The Transfiguration is a Feast celebrated on August 6th – which happens to fall on a Sunday this year. It is also the traditional reading for the 2nd Sunday in Lent and is taken from Matthew 17. To remind you of the context, Jesus and his disciples are no longer in Galilee – they have withdrawn to the area of Tyre and Sidon (15:21). But they have not escaped on-going conflict with different sectors of secular and religious life. Continue reading
This coming Sunday is the 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time. The opening description in 13:3 and the concluding transitional comment at 13:53 indicate that Matthew considers everything in between to be parables, including v. 52. Thus, although commentators have liked to find exactly seven parables in the chapter, Matthew apparently considered the concluding picture of the scribe to be a parable as well, a parabolic concluding picture on the use of parables. Continue reading
This coming Sunday is the 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time. “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea, which collects fish of every kind.” The net pictured here is a large dragnet, usually about six feet deep and up to several hundred feet wide, positioned in the lake by boats and requiring several men to operate (hence the plurals of v. 48). The picture is realistic, portraying an ordinary event with no surprising twists: The net brings in “every kind” of both good and bad fish, which are then sorted, the good being kept and the bad thrown out.
This coming Sunday is the 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time. “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls. When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it. Matthew apparently intends the parable of the treasure to be interpreted together with the parable of the pearl, which immediately follows. The two parables do have common features: (I) In each case only a brief vignette of a crucial situation is given, without enough details to evaluate them as realistic stories. The interpreter should, therefore, be wary of filling in the gaps from pious imagination, but concentrate on what the parable does, in fact, portray. Continue reading
This coming Sunday is the 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time. “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field, which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” Buried treasure is the stuff of popular stories in every age and while out “pirates” no longer sail the Seven Seas we seem content with stories of lottery winners. Given Israel’s location at the crossroads of major powers to the north and east and to the south (Egypt) there is a long history of wars and rumors of war playing out upon the promised land. Continue reading
This coming Sunday is the 17th Sunday of Ordinary Time. We continue to listen to more parable from the Gospel of Matthew. Again we are presented with a doublet: the hidden treasure and the pearl of great price.
Matthew 13:44-52 44 “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field, which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. 45 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls. 46 When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it. 47 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea, which collects fish of every kind. 48 When it is full they haul it ashore and sit down to put what is good into buckets. What is bad they throw away. 49 Thus it will be at the end of the age. The angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous 50 and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth. 51 “Do you understand all these things?” They answered, “Yes.” 52 And he replied, “Then every scribe who has been instructed in the kingdom of heaven is like the head of a household who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old.” Continue reading
This coming Sunday is the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time. In this post we move away from the parable of the “Weeds among the Wheat.”
31 He proposed another parable to them. “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a person took and sowed in a field. 32 It is the smallest of all the seeds, yet when full-grown it is the largest of plants. It becomes a large bush, and the ‘birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches.’” 33 He spoke to them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch was leavened.” Continue reading
This coming Sunday is the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time. The landowner (God) is quite patient and accepts that there will be “weeds” among the harvest – it is the lot of the human enterprises. Some people do not/will not/cannot hear the Word sown in their lives. The laborers in the parable are quick to want to eradicate the poison. I think history has shown that we reach beyond our calling – not to simply point out error – but to extinguish the source and root of that error. In the first centuries of the Church, when some of the epic battles over theological orthodoxy and heresy were waged, executions were not part of the Church’s response. There might be condemnation, banishment and loss of position, but people were not put to death. Yet a millennia later the island nation of England has its book of Protestant and Catholic martyrs as witness to our human reaction to “weeds” among us, despite the Gospel message. Continue reading
This coming Sunday is the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time. One should note that this parable of the “Weeds among the Wheat” is explained in Mt 13, outside our gospel, but closely placed:
36 Then, dismissing the crowds, he went into the house. His disciples approached him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.” 37 He said in reply, “He who sows good seed is the Son of Man, 38 the field is the world, the good seed the children of the kingdom. The weeds are the children of the evil one, 39 and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. Continue reading
This coming Sunday is the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time. This parable is unique to Matthew and unlike the other evangelists who also tell a pericope of the “Sower and the Seed,” Matthew’s use and placement of this unique parable seems to serve as a reinforcement of the themes of on-going conversion “in the world” that place where anxiety and the lure of riches choke the word and it bears no fruit (Mt 13:22). Continue reading
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