July 5, 2025
Saturday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 382
Reading 1
When Isaac was so old that his eyesight had failed him,
he called his older son Esau and said to him, "Son!"
"Yes father!" he replied.
Isaac then said, "As you can see, I am so old
that I may now die at any time.
Take your gear, therefore–your quiver and bow–
and go out into the country to hunt some game for me.
With your catch prepare an appetizing dish for me, such as I like,
and bring it to me to eat,
so that I may give you my special blessing before I die."
Rebekah had been listening
while Isaac was speaking to his son Esau.
So, when Esau went out into the country
to hunt some game for his father,
Rebekah [then] took the best clothes of her older son Esau
that she had in the house,
and gave them to her younger son Jacob to wear;
and with the skins of the kids she covered up his hands
and the hairless parts of his neck.
Then she handed her son Jacob the appetizing dish
and the bread she had prepared.
Bringing them to his father, Jacob said, "Father!"
"Yes?" replied Isaac. "Which of my sons are you?"
Jacob answered his father: "I am Esau, your first-born.
I did as you told me.
Please sit up and eat some of my game,
so that you may give me your special blessing."
But Isaac asked, "How did you succeed so quickly, son?"
He answered,
"The LORD, your God, let things turn out well with me."
Isaac then said to Jacob,
"Come closer, son, that I may feel you,
to learn whether you really are my son Esau or not."
So Jacob moved up closer to his father.
When Isaac felt him, he said,
"Although the voice is Jacob's, the hands are Esau's."
(He failed to identify him because his hands were hairy,
like those of his brother Esau;
so in the end he gave him his blessing.)
Again he asked Jacob, "Are you really my son Esau?"
"Certainly," Jacob replied.
Then Isaac said, "Serve me your game, son, that I may eat of it
and then give you my blessing."
Jacob served it to him, and Isaac ate;
he brought him wine, and he drank.
Finally his father Isaac said to Jacob,
"Come closer, son, and kiss me."
As Jacob went up and kissed him,
Isaac smelled the fragrance of his clothes.
With that, he blessed him saying,
"Ah, the fragrance of my son
is like the fragrance of a field
that the LORD has blessed!
"May God give to you
of the dew of the heavens
And of the fertility of the earth
abundance of grain and wine.
"Let peoples serve you,
and nations pay you homage;
Be master of your brothers,
and may your mother's sons bow down to you.
Cursed be those who curse you,
and blessed be those who bless you."
Responsorial Psalm
R.(3a) Praise the Lord for the Lord is good!
or:
R. Alleluia.
Praise the name of the LORD;
Praise, you servants of the LORD
Who stand in the house of the LORD,
in the courts of the house of our God.
R. Praise the Lord for the Lord is good!
or:
R. Alleluia.
Praise the LORD, for the LORD is good;
sing praise to his name, which we love;
For the LORD has chosen Jacob for himself,
Israel for his own possession.
R. Praise the Lord for the Lord is good!
or:
R. Alleluia.
For I know that the LORD is great;
our LORD is greater than all gods.
All that the LORD wills he does
in heaven and on earth,
in the seas and in all the deeps.
R. Praise the Lord for the Lord is good!
or:
R. Alleluia.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
My sheep hear my voice, says the Lord;
I know them, and they follow me.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
The disciples of John approached Jesus and said,
"Why do we and the Pharisees fast much,
but your disciples do not fast?"
Jesus answered them, "Can the wedding guests mourn
as long as the bridegroom is with them?
The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them,
and then they will fast.
No one patches an old cloak with a piece of unshrunken cloth,
for its fullness pulls away from the cloak and the tear gets worse.
People do not put new wine into old wineskins.
Otherwise the skins burst, the wine spills out, and the skins are ruined.
Rather, they pour new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved."
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/070525.cfm
Commentary on
Genesis 27:1-5,15-29
We jump a couple of chapters in our story today. There is
relatively little about Isaac in the Genesis story; he is seen mainly in
relationship to his father Abraham and his two sons, Esau and Jacob. Today’s
passage begins with Isaac already in his old age and blind. As we will see, he
is blind in more ways than one. Before he dies he wants to give his final,
solemn blessing to his heir—and whoever gets that blessing will be the heir.
