Some people thought that Jesus was really Elijah, who was expected to return to earth on the eve of the Messiah’s coming. Others were saying that Jesus was just another prophet. However, Herod was convinced that Jesus was John come back to life:

But when Herod heard of it, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised”. (Mark 6:16)

It was clear that his killing of John the Baptist was a source of great disquiet to him.

It is then that Mark relates how this killing took place and it is the reading for us today. John the Baptist had been put in prison by Herod because John had criticised the king for marrying his brother’s wife, Herodias. This was a clear act of adultery and condemned by the Law of Moses. John had said:

It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.

Herodias was deeply resentful of John for this and wanted to get rid of him. Herod, however, respected John as a good and holy man and would do no more than keep him in prison. Although John was critical of Herod’s behaviour, the king could not resist listening to him speak.

Then, one day, Herodias saw her chance. On his birthday Herod threw a large party for his courtiers, his military officers and leading citizens of Galilee. During the meal, Herodias’ daughter came in and danced (while she is not named, by tradition she is called Salome). The king and all his guests were completely won over by her performance. The king, undoubtedly having had a few tankards of wine too much, promised to give the girl anything she wanted, even if it were half of his kingdom.

Excitedly, the girl went to her mother. “What should I ask for?” She may have been somewhat disappointed or perhaps bemused when her mother suggested: “The head of John the Baptist.” However, she went straight back to the king and said:

I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.

Herod was horrified, but he had made his oaths and could not lose face in front of his guests. An executioner was sent to decapitate John and bring the head back to the assembly. The head was then given by the executioner to the girl, who in turn handed it over to her vindictive mother. Later, John’s disciples took his body and buried it.

John is often called the Precursor, literally, the ‘one who runs in front of’. While John prepared the way for the coming of Jesus, he was really a man of the Old Testament—the last of the Old Testament prophets. Jesus would say that even the least in the Kingdom of God inaugurated by Jesus would be greater than John.

In fact, John first appears in Mark’s Gospel just at the beginning of Jesus’ public life. As Jesus began his mission to proclaim the Kingdom, John had already been arrested and had left the public scene. But John was a precursor, not only in the sense of preparing people for the coming of Jesus, but also because he was a man of complete integrity, ready to give his life for truth and justice. Hence, he was the first of those who would be ‘handed over’ (Latin, tradere) and who would be ready to die for his God. In this, he prepared the way for Jesus and those of his followers who would be handed over and give their lives. And of this we are the beneficiaries. Each one of us, too, needs to be ready to hand over our lives for the work of the Kingdom.

John the Baptist had to stand up to a king and his wife who thought they could take God’s law into their own hands. John may have died, but he won the moral victory, and for that we still recognise and honour him today.

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Commentary on Ezekiel 2:8—3:4

The reading, at first sight, describes a strange apocalyptic vision, but its meaning is clear. The vision of the chariot of Yahweh is interrupted by the vision of the scroll or book, of which we read just a part today. This vision was probably Ezekiel’s first in which, like Jeremiah and Isaiah, he is called to be God’s spokesperson.

God speaks to Ezekiel and calls him ‘son of man’.* This is a phrase in the Old Testament peculiar to Ezekiel (with the exception of two instances in the prophet Daniel). It is used 93 times altogether in Ezekiel and its purpose is to emphasise the great gap between a transcendent God and the human being. But in Daniel it takes on a messianic meaning, taken up later by Jesus, who refers to himself several times as ‘the’ (not ‘a’) “Son of Man”.

Ezekiel is first called on to listen carefully to what God has to say. In this he is not to be like the people who are rebellious and disobedient:

But you, mortal [son of man], hear what I say to you; do not be rebellious like that rebellious house…

The prophet is then to open his mouth and eat what is given him. A hand then reaches out a scroll for the prophet to eat. Unlike most ancient scrolls, it is written on both sides. The implication is that it is totally filled with God’s word and God’s judgement on his people.

The scroll was filled with “words of lamentation and mourning and woe”. Like Jeremiah, Ezekiel’s mission was first to communicate God’s displeasure with his people and to warn them of the sufferings they would endure as the result of their faithlessness. Later on, again like Jeremiah, he will preach a message of hope.

Following the Lord’s instructions, Ezekiel eats the scroll, whose contents he is to share with the people of Israel. When he was being called by Yahweh, the mouth of Isaiah had been touched by a seraph. In the case of Jeremiah, Yahweh had put his words into the prophet’s mouth. Here Ezekiel uses an even more graphic image of how God’s word becomes part of him.

In spite of its content, Ezekiel found the scroll:

…in my mouth…as sweet as honey.

