PHARISEES' FAULT

The gospel for Saturday, August 23, 2025 shows a confrontation between Jesus and the

Pharisees. By the time the gospel of Matthew was being written down, certain members of the Pharisee party had launched a full-fledged persecution of Christians. So it’s not surprising that the gospel writer portrays them in the worst possible light. While we have to avoid going overboard in our condemnation of the Pharisees, most of whom were sincere and observant Jews, we can nevertheless learn something from the mistakes of some of them.

The great Protestant theologian Paul Tillich defines religion as “the dimension of depth in reality.“ We humans are by nature symbol making creatures. Whatever dimension of depth we experience, we usually try to express it in various symbolic forms in story, poetry, music, ritual and other kinds of metaphorical language.

In my opinion, the Pharisees put such an emphasis on those outward forms (the observance of strict laws and customs, for example) that they lost the whole idea of “the dimension of depth in life”. It’s as if they put down a floor that prevented them from going deep into the transcendent Mystery of the Divine, the sacred mystery of who we are in God’s eyes. All they had left was the externals, without the ultimate Meaning that these were meant to point to and to celebrate. The gospel today lists some of those externals.

This God of the Pharisees was quite knowable and indeed quite under their control. All one had to do was obey all the laws and perform the rituals correctly and you kept God at bay. I once heard a super-religious person described this way: “He had God in his pocket.”

What a terrible loss! To have a God who is so small and weak that he fits in your pocket! 

But before we get too smug, we should notice that  the gospel writer ends this passage with a warning his fellow Christians to beware of falling into the same trap:

As for you, do not be called 'Rabbi.' You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers. Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven. Do not be called 'Master'; you have but one master, the Christ. The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, but whoever humbles himself will be exalted."

We are warned: we may be very observant practicing Christians, but observances and religious practices will not get us into heaven any more than they did for those Pharisees.

MAKING THE CHOICE

The first reading at mass today, August 16, is from a very important chapter in the Bible,

Joshua 24. Known as the chapter of the “covenant renewal,” it tells of how the Israelites, having conquered most of the tribes in the promised land under the leadership of Joshua, are now challenged by him to renew their covenant with the God who brought their forefathers through the Red Sea, and who has brought them across the Jordan River into the Land of Milk and Honey. The passage used at mass (Joshua 24:14-29) is worth reading in its entirety.  

While I suppose that the idea of "covenant renewal" may provide a good meditation for you and me, there is one verse that really challenged me: “Put away the foreign gods that are among you.” 

The Israelites, like the pagan tribes around them, have been serving a variety of gods. Some of the gods are from back in the days of captivity in Egypt, while others have been picked up along the way.

Joshua now challenges the Israelites to “Put away the foreign gods that are among you and turn your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel” (v.23).

This verse has proven to be a good challenge for me. When God’s Help is not enough, what are the other helps that I turn to? The substitutes for God are too many to count, but some of the most common are possessions, controlling others, physical, pleasures, and distractions.

Joshua is challenging me today to stop turning to those false gods and to leave myself completely in the hands of the Lord.

This challenge has been coming up repeatedly in my life over the past couple of months. I

have to learn how to leave myself completely vulnerable to the father, Exactly as Jesus did.

As he hung on the cross, I receive your said “father, into your hands, I commend my spirit.“

Am I ready to repeat those words in my own life or do I still hang on to some of those old gods that offer a sense of security?

Let’s pray for one another that we can accept Joshua’s challenge today to put away both foreign gods and turn to the Lord, the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

THE SECOND STRIKE

This past Thursday the first reading at mass was from the book of Numbers. The scene isone from the so-called “murmuring traditions.“\

 The Israelites are out in the desert, and they have run out of water. So they turn against Moses and Aaron, asking why Moses had brought them out of Egypt into this wilderness to die of thirst. In response, Moses and Aaron go to the Tent of Meeting where they present the problem to the Lord. 

The Lord tells them to assemble all the people so that they will see that the Lord can indeed provide water for them in the desert. After everyone is assembled, and the Lord assures them that he will produce water for them, he tells Moses to strike this big rock.

Chapter 20 verse 11 tells us what happens next.  Moses strikes the rock twice and water immediately gushes forth in torrents. Then in the next verse, the Lord says to Moses and Aaron, “Because you were not faithful to me in showing forth my sanctity before the children of Israel, you shall not lead this community into the land I will give them.”

What just happened? What provoked God‘s wrath against Moses and Aaron? Scholars have various explanations, but the one I have always preferred is this: Moses made a mistake by striking the rock a second time. When he strikes the rock he is following the Lord‘s command, and this one blow will be sufficient to work the miracle. But then Moses strikes the rock the second time, adding his own effort to God‘s power just to be sure. It is as if he doesn’t trust that God can really pull this off on his own. So the Lord complains “You did not have confidence in me!”

