21A   Isaiah 22:19-23.  Shebna was the king’s steward who used his position for his own personal gain at the expense of others who were not in a position to defend themselves.  Yahweh has Isaiah deliver his message that Shebna is to be replaced by Eliakim who will use his authority, represented by the keys, as steward to faithfully serve the king and the kingdom.

Matthew 16:13-20.  Jesus asks who do people say the Son of Man is. The replies are that people think he is one of the many important Jewish religious figures of the past, but Peter responds, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  Jesus comments that the answer Peter has given came to him from God and not any human source.  All good and true things of any kind radically, though often remotely, come from God, the only source of what is genuinely good and true.  Jesus says, “You are Peter (which name means rock), and upon this rock I will build my church,” and he guarantees that “the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.” The guarantee that the Church will prevail until the end of time is not based on Peter’s strength or wisdom but on God’s.  Jesus continues, “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”  The giving of authority to the Church assumes that the power to bind or to loose is exercised under the supremacy of God’s Will.  Some claim that this authority was given personally to Peter only.  However, that would mean that Jesus is saying he will build his church on a man who is dead and, if only he has the authority to lead the church, therefore on an authority which is dead.  To the contrary Jesus has given the authority, symbolized by the keys, to whoever takes the position of authority that Jesus has established over his church.  The Church, with pope, who now has the keys, as its leader, is the steward to the king who is Jesus.  Peter just happened to be the first person to hold that position of authority that we call the papacy.  Because Peter, as the first pope, has been given the visible authority to lead the Church on earth under the spiritual guidance of God, Jesus says to Peter in Jn. 21: 15c, 16c, 17c, “Feed my lambs;”  “Tend my sheep;”  “Feed my sheep.”

Jesus tells his disciples “to tell no one that he was the Christ.”  To make the claim to be Messiah to people not properly prepared or disposed in a timely way would only create barriers to their believing in him.

Romans 11:33-36.  Oh! How magnificent is our God!  Oh! How spectacular!  “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!” “How unsearchable his ways!”  His ways are forever and ever beyond our minds!  We are finite; He, infinite!  He is God; we are not!  We glory in the God who is our God, over us, OUR GOD OVER US, LOVING US!  “From him and through him and for him are all things.  To him be glory forever. Amen.”  When we give praise and adoration, we come to him mostly from our heart and little from our mind.  It is the pouring out of our hearts and with little use of the grasping, comprehension and understanding by our minds.  We do not so much take hold of him but we rejoice that he takes a hold of us through his omnipotence!

20A20.   Isaiah 56:1, 6-7.   “The foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, ministering to him, loving the name of the Lord, and becoming his servants,” “them I will bring to my mountain and make joyful in my house of prayer.”  “For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”   I assume that what Isaiah meant was that God was inviting all peoples to become Jews when he says for all who “hold to my covenant” that the Lord made to the original Israelites.  Nevertheless, now all peoples are invited to become God’s Chosen People.   Today’s Ps. 67 says: “May all the peoples praise you” and “may all the ends of the earth fear him.”  I understand the word ‘fear’ here means that all people should respect God as the God over us all and as the infinite God who created us to love as he loves.

Matthew 15:21-28.  This passage often scandalizes people.  The point of the Church’s including this scripture is that the invitation to salvation is extended to all peoples.  However, it raises two other concerns.  First, when the Canaanite woman for her daughter’s sake pleads to Jesus, “Lord, help me,” Jesus answers: “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” Immediately because of her faith, Jesus acquiesces to her request.  In Matthew 10:5a-6 Jesus said to the twelve disciples, “Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town.  Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  Jesus as the Messiah of the Jews saw his calling to be only to the Jews.  Jesus was raised Jewish.  The Jews saw themselves as people separated from all others, singled out to be the only People chosen by God. Jesus reflects his childhood upbringing in his initial answer to the Canaanite woman. Secondly, in his humanity Jesus grew and matured as any other human being does.  Luke 2:52 says: “and Jesus advanced [in] wisdom and age and favor before God and man.”  Hebrews 5:8 says, “Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered; and when he was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for who obey him.”  I see this event in the life of Jesus as a learning experience for him.  Not only did the Holy Spirit inspire the Canaanite woman to say, “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters;” but also the Spirit inspired Jesus to  respond, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it done for you as you wish.”  Jesus, in his humanity, was learning every day; in his divinity, he knew, knows and will know all forever.  The Church’s magisterium teaches that Jesus was one divine person but had two natures, the human and the divine. Some may be tempted to think that the above means that he was half- human and half-divine.  NO!  Jesus was one divine person that had two natures.  Like the Trinity this is one of those divine mysteries that we only superficially fathom. Let the example of Jesus help us in our humanity to learn every day, especially in the spiritual realm.