He calls his elder son, Esau, into his presence. Isaac tells
his son that he is now old and does not know when he is going to die. He gives
instructions to Esau to get his hunting gear together and bring back some game.
Then he is to take it and prepare the kind of savoury dish which Esau knows his
father likes. Then Isaac will give Esau, his son and heir, a blessing before he
dies. The language suggests a special blessing which was legally binding and,
as a solemn deathbed blessing, especially efficacious.
Rebekah, the mother, happens to overhear this conversation.
She is not happy because she wants the blessing to go to Jacob, her favourite
son. She makes a plan to deceive her husband and reveals it to Jacob. It is not
included in our reading, but Jacob had a serious problem with his mother’s
plan. He was a smooth-skinned man, but Esau was very hairy. If Isaac touched
Jacob he would immediately know that it was not Esau he was blessing. Rebekah
says she will take care of that problem.
After Esau had gone out into the countryside to hunt some
game, Rebekah dressed Jacob in Esau’s best clothes, which were in the house.
She also covered Jacob’s arms and the smooth back of his neck with the “fur of
the kids” which had been killed to make the savoury dish. She then gave the
savoury dish which she had prepared, and some bread for Jacob to bring in to
his father. In the presence of his father, Jacob announces, “Here I am.” “Who
are you, my son?” asks Isaac. Isaac replies that he is Esau, his father’s
first-born. Dressed in Esau’s best clothes, Jacob tells his father to get up
and enjoy the dish he has prepared and then to give his son his final blessing.
When Isaac expresses surprise that the hunting has taken
such a short time, Jacob smoothly replies that it was God who put the animals
in his path. To bring God into the lie might seem blasphemous to us, but the
mentality of the time would see no wrong in it, as every event was ascribed to
God, ignoring ‘secondary’ (i.e. human) causes.
Perhaps still a little sceptical, Isaac asks his son to come
near so that he can feel him and make sure whether it is Esau or not. After
touching him, Isaac comments that the voice is the voice of Jacob, but the arms
are the arms of Esau. And then Isaac gives his blessing to Jacob, a blessing
that was intended for Esau. Even then, the father still seems to have his
doubts. He asks once more: “Are you really my son Esau?”, to which Jacob
brazenly answers, “I am”.
Isaac then asks for the dish to be brought so that he could
eat and give his blessing. The favourite dish is brought as well as some wine.
The dish had been prepared by Rebekah who would know exactly the tastes of her
husband. The father then asks his son to come closer and to give him a kiss. As
Jacob does so, the father recognises the smell of the clothes, the clothes of
Esau, and he deception is complete. We might note that in his attempt to obtain
the covenant blessing, Jacob, the father of Israel, betrays with a kiss. Later,
it will be Jesus, the great Son of Israel, who will ultimately obtain the
blessing for the new Israel, who will be betrayed with a kiss (Matt 26:48-49;
Luke 22:48).
There then follows the beautiful blessing of Isaac given to
Jacob, but intended for Esau. In saying “Be lord over your brothers”, Isaac
unwittingly blesses Jacob and his descendants, thus fulfilling God’s promise
made earlier to Rebekah. In chapter 25, Rebekah becomes pregnant with twins who
jostle with each other within her womb. When she asks the Lord what is
happening, he tells her:
Two nations are in your womb,
and two peoples born of you shall be divided;
the one shall be stronger than the other;
the elder shall serve the younger. (Gen 25:21-23)
This is not an altogether edifying story. One evaluation
from the New American Bible goes like this:
“What Jacob did in deceiving his father and thereby cheating
Esau out of Isaac’s deathbed blessing is condemned as blameworthy, not only by
Hosea (12:3) and Jeremiah (9:3*), but also, indirectly, by the Yahwist narrator
of the present story, who makes the reader sympathise with Esau as the innocent
victim of a cruel plot, and shows that Jacob and his mother, the instigator of
the plot, paid for it by a lifelong separation from each other. The story was
told because it was part of the mystery of God’s ways in salvation history—his
use of weak, sinful people to achieve his own ultimate purpose.
