August 14, 2025
Memorial of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, Priest and Martyr
Lectionary: 416
Reading 1
The LORD said to Joshua,
"Today I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel,
that they may know I am with you, as I was with Moses.
Now command the priests carrying the ark of the covenant
to come to a halt in the Jordan
when you reach the edge of the waters."
So Joshua said to the children of Israel,
"Come here and listen to the words of the LORD, your God.
This is how you will know that there is a living God in your midst,
who at your approach will dispossess the Canaanites.
The ark of the covenant of the LORD of the whole earth
will precede you into the Jordan.
When the soles of the feet of the priests carrying the ark of the LORD,
the Lord of the whole earth,
touch the water of the Jordan, it will cease to flow;
for the water flowing down from upstream will halt in a solid bank."
The people struck their tents to cross the Jordan,
with the priests carrying the ark of the covenant ahead of them.
No sooner had these priestly bearers of the ark
waded into the waters at the edge of the Jordan,
which overflows all its banks
during the entire season of the harvest,
than the waters flowing from upstream halted,
backing up in a solid mass for a very great distance indeed,
from Adam, a city in the direction of Zarethan;
while those flowing downstream toward the Salt Sea of the Arabah
disappeared entirely.
Thus the people crossed over opposite Jericho.
While all Israel crossed over on dry ground,
the priests carrying the ark of the covenant of the LORD
remained motionless on dry ground in the bed of the Jordan
until the whole nation had completed the passage.
Responsorial Psalm
R. Alleluia!
When Israel came forth from Egypt,
the house of Jacob from a people of alien tongue,
Judah became his sanctuary,
Israel his domain.
R. Alleluia!
The sea beheld and fled;
Jordan turned back.
The mountains skipped like rams,
the hills like the lambs of the flock.
R. Alleluia!
Why is it, O sea, that you flee?
O Jordan, that you turn back?
You mountains, that you skip like rams?
You hills, like the lambs of the flock?
R. Alleluia!
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Let your countenance shine upon your servant
and teach me your statutes.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Peter approached Jesus and asked him,
"Lord, if my brother sins against me,
how often must I forgive him?
As many as seven times?"
Jesus answered, "I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.
That is why the Kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king
who decided to settle accounts with his servants.
When he began the accounting,
a debtor was brought before him who owed him a huge amount.
Since he had no way of paying it back,
his master ordered him to be sold,
along with his wife, his children, and all his property,
in payment of the debt.
At that, the servant fell down, did him homage, and said,
'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.'
Moved with compassion the master of that servant
let him go and forgave him the loan.
When that servant had left, he found one of his fellow servants
who owed him a much smaller amount.
He seized him and started to choke him, demanding,
'Pay back what you owe.'
Falling to his knees, his fellow servant begged him,
'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.'
But he refused.
Instead, he had the fellow servant put in prison
until he paid back the debt.
Now when his fellow servants saw what had happened,
they were deeply disturbed,
and went to their master and reported the whole affair.
His master summoned him and said to him, 'You wicked servant!
I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to.
Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant,
as I had pity on you?'
Then in anger his master handed him over to the torturers
until he should pay back the whole debt.
So will my heavenly Father do to you,
unless each of you forgives his brother from his heart."
When Jesus finished these words, he left Galilee
and went to the district of Judea across the Jordan.
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/081425.cfm
Commentary on Joshua
3:7-11,13-17
We move on now to the next phase in the history of Israel.
We begin reading the book of Joshua. It is the first of the so-called
historical books which include Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2
Kings. They are also known as the ‘Early Prophets’.
The book of Joshua falls into three parts:
- the
conquest of the promised land (chaps 1-12);
- the
partition of the territory among the tribes (chaps 13-21);
- the
last days of Joshua, especially his last discourse and the assembly at
Shechem (chaps 22-24).
Joshua is the link with the previous five books and takes up
where Deuteronomy left off. He was the leader, chosen by Moses and accepted by
the people, to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land.
Today’s reading comes from chapter 3, which describes the
miraculous crossing of the Jordan into the Promised Land. It is reminiscent of
the crossing of the Sea of Reeds when the Israelites escaped from Egypt. Then
it was the command of Moses which drove back the sea. Here it is the priests
carrying the Ark of the Covenant in which were the tables of the Law,
representing the presence and power of God, which stop the river in its flow
and allowed all the Israelites to cross in safety.
As the reading opens we hear Yahweh speak to Joshua:
This day I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all
Israel, so that they may know that I will be with you as I was with Moses.
Joshua will be made great in the eyes of the people so that
they will know that, as with Moses in the past, God is with Joshua now. A major
purpose for God’s intervening wondrously in the crossing of the Jordan was to
validate the leadership of Joshua. With a miraculous event so much like that of
the Sea of Reeds crossing, Joshua’s position as the Lord’s servant would be
shown to be comparable to that of Moses.