Romans 11:13-15, 29-32.  Paul gives us something of a maze here.   My understanding is that the sinfulness of the sinner invites God’s mercy.  As the Gentiles received God’s mercy in their sinfulness so may the Jews receive God’s mercy in their sinfulness, their rejection of Jesus as their Messiah.`  “For God delivered all to disobedience, that he might have mercy upon all.”  We are all sinners seeking to be saints.

20A   Isaiah 56:1, 6-7.  Their captors, having themselves been defeated, can no longer hold the Israelites captive.  A remnant of the Israelites returns to restore Zion.  However, not only are the Israelites invited to build Zion.  In Isaiah56:3a, b, we read, “Let not the foreigner say, when he would join himself to the Lord, “The Lord will surely exclude me from his people.”  As long as Gentiles become good Jews, abiding faithfully in the Law, they will make themselves acceptable to the Lord.  “For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.  Thus says the Lord God, who gathers the dispersed of Israel: Others will I gather to him besides those already gathered.” (Isaiah 56:7c-8)

Matthew 15:21-28.  When sending out the twelve Apostles to bring people to believe in him, Jesus instructs them saying, “Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town.  Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel.” (Mt. 10:5b, 6)  In Mt. 18:17, Jesus says, “If he refuses to listen even to the Church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.” To be treated as a Gentile means to be treated as one who is not chosen to be one of his own people, which is to say that what belongs to God’s people belongs to them and only to them and not to the people who have not been chosen.  This is all to give a background as to why Jesus says to the Canaanite woman in our Gospel reading for this Sunday, “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.”   In summary, in the initial stages of his ministry, Jesus sees his mission as to only the Jews loyal to Jerusalem.

In Exodus 5:1b, Moses and Aaron go to Pharaoh and say, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Let my people go.”  Further on in Exodus 5:3, Moses and Aaron reply to Pharaoh’s negative answer, saying, “The God of the Hebrews has sent us word.”  The Old Testament indicates clearly that God had chosen his own people from among many peoples here on earth and not chosen all peoples.  He refers to himself as the God of Israel or of the Hebrews and not as the God all peoples.  That was to come much later but not at the time of the exodus.  This sense of being separate from the other peoples of the earth and chosen apart from other peoples by God was taught to Jesus all through his growing up as a young Jew.  In his humanness that was what he learned and became a part of his ministry.  In Lk. 2:52, we read, “And Jesus advanced [in] wisdom and age and favor before God and man.”  Jesus was truly God and truly man.  His divinity had to hold itself back to allow his humanity to be truly human in the way all human beings are.  Otherwise, his divinity, being as utterly awesome as it is, would have obliterated his humanity. Later, taught by his heavenly Father, his idea of his ministry would expand.  His Father teaches the man Jesus through the faith of the Canaanite woman in this Sunday’s Gospel reading and the faith of the centurion (Mt. 8:5-13) that not only does ministry call forth faith but also faith (the rich soil), or the preparation God has given to person to believe, calls forth ministry.  Wherever one finds the willingness to believe, one ought to minister.