*Put no trust in any brother. Every brother imitates
Jacob, the supplanter, every neighbor is guilty of slander.
(Jer 9:3—citation from New American Bible Revised Edition)
And the Jerusalem Bible comments:
“The morality is immature, but the lie reported here
mysteriously serves God’s purpose; the free divine choice preferred Jacob to
Esau.”
We need to remember, too, in an earlier scene not read
during the liturgy at this time, that Esau, simply because he was very hungry,
had exchanged his birthright with his brother Jacob in exchange for a bowl of
red soup (see Gen 25:29-34). The author of Genesis makes the laconic comment:
So Esau treated his right as firstborn with disdain.
(Gen 25:34)
Esau is seen therefore as having forfeited his birthright in
a very trivial and irresponsible way. Jacob, then, was technically entitled to
what his brother had yielded to him, and he did that in the way we have seen.
Even so, we probably still cannot give our full approval for
Jacob’s behaving in this way, but it is an example where a less than good
action produces, in the long-term, desirable results. We can all probably think
of similar examples from our own lives. We may have felt unjustly deprived of
something which we thought was due to us, but as a result something far better
came into our lives. As people like to say, “God can write straight with
crooked lines.”
Jacob and his mother definitely deceived Isaac and were
dishonest with him, but subsequent events clearly proved that Jacob was going
to be a much better patriarch than Esau. We have no right to act unjustly or
falsely, yet we do need to realise that good things can come from the immoral
or mistaken actions or decisions of others.
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Commentary on
Matthew 9:14-17
Today’s reading follows on yesterday’s challenge of Jesus by
some Pharisees. On that occasion they asked why Jesus was eating with sinners
and outcasts. Now they go one step further and ask why he is eating at all.
They put forward the example of John the Baptist and his disciples who used to
fast regularly. Jews were only required to fast one day in the year, on the
feast of the Atonement. However, like the Pharisees, it seems that John’s
disciples used to observe fasts which were not prescribed by the Law in the
hope that their extra devotion would bring about an early coming of the
Kingdom.
Jesus answers their question in two ways. First he says that
people do not fast when they are in the company of the bridegroom. That is a
time for celebration. By implication, of course, Jesus is the groom. As long as
he is around, it would be inappropriate for his disciples to fast. However, he
says a time will come when the groom is no longer with them, and then there
will be reasons to fast.
His second answer is more profound and takes the form of two
examples. It does not make sense to repair an old piece of clothing with a
patch of new cloth. The new cloth, being much tougher, will, under stress, only
cause the older cloth to tear. In the second example, he says that it is not
wise to put new wine into old wineskins. Wine was kept in containers made of
leather. Because new wine was still fermenting and expanding, it needed to be
put in new leather bags which were still elastic and could expand with the
wine. The old bags would be already stretched, and new wine would only cause
them to burst. Then both the wine would be lost and the bags ruined.
What did Jesus mean by these images? He was giving a clear
message to his critics. Jesus’ ideas were like new wine or new cloth. They
could not be fitted into old containers. People like the Pharisees were trying
to fit Jesus’ teaching and his ideas into their ways of thinking, but that
would not work.
Clearly, the old garment and the old wineskins represent the
elements of Mosaic Law that were to be reinterpreted and “fulfilled” by Jesus’
new teachings. The new cloth and the new wine, then, are the spirit of the
Kingdom as proclaimed by Jesus—the new order that Jesus was initiating—what we
would now call a paradigm shift, a radically new understanding of how God was
to be loved and served.
So John’s disciples wanted to know, for example, why Jesus
was not fasting—because in their book, a Jew fasted, and a pious Jew fasted
more often. But Jesus did not measure religion by external actions like fasting
or keeping other requirements of the Law (such as washing hands before eating).
For him, religion was a matter of the inner spirit, as we saw in his deeper
interpretations of the Law during the Sermon on the Mount.
Over the centuries the Church has moved its position in many
areas as it reaches a deeper understanding of the faith and how it is to be
lived in a changing world. Such a movement took place with the Second Vatican
Council. It involved much more than external changes (like having the Mass in
the vernacular instead of Latin). It involved a whole new way of seeing our
faith and our place as Christians in the world.
