August 18, 2025
Monday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 419
Reading I
The children of Israel offended the LORD by serving the
Baals.
Abandoning the LORD, the God of their fathers,
who led them out of the land of Egypt,
they followed the other gods of the various nations around them,
and by their worship of these gods provoked the LORD.
Because they had thus abandoned him and served Baal and the
Ashtaroth,
the anger of the LORD flared up against Israel,
and he delivered them over to plunderers who despoiled them.
He allowed them to fall into the power of their enemies round about
whom they were no longer able to withstand.
Whatever they undertook, the LORD turned into disaster for them,
as in his warning he had sworn he would do,
till they were in great distress.
Even when the LORD raised up judges to deliver them
from the power of their despoilers,
they did not listen to their judges,
but abandoned themselves to the worship of other gods.
They were quick to stray from the way their fathers had taken,
and did not follow their example of obedience
to the commandments of the LORD.
Whenever the LORD raised up judges for them, he would be with the judge
and save them from the power of their enemies
as long as the judge lived;
it was thus the LORD took pity on their distressful cries
of affliction under their oppressors.
But when the judge died,
they would relapse and do worse than their ancestors,
following other gods in service and worship,
relinquishing none of their evil practices or stubborn conduct.
Responsorial Psalm
Psalm
106:34-35, 36-37, 39-40, 43ab and 44
R. (4a) Remember us, O Lord, as
you favor your people.
They did not exterminate the peoples,
as the LORD had commanded them,
But mingled with the nations
and learned their works.
R. Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
They served their idols,
which became a snare for them.
They sacrificed their sons
and their daughters to demons.
R. Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
They became defiled by their works,
and wanton in their crimes.
And the LORD grew angry with his people,
and abhorred his inheritance.
R. Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
Many times did he rescue them,
but they embittered him with their counsels.
Yet he had regard for their affliction
when he heard their cry.
R. Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Blessed are the poor in spirit;
for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
A young man approached Jesus and said,
“Teacher, what good must I do to gain eternal life?”
He answered him, “Why do you ask me about the good?
There is only One who is good.
If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.”
He asked him, “Which ones?”
And Jesus replied, “You shall not kill;
you shall not commit adultery;
you shall not steal;
you shall not bear false witness;
honor your father and your mother;
and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
The young man said to him,
“All of these I have observed. What do I still lack?”
Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be perfect, go,
sell what you have and give to the poor,
and you will have treasure in heaven.
Then come, follow me.”
When the young man heard this statement, he went away sad,
for he had many possessions.
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/081825.cfm
Commentary on
Judges 2:11-19
Immediately after the book of Joshua comes the book of
Judges, which we begin reading today. We will just have four readings from the
book.
The story of the Judges proper is confined to the main body
of the book (chaps 2-16). The term ‘judges’ (in Hebrew, shophetim)
does not have our common meaning, but indicates war leaders and deliverers of
the people. They are very different in character and ability from each other,
but what they do share is a divine calling to save their people.
Today’s reading sets the scene for the unfolding of the
book. After the death of Joshua, the people—in spite of the solemn promises
they made—gradually began to fall away from serving Yahweh and started to
follow the gods of the surrounding peoples. For their disloyalty, they found
themselves the victims of their enemies. Yahweh was no longer with them in
their struggles.
This passage comes from some general reflections on the
whole period of the ‘judges’. We are given the theme or paradigm which will be
repeated in the case of each judge:
Israel deserts
Yahweh for Baal;
Yahweh hands Israel
over to oppressors;
Israel cries to
Yahweh;
Yahweh sends Israel
a saviour.
The cycle then begins all over again.
However, this theological understanding of history, based on
the assumption that the judges succeeded one another in the chronological order
given in the book, and that each acted for the whole nation (rather than their
own tribe), hardly corresponds to historical fact. The book is a compilation of
originally independent accounts of local heroes, to whom an arbitrary
relationship in time has been given.
As the Book of Judges opens we are told that the generation
that followed Joshua neither knew Yahweh nor the deeds that he had done for
Israel. The Israelites were now doing what was evil in Yahweh’s eyes and serving
the “Baals” (‘Baal’ means ‘lord’). Baal, the god worshipped by the Canaanites
and Phoenicians, was variously known to them as the ‘son of Dagon’ and the ‘son
of El’. In Aram (Syria), he was called ‘Hadad’ and in Babylonia, ‘Adad’.
Believed to give fertility to the womb and life-giving rain to the soil, he is
pictured as standing on a bull, a popular symbol of fertility and strength.
The storm cloud was Baal’s chariot, thunder his voice, and
lightning his spear and arrows. The worship of Baal involved sacred
prostitution and sometimes even child sacrifice. The stories of Elijah and
Elisha, as well as many other Old Testament passages, directly or indirectly
protest Baalism. Elijah’s bringing rain down and breaking a drought showed the
superior power of Yahweh over Baal, who was supposed to be the god of rain (1
Kgs 18:41-46).
The Israelites had deserted Yahweh, the God of their
ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt and followed other gods, those of
the surrounding peoples. They bowed down before these gods; they provoked
Yahweh; they deserted Yahweh to serve Baal and Astarte.