Joshua is then told to give an order to the priests who were
carrying the Ark of the Covenant. When they reached the banks of the Jordan,
they were to stop in the river itself. Speaking to the Israelites, he told them
to gather together and listen to the words of Yahweh their God. There was going
to be a sign by which they would know that the living God was with them and
that he was going to drive out the Canaanites before them (as well as the
Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites and Jebusites).
The manner by which God is about to bring Israel across the
Jordan River, the watery boundary of the Promised Land, will bring assurance
that the one true God is with them and that he will surely dislodge the present
inhabitants of Canaan. Two fundamental issues are at stake:
- Who
is the true and mighty God—the God of Israel or the god on whom the
Canaanites depend (Baal, who was believed to reign as king among the gods
because he had triumphed over the sea-god)? By opening the way through the
flooded Jordan, the Lord would show both Israel and the Canaanites that he
is Lord over the waters (as he was at the “Red Sea”, at the Flood and at
Creation) and that he is able to establish his own order in the world.
- Who
has the rightful claim to the land—the Lord or the Canaanites? By passing
safely through the Jordan at the head of his army, the Lord showed the
rightness of his claim on the land. In the ancient Near East a common way
for obtaining the judicial verdict of the gods was by compelling the accused
to submit to trial by water ordeal. Usually this involved casting him into
a river (if the accused drowned, the gods had found him guilty; if not,
the gods had declared him innocent).
In Israel, however, another form of water ordeal was
practiced. Significantly, the Lord would enter the Jordan first (in the Ark
with the priests) and then remain there until his whole army had crossed safely
over. Thus his claim to the land was vindicated before the eyes of all who
heard about it. And it was Yahweh’s claim, not Israel’s. The Israelites came
through the Jordan only with him and as his army, “baptised” to his service. It
was a message intended not only for the Israelites, but for the residents of
Canaan as well and they would understand the symbols very well.
Now Joshua tells the people:
…the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is
going to pass before you into the Jordan.
As the people left their tents to cross the river, the
priests with the Ark went ahead of them. As soon as the priests carrying the
Ark put their feet into the waters of the Jordan:
…the waters flowing from above stood still, rising up in
a single heap far off at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan, while those
flowing toward the sea of the Arabah, the Dead Sea, were wholly cut off.
What Joshua foretold immediately took place. Zarethan was
also near the entrance of the River Jabbok, which flows into the Jordan on its
east bank.
And this happened even though at that time of the year, the
harvest season, the river was in spate. The harvest season in the lower Jordan
valley was towards the end of March and the beginning of April, when the grain
and other crops that grew during the rainy season of winter were reaped. The
crossing took place “on the 10th day of the first month” of the Hebrew year,
which began with the first new moon after the spring equinox. At this time of
the year the Jordan would be swollen as a result of the winter rains and the
melting snow from Mount Hermon.
The Hebrew for ‘heap’ twice used here can also be found in
the poetic accounts of the Sea of Reeds crossing. The sudden damming of the
river could have been caused by a landslide, as has happened on other
occasions. According to an Arab historian, something similar happened in AD
1267; landslides dammed the river in this area (Adama-Damieh) for several
hours. And, as recently as 1927, a blockage of the water in this area was
recorded that lasted over 20 hours.
Nevertheless, the miraculous element of the event is not
diminished, because God, who foretold it (Jos 3:13), also caused it to take
place at precisely the right moment (Jos 3:15), whether or not he used natural
forces to accomplish his will. Similarly, the drying up of the Sea of Reeds has
been attributed to the effects of an earthquake in the Mediterranean, perhaps
accompanied by a tsunami. Meanwhile, the lower reaches of the river flowing
into the Sea of Arabah, the Salt Sea, and the Dead Sea were completely cut off
from the upper waters.
The people now crossed the river near to Jericho. As they
did so, the priests carrying the Ark stood on dry ground in the middle of the
river bed, while the whole of Israel crossed on dry ground until every single
person had completed the crossing. The priests stood firm on dry land,
signifying that the Lord himself remained in the place of danger until all
Israel had crossed the Jordan.
This whole operation has the approval and protection of
Yahweh. It is the fulfilment of the solemn promise he made to provide a home
for a wandering people. It brings to closure the epic saga which began with the
crossing of the Sea of Reeds and the Hebrew people escaping to freedom and now
ends with another water crossing and the entry into the long-awaited Promised
Land.