Even today, there are still people who try to live in the
post-Vatican II Church with a pre-Vatican II mentality. It is like trying to
squeeze new wine into old wineskins. It is a source of much friction and
misunderstanding in many Christian communities. We all have an obligation both
to enter fully into the mind of Christ as presented in the New Testament, and
to enter into the mind of the Church in this post-Vatican II era.
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https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/o1137g/
Saturday,
July 5, 2025
Ordinary Time
Opening Prayer
Father,
You call
Your children to walk in the light of Christ. Free us from darkness and keep us
in the radiance of Your truth.
We ask this through our Lord
Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one
God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Gospel Reading - Matthew 9: 14-17
The disciples of John
approached Jesus and said, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast much, but
your disciples do not fast?" Jesus answered them, "Can the wedding
guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when
the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one patches
an old cloak with a piece of unshrunken cloth, for its fullness pulls away from
the cloak and the tear gets worse. People do not put new wine into old
wineskins. Otherwise, the skins burst, the wine spills out, and the skins are
ruined. Rather, they pour new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are
preserved."
Reflection
•
Matthew 9: 14: The
question of John’s disciples concerning the practice of fasting. Fasting is
quite an ancient usage, practiced by almost all religions. Jesus Himself
practiced it for forty days (Mt 4: 2). But He does not insist that the
disciples do the same thing. He leaves them free. Because of this, the
disciples of John the Baptist and of the Pharisees, who were obliged to fast,
want to know why Jesus does not insist on fasting: “Why is it that we and the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not?”
•
Matthew 9: 15: Jesus’
answer. Jesus answers with a comparison in the form of a question: “Surely the bridegroom’s attendants cannot
mourn as long as the bridegroom is still with them?” Jesus associates
fasting with mourning, and He considers Himself the bridegroom. When the
bridegroom is with His friends, that is, during the wedding feast, they have no
need to fast. When Jesus is with them, with His disciples, it is a feast, the
wedding feast. Therefore, they should not fast. But one day the bridegroom will
go away. It will be a day of mourning. Then, if they want, they can fast. Jesus
refers to His death. He knows and feels that if He continues on this way of
liberation, the authorities will want to kill Him.
•
Matthew 9: 16-17: New
wine in new wineskins! In these two verses, the Gospel of Matthew gives two
separate sayings of Jesus on the patch of new cloth on an old cloak and on the
new wine in new skins. These words throw light on the discussions and the
conflicts of Jesus with religious authority of the time. A patch of new cloth
is not put on an old cloak, because when it is washed, the new piece of cloth
shrinks and pulls on the old cloak and tears it and the tear becomes bigger.
Nobody puts new wine in old skins, because when the new wine ferments, it tears
the old skins. New wine in new skins! The religion defended by the religious
authority was like a piece of old cloth, like an old wineskin. Both the
disciples of John and the Pharisees tried to renew the religion. In reality,
they barely put some patches, and because of this, they ran the risk of
compromising and harming both the new and the old uses. The new wine which
Jesus brings to us tears the old skins. It is necessary to know how to separate
things. Most probably, Matthew presents these words of Jesus to orientate the
communities in the years of the 80’s. There was a group of Jewish Christians
who wanted to replace the newness of Jesus with the Judaism of the time before
His coming. Jesus is not against what is “old.” He does not want what is old to
be imposed on that which is new.
Similarly, Vatican II cannot be reread with the mentality before the Council,
as some try to do today.
Personal Questions
•
What are the conflicts around religious practices
which make many people suffer today and are a reason for heated discussions and
polemics? What is the image of God which is behind all these preconceptions,
these norms, and these prohibitions?
•
How is this saying of Jesus to be understood: “Nobody puts a piece of new cloth on an old
cloak? What is the message which we can draw from all of this for your
community today?
Concluding Prayer
I am
listening. What is God's message? Yahweh's message is peace for His people, for
His faithful, if only they renounce their folly. (Ps 85: 8)
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