July 4, 2025
Friday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 381
Reading 1
Genesis
23:1-4, 19; 24:1-8, 62-67
The span of Sarah's life was one hundred and twenty-seven
years.
She died in Kiriatharba (that is, Hebron)
in the land of Canaan,
and Abraham performed the customary mourning rites for her.
Then he left the side of his dead one and addressed the Hittites:
"Although I am a resident alien among you,
sell me from your holdings a piece of property for a burial ground,
that I may bury my dead wife."
After the transaction, Abraham buried his wife Sarah
in the cave of the field of Machpelah,
facing Mamre (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan.
Abraham had now reached a ripe old age,
and the LORD had blessed him in every way.
Abraham said to the senior servant of his household,
who had charge of all his possessions:
"Put your hand under my thigh,
and I will make you swear by the LORD,
the God of heaven and the God of earth,
that you will not procure a wife for my son
from the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I live,
but that you will go to my own land and to my kindred
to get a wife for my son Isaac."
The servant asked him:
"What if the woman is unwilling to follow me to this land?
Should I then take your son back to the land from which you migrated?"
"Never take my son back there for any reason," Abraham told him.
"The LORD, the God of heaven,
who took me from my father's house and the land of my kin,
and who confirmed by oath the promise he then made to me,
'I will give this land to your descendants'–
he will send his messenger before you,
and you will obtain a wife for my son there.
If the woman is unwilling to follow you,
you will be released from this oath.
But never take my son back there!"
A long time later, Isaac went to live in the region of the Negeb.
One day toward evening he went out . . . in the field,
and as he looked around, he noticed that camels were approaching.
Rebekah, too, was looking about, and when she saw him,
she alighted from her camel and asked the servant,
"Who is the man out there, walking through the fields toward us?"
"That is my master," replied the servant.
Then she covered herself with her veil.
The servant recounted to Isaac all the things he had done.
Then Isaac took Rebekah into his tent;
he married her, and thus she became his wife.
In his love for her, Isaac found solace
after the death of his mother Sarah.
Responsorial Psalm
R. (1b) Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.
Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,
for his mercy endures forever.
Who can tell the mighty deeds of the LORD,
or proclaim all his praises?
R. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.
Blessed are they who observe what is right,
who do always what is just.
Remember us, O LORD, as you favor your people.
R. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.
Visit me with your saving help,
That I may see the prosperity of your chosen ones,
rejoice in the joy of your people,
and glory with your inheritance.
R. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,
and I will give you rest, says the Lord.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
As Jesus passed by,
he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post.
He said to him, ""Follow me.""
And he got up and followed him.
While he was at table in his house,
many tax collectors and sinners came
and sat with Jesus and his disciples.
The Pharisees saw this and said to his disciples,
""Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and
sinners?""
He heard this and said,
""Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do.
Go and learn the meaning of the words,
I desire mercy, not sacrifice.
I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.""
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/070425.cfm
Commentary on
Genesis 23:1-4,19; 24:1-8,62-67
We come to the end of the story of Abraham. The reading
consists of selected paragraphs from chapters 23 and 24. As the reading opens
we learn that Abraham’s wife Sarah has died at Hebron, a place also known
as Kiriath-arba (Hebron). She was 127 years old. Abraham is
plunged into mourning with grief for his wife and the mother of his only son.
Leaving her bedside he went to the “Hittites” (“sons of
Heth” in other translations), the pre-Israelite and non-Semitic inhabitants of
Palestine. As he was an outsider and a settler in the land of Canaan, he asked
for a burial plot where his wife could be laid. He still “lived in tents” (see
Heb 11:9), the most temporary of dwellings, but he looked forward to the more
permanent home promised to him. About this, the author of Hebrews says:
…he looked forward to the city that has foundations,
whose architect and builder is God. (Heb 11:10)
Ownership of burial land was a crucial step in establishing
legal residence. In the culture, people had a strong desire to be buried ‘with
their fathers’ in their native land. By purchasing a burial place in Canaan,
Abraham indicated his unswerving commitment to the Lord’s promise—Canaan was
his new homeland.
The New American Bible states:
“A resident alien would normally not have the right to own
property. The importance of Abraham’s purchase of the field, which is worded in
technical legal terms, lies in the fact that it gave his descendants their
first, though small, land rights in the country that God had promised the
patriarch they would one day inherit as their own. Abraham therefore insists on
purchasing the field and not receiving it as a gift.”