In the Bible the phrase ‘Baal and Astarte’ or, in the
plural, ‘the Baals and Astartes’ is the common expression for the Canaanite
divinities. Baal, ‘the Lord’, is the male god. Astarte was associated with the
evening star and was the beautiful goddess of war and fertility. She was
worshipped as Ishtar in Babylonia and as Athtart in Aram. To the Greeks she was
Aphrodite, and to the Romans, Venus. Worship of the Astartes involved extremely
lascivious practices.
Every time they indulged in this idolatrous behaviour,
Yahweh’s anger would grow hot against Israel. He would hand them over to
pillagers who would plunder them. They would be delivered into the hands of the
enemies all around them and no longer able to resist them. Whenever they
mounted an expedition, Yahweh’s hand would be there to foil them—as he had
warned he would—and, as a result, they were in dire distress.
It was then that the Lord appointed ‘judges’ who would
rescue them from the hands of their plunderers. There were 12 judges
altogether: six major judges—Othniel, Ehud, Deborah, Gideon, Jephthah and
Samson, and six minor ones—Shamgar, Tola, Jair, Ibzan, Elon and Abdon. Notice
that one of the judges is a woman, Deborah.
But the Israelites would refuse to listen even to the
judges. They preferred to prostitute themselves before other gods. They moved
far from the path their ancestors had followed in obedience to Yahweh.
Idol worship was always seen as a form of prostitution.
Since the Hebrew for ‘Baal’ (‘lord’) was also used by women to refer to their
husbands, it is understandable that the metaphor of adultery was commonly used
in connection with Israelite worship of Baal (see Hosea 2:2-3,16-17). Yahweh
was the true spouse of Israel. The worship of Baal was a kind of adultery or
prostitution.
When Yahweh appointed judges:
…the Lord was with the judge, and he delivered them from
the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge, for the Lord would be
moved to pity by their groaning because of those who persecuted and oppressed
them.
The words ‘groan’ and ‘oppressed’ echoes the language of the
bondage under the Pharaoh in Egypt.
But once the judge was dead, the people fell back into even
more corrupt ways than those who had gone before them. They gave themselves
completely to other gods, served them, bowed down before them and totally
abandoned the practices of their ancestors.
Although there were undoubtedly natural explanations for the
people’s sufferings, the Scripture sees the hands of God in everything they
experience. On their own or subject to false gods, they are lost and they
experience great suffering. It is less a sign of God’s punishment, still less
his vindictiveness, than the fact that to leave truth and goodness is to head
for darkness and failure and pain.
Following the ways of God and Jesus is not just a question
of obedience to a higher authority; it is to follow a way of life which is in
total harmony with our deepest needs.
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Commentary on Matthew
19:16-22
We have here a story of a young man who did not have that
simple trust of the child which Jesus spoke about in the immediately preceding
passage (note that only Matthew describes him as ‘young’).
He was apparently a good man, an unusually good man. He asks
Jesus what he needs to do in order to have eternal life. However, he seemed to
be operating out of a legalistic mindset with the emphasis on external actions.
For Jesus, what we are is more important than what we do. The man also asked about
“eternal life”. In Matthew (and in Mark and Luke) ‘eternal life’ is really
synonymous with ‘entering the Kingdom of Heaven [God]’ and ‘being saved’. It is
to be totally taken up into God’s world and sharing God’s understanding of
life.
Jesus asks him
Why do you ask me about what is good? There is one who is
good.
This seems to be a way of telling the man that goodness is
not something merely external. The real source of goodness is inside, although,
of course, it will flow out to the exterior. Is it also a way of asking the man
who he really thinks Jesus is?
In any case, Jesus tells the man:
If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.
As we have just said, to “enter into life” is equivalent to
entering the Kingdom. And Jesus mentions just four of the commandments, all
touching on relationships with other people. And he adds:
Also, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
The man is not satisfied:
I have kept all these; what do I still lack?
Jesus tells him that if he wants to be perfect, he should
sell off everything he has, give it to the poor and then become a disciple of
Jesus.
Obviously, the man was not expecting this. He was very rich
and, although he wanted to serve God, he was not prepared to separate himself
from the security of his wealth. And he walked away from Jesus full of sadness.
It is an example of Jesus’ words earlier on that we cannot at the same time
serve God and wealth.
In this context, to be ‘rich’ is not just to have a lot of
money. It is to have a lot more money than others and especially to have more
money than one needs in a world where there are people who do not have enough
for a life of dignity. And wealth is very relative: a person close to the
poverty line in some western countries could be seen as very rich in a remote
village elsewhere in the world.
So, as long as the man had to cling to his money, he could
not—as he claimed—be loving his neighbour as his own self. Clearly he was not
yet ready for an unconditional following of Jesus. He was not able to follow
the example of Peter and Andrew and James and John, who left their boats, nets
and family to go and put all their security with Jesus.
Before we think that this Gospel does not particularly
concern us because we do not see ourselves as numbered among the rich, we
should listen to what Jesus is really saying. He touched on the one thing that
the man was not ready to give up—his money and all that it brought. But, if we
are honest, we will admit that we all have some things we would be very slow to
let go of. Things we would not like God to ask us to give up.