How often am I tempted to strike the rock twice myself? Do I always manage to trust God‘s power implicitly, with all my heart? “Just trust me, Albert, I will take care of it. You can stop striking that rock now, I’ll take care of everything! Or don't you have confidence in me?”

Too often, though, if you were to watch me carefully, you might catch me standing at this big rock and striking it over and over and over with a heavy stick. In the background, you will see the Lord smiling patiently, watching as I exhaust myself instead of asking the Lord to help. 

The next time you start to lose confidence in the Lord's power, think of Moses and that fateful second strike on the rock,

NEVER ENOUGH

In the Gospel reading for this Sunday, August 3, Jesus warns his followers to “avoid any kind of greed.”  I'd like to share with you a reflection that may bring this Sunday’s message close to home.

Do you remember the scene from the movie version of the musical "Oliver!"

where young Oliver is holding out his empty bowl and speaking for a hundred hungry orphans, as he asks from “More?” This is a poignant and powerful portrait of the human condition. There's something about us that is always left unsatisfied. We're forever seeking and striving as if answering some inner voice that keeps nagging, “There’s more!” 

No matter how much we have, our insatiable yearning soon returns. This constant incompleteness is the source of our greatness: all human creativity, all ambition and our accomplishments are a response to this built-in urge to complete ourselves. 

Our attraction to “more” is also however, at the root of one of the major vices in the New Testament: Greed. The Greek word is pleonexia, the word that Jesus uses in the gospel reading today.  Usually translated “covetousness,” or “greed,” pleonexia is a combination of pleos, “more,” and exo, “have.” The underlying idea is “wanting more,” or, maybe better, "being addicted to 'more.'" 

Pleonexia makes it onto several New Testament lists of nasty habits. The long litany of pagan vices at the beginning of Romans, for instance, includes “every form of wickedness, evil, greed (pleonexia), and malice;… envy, murder, treachery and spite. (Rom 1:29)”   In Ephesians it's on a short list of sins that are particularly contrary to the Christian ideal: “Immorality or any impurity or greed (pleonexia) must not even be mentioned among you, as is fitting among holy ones (Eph 5:3).”

Augustine of Hippo (354 -430 AD)

St. Augustine, with typically brilliant insight, reveals why pleonexia is so deeply rooted in us. For him, all human hungers and all our yearnings of whatever kind are simply different facets of one single deep, inborn desire: the desire for God. For him, pleonexia is one of countless misguided versions of our thirst for God. If Augustine is right, then we don't need to suppress our need for "more" -- in fact, we couldn't even if we wanted to! But what we need to do is to work at keeping our desires directed to their true object. Instead of letting created things be the center of our longing, we try to keep our eyes on God. St. Paul once wrote, "If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.(Col. 3:1-2)" 

This may be a lot easier said than done. One place to start, though, is with the advice in the last sentence from Colossians: "Think of what is above." I know how easily my mind can get filled with concerns about class preparations, ,……., I know how easy it can be -  even in a monastery - to forget what life is ultimately about. 

Our materialistic consumer culture has made pleonexia  into a major religion. Every Sunday practitioners of pleonexia flock not to churches but to shopping malls. They devote hours a day meditating on the offerings on Ebay. In an economy that depends on ever-increasing consumer spending, pleonexia is not a vice but a virtue. Human happiness, we're told, depends on our buying more and more stuff, and consuming more and more goods and services. But no one seems to notice the built-in paradox: no matter how much we have, none of these ever brings final satisfaction-- they always leave us standing barefoot like young Oliver, empty bowl outstretched, still needing "more," wanting “more,” and looking for "more." Our culture accepts this and our economy depends on it.

A century before St. Augustine, the early monastics of the Egyptian desert had another insight into our constant need for more. They realized that once you put God at the center, you stop needing more and more, and in fact, require less and less. Living in caves or simple huts and owning nothing, they got to the point of going without food for days at a time. St. Francis of Assisi, too, turned pleonexia on its head and refused to own anything. 

These extreme examples can be more than just quaint studies in fanaticism. They can be jarring reminders to us Christians who live in a culture that praises pleonexia.  

Their message is a bedrock truth of spirituality for any Christian, from the parent with a house full of children, to the cloistered nun with a vow of poverty, once God truly becomes the center of your life, you need less and less of what the world has to offer in order to be truly content. 

The constant search for created things that preoccupies so many other people doesn't hold any attraction any more. My longings are now aligned in one single direction -- I'm hungry all the time for God.

