14A20.     Zechariah 9:9-10.   “Rejoice heartily, O daughter Zion, shout for joy, O daughter Jerusalem!”  There is great joy because the Hebrew captives have been set free from slavery in Babylonia. Their king comes but not as a military victor, but as a meek and humble savior.  His rule encompasses everything and everyplace but not by the power of armed force.

Matthew 11:25-30.  In the verses before this, Jesus rebukes those who have not accepted him despite the mighty deeds and miracles he had performed.  They thought they were so wise that there was nothing they could learn from Jesus.  “All things have been handed over to me by my Father.”  Jesus was made the fount of divine wisdom given to him by God the Father.  The greatest of all knowledge is to know God, the divine Person. That knowledge is the closeness of one person to another that makes us dear to one another.  It is the meeting of hearts, minds and wills.  Jesus was given the power to reveal or to make known the Father to us so that we would be able to develop a close relationship with the Father as he himself had.

“Come to me, you who labor and are burdened, and I will you rest.”  As the God who is love, he embraces us to relieve us from a life that can weigh us down and can even oppress us.  He never seeks to overwhelm us but to love us into a deep, intimate relationship with him.  He is “meek and humble of heart.”  He is the caring shepherd who tends his flock.  “For my yoke is easy and my burden light.”  We are the flock who obediently follow our Savior through this world to heaven.

Romans 8:9, 11-13.  “Brother and Sisters: You are not in the flesh; on the contrary, you are in the spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells in you.”  Biology lists us as an animal of this earth; physically we have all the bodily functions that all the animals of the earth have.  Spiritual life that the Holy Spirit instills in us raises us to be a heavenly people, even while we live on this earth.  What Paul ends up saying is stark.  “For if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”   Prayer enables us to live by the Holy Spirit as we endlessly during the day talk to him, petition him, plead with him, cajole him, and laugh with him.  The truth is that we were created to enjoy our loving God for all eternity and not a casket in the ground with the worms.

14A.   Zechariah  9:9-10.  “See, your king shall come to you; a just savior is he, meek, and riding on a colt the foal of an ass.”  How humble and meek is this king, not coming in on a horse or chariot with a warrior’s bow at his side.  And yet he is all-powerful.  “His dominion shall be from sea to sea.”

Matthew 11:25-30.  True wisdom comes not from earthly learning but from God himself to those who humble themselves before him like little children.  It is the knowledge to know the person of God who is God over me and not the knowledge about the person of God and divine things so that I can maintain my independence from God without submitting to his authority over me.  It is not knowing about God but rather knowing God himself.  When I submit myself to the yoke of his Will over me, the Son reveals the divine person who is God the Father to me because I respect him for who he infinitely is.  God is God and I am not.  In prayer he makes the warmth of his love known to me, his child, his sheep.  His Will, his yoke is on my shoulders but it is easy and light because he loves those who love him humbly as their God.

Romans 8:9, 11-13.  Paul gives us a little lesson on the dynamics of spiritual warfare here.  As human beings, we are creatures of the earth with the potential to be saints in heaven.  If we live according to what is natural or of the flesh, we will terminate with what is natural or of the flesh, i.e., earthly corruption or rot in the soil.  If we live according to what is supernatural or of the spirit, we live eternally in heaven in the love of God our Father.  The Holy Spirit will give to those who belong to him, not only God’s spiritual life to our souls but also to our bodies so that our whole person will be redeemed.  “But now that you have been freed from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit that you have leads to sanctification, and its end is eternal life.  For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom. 6:22-23)

13A23     2 Kings 4:8-11, 14-16a.   In his travels Elisha, appointed by God to be a prophet, was chosen by a woman of influence to have him as a guest in her home to receive gratuitous room and board because he was “a holy man of God.”  In effect by being generous to Elisha because he was a prophet of the Lord, she was being generous and gracious to God.  Elisha, knowing the mind of God, rewarded the childless woman with the promise of her having a baby son a year later.  This Sunday’s gospel says, “Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward.” Whenever we do good out of our desire to be gracious to the Lord who is so gracious to us, the Lord recognizes our graciousness and in turn is abundantly gracious to us.