Romans 11:13-15, 29-32.  In Paul’s ministry he finds that the majority of the Jews reject Jesus as the Messiah but many Gentiles accept him as the Messiah.  Paul expresses the hope that the Jews, seeing that the Gentiles have accepted Jesus, will make them jealous of the Gentiles and, by the merciful grace of God, lead them to be obedient to the call of God to accept Jesus as their Messiah too.

 

 

 

19A20     1 Kings 19:9a, 11-13a.    “The Lord said to Elijah, ‘Go outside and stand on the mountain before the Lord; the Lord will be passing by.’”  Jesus also went to the mountain to pray.  Traditionally the mountain represented the highest point man could get closest to the Lord and it was the lowest point to which the Lord would come down.  Next the Lord manifests four earthly phenomena that might indicate the presence of the Lord.  We might think that the mighty, all-powerful Lord would be in the strong, heavy wind that crushed the rocks OR in the earthquake OR in the fire but the Lord was not in any of them.  He was in the tiny whispering sound.  Elijah, a man of God, knew that was the sign of the presence of the Lord. “Elijah hid his face in his cloak” because he knew that no one could look directly at God and live.  “One of the hardest lessons we have to learn is that God is in the quiet that is ever around us, working with us, for us and with us, without any visible or audible indicator of activity.”(Christopher  Davis)

Matthew 14:22-33.  “Afterwards Jesus made the disciples get into a boat and precede him to the other side.”  “After doing so, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray.”  Somewhat before dawn, Jesus came walking on the sea in the midst of a storm.  “When the disciples saw him walking on the sea they were terrified.  ‘It is a ghost,’ they said, and they cried out in fear.  At once Jesus spoke to them, ‘Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.’” I think that it is Peter’s natural bravado that impels him to say to Jesus, “Command me to come to you on the water.”  As long as Peter’s faith is in Jesus, he walks on the water; but he lets his faith be sucked out of him by the forces of this world.  Then he begins to sink and cries out, “Lord, save me!”  Jesus “caught Peter, and said to him, ‘O you of little faith, why did you doubt?’”  Much later Peter would again doubt when he was in the courtyard of Pilate.   Our humanness has a natural power over us.  While in this world, we must endlessly go to the Lord to imbue us with his spiritual power. Otherwise this world will bury us with its natural power.  Struck and astounded with his walking on the stormy water, they proclaim his divinity.  However, much later when he is taken down dead from the cross, the disciples hid shivering with fear.  Yet again the Lord goes and rescues them from their lack of faith.  Faith is living always with the Lord who shares his life with us.  Paul writes in Romans 8:11: “If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.”

Romans 9:1-5.  Paul says: “I have great sorrow and constant anguish in my heart,” because the Israelites have cut themselves off from their Messiah.  Through all their history the Jews belonged to God and God to them.  Jesus, the Messiah, came not only in the flesh but in Jewish flesh.  Ours is the choice also.  To whom or what do we belong?

19A   1 Kings 19:9a, 11-13a.  Not in the spectacular demonstrations of natural might: the strong and heavy wind; the crushing rocks; the earthquake; not even the fire; but rather in the tiny whispering sound does God make his presence known!   Elijah stood at the entrance of the cave where he had previously taken shelter, but now with his face hidden in the cloak, for no one can see the face of the Lord and live.  In this world our God is often found in the tiny whispering sound because our life in prayer has given us the ears to hear.

Matthew 14:22-33.  Jesus dismissed the crowds after having fed them; yet he himself hungers for the presence of his Father.  So “he went up the mountain to pray.”  Jesus in his divinity was always united with his divinity and so did not need to pray but Jesus, in his humanity, teaches us that we in our humanity need to unite ourselves with the divinity, who is the only true source of goodness forever.  Jesus, truly man, by his incessant desire to pray teaches all humanity what it needs to know: with God we have everything; without God we have nothing.