However bitter its content, the word of God is always sweet to the taste. That is because God’s word is always spoken with love and with the well-being of the recipient in mind.

Ezekiel is then instructed to go to the people and to speak Yahweh’s words to them—the words that were on the scroll and which have been fully assimilated by the prophet.

The scene represents Ezekiel’s calling to be a prophet and to speak in God’s name. The eating of the scroll is a symbol of Ezekiel totally absorbing and assimilating into himself the word of God. It will literally become part of him.

We will find a similar image later in the Gospel in the famous chapter 6 of John where Jesus calls himself the Bread of Life:

Whoever eats of this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. (John 6:51)

To eat that Bread is to take into oneself the very Spirit of Christ and be fully united with him in his Risen Body, the Church. The image of eating a scroll will also appear in the Book of Revelation (Rev 10:1-11).

The Word of God that comes to us through Jesus Christ is not just a set of ideas to be known or even defended. It is a vision of life that we need to absorb into our very being so that it colours and is behind everything we say and do. It results in our being able to say, as Paul did:

…it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.
(Gal 2:20)

And we also need to remember the Eucharistic element in the Liturgy of the Word. The Word of God which is proclaimed to us is meant to be ‘eaten’ and totally assimilated. There is a real presence of Christ there. He is speaks to us through it, but are we listening? This part of our liturgy is so often seen as of less importance…it is not.
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*”Son of Man” is translated as “Mortal” in the NRSVue Bible, but the interpretation is the same.

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Commentary on Isaiah 56:1-3,6-8

Today’s reading comes from the first chapter of Third Isaiah, the last of the three parts into which Isaiah is divided. This third part contains a collection of oracles addressed to Judah, the southern kingdom which includes Jerusalem. They seem to indicate that the Israelites have now returned to Palestine after their exile in Babylon. The time is after 539 BC.

The subject of today’s reading is a blessing on all who observe the Sabbath. During and after the exile, observance of the sabbath became a touchstone of total fidelity to God’s law. The sabbath had originally been instituted after the Exodus from Egypt and was seen as the ongoing sign of the Israelites’ covenant with their God. To ‘keep the sabbath’ was a sign of commitment to the whole of the covenant.

What is significant is that in today’s passage the blessing is extended to those who are not ethnically Jewish. “Let no foreigner who has attached himself to the Lord say, ‘The Lord will surely exclude me from his people’.”

‘Foreign’ proselytes are being invited to join the Jewish community, on condition that they observe the covenant. This would necessarily include circumcision, which, for Jews, was the sign of adherence to the covenant. At the same time, some of the restrictions laid down in Deuteronomy are set aside. These had excluded some of the peoples who had opposed the Israelites settling in the Promised Land, especially the Moabites, and men “whose testicles are crushed or whose penis is cut off”, that is, eunuchs. Verses 4 and 5 which are omitted from today’s reading say:

Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say, ‘The Lord will surely separate me from his people’; and do not let the eunuch say, ‘I am just a dry tree’. For thus says the Lord: To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.”

What is being said very clearly is that, provided a person is totally committed to the service of God, other factors, such as race or physical disabilities or previous behaviour, are of no account. Members of some ethnic groups who had been living among the Israelites had been excluded from worship for several generations as were those who lacked physical, especially sexual, integrity. People who could not produce children were seen as of no value to a society. (And, as Jesus indicates in the Gospel [Matt 19:11-12], the word ‘eunuch’ could also be applied to those who were impotent and it seems it could even include homosexuals who had no interest in developing relations with the opposite gender. They were effectively eunuchs.)

An unconditional statement is made: “All who observe the sabbath, not profaning it, and cling to my covenant – these I will bring to my holy mountain. I will make them joyful in my house of prayer. Their holocausts and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar.” The “holy mountain” refers to Mount Zion in Jerusalem, on which the Temple was built.

And the Lord’s promise concludes with words Jesus will quote later on: “My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.”

All this is in preparation for the coming of Jesus which we are about to celebrate. In the New Covenant, in the Kingdom which Jesus came to establish there are absolutely no barriers whatever based on race, ethnicity, nationality, social class, or occupation, gender or sex or orientation, or physical disability… All that is asked that one say ‘Yes’ to the Way of Jesus, to become a co-builder of God’s Kingdom on earth.

As we prepare to celebrate Christmas. Let us, too, say an unconditional ‘Yes’ to the Lord.

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Commentary on John 21:15-19

The Gospel reading is from the very end of John’s Gospel. The whole chapter is divided into three parts. In the first, seven of Jesus’ disciples are out fishing and have caught nothing. Then in the early dawn, as light breaks, a stranger on the shore tells them where to drop their nets. When they do so, they make a huge catch of fish and at that point the Beloved Disciple, the one with the deeper spiritual insight, realises that:

It is the Lord!