It might be a good exercise today for us to ask ourselves
what would be the most difficult thing for us to give up if Jesus asked us to
do so. It might be some thing we own like our house, or it might be a relationship,
or our job, or our health. Whatever it is, could it be coming between us and
our total following of Jesus? Do the things we own really own us? Why not ask
for the strength to be ready, if called on, to give it up? Only then do we know
that we are truly free and truly followers of Jesus.
One final point—this story has been used in the past as an
example of someone’s getting a special ‘vocation’. According to this view, all
are expected to keep the commandments, but only some are invited to follow a
‘counsel’, such as living a life of ‘poverty’, as members of religious
institutes do. It would be quite wrong to see Jesus here suggesting two levels
of living the Christian life. What is said here applies to every person who
wants to follow Christ. All the baptised are called to the same level of
service, although there are different ways of doing this.
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https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/o1202r/
Monday,
August 18, 2025
Ordinary
Time
Opening Prayer
God our Father, may we love You in all things
and above all things and reach the joy You have prepared for us beyond all our
imagining. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and
reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.
Gospel Reading - Matthew 19: 16-22
A young man approached Jesus and said,
"Teacher, what good must I do to gain eternal life?" He answered him,
"Why do you ask me about the good? There is only One who is good. If you
wish to enter into life, keep the commandments." He asked him, "Which
ones?" And Jesus replied, "You shall not kill; you shall not commit
adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; honor your
father and your mother; and you shall love your neighbor as yourself." The
young man said to him, "All of these I have observed. What do I still
lack?" Jesus said to him, "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what
you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come,
follow me." When the young man heard this statement, he went away sad, for
he had many possessions.
Reflection
The Gospel today speaks to us about a young
man who asks Jesus which is the way to eternal life. Jesus indicates to him the
way of poverty. The young man does not accept Jesus’ proposal because he is
very rich. A rich person is protected by the security of the riches which he
possesses. He has difficulty opening the hand of his security. Attached to the
advantages of his goods, he lives only to defend his own interests. A poor
person does not have this concern. But there are some poor people who have the
mentality of the rich. Often the desire for riches creates in the poor a great
dependence and renders them slaves of consumerism, because they seek riches
everywhere. They no longer have time to dedicate themselves to the service of
neighbor.
•
Matthew 19: 16-19: The commandments and eternal
life. A person approaches Jesus and asks Him, “Master, what good deed should I
do to possess eternal life?” Some manuscripts say that it was a young man.
Jesus responds abruptly, “Why do you ask Me about what is good? There is One
alone who is good!” Then He responds to the question and says, “If you wish to
enter into life, keep the commandments.” The rich young man reacts and asks,
“Which commandments?” Jesus very kindly enumerates the commandments which the
young man already knew: “You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you
shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; honor father and mother;
love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus’ response is very significant. The young
man had asked what to do to obtain eternal life. He wanted to live close to
God! But Jesus recalls only the commandments which refer to respect for the
life close to others! He does not mention the first three commandments which
deal with relationship with God. According to Jesus, we will be well with God
only if we are well with our neighbor. It is not worth deceiving oneself. The
door to reach God is our neighbor.
In Mark, the question of the young man is
different: “Good Master what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus answers,
“Why do you call Me good? No one is good, but God alone.” (Mk 10: 17-18). Jesus
turns the attention from Himself toward God, because what is important is to do
God’s will, to reveal the project of the Father.
•
Matthew 19: 20: What is the use of observing the
commandments? The young man responds, “I have always observed all these things.
What more do I need to do?” What follows is strange. The young man wanted to
know the way which leads to eternal life. Now, the way of eternal life was and
continues to be this: to do God’s will, expressed in the commandments. In other
words, the young man observed the commandments without knowing for what
purpose. If he had known it, he would not have asked the question. It is like
for many Catholics who do not know why they are Catholics. “I was born a
Catholic, and this is why I am Catholic!” It is as if it was a custom!
•
Matthew 19: 21-22: Jesus’ proposal and the young
man’s response. Jesus answers, “If you wish to be perfect, go and sell your
possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have a treasure in
heaven; then come follow Me.” But on hearing these words the young man went
away very sad because he was very rich. The observance of the commandments is
only the first degree of a stairway that goes beyond, much farther and much
higher. Jesus asks more! The observance of the commandments prepares people to
be able to reach the point of giving oneself completely to the neighbor. Mark
says that Jesus looked at the young man with love (Mk 10: 21). Jesus asks for
very much, but He asks for it with much love. The young man did not accept
Jesus’ proposal and goes away “because he was very rich.”
•
Jesus and the option for the poor. A two-fold
slavery marked the situation of the people at the time of Jesus: the slavery of
the politics of Herod, supported by the Roman Empire and maintained by a whole
system which was well organized for exploitation and repression, and the
slavery of the official religion, maintained by the religious authority of the
time. For this reason the clan, the families, the community, were
disintegrating and the majority of the people were excluded, marginalized,
homeless, without either a religion or a society. So, for this reason, there
were various movements which