Matthew 10:37-42.  “Jesus said to his apostles: “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.”  It is humanly natural to love our family members.  However, Jesus demands that the fount or well spring of our love is divinely based.  If our love springs out of the love God has for us, that resource, since it is divine and almighty, will give us the capacity to love with a love that will be far greater than the love we can have just loving out of our human capacity  to love.  Jesus said in John 15:5, “I am the vine, you are the branches.  Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.”  In today’s gospel Jesus said: “Whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.”  The cross Jesus is calling on us to bear is to die to trying to live our lives out of own personal capacity to live without Jesus but rather to rise to a new life of living our lives in Christ.  Whoever tries to get along without God is doomed.

Romans 6:3-4, 8-11.  “Brothers and sisters: Are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.”

13A20.    2 Kings 4:8-11, 14-16a.   The woman who extends hospitality to Elisha, says, “I know that he is a holy man of God.”  In extending hospitality to Elisha, she is honoring  God at the same time.  Anyone whom God sends to do God’s work, spirituality has the presence of God in him.  Elisha, in turn, recognizes the presence of God in her, as she is honoring the presence of God in him, and so grants her a son.

Matthew 10:37-42.   Jesus said to his apostles: “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.”  Not only did God create us but also he created within us the capacity to love and be loved.  God is love.  He is one and only source of love.  The first of the two great commandments says, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Matthew 22:37)    The God who is the source of all the good we have should be the one who is entitled to receive all that same goodness from us.  One way we express our love for God is to love all those whom he loves, our fellow human beings.  Jesus is saying we are only worthy or deserving of him when we put him first, the root from which all our love flows.  In John15:5a, Jesus said, ‘Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.” Also in John 13:20, Jesus said, “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me,” God the Father. That same God is present in anyone who serves him and his will.

Romans 5:12-15.  Paul writes, “Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.  That newness is our life in Christ.   Each day we live “through him, and with him, and in him.”  The old self was a person, whose life was one’s body, keeping it well, pleasing it, and guarding it.  It was all about one’s physical, material life.  Now the newness of life is a body that is about its spiritual self because Christ now is the source of one’s life.  Now we “must think of ourselves as dead to sin and living for God in Christ Jesus.”

13A.  2 Kings 4:8-11, 14-16a.  A woman of Shunem, who was a person of influence, was accustomed to offering hospitality to Elisha, the prophet, keeping open a small furnished room so that he would have a place to stay overnight whenever he passed through.  Elisha, asking his servant if anything could be done for her in turn, was told that she had no son.  Elisha calls her to say to her, “This time next year you will be fondling a baby son.”  Our Gospel this Sunday says, “Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward.”  The Church has given us an example of this from the Old Testament.

Matthew 10: 37-42.  From this world’s perspective and the perspective of each living being, one’s survival on this earth is of absolute, prime importance.  Expanding from that and from one’s innate, natural bent, it is consummately natural to want to experience the maximum amount of good feelings and pleasure and the minimal amount of pain or bad feelings.   In a totally different vein, this Gospel begins with Jesus saying to his apostles: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.”  He goes on to say, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (also Mt. 17: 24-25)  Luke’s version (14:26) uses even stronger language: “If anyone comes after me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”  Jesus is saying that we must commit ourselves totally to God and to nothing else other than what comes out of our commitment to God and his Will and not to our own natural desires and will.  In Mt. 22:37, Jesus says, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind.”  Jesus goes on changing the Second of the Two Great Commandments, saying, “I give you a new commandment: love one another.  As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.” (Jn. 13:34).  God is the measure of all things.  In Mt. 5:48, Jesus says, “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect,” in other words, to the capacity that God has given you, be holy as God is holy.  We are to be people whose guiding principle is of the heavenly spirit and not to be people of the worldly flesh.