They then bring the catch ashore.

In the second part, after coming ashore, the disciples find that a fire has been lit and a meal is ready for them, a meal of bread and fish – a Eucharistic meal. The disciples are somewhat confused. Jesus, on the one hand, does not look familiar and yet they know it is he.

At the end of the meal, Jesus begins to speak with Peter, although he addresses him by his own name, Simon:

Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?

It sounds like a simple question, but in fact it makes Peter very uncomfortable. He has not forgotten the shameful moment during the trial of Jesus when he swore three times that he had never laid eyes on Jesus. And this on top of an earlier boast that, even if all the others betrayed Jesus, Peter never would. He was in effect saying that he loved Jesus more than his other companions.

But now, in this scene, it is a more humble and remorseful Peter. After betraying his Master he had wept bitterly, deeply regretting his cowardice. Earlier on, when they were in the boat and the Beloved Disciple had cried, “It is the Lord!”, Peter immediately dressed himself. Only the innocent can go naked (like our First Parents in the garden before their sin), and Peter was deeply aware of his failings. At the same time, his diving into the water to get to Jesus first was a sign that, sinner though he may have been, he deeply loved his Lord.

Now, in answer to Jesus’ painful question, he simply replies:

Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.

And, of course, Jesus did know. The reconciliation then takes place and Peter is told:

Feed my sheep.

He is fully restored to his role as Peter, as the Rock on which the community will be built and to which he will be responsible.

But Jesus is not yet finished. Twice more he asks Peter if he loves his Master and twice more his leadership of the community is re-affirmed. Peter is all too conscious why he is being asked three times and it hurts:

Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.

And, of course, it was true.

The second half of the passage, while spoken about Peter, seems almost a poem about the course of anyone’s life:

Very truly I tell you,
when you were younger
you dressed yourself
and went where you wanted;
but when you are old
you will stretch out your hands,
and someone else will dress you
and lead you where you do not want to go.

The Gospel writer interprets this poem saying:

Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God.

Peter’s witness will cost him his life, but will also lead the Church forward to growth unimaginable to Jesus’ original disciples.

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Commentary on Isaiah 1:10-17

Last Saturday we saw Isaiah’s call to be a prophet of God taken from the sixth chapter. We now go to the beginning of the book and from now on will have selected readings from chapters 1-39, which are really part of Isaiah’s own ministry.  The rest of the Book of Isaiah (Parts 2 and 3) is now attributed to other writers.

Isaiah pulls no punches in communicating his message. When he writes: “you rulers of Sodom” and “you people of Gomorroah”, these are not addressed to the peoples of those cities which were long ago destroyed.  He is speaking to the rulers and people of Jerusalem and the southern kingdom of Judah of which it is a part.

Today’s reading is a severe attack on religious hypocrisy.  It is part of an oracle presumably uttered in the Temple at the beginning of Isaiah’s ministry. Like Amos (see the recent reading for Wednesday of Week 13), Isaiah castigates ritual divorced from morality. He makes it clear that the sincerity of the worshipper, not the number of his or her religious activities, is most important.

On the face of it, the people seem deeply religious. But he disparages:

…the multitude of your sacrifices…burnt offerings of rams
and the fat of fed beasts…the blood of bulls
or of lambs or of goats.

God finds no pleasure in a mere multiplicity of offerings.  He does not even expect them:

When you come to appear before me,
who asked this from your hand?

Their offerings are not really directed to God but are a form of self-adulation – “How good we are!  How pious and dedicated we are!”

The air filled with the smell of incense has become loathsome to Yahweh.  He has no time for all their “new moons”, which were celebrated at the beginning of every month. Special sacrifices and feasts were part of the observance.

All their efforts at religious celebration and observance are in vain. When they spread out their hands in prayer, Yahweh hides his eyes:

When you stretch out your hands,
I will hide my eyes from you;
even though you make many prayers,
I will not listen…

Why? Because their “hands are full of blood” – on the one hand, the blood of sacrificial victims, coupled with that of the poor and weak who have been exploited and abused.

At first sight, it all seems to contradict everything we have heard about our merciful, forgiving and compassionate God.  We remember, too, how Jesus taught us to pray incessantly.  But here the prayers are so hypocritical.  They consist of purely external ritual devoid of any real commitment to Yahweh’s will.

Their prayers can never be heard until they emanate from deep within the heart.  Their prayers will be heard when people’s lives are seen to change radically – when they cease to do evil things and concentrate on what is good.

