15A20.     Isaiah 55:10-11.  “My word shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it.”  Just before this last line, the Lord says that the rain and snow that he sends make the earth fertile and fruitful.  God sends down his grace or word, like a seed, to do the work for which he sends it, as he says, to “do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it.”

Matthew 23:1-23.  Jesus speaks in parables so they who are like the rich soil that produces fruit may produce even more fruit but the others who have not prepared themselves to be fruitful like the rich soil will hear words but not understand them.  In school, students are taught at the level for which they are prepared, first grade lessons are taught to first graders.  They are not given second grade lessons because those lessons are not suited to their level of learning.  The parables likewise are given to those who have prepared themselves to understand by living their life in Lord’s hands.  Those who have failed to live their past life by living their life in their own hands and not in the Lord’s hands have not prepared themselves to understand the parables.  It is as though they played hooky for those lessons.  Growing in the Lord is a day by day process of learning more and more from him daily throughout our life time.  That is the difference between living as a creature of God and living as a creature of this earth without God.  Living daily in God and with God and for God is an absolute requirement for entering heaven.  Jesus said in Matthew 7:13a, “Enter through the narrow gate,” and in Matthew 7:14, “How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few.”

Romans 8:18-23.  “For creation was subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.”  This earth and its material things must all one day rot and pass away.  This earth on its own is incapable of changing its destiny.  God can and wants to free us from the slavery to corruption which is that we will just disintegrate in the grave so that, instead, we can “share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.” That share is that we will one day partake in, with the One who loves us infinitely, an eternity of happiness in heaven.

15A.  Isaiah 55:10-11.   Nature prepares the earth with rain and snow to make the soil fertile so that it will be fruitful.  Nature desires life in abundance.  The Holy Spirit prepares souls so that the word of grace that issues from God’s mouth will do his Will, making souls holy, preparing them to be with The Father in his heavenly household, as his sons and daughters. God’s Will is to share Himself, his love, his life infinitely.  His end, intent is that those who choose life shall have life forever and that those who choose death shall have their choice granted them.  “Whoever rejects me and does not accept my words has something to judge him: the word I spoke, it will condemn him on the last day, because I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say and speak.  And I know that his commandment is eternal life.  So what I say, I say as the Father told me.” (John 12:48-50)

Matthew 13:1-23.  “The disciples of Jesus approached him and said, ’Why do you speak to them in parables?’”  Unlike the soil on which the sun and the rain and the snow fall, we humans can choose not to be nourished and be made fertile by the word and the grace of God and to make ourselves like the hardened path, the rocky ground, the ground with thorns so that we are not like the rich soil that could produce abundantly.  “Do not give what is holy to dogs, or throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot, and turn and tear you to pieces.” (Mt. 7:6)  Parables were meant to protect what is holy from those who did not choose to grow holy in the Spirit.  “This is why I speak to them in parables, because they look but do not see and hear but do not listen and understand.” “Gross is the heart of this people, they will hardly hear with their ears, they have closed their eyes, lest they see with their eyes.”  ‘Gross’, that is to say dull, thick or hardheaded, with a stoneheart, they have chosen to shut out anything that might invade and possibly destroy a false vision or mental construct of a world they have embraced and given themselves over to. To his disciples who entrusted their hearts and minds to Jesus and grew daily in him, Jesus explains the parables.  “But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear.”  Without an ongoing growing commitment to God, what is holy, spiritual, sacred makes little or no sense.  Outsiders who have other values and commitments in life cannot make any sense out of submission to an Almighty who is the one and only truth that exists.  “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many.  How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few.” (Mt. 7:13-14)

Romans 8:18-23.  “Brothers and sisters: I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us.”  Paul’s faith in Christ leads him to endure suffering for a glorious reward in heaven.  “We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even now; and not only that, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, we also groan within ourselves as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.”  What God has created, a world order, is groaning to “be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God,” desiring to be no longer a world where the devil roams tempting the children of God but to be a world, along with our physical bodies,  adopted and redeemed with our bodies.  “For that which is corruptible must clothe itself with incorruptibility, and that which is mortal must clothe itself with immortality.” (1 Cor15:53)

 

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)

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.

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.

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.