The Hittite leader was happy to give Abraham a burial place
as a gift, but Abraham insisted on buying it so that he had full rights over it.
It gave him a legal standing in Canaan which he did not have before. He then
buried his wife in the cave within “the field of Ephron in Machpela” which he
had bought and which was opposite to Mamre, in Canaan.
Abraham himself was also well advanced in years and had been
blessed by God in many ways. He knows that death cannot be far away. His main
concern is for his son and his future descendants. The elaborate story of
acquiring a wife for Isaac marks the last, decisive step toward fulfilment of
the promise of progeny through Isaac.
First, Abraham calls his senior servant, the steward of all
his vast possessions (perhaps the Eliezer we met previously), and makes him
take an oath:
Put your hand under my thigh, and I will make you swear
by the Lord, the God of heaven and earth, that you will not get a wife for my
son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I live…
The descendants of Abraham must come from his own people.
Putting the hand under the thigh means placing them near the genital organs to signify
the solemnity of the oath which follows. The symbolism of this act was
apparently connected with the Hebrew concept of children issuing from their
father’s ‘thigh’ or ‘loin’ (see New American Bible Revised Edition note for
Exod 1:5). Perhaps the man who took such an oath was thought to bring the curse
of sterility on himself if he did not fulfil his sworn promise. Jacob made
Joseph swear in the same way (Gen 47:29). In both these instances, the oath was
taken to carry out the last request of a man upon his deathbed.
The servant is to go to Abraham’s land, Mesopotamia, and to
choose a wife for Isaac from among his kinsfolk. The steward has one problem.
What if the future wife does not want to leave her country and go to Canaan? Is
Isaac to go back and live there with her? Abraham rules out that suggestion
altogether:
The Lord, the God of heaven, who took me from my father’s
house and from the land of my birth and who spoke to me and swore to me, ‘To
your offspring I will give this land’…
So Abraham is torn between loyalty to his own people, the
‘purity’ of his family line and his mandate to take possession of his adopted
home.
Abraham promises his steward that God will send an angel
ahead of him to choose a suitable wife for his son. However, if the woman
chosen is not willing to come back to Canaan, the steward will be released from
the oath he is now being asked to make. The steward then put his hand under
Abraham’s thigh and made the oath.
We now move to the end of chapter 24 for the last part of
the reading. In between, there is the long account of how the steward went to
Mesopotamia and came across the beautiful Rebekah coming to a well to draw
water (Jacob—later called ‘Israel’—will meet his future wife, Rachel, at a well
also). Is there an echo of these scenes in John’s Gospel where Jesus meets the
Samaritan woman at a well—symbolic of the Old Testament—and takes her as his
‘spiritual’ bride into the New Covenant? (see John 4).
Rebekah turns out to be a niece of Abraham, the daughter of
his brother Nahor, and is a virgin. She fulfils all the requirements. The
steward meets her family, showers them with gifts from his master and then
takes Rebekah back to Canaan (see Gen 24:10-61).
We are then told that Isaac, who lived in the Negeb, had
come into the wilderness to the well of Beer-lahai-roi (there
are lots of wells!). This was the site of the annunciation of Ishmael’s birth
to Hagar. Isaac’s emergence from there has a symbolic resonance—henceforth he
will have his own posterity. As he walked in the evening light, Isaac saw a
caravan of camels approaching. With it was Rebekah. She looked up and saw
Isaac, her future husband, for the first time. Getting down from her camel she
asked who was the man she saw walking towards them. Abraham’s servant replied:
It is my master.
Rebekah immediately veiled her face, perhaps indicating that
she was unmarried. Up to now the steward’s master had been Abraham; from now on
it is Isaac, the new patriarch of the family. The servant then told Isaac all
that had happened in his search for a bride. Isaac, without more ado:
…took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her.
So Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.
Isaac is now head of the family, but we will not spend too
much time with him. In fact, there will be just one more reading about him.
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Commentary on
Matthew 9:9-13
The cure of the paralytic is immediately followed by the
call of Matthew, named Levi by Mark and Luke in their versions of the story.
Matthew/Levi was an unlikely disciple; he was a tax collector. Tax collectors
were among the most despised group of people in Jewish society of the time. Tax
collectors never can be particularly popular, given their distasteful job, but
in Jesus’ time they were collecting taxes for the hated and pagan colonial ruler.