The Jerusalem Bible shows the links between
the two events:
“There is a deliberate parallelism between the narratives of
the crossing of the Jordan and entry into Canaan and the narrative of the
Exodus from Egypt. The editor himself calls attention to it (3:7): Yahweh halts
the Jordan just as he dried up the Sea of Reeds; the Ark of Yahweh leads the
Israelites as did the pillar of cloud or of fire; Joshua plays the part that
Moses played in the Exodus; and just as the adults of the Exodus period were
circumcised, so in their turn are their desert-born children; the manna that
had served Israel in the desert ceases as soon as the Israelites enter Canaan
and the Passover is celebrated in Gilgal after the second ‘crossing’ as it had
been celebrated in Egypt before the first. The parallelism between the events
at the beginning and the end of the Exodus produces at the departure from Egypt
a water miracle analogous to the water miracles at the crossing of the Jordan.
As the Passion and Resurrection of Christ spiritually renew the events of the
Exodus, so Joshua, who gave the events of the Exodus their physical fulfilment,
was regarded by some Fathers as an ante-type of Jesus, who has the same name
(Joshua is another form of the name Jesus and means ‘God saves’)”.
In the liturgy of the Catholic and other Christian churches,
these water crossings are seen as anticipatory symbols of the saving waters of
Baptism. They are recalled especially during the liturgy of the Easter Vigil
when the baptismal water is blessed. Let us remember today our own Baptism and
how its meaning is symbolised in our daily life as a follower of Christ.
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Commentary on
Matthew 18:21—19:1
The last part of Matthew‘s discourse on the church is about
forgiveness. This is not unconnected with the previous section on
excommunicating the unrepentant brother or sister. As soon as a brother or
sister does repent, there must be forgiveness—not once but
indefinitely—”seventy-seven times”.
The reason is given in the parable which Jesus speaks about
the two servants in debt. The one who had a huge debt to the king was forgiven,
but then refused to forgive a relatively trivial debt to a fellow servant.
Understand that ten thousand talents then would be the equivalent of hundreds
of millions in a major currency today, and the 300 denarii would have been the
equivalent of about three months’ wages.
In the gospel, the ones with the big debt to the king are
clearly ourselves; the ones with the small debts to us are our brothers and
sisters.
We do not expect God to forgive us once or twice or any
limited number of times, but every time. It is nowhere written that we have,
say, only ten chances of going to confession and, once our quota is used up,
there is nothing left. But if that is true of our relationship with God, it
also has to be true in our relationships with others. We can never refuse an
offer of reconciliation. And, we might add, forgiveness is much easier to fully
complete when reconciliation has taken place.
This is not at all the same as turning a blind eye to
wrongdoing. Yesterday’s text made that very clear. We are talking about healing
divisions between people; we must never put obstacles in the way of that.
We have now come to the end of this discourse indicated by
the first sentence of chapter 19:
When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left
Galilee and went to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan.
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https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/o1195g/
Thursday,
August 14, 2025
Ordinary
Time
Opening Prayer
Almighty and ever-living God, your
Spirit made us your children, confident to call you Father.
Increase your Spirit within us
and bring us to our promised inheritance.
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 18: 21-19: 1
Then Peter went up to Jesus and
said, 'Lord, how often must I forgive my brother if he wrongs me? As often as
seven times?'
Jesus answered, 'Not seven, I tell you, but seventy-seven
times.
'And so the kingdom of Heaven
may be compared to a king who decided to settle his accounts with his servants.
When the reckoning began, they brought him a man who owed ten thousand talents;
he had no means of paying, so his master gave orders that he should be sold,
together with his wife and children and all his possessions, to meet the debt.
At this, the servant threw himself down at his master's feet, with the words,
"Be patient with me and I will pay the whole sum." And the servant's
master felt so sorry for him that he let him go and cancelled the debt. Now as
this servant went out, he happened to meet a fellow servant who owed him one
hundred denarii; and he seized him by the throat and began to throttle him,
saying, "Pay what you owe me." His fellow servant fell at his feet
and appealed to him, saying, "Be patient with me and I will pay you."
But the other would not agree; on the contrary, he had him thrown into prison
till he should pay the debt.
His fellow-servants were deeply
distressed when they saw what had happened, and they went to their master and
reported the whole affair to him. Then the master sent for the man and said to
him, "You wicked servant, I cancelled all that debt of yours when you
appealed to me. Were you not bound, then, to have pity on your fellow- servant
just as I had pity on you?" And in his anger the master handed him over to
the torturers till he should pay all his debt. And that is how my heavenly
Father will deal with you unless you each forgive your brother from your
heart.'
Jesus had now finished what he wanted to say, and he left
Galilee and came into the territory of Judea on the far side of the Jordan.
Reflection
In yesterday’s Gospel we have heard the words
of Jesus concerning fraternal correction (Mt 18: 15-20). In the Gospel today
(Mt 19: 21-39) the central theme is pardon and reconciliation.
