Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Today’s readings make the comparison between divine instruction, divine love, and food.  We have to stop sometimes to consider that it was God Himself who made our stomachs.  It was God’s idea to make us dependent on food and drink for our survival and happiness in this life.  God could have created us however He wanted to, and He made us in such a way that we pass most of our lives thinking about food and drink.  It doesn’t seem very spiritual of Him to have done such a thing, but He created a powerful platform to use when He wanted to speak to us.  God speaks to us through hunger – hunger is something He created, not just a result of evolution.  We have to be careful when we consider our material existence: God’s hand was in all of it – it is only mundane because WE consider it separately from Him. read more

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

ORIGEN:

I think that one of Jesus’ disciples was conscious in himself of human weakness, which falls short of knowing how we ought to pray.… Are we then to conclude that a man who was brought up in the instruction of the law, who heard the words of the prophets and did not fail to attend the synagogue, did not know how to pray until he saw the Lord praying “in a certain place”? It would certainly be foolish to say this. The disciple prayed according to the customs of the Jews, but he saw that he needed better knowledge about the subject of prayer. read more

Saint Bonaventure, Bishop and Doctor

CHRYSOSTOM:

What sort of peace is it that Jesus asks them to pronounce upon entering each house? And what kind of peace is it of which the angels sing, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace”? And if Jesus came not to bring peace, why did all the prophets publish peace as good news? Because this more than anything is peace: when the disease is removed. This is peace: when the cancer is cut away. Only with such radical surgery is it possible for heaven to be reunited to earth. Only in this way does the physician preserve the healthy tissue of the body. The incurable part must be amputated. Only in this way does the military commander preserve the peace: by cutting off those in rebellion. Thus it was also in the case of the tower of Babel, that their evil peace was ended by their good discord. Peace therefore was accomplished. read more