As such they were seen as collaborators and traitors to their own people and to
their religion. The Romans had the custom of farming out the collecting of
taxes to volunteer agents. These individuals paid up-front the amount that the
Romans demanded, and then had to get the money back from the people. In doing
so they often collected more than they had paid the Romans. This was their
‘commission’, but there was often an element of extortion and corruption in the
whole practice.
Now Jesus invites one of these despised people to be his
follower. It is an example of Jesus’ looking beyond the exterior and the
stereotype to the potential of the real person inside. Immediately after this,
Jesus is seen sitting “in the house” having dinner with his disciples when they
are joined by a number of tax collectors and other public sinners. It is not
clear whether the ‘the’ refers to the house where Jesus was staying or
Matthew’s house. In either event, it was bound to attract the notice of Jesus’
critics.
And indeed some Pharisees, seeing this, are shocked. They
ask the disciples (not Jesus):
Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and
sinners?
For the Pharisees, if Jesus is a man of God and a teacher,
how can he be seen in the company of people who are religiously unclean? To be
in their company is to become contaminated and unclean also.
Overhearing them, Jesus replies:
Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those
who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’
For I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.
Jesus turns the tables on the Pharisees by looking at the
situation from a completely different perspective.
The problem is not of Jesus’ becoming contaminated by the
sinful and the unclean, but rather their becoming healed by his presence and
influence. The legally-minded (the ritualists) are only interested in themselves;
those governed by love (the merciful) think primarily of the needs of their
brothers and sisters. There is no need for Jesus to spend time with the
virtuous, i.e. with the already converted; it is those in spiritual and moral
deprivation with whom he needs to spend his time.
The lesson of today’s reading is extremely relevant for our
own day. When looking for potential followers of Christ, where do we tend to
look? How many times have we heard people wonder why God picked them as
Christian leaders—as priests, religious or lay people? When we look at the
Twelve Apostles, they were indeed a strange bunch: full of faults, fragile in
their faith, but in the end they started something extraordinary.
Is it not true that a great deal of our pastoral energies in
our churches are directed at those already converted? Is it also not true that
those most in need of experiencing Christ’s love and healing may be found in
places where we are hesitant to go? Perhaps we should have courage and look for
people in such places; Christ will be with us when we go there.
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https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/o1136g/
Friday,
July 4, 2025
Ordinary Time
Opening Prayer
Lord our God,
when Your Son was
transfigured You gave eyes of faith to the apostles to see beyond appearances
and to recognize Jesus as Your beloved Son.
This vision gave them
courage for the hour of trial.
When our faith and trust
seem to desert us in dark moments, let Your Son take us up to the mountain and
give us a glimpse of His light, that with fresh courage and generosity we may
see where He wants us to go. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Gospel Reading - Mark 9: 2-13
Jesus took Peter, James, and
John and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves. And he was
transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no
fuller on earth could bleach them. Then Elijah appeared to them along with
Moses, and they were conversing with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus in reply,
“Rabbi, it is good that we are here! Let us make three tents: one for you, one
for Moses, and one for Elijah.” He hardly knew what to say, they were so terrified.
Then a cloud came, casting a shadow over them; then from the cloud came a
voice, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.” Suddenly, looking around, the
disciples no longer saw anyone but Jesus alone with them. As they were coming
down from the mountain, he charged them not to relate what they had seen to
anyone, except when the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept the
matter to themselves, questioning what rising from the dead meant. Then they
asked him, “Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?” He told them,
“Elijah will indeed come first and restore all things, yet how is it written
regarding the Son of Man that he must suffer greatly and be treated with
contempt? But I tell you that Elijah has come and they did to him whatever they
pleased, as it is written of him.”
Reflection
Today’s Gospel speaks about
two facts linked together: the Transfiguration of Jesus and the question
regarding the return of the prophet Elijah. At that time people were waiting
for the return of the prophet Elijah. Today many people are waiting for the
return of Jesus and write on the walls of the city: Jesus will return! They are
not aware that Jesus has already returned and is present in our life. Some
times, like a sudden lightening, this presence of Jesus bursts into our life
and enlightens it, transfiguring it.
The Transfiguration of Jesus
takes place after the first announcement of the death of Jesus (Mk 8: 27-30).