•
Matthew 18: 21-22: Forgive seventy times seven!
Before the words of Jesus on fraternal correction and reconciliation, Peter
asks: “How often must I forgive? Seven times?” Seven is a number which
indicates perfection and, in the case of the proposal of Peter, seven is
synonymous of always. But Jesus goes beyond. He eliminates all and whatever
possible limitation there may be to pardon: “Not seven I tell you, but
seventy-seven times.” It is as if he would say “Always, N0! Peter. But seventy
times seven always!” And this because there is no proportion between God’s love
for us and our love for our brother. Here we recall the episode of the Old
Testament of Lamech: “Lamech says to his wives, Adah and Zollah, hear my voice;
listen to what I say: I killed a man for wounding me, a boy for striking me.
Sevenfold vengeance for Cain, but seventy-sevenfold for Lamech” (Gen 4: 23-24).
The task of the communities is to invert the process of the spiral of violence.
In order to clarify his response to Peter, Jesus tells them the parable of
pardon without limits.
•
Matthew 18: 23-27: The attitude of the master.
This parable is an allegory, that is, Jesus speaks about a master, but thinks
of God. This explains the enormous contrasts of the parable. As we will see, in
spite that it is a question of daily ordinary things, there is something in
this story which does not take place in daily life. In the story which Jesus
tells, the master follows the norms of the law or rights of that time. It was
his right to take a laborer with all his family and to keep him in prison until
he would have paid his debt carrying out his work as a slave. But before the
request of the debtor servant, the master forgives the debt. What strikes us is
the amount: ten thousand talents! One talent was equal to 35 kg, and so
according to the estimate made, ten thousand talents were equal to 350 tons of
gold. Even if the debtor and his family would have worked their whole life,
they would never have been capable to earn 350 tons of gold. The extreme
estimate is made on purpose. Our debt before God is countless and unpayable!
•
Matthew 18: 28-31: The attitude of the laborer.
As soon as he went out, that servant found a fellow servant as himself who
owned him one hundred denarii and, he seized him by the throat and began to
throttle him saying: Pay what you owe! This servant owed him one hundred
denarii; that is the salary
of one hundred days of work. Some
have estimated that it was a question of 30 grams of gold. There was no
comparison between the two! But this makes us understand the attitude of the
laborer: God forgives him 350 tons of gold and he is not capable to forgive 30
grams of gold. Instead of forgiving, he does to the companion what the master
could have done with him but did not do it. He puts in prison his companion
according to the norms of the law until he would have paid his debt. This is an
inhuman attitude, which also strikes the other companions. Seeing what had
happened, the other servants were sad and went to refer to their master
everything which had happened. We also would have done the same; we would also
have had the same attitude of disapproval.
•
Matthew 18: 32-35: The attitude of God “Then the
master called that man and said to him: “You wicked servant! I have forgiven
you all your debt because you appealed to me. Were you not bound then to have
pity on your fellow-servant just as I had pity on you? And, angry, the master
handed him over to the torturers till he should pay all his debt.“ Before God’s
love who pardons gratuitously our debt of 350 tons of gold, it is more than
fair, than just that we should forgive our brother who has a small debt of 30
grams of gold. God’s forgiveness is without any limit. The only limit for the
gratuity of God’s mercy comes from ourselves, from our incapacity to forgive
our brothers! (Mt 18: 34). This is what we say and ask for in the Our Father:
“Forgive us our offences as we forgive those who offend us” (Mt 6: 12-15).
•
The community: an alternative space of
solidarity and fraternity. The society of the Roman Empire was hard and
heartless, without any space for the little ones. They sought some refuge for
the heart and did not find it. The Synagogues were very demanding and did not
offer a place for them. In the Christian communities, the rigor of some
concerning the observance of the Law in the daily life followed the same criteria
as society and as the Synagogue. Thus, in the communities, the same divisions
which existed in society and in the Synagogue, between rich and poor, dominion
and submission, man and woman, race and religion, began to appear. The
community instead of being a place of acceptance became a place of
condemnation. By uniting the words of Jesus, Matthew wants to enlighten the
journey of the followers of Jesus, in order that the communities may be an
alternative place of solidarity and of fraternity. They should be Good News for
the poor.
Personal Questions
•
To forgive. There are people who say: “I forgive
but I do not forget!” And I? Am I capable to imitate God?
•
Jesus gives us the example. At the time of death
he asks pardon for his murderers (Lk 13: 34). Am I capable to imitate Jesus?
Concluding Prayer
From the rising of the sun to its
setting, praised be the name of Yahweh!
Supreme over all nations is Yahweh, supreme over the
heavens his glory. (Ps 113: 3-4)
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