In this Gospel Jesus says, “Whoever receives you receives me and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”  The principle stated here, I believe, is that as God the Father works in union with the Son and so the Son works in union with each one of us who belong to him.  He is Emmanuel, God with us.  Jesus in John 15:4a said, “Remain in me, as I remain in you.”  Also Jesus said in John 14:23b, “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.”  Receiving one who has the presence of God within him, a prophet, a righteous man, a disciple receives the God who is within him and a reward that is equal to God’s work within each.  Jesus says in John 13:20, “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”

Romans 6:3-4, 8-11.  Paul writes, “If, then, we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.”  The life within us is far more than the bodily life that earthly animals have but Christ himself sharing his divine life with us.  As a true follower of Jesus it is never I alone every once in a while appealing to the lord as I see fit, but the Christ, who is my Lord and Master, always living within me.  Paul continues, “As to his death, Jesus died to sin once and for all; as to his life, he lives for God.  Consequently, you too must think of yourselves as dead to sin and living for God in Jesus Christ.”  We are a new person with him and in him in us.

12A23.    Jeremiah 20:10-13.   Jeremiah’s inner self trembles at the recognition that everything he has fought for is in danger of completely falling apart.  Babylon would come to obliterate Jerusalem, since the people there did not remain faithful to the Lord. However, Jeremiah puts his trust in the Lord because the final result remains in his hands.

Matthew 10:26-33.  “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.”  Fear is a person’s necessary reaction to danger.  It requires of us to fight with the power that the Lord gives us or to take flight into the safety of the hands of the Lord.  Those who live in God’s hands rest and live in his strength and not in their own natural weakness.  We must seek to let God be the life we live and not our natural human reactions.  We can stand up to our natural fears within and the dangers outside of ourselves, confident that all will be well, no matter what.

Romans 5:12-15. “For if by the transgression of the one the many died, how much more did the grace of God and the gracious gift of the one man Jesus Christ overflow for the many.” In God’s creation there was no death.  Man, in the person of Adam, created death when he sinned.  Man, in the person of Jesus, reinstated eternal life in place of Adam’s sin.  By his death on the cross, death died and eternal life arose.

12A20.   Jeremiah 20:10-13.    Jeremiah has told the people what the Lord wants them to hear but they refuse to listen.  They said of Jeremiah who has just proclaimed the words of the Lord, “Let us denounce him.” Jeremiah says to the Lord as a response to his enemies, “Let me witness the vengeance you take on them, for to you I have entrusted my cause.”  He does not fear those who would harm him because he entrusts himself to the Lord.

Matthew 10:26-33.   Four times in this gospel “Jesus said to the Twelve: “Fear no one.”  Do not hide anything of have said to you for fear of what they might do to your bodies.  “Rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.”  Your Father who cares for even the sparrows will care for you.  If you acknowledge that Jesus is the Messiah, heaven is yours; if you deny him, heaven is lost.

Romans 6:3-4, 8-11.   By our baptism we are called to die to sin.  But death to sin calls us to rise from the dead with Christ so that “we too might live in newness of life.” “If, then, we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.”  Christ’s death to sin and resurrection, means he “dies no more; death no longer has power over him.”  “Consequently, you too must think of yourselves as dead to sin and living for God in Christ Jesus.”  Jesus now lives in us and we, in him.  Our life now is Jesus who never dies; not this world where death continues for ever.

11A23.    Exodus 19:2-6a.   The Lord said to Moses: “tell the Israelites: You have seen for yourselves how I treated the Egyptians and how I bore you up on eagles’ wings and brought you here to myself.  Therefore, if you hearken to my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my special possession, dearer to me than all other people, though the earth is mine.  You shall be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.”  God vividly contrasts his violent rejection of the Egyptians and his mighty embrace of the Israelites.  However, he reminds the Israelites that they belong to God, only if they choose to belong to him.  Everything and everyone that the Lord has made is his, but he raises up the Israelites far above everyone else to be his “special possession,” his “holy nation.”

Matthew 9:36-10:8.   “At the sight of the crowds, Jesus’ heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.”  Jesus calls upon his followers to pray that the Lord will send out those who will cultivate a harvest of followers.  Historically speaking though, too often do the shepherds look after themselves and not the sheep.