TRUST FALL

In the past week or so I’ve been practicing letting go of any worries and

preoccupations and placing them in the Lord's hands. A couple of days ago I came across a second helpful image: a sheep lying down confidently in a green pasture under the shepherd’s watchful eye. It’s from Psalm 23, the “Good Shepherd” psalm. I’m lying down in it and trusting in the shepherd to keep me safe. 

The picture had come to me early one morning years ago as I was reflecting on Matthew’s account of the miracle of the loaves and fishes (Mt 15:32-38). I was struck by verse 35: “Then ordering the crowd to sit down on the ground…” 

I knew that “sit down” was a translation of one of my favorite Greek words, anapiptō. What had first interested me about the word was that it means literally “to fall backwards, to lean back.” For instance, when Jesus reveals at the last supper that someone is about to betray him, “the disciple whom Jesus loved” leaned back [anapiptō] against his chest and asked him, “Master, who is it” (Jn 13:25)?

Usually, however, the verb is not used in this literal way but in the sense of “to lean back to dine.” For solemn meals, Jews in New Testament times followed the Roman custom of lying on mats or low couches around the outside edge of a low U-shaped table. The diners would lean on their left elbow and use their right hand for eating. This was the scene, for instance, when Our Lord accepted a Pharisee’s invitation to dinner: “Jesus entered and reclined at table [anapiptō] to eat” (Lk 11:37). Since this was a banquet, Jesus and the others would literally have “reclined” as they ate. Early on, however, the word expanded from its narrow meaning of “to recline at a banquet” to become the general word for “to sit down to eat.”

This is the word I had come upon at the beginning of the story of the loaves and fishes early one morning: “He ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass.” Ever since discovering the background of this word I’ve loved the image of thousands of hungry people in that deserted spot not simply sitting down to eat, but obediently “leaning over backwards” in trust at Jesus’ invitation.

I used to wonder what I would have done if I’d been in that crowd when Jesus invited

them to sit down to eat. Being a doer by nature, and someone who wants to solve his own problems, I had trouble imagining myself leaning back passively and letting him supply me with food. I would have preferred instead to find some way of getting it for myself. 

But I think that over the years I’ve found it easier to picture myself “reclining” on the grass. And, remembering the literal meaning of the word, I can close my eyes and let myself “fall backwards,” knowing that He will catch me, and that He will give me whatever strength I might need to get through whatever problems or worries I may be facing.

The Lord is my shepherd,

and nothing shall I lack.

He makes me lie down

in green pastures...

 

LESSONS FROM THE BASKET

I never studied Hebrew, so much of the following reflection is borrowed from a footnote on Genesis Chapter 2:3 from the Catholic New American Bible Revised Edition.

You remember the story of the birth of Moses, and how his mother saved him from being killed by pharaoh's soldiers by placing him in a basket and placing him among the reeds at the side of the river. Then pharaoh's  daughter took him out of the river and adopted him as her own son. 

When we hear that story, very few of us pay much attention to that papyrus basket. But it’s actually a very interesting feature if you look into the original Hebrew.

BABY MOSES' BASKET

THE BASKET. The same Hebrew word is used for the ark that Noah built at God’s command in Genesis 6:14. Although the word is used throughout the Flood narrative, it is used nowhere else in the Bible. In the Moses story, the ark or chest was made of papyrus. One scholar suggests that “presumably the illusion to Genesis is intentional.“ Just as Noah and his family were preserved safe from the threatening waters of the flood by means of the ark he built, so now in Exodus Moses is preserved from the threatening waters of the Nile in the basket, the “ark” prepared by his mother. 

AMONG THE REEDS. The Hebrew noun for “reed“ will appear many times as the story of Moses unfolds, because it appears in the name “the Sea of Reeds, “or “the Reed Sea,” (traditionally translated “Red Sea”). Surely the first readers and listeners to the story of the basket made of “reeds” and then hidden in the "reeds" would not have missed the connection between the reeds of the basket and the reeds of the sea through the Lord delivered the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt. 

GOD"S CONSTANT WORK OF DELIVERING

So that little basket should be a nice reminder to each of us about God‘s constant care, the Lord’s actions in history to deliver his people in the Scriptures, culminating in God’s rescuing Jesus from death at Easter. 

But the story of the Basket doesn’t end with the last book of Holy Scripture. No, our faith tells us that God continues to deliver each one of us as well at every moment. 

It should remind us to be watching for those saving helps sent by God to “deliver us from evil” as we pray in the Lord’s prayer.

A HYMN TO PRAY WITH

Here are three verses from an old hymn that I’ve been meditating with this past week. They seem to fit well with the above reflections about God the Deliverer.

How firm a foundation, O saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in his excellent Word!
What more can he say than to you he has said
Who unto the Savior for refuge have fled?