The disciples were in a boat a few miles offshore that “was being tossed about by the waves, for the wind was against it.”  Jesus “came toward them walking on the sea.  When the disciples saw him walking on the sea they were terrified.” “At once Jesus spoke to them, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.”  When we take Jesus as our strength, there can be no fear or worry.  Peter is overwhelmed with the sense of strength that the Lord gives him and so asks for the privilege to likewise walk on the water as the Lord does.  “But when he saw how strong the wind was he became frightened.”  Peter did not remain in God’s strength but naturally went back to his own inadequacy.  Don’t we all do the same?  We can all slip back into ourselves and out of a life dependent on the Lord.  Thanks be to the God who never leaves us, if we but call back to him for his help.  “Lord, save me,” and he does reach out to let his divine life surge back into us again to save us from our little faith in him. Our natural instinct is to live our lives within ourselves, independently and without God.  However, without God we sink into difficulties and problems we cannot solve on our own.

Like the transfiguration, Jesus has provided yet another sign of his divinity.  So “they did him homage, saying, ‘Truly, you are the Son of God.’”

Romans 9:1-5.  Paul writes, “I have great sorrow and constant anguish in my heart” “for the sake of my own people.”  The great majority of his own heritage, the Jewish people, did not accept Jesus as their Messiah and God.  They had received so very much from God as the Chosen People but they did not choose God when he came to them, Jesus who lived among them.  “He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him.” (Jn. 1:11.)  “From them, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is over all, God blessed forever.”  Jesus was a Jew as were his mother and adopting father.  The vast majority of the people that God chose rejected the God that chose them to be his people.  Will we reject him too, or all too half-heartedly, accept him?   Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, our God who is blessed and cherished forever.

18A20.   Isaiah 55:1-3.  The Israelites return from captivity, as a people bereft of the good things of the earth.  The Lord says come to the source of all good things “and you shall eat well, you shall delight in rich fare.”  “Listen, that you may have life.  I will renew with you the everlasting covenant, the benefits assured to David.”  Life, that only the Lord can give, will flow back into his people.  God is always faithful to his promises.

Matthew 14:13-21.  “When Jesus heard of it, he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself.”  I think that Jesus felt the need to go the Father in prayer so to deal with the emotions he felt at the execution of John the Baptist, his cousin and precursor.  The crowds realized that he was headed to the other side of the Sea of Galilee and so got there by foot before Jesus did.  “When Jesus disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them and he cured their sick.”  As God saw the need of the people in the first reading, so did Jesus in the gospel.  Jesus provided and continued to provide for their needs in his feeding of the five thousand from the five loaves and two fish.  In Matthew Chapter 15 he also miraculously feeds another four thousand.  These were all singular events whose object was to teach that he was the compassionate Messiah.  The bread he was to give was himself, so to give us spiritual life forever and not just physical life for the moment.

Romans 8:35, 37-39.  “Brothers and sisters, What will separate us from the love of Christ?” Any of the things of this world?  “No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us.”  Nothing is “able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Although there are billions of people on this earth now, yet God’s love is immediately available to all who call upon him.  The only thing we have to fear is our unfaithfulness to God.  God demands that we respond to his love of us with our love of God of him and his will.   Life in this world is our opportunity to love our loving God.    Our rejection of his love surrenders us to a horrific future.  If each day throughout the day we actively seek to enjoy his love of us, we will become love as he is Love.

17A20.   Solomon said to the Lord: “I am a mere youth, not knowing how to act.” “Give your servant, therefore, an understanding heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong.” ‘The Lord was pleased that Solomon made this request. So God said to him:” “For understanding so that you may know what is right–I do as you requested.”  Solomon was like the scribe of third reading who brings from the store room of being raised as a good Jew what, was best for his new assignment from God, to be king of Israel.

