Tuesday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Faith is certainly demanding, but Jesus has come to make believing easier.  His miracles, His words, His presence – this closeness of God to us is unprecedented grace which ought to make us believe with great fervor.  What we see, however, is the contrary.  Caphernaum was the city most loved and cherished by Christ.  It was practically His headquarters, the place probably referred to in the scriptures by “his city.”  Some of the twelve were from there, He gave the discourse on the bread of life at the synagogue in that city.  He performed so many miracles there.  We should stop to consider what events and circumstances we have received as helps in our life of faith.  If we take them for granted and begin to become lukewarm, we are all the more to be condemned.  Jerusalem rejected its messiah although it had all the full revelation of God – its terrible lack of faith excuses the apparent depravity of Sodom.

Faith is faith, it is first the act of adhering to something I can’t understand or don’t fully understand.  If I wait for “something a little more convincing” before giving my full assent, I should expect to be roundly rebuked by Jesus instead of comforted and consoled for my lack of faith and trust.  If you see yourself hesitating to believe the Gospel, don’t trust your instincts – trust the only One who can save your soul for eternity.  You will understand what you need to understand when you need to understand it – prior to that the only path to understanding providence, grace, salvation, and love is faith.

EUSEBIUS OF CAESAREA:

It is essential to notice that the statement means that those who read it do not only need understanding but also faith; and not only faith but also understanding. Those of the circumcision who do not believe in the Christ of God, though even now they hear these words, do not have understanding of the subject of this prophecy because they do not hear with the mind. The only reason for their lack of understanding is their lack of faith, as the prophecy clearly reveals both about them and to them.¹

AUGUSTINE:

If you are not able to understand, believe, that you may understand. Faith goes before; understanding follows after; since the prophet says, “Unless you believe, you shall not understand.²

THEODORE OF HERACLEA:

Many were the miracles Jesus performed in the city of Capernaum. For this reason it was all the more necessary that those who dwelled there should believe. This city was for a time “lifted up unto heaven” on account of the miracles. But on account of the sin and unbelief of its inhabitants, an even more dreadful fall occurred, and they were “brought down to Hades.” Christ was the steward. When the time was right, the Word became incarnate and performed miracles. He chastised Gentiles and Jews proportionately. Tyre and Sidon transgressed only natural law, but the Jews, who disobeyed Christ, transgressed the law of Moses and the prophets. Jesus said this even more sternly when he wished to point out that their wickedness was greater by comparison. For, if not these things, then other things might have happened in Tyre and Sidon, and even in Sodom and Gomorrah, if they had come to repentance. But, as I said, he presents this comparison in order more forcefully to demonstrate their wickedness.³

RABANUS:

Corozaim, which is interpreted ‘my mystery,’ and Bethsaida, ‘the house of fruits’ or, ‘the house of hunters,’ are towns of Galilee situated on the shore of the sea of Galilee. The Lord therefore mourns for towns which once had the mystery of God, and which ought to have brought forth the fruit of virtues, and into which spiritual hunters had been sent.⁴

GREGORY:

(Mor. xxxv. 6.) In sackcloth is the roughness which denotes the pricking of the conscience for sin, ashes denote the dust of the dead; and both are wont to be employed in penitence, that the pricking of the sackcloth may remind us of our sins, and the dust of the ash may cause us to reflect what we have become by judgment.⁴

JEROME:

In other copies we find, And thou, Capharnaum, that art exalted to heaven, shalt be brought down to hell; and it may be understood in two different ways. Either, thou shalt go down to hell because thou hast proudly resisted my preaching; or, thou that hast been exalted to heaven by entertaining me, and having my mighty wonders done in thee, shalt be visited with the heavier punishment, because thou wouldest not believe even these.⁵

JEROME:

In Capharnaum, which is interpreted ‘the most fair town,’ Jerusalem is condemned, to which it is said by Ezekiel, Sodom is justified by thee.⁶

1. PROOF OF THE GOSPEL 7.1.  McKinion, S. A. (Ed.). (2004). Isaiah 1-39 (p. 59). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
2. SERMON 68 (118).1.  McKinion, S. A. (Ed.). (2004). Isaiah 1-39 (p. 59). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
3. FRAGMENT 78.  Simonetti, M. (Ed.). (2001). Matthew 1–13 (p. 227). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
4. Thomas Aquinas. (1841). Catena Aurea: Commentary on the Four Gospels, Collected out of the Works of the Fathers: St. Matthew. (J. H. Newman, Ed.) (Vol. 1, p. 419). Oxford: John Henry Parker.
5. Thomas Aquinas. (1841). Catena Aurea: Commentary on the Four Gospels, Collected out of the Works of the Fathers: St. Matthew. (J. H. Newman, Ed.) (Vol. 1, pp. 420–421). Oxford: John Henry Parker.
6. (Ezek. 16:52).  Thomas Aquinas. (1841). Catena Aurea: Commentary on the Four Gospels, Collected out of the Works of the Fathers: St. Matthew. (J. H. Newman, Ed.) (Vol. 1, p. 421). Oxford: John Henry Parker.