Fear not, I am with you. Oh, be not dismayed,
For I am your God and will still give you aid;
I'll strengthen you, help you, and cause you to stand,
Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.

When through the deep waters I call you to go,
The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow,
For I will be with you your troubles to bless
And sanctify to you your deepest distress.

THE ANNUNCIATION IN THE KITCHEN

...

LET IT BE DONE UNTO ME ... 

This morning, Saturday, I said mass for our Benedictine Sisters at Saint Walburga monastery in Elizabeth, N.J. Following the ancient custom of celebrating the Liturgy of the Hours and the Eucharist each Saturday, I chose to reflect on a passage from the Gospel of Luke.  

We are all familiar with the story of the Annunciation from Luke (Lk 1:26 – 38) in which the angel Gabriel appears to Mary who says, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done to me as you have said.” 

During a time in our country's history when many Americans seem to be looking upon the poor and minorities with less and less sympathy and empathy, I thought this would be a timely post.


THE ANNUNCIATION: A LUCAN STORY 

The first part of the following meditation is adapted from Luke Timothy Johnson’s The Gospel of Luke (Sacra Pagina Vol 3, p. 39). 

Only St. Luke would have thought to tell the story of the annunciation in just this way. He loves to give major roles to minorities (such as women) and outcasts, he emphasizes Jesus’ humble origins, and enjoys pointing out the law of divine reversal (whereby the rich become poor and the poor rich, etc.). These themes give us some new perspectives on the story of the annunciation. 

In Ch. 1:5-25, Luke tells the story of the announcement of the birth of John the Baptist: an angel appears to the priest Zechariah as he is performing his duties in the temple. This story provides a contrast with the next one, the announcement of the birth of Christ, in which an angel appears to a young girl.  

In contrast to Zechariah, Mary holds no official position among the people,
She is not described as “righteous” in terms of observing Torah, 
She is among the most powerless people in her society: 
- she is young in a world that values age, 
- she is female in a world ruled by men, 
- she is poor in a stratified economy. 

Furthermore she has neither husband nor child to validate her existence. 
Yet she has “found favor with God” and has been “highly gifted.” 

Here we one of Luke's favorite themes: God acting in ways that are surprising and paradoxical, reversing human expectations. 

Finally, Luke prizes simplicity and humility; thus the most important dialogue in the whole bible, ending with Mary’s telling the angel, “Let it be done to me,” does not take place in the temple (as Zechariah’s vision does), nor in a royal palace, but rather in the obscure village of Nazareth. 

FR. KILIAN'S POEM 

Father Kilian McDonnell, O.S.B., a monk of St. John’s Abbey in Minnesota, wrote a lovely reflection on this very theme. I offer it here as a reminder that we should be ready to encounter God at any time, anywhere, especially in our everyday activities. But before reading it, first take a look at Jacopo Bellini's 1444 painting, referred to in the first stanza.
. 

Jacopo Bellini, Annunciation, 1444

.................                  

IN THE KITCHEN 

........................Bellini has it wrong. 
........................I was not kneeling 
........................quietly at prayer, ..........................
........................head slightly bent
........................to show submission. 
.....................
........................Painters always 
........................get it wrong, skewed, 
........................as though my life 
........................were wrapped in the silks, 
........................in temple smells. 

........................Actually I had just 
........................come back from the well, 
........................pitcher in my hand. 
........................As I placed it on the table 
........................I spilled some on the floor. 

........................Bending to wipe 
........................it up, there was a light, 
........................against the kitchen wall 
........................as though someone had 
........................opened the door to the 
..........................................................sun.
 ..........................
........................Rag in hand, 
........................hair across my face, 
........................I turned to see 
........................who was coming in, 
........................unannounced, unasked. 
..........................
                              All I saw 
........................was light, whiter 
........................than whitest white. 
........................I heard a voice 
........................I had never heard, 
........................walking toward me, 
........................saying I was chosen, 
........................The Favored One. 

........................  I pushed back my hair, 
..........................stood baffled. 
..........................With the clarity of light 
..........................the light spoke 
..........................of Spirit, shadow, child 

..........................as the water puddled 
..........................large around my feet. 
..........................Against all reason, 
..........................against all rationality, 
..........................I knew it would be true. 

..........................I heard my voice 
..........................“I have no man.” 
..........................The Lord is God 
..........................of all possibilities: 
..........................with Elizabeth no flow 
..........................of blood in thirty years 
..........................but six months gone. 

..........................From the fifteen years 
..........................of my Nazareth wisdom 
..........................I spoke to the light 
..........................in the joy of truth: 
..........................“Let it be so.” 
..........................Someone closed the door. 
..........................And I dropped the rag. 

"The Annunciation" by Henry Owassa Turner

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