Matthew 13:44-52.   Among the Jews the scribes had the necessary and important task of mining the Law and the Scriptures to make them understandable and digestible to the people so to lead them to holiness.  Jesus in his humanity is like that scribe who brings from the storeroom what the Holy Spirit makes available to him the stories and parables that enable his followers to understand what it is to be a truly holy people.  The first parable explains that to become people of the kingdom of heaven while here on earth is to give over all of one’s self to a life of faith in the Lord.  The second parable asserts that the pearl of great price is to possess a life in heaven by giving over oneself completely over to living a holy life in the Lord here on earth. The third parable, like that of the separating of the wheat from the weeds that grew together, is the separating of the good fish from the bad that lived in the same sea and then throwing the bad into the fiery furnace of hell.  Then Jesus asks his disciples,  ”’Do you understand all these things?’” They answered, ‘Yes.’” Jesus is like David and that scribe who is the head of his household.   However, now he leads his earthly people to his heavenly kingdom.

Romans 8:28-30.

17A   1 Kings 3:5, 7-12.  King Solomon asks for the wisdom to best be able to serve the people of his kingdom.   God grants his request because he wants what God wants of him.  Though Solomon was given the gift of wisdom, later he did not always do the wisest thing.  Knowing how to act and doing it are two different things.

Matthew 13:44-52.  These three parables all start off with: “The kingdom of heaven is like a,” and then they all go out seeking something.  In the first two, when what is sought after is found, then the seeker “goes and sells all that he has and buys” what they are searching for.  Really what is being sought after is “the kingdom of heaven.”  In order to obtain it, we must, so to speak, “sell all we have” to obtain what is most valuable to us, i.e. give all we have and all we are, which is the death on the cross, to acquire what is most valuable to us, the resurrection.  In Matthew 19:21, Jesus said to the rich young man, “If you wish to be perfect, go sell what you have and give to [the] poor, you will have treasure in heaven.  Then come, follow me.” If he had actually done that, today he would probably been one of the greatest saints in heaven, which is to say, one of the richest men who has ever lived in terms not of earth but of heaven.

As an aside thought, Jesus is not saying that to be perfect or holy we must be without possessions, although that is what he, in fact, did call the rich young man to.  In Matthew 5:3, Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  I believe that to be ‘poor in spirit’ means to live in complete dependence and confidence  in God always willing to submit to God’s Will no matter what we have or do not have in terms of earthly possessions.

In the third of this Sunday’s gospel parables there is “the end of the age” separation of the good from the bad with the bad thrown “into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”  This is followed by the statement that every scribe or student of the Scriptures, “who has been instructed in the kingdom of heaven,” which was the subject of the three parables just spoken of in this gospel, “is like the head of a household who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old.”  That is to say, the scribe will draw on the wisdom of the New and Old Testaments what he needs to bring his household into the kingdom of heaven.

Romans 8:28-30.  The terms in this epistle: called according to his purpose, foreknew, predestined to be conformed, called, justified and glorified, were interpreted in John Calvin’s writings as God having predestined us to heaven or hell, and no one has the power to change the destiny assigned to them by God.  In the first sentence of this epistle, Paul writes, “that all things work for good for those who love God, according to his purpose.”  In other words, all things work for the good of those who have freely chosen to love God and who work in union with God to their sanctification which is God’s Will and purpose for all of us.  God, in his capacity as God, already foreknew but did not coerce what decisions we would make.  As any good parent, God had the best of wishes for our future and, in that sense, predestined us “to be conformed to the image of his Son,” which is that we work be a holy people who daily obeyed the Father’s Will for us.  In John 15:16a, Jesus says, “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you.”  In Mark 1:17, Jesus says to Simon and Andrew, “Come after me,” and then in vs.20 he calls James and John to follow him.  I truly believe he calls us all but some say yes sooner or later and others, no.  It is our decision and we must all answer for our decision that we have lived out.  And then he justifies us, i.e., he empowers us to follow our calling to holiness through the work of the Holy Spirit.  This past Sunday’s Epistle (Romans 8:26-27) states that the Spirit “intercedes for the holy ones according to God’s Will,” which is that we be a holy people.  In John 15:16b&c, Jesus says, I “appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.”

Paul writes in Romans 8:16-17, “The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.”   1 John 3:2 says, “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed.  We do know that when it has been revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”  Paul writes in Philippians 3:20-21, “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we also await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.  He will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body by the power that enables him also to bring all things into subjection to himself.”  God will share his glory with those who truly love him and his Will.