Romans 5:6-11.  Paul wrote: “Christ, while we were still helpless, yet died at the appointed time for the ungodly.”  Before the Holy Spirit was given to humanity we were helpless to defend ourselves against sin. Only because of his love for us and not anything we ever did, Jesus poured out his love for us by sacrificing his life for us on the cross.  His love for us is his gift to us that has been and is now given to us without our having done anything to deserve his love, so loved are we by the God who is love.  A wonderful sign of his love for is the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

CorpChristiA23.    Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14b-16a.  “Moses said to the people: ‘Remember how for forty years now the Lord, your God, has directed all your journey in the desert, so as to test you by affliction and find out whether or not it was your intention to keep his commandments.”   He fed them with a manna that was food unknown to them and proved not to be so agreeable to them but nonetheless filled their hunger.The Lord provides but does it in his own way.The Lord bends us to his will so to make us in his way because he alone knows what is best for us.

John 6:51-58.  John 1:14a says: “and the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”  The Word is Jesus, that is, that God’s divine love was expressed or spoken among us in the human form of God made man.  The flesh of the sacrifices offered up in the temple in Jerusalem were offered up to God but also at times consumed as a sign of unity with the divine.  Jesus offers up his flesh, his body, as a sacrifice for us in atonement for our sins.  We consume his sacrificial body as a sign of our unity with the divine.  He is the food of our spiritual life without whom we are spiritually dead even though humanly alive.  He “is the bread that came down from heaven.”

1 Corinthians 10:16-17.  The Liturgy or Mass we celebrate takes part in the drinking of the blood of Christ and the eating of the body of Christ.  So what we are made of is the Person of Christ himself.  We are no longer just flesh and fluid of the earth but children born of the divine by the One who now is our life.

CorpChristiA20.   Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14b-16a.  Moses continued on to say to the Israelite People: The Lord “therefore let you be afflicted with hunger, and then fed you with manna, a food unknown to you and your fathers, in order to show you that not by bread alone does one live, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of the Lord.”  God fed his people then; he feeds us now.  “God let them be afflicted with hunger” “so as to test them by affliction and find out whether or not it was their intention to keep his commandments.”  The Lord tested them or let them fall into temptation so that when they were facing difficulties whom or what they would depend on to help them, their God or some substitute such as a golden calf.  To whom or to what did they really put their faith in or believe in?  Moses goes on to say they must remember it was the Lord who brought them out of slavery, who saved then from the saraph serpents, who saved them from starvation with the manna.

John 6:51-58.   “Jesus said to them, ‘Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”  “ Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.”  Science studies the material things of the earth.  Biology recognizes human beings as one of the animals of this material world.  When Jesus spoke of life, he was talking of the life that is beyond the life of this world, spiritual life.  To believe that there are spiritual beings,who are in this world here and now who are invisible, was beyond and is beyond what is acceptable to many.  To eat the flesh and drink the blood of Jesus means that he gives his very self to us to nourish and sustain our spiritual life.  HE REMAINS IN US AND WE REMAIN IN HIM.  An animal onlly has earthly life; as material and spiritual beings, we have both earthly and spiritual life in us because Jesus and the Holy Spirit are in us and are life for us.We have Jesus’ flesh and blood as the source of that spiritual life. As the Lord tested the faith of the Israelites, likewise the Lord tests us with the challenge to believe in his invisible yet genuinely true presence in us.  Many people find that belief to be silly, absurd and insane.  The challenge to be alive spiritually and to grow in an inner spiritual life daily drawn from the divine presence within us requires that we must always be going to the Lord to live in him a life that is well beyond our natural instincts.  Without God’s indwelling and nourishing us, we are only animals of this earth.  “Whoever eats this bread will live forever.”  Our God created us out of a love for us that desires that we share in his love eternally.  The family of Father, Son and Holy Spirit and all the saints is our family.  He has always had a place for us there, not just a grave for us here.

1 Corinthians 10:16-17.  Ours is “a participation in the blood of Christ” and “a participation in the body of Christ.”  That is a participation in the sanctity of heaven while we are still here amidst the worldliness of earth.  The oneness of the loaf that is Christ himself that we share makes us one body, one people in him.