They need to wash themselves clean and put away their misdeeds, which no amount of sacrifices and holocausts will cover up.  They must have only one aim:

Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean…
learn to do good;
seek justice;
rescue the oppressed;
defend the orphan;
plead for the widow.

When they search for justice and reach out to the oppressed, when they treat the widow and the orphan with justice, love and compassion, then and only then will their sacrifices be truly acceptable to the Lord.

In a society which knew nothing of social welfare, where the needy depended on support from the family, the widow and the orphan were particularly vulnerable to abuse and neglect.  The widow might very well be relatively young, having lost her husband through disease, accident or war.  She had no future as no man would again marry her.  If she was childless, she was of no interest to her father’s family or even her own.  The orphan, too, was left exposed to destitution or having recourse to prostitution, male or female.

Applying this reading to our own situation is not difficult. We can see people devoting a great deal of energy to religious activities such as devotions, pilgrimages and novenas.  We can see them obsessed with keeping commandments and regulations and external observances, but in their daily lives there is often widespread lack of charity, compassion or a willingness to forgive, to tolerate, to understand.  There is often a wide dichotomy between what they proclaim in church and what they do in their daily lives.

“Don’t speak of love; show me!” exclaimed Eliza Doolittle to Professor Higgins in the old play, My Fair Lady.  That could well sum up what God is saying to his people in today’s reading.

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Commentary on 2 Kings 25:1-12

Today we come to the end of the sad story of Israel’s degradation and humiliation – the second deportation. Yesterday we saw how Mattaniah, renamed Zedekiah, had been made a puppet or vassal king of Judah, the southern kingdom, by Nebuchadnezzar. He was no improvement on his predecessors. The passage which comes between yesterday’s and today’s readings is as follows:

Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he began to reign; he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem…He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, just as Jehoiakim had done. Indeed, Jerusalem and Judah so angered the Lord that he expelled them [the two kings] from his presence. Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon. (2 Kings 24:18-20)

Rebelling against the king was a bad mistake on his part…

It was in the ninth year of his reign that Nebuchadnezzar came to Jerusalem with his army and, for the second time, laid it under siege. Earlier, he had subdued all the fortified cities in Judah except Lachish and Azekah (see Jer 34:7). A number of Hebrew inscriptions on potsherds were found at Lachish in 1935 and 1938. The Lachish ostraca (i.e. letters) describe conditions at Lachish and Azekah during the Babylonian siege.

Jerusalem, built as it was on an outcrop of high rock with steep sides, was not an easy city to capture and was able to resist for more than one year, into the 11th year of Zedekiah’s reign. But eventually, with the people starving, the walls were finally breached. It is possible that some desperate citizens may have deliberately brought this about to end the siege – and their starvation.

However, the king and his soldiers escaped from the city by night. Because of the surrounding armies, they had no option but to head for the Arabah, a desolate area in the Jordan valley. But there was no escape and the hapless king was caught near Jericho and abandoned by his troops.

He was brought into Nebuchadnezzar’s presence where sentence was passed on him, as a rebellious vassal. His two sons (his potential successors as king) were killed before his eyes while Zedekiah himself then had his eyes put out and was brought to Babylon. Ezekiel (12:13) had prophesied that the king would be brought to Babylon, but would not see the city. Jeremiah had advised Zedekiah what to do to avoid his own punishment and the destruction of the city, but the king had not listened (see Jer 38:14-28).

Finally, Nabuzaradan, the captain of Nebuchadnezzar’s bodyguard, took control over Jerusalem. He proceeded to wipe out every vestige of its past by burning the Temple, the king’s palace and every large building in the city. In the previous siege, the vessels of the Temple had been taken away but, the building had remained. Lastly, the formidable walls which had protected the town were torn down.

The remainder of the population, those who had gone over to Babylon’s side, and the last of the artisans, were all carried off into bitter exile. Only the very poor were left behind to take care of the vineyards and the farms. They would form the remnant which would maintain the continuity of the city of David with the future.

It was an ignominious end of the kingdom originally established by Saul. With the outstanding exception of David – and even he had done some pretty bad things – the dynasty had a pretty dismal record as vicegerents of Yahweh.

The lesson of the reading is very similar to that of previous days. God does not take vengeance as we humans do but, on the other hand, we do reap the natural consequences of immoral behaviour.

At the same time, even the most negative experiences can be turned round. A good example of this is to be found in Viktor Frankl’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning, where he shows that those who survived best in the Nazi concentration camps were those who found positive meaning and something to live for even in the utter degradation of their surroundings. Frankl himself was a clear example of one such person. Out of all this corruption and immorality will come David’s descendant, Jesus the Christ. God certainly does write straight with crooked lines.