16A20.    Wisdom 12:13, 16-19.    “There is no god besides you who have the care of all.”  “Your mastery over all things makes you lenient to all.”   This wonderful reading is a prayer of worship because it repeats that God is awesomely powerful, the “master of might,” recognizing God for who he truly is.  However, he uses his power not to crush but to build up.  He expresses his mighty power through his intense, boundless love for us, by caring for us, by treating us with leniency and clemency.

Matthew 13:24-43.   We must grow in holiness despite the fact that there is so much evil around us, by struggling to be wheat in a field of weeds.  As with the tiny mustard seed or baking flour, the Spirit waters us and leavens us to grow in the Lord.  By the life we lead, we will determine whether we are a child of God or the devil.  If we live a life as a child of the devil, we will inherit “the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”  On the other hand, if we live as a child of God the Father, we “will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”  Then Jesus says, “Whoever has ears ought to hear.”  If we live as a child of the devil, the parable will seem to be just nonsense.  If we live as a child of God, we will cultivate a heart and mind that allows us to understand the message of this parable.  Love was not sweet and easy for our Savior who hung on the cross.  As in marriage, there will the good times and the difficult times on the way to heaven.

Romans 8:26-27.  “Brothers and sisters: The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness,”  “because he intercedes for the holy ones according to God’s will.”   On our own without the Spirit, it is hopeless for us to grow in holiness.  With our calm, peace-filled and faithful heart, the Holy Spirit enables us to be loyal sons and daughters of the Father.  Never doubt or quench the Spirit.

16A   Wisdom 12:13, 16-19.  For me two points stand out in this reading.  First, our God is the one and only almighty God. Words or phrases that indicate this that are used in this reading are:  ‘your might,’ ‘your power,’ ‘master of might,’ ‘your mastery over all things’.  Secondly, our God is just and caring: ‘you who have the care of all,’ ‘source of justice,’ ‘lenient to all,’ ‘judge with clemency,’ ‘with much lenience you govern us,’ ‘permit repentance for their sins’. Because God is almighty he can afford to be lenient and caring without losing control over all people and things.  The gods of other peoples could care less about anyone else and have only certain areas of competence.  We are spectacularly blessed by the infinite power of our God who uses his power with loving care for us.  Praise be to our wondrous God!

Matthew 13:24-43.  The wheat of the first parable are the children of God’s kingdom; the weeds, the children of the devil.  They grow together which makes the world a difficult place to grow up in because we are, at the very least, uncomfortable, if not antagonistic, to one another, which is probably why Christianity has had so many martyrs for the faith.  The harvest is the judgment and the harvesters, the angels.  “They will throw” the weeds, i.e. the children of the evil, “into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.  The righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”  Of course, by the way we choose to live our lives we are weeds or wheat and so we will be punished or rewarded accordingly.  Jesus gives to those who have ears to hear the stark truth or reality.  However the weeds are those who have chosen not to have ears to hear.  Putting our faith, putting our lives in the hands of someone we do not see or cannot physically hear requires taking a risk.  Jesus spoke in parables to shield “what has lain hidden from the foundation of the world” from those who were unwilling to take risk of believing or trusting what is beyond the physical or visible, beyond what the eyes and ears of flesh see and hear.  Faith requires that we come to the God who comes to us, putting our lives in the hands of someone who is beyond the grasp of this world.  The journey to heaven through this world is a struggle, a carrying of the cross, always going forward but never seeing the way clearly because we must trust in a God who sees us through.

Romans 8:26-27.   We journey on our way to heaven with the necessary aid of the Holy Spirit.  He intercedes for those who struggle to be holy according to God’s will.  The Holy Spirit prays for us with inexpressible groanings so that we achieve the holiness that the Father desires for us.  The disciples “said, ‘Who then can be saved?’  Jesus looked at them and said, ‘For human beings this is impossible, but for God all things are possible.’” (Matthew 19:25b -26)