CorpusA.  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 journeying 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 therefore let you be afflicted with hunger.”  The peoples who left Egypt had been there four hundred and thirty years (Ex 12:41).  Their faith as a Hebrew people suffered because their circumstances were so difficult.  Besides the Hebrews, “A crowd of mixed ancestry also went up with them,” (Ex. 12:38) which is to say, those leaving Egypt where not all committed to the Jewish faith.  The forty years in the desert was to form or reform them as God’s People whose intention it was “to keep his commandments” and so be God’s faithful People “that not by bread alone does one live, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of the Lord.”  It was by their commitment to God’s Will and not by their prosperity and human achievements that they were to have eternal happiness.  The first reading goes on to recall how God cared for his people by giving them the material things they needed when they needed them.

John 6:51-58.  Jesus tells the Jewish crowds, “the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”  They found this quite repulsive, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat.”  Despite the fact that they reacted so negatively, he makes his first statement even more explicit, saying in a strong formal way to note how important this statement is, “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.” Of course the life Jesus is referring to is the spiritual life that is forever.  If that were not enough, he repeats explicitly this same statement twice more and implicitly yet twice more.  Jesus makes no attempt to clarify as to how the Eucharist really works but seems to want to challenge their faith.  Believe or leave!  Their negative reaction is deepened so much more that “many [of] his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.” (Jn. 6:66)  It seems to me that Jesus is saying to his followers that they should follow him out of faith and not because of miracles, how good he makes them feel or what he says makes so much sense.  All those things are good but what really matters is the faith in Jesus that sustains us in the good times and the bad and that never falters no matter what.  As Yahweh formed his People in the forty years in the desert so Jesus is forming his followers during his public ministry.  “Jesus then said to the Twelve, ‘Do you also want to leave?  Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.  We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.’” (Jn. 6:67-70)  As with the Israelites and Jesus’ disciples, the life time of each one of us is a journey when we are being tested or pushed daily to choose Christ as our life.  Do we daily in the good times and the bad grow in faith in God or not?

“Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.”  Here I think Jesus is speaking of the Father dwelling in him in his humanness and so likewise Jesus lives in us and graces us with his divine life so that our earthly selves are enliven with a heavenly, spiritual share of God’s life in which, as the second reading says, we participate, which is then a part of us.  Jesus’ body and blood, he himself, integrates himself into our being.  Then we are far more than we would be if we were just our earthly selves.  Jesus said, “For my flesh is true food and my blood true drink.”  Faith is living a life dependent on God’s life within us.  Paul wrote, “I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me; insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me.”  (Gal. 2:19b-20)  Matthew 10:39 says, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”  To live our lives in ourselves without Jesus is spiritual death.  To live our lives in Christ, in his personal active presence within us, is spiritual life, life forever.

1 Corinthians 10:16-17.   Paul is saying that the Eucharist is a union or communion of ourselves with Christ who draws us together with him in union with all who participate.  The many members of the celebrating community are made one through our participation in the one Christ, in his body and blood.  “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you,” (John 14:20) united to Jesus, we are put in communion or in a community with one an

other.

 

TrinA20.   Exodus 34:4b-6, 8-9.   Moses goes up to the top of the mountain and the Lord comes down to the top of the mountain.  Through Moses man reaches up to God to come into contact with the God who reaches down to man.  In reaching down to us the Lord manifests himself as God who not only is infinitely good in every way but especially infinitely loving and caring.  He so loves his people that, even though they had just worshipped the golden calf, his mercy is infinitely greater than their sin.  He takes them back as his own.

John 3:16-18.   “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”  The Son, while still retaining his divinity, became fully human so that he could offer himself up as a sacrifice on the cross to wash away our sins with his blood.  Only the infinite God could himself satisfy the infinite God to redeem us from our offenses.  However, in order to receive our redemption we must, as Moses went up the mountain, go up to God by putting our whole being into his hands by believing in his Son as our only source of eternal life.

2 Corinthians 13:11-13.   “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.”  The Christian Corinthians had been a community of many factions who did not get along.  Paul is calling upon them to live in the unity of the triune God, one God yet three persons, the unity in which infinite love is the binding force.  Our home one day in heaven is to live in God whose love is so immeasurable that there is plenty room for billions of saints.