This announcement had disturbed or upset the minds of the disciples, especially
Peter’s (Mk 8: 31-33). They were among the poor, but their mind was lost in the
ideology of the government and the religion of the time (Mk 8: 15). The cross
was an obstacle to belief in Jesus. The Transfiguration of Jesus will help the
disciples to overcome the trauma of the cross.
In the year 70 when Mark was
writing, the cross continued to be a great impediment for the Jews to accept
Jesus as Messiah. They said, “The cross is a scandal!” (1 Cor 1: 23). One of
the greatest efforts of the first Christians consisted in helping people
perceive that the cross was neither a scandal, nor madness, but rather the
expression of the power and the wisdom of God (1 Cor 1: 22-31). Mark
contributes to this. He uses the texts and the figure of the Old Testament to
describe the Transfiguration. In this way he indicates that Jesus sees the
realization of the prophecies, and the cross was a way toward glory. • Mark 9: 2-4: Jesus changes
appearance. Jesus goes up a high mountain. Luke says that He goes up to pray
(Lk 9: 28). Up there, Jesus appears in glory before Peter, James and John.
Together with Him appear Moses and Elijah. The high mountain evokes Mount
Sinai, where in the past, God had manifested His will to the people, handing
them the Law. The white clothes remind us of Moses with a radiant face when he
spoke with God on the mountain and received the law (cf. Ex 43: 29-35) Elijah
and Moses, the two greatest authorities of the Old Testament, speak with Jesus.
Moses represents the law, Elijah, prophecy. Luke mentions the conversation
concerning the “exodus of Jesus,” that is, the death of Jesus in Jerusalem (Lk
9: 31). It is then clear
that the Old Testament, both the law as well as prophecy, already taught that
for the Messiah Servant the way to glory had to go through the cross!
•
Mark 9:5-6: Peter is pleased, but he does not
understand. Peter wants to keep this pleasant moment on the mountain. He offers
to build three tents. Mark says that Peter was afraid, without knowing what he
was saying, and Luke adds that the disciples were sleepy (Lk 9: 32). They were
like us: they had difficulty understanding the cross!
•
Mark 9: 7-9: The voice from Heaven clarifies the
facts. When Jesus was covered by glory, a voice came from the cloud and said,
“This is My Beloved Son! Listen to Him!” The expression “Beloved Son” reminds
us of the figure of the Messiah Servant, announced by the prophet Isaiah (cf.
Isa 42: 1). The expression: “Listen to Him!” reminds us of the prophecy which
promised the coming of a new Moses (cf. Deut 18: 15). In Jesus, the prophecies
of the Old Testament are being fulfilled. The disciples can no longer doubt.
Jesus is truly the glorious Messiah whom they desired, but the way to glory
passes through the cross, according to what was announced by the prophecy of the
servant (Isa 53: 3-9). The glory of the Transfiguration proves this. Moses and
Elijah confirm it. The Father guarantees it. Jesus accepts it. At the end, Mark
says that after the vision, the disciples saw only Jesus and nobody else. From
now on, Jesus is the only revelation of God for us! Jesus is alone, the key to
understanding all of the Old Testament.
•
Mark 9: 9-10: To know how to keep silence. Jesus asked
the disciples to tell no one what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had
risen from the dead, but the disciples did not understand. In fact, they did
not understand the meaning of the cross, which links suffering to the
resurrection. The cross of Jesus is the proof that life is stronger than death.
•
Mark 9: 11-13: The return of the prophet Elijah. The
prophet Malachi had announced that Elijah would return to prepare the path for
the Messiah (Mal
3: 23-24): this same
announcement is found in the Book of
Ecclesiasticus/Ben Sira (Sir
48: 10). But how could Jesus be the Messiah if
Elijah had not yet returned?
This is why the disciples asked, “Why do the scribes say that Elijah has to
come before?” (Mk 9: 11). The response of Jesus is clear: “But I tell you
Elijah has come and they have treated him as they pleased, just as the
scriptures say about him” (9: 13). Jesus was speaking about John the Baptist,
who was killed by Herod (Mt 17: 13).
Personal Questions
•
Has your faith in Jesus given you moments of
transfiguration and of intense joy? How do these moments of joy give you
strength in times of difficulty?
•
How can we transfigure today our personal and family
life as well as our community life?
Concluding Prayer
All goes well for one who
lends generously, who is honest in all his dealing; for all time to come he
will not stumble, for all time to come the upright will be remembered. (Ps 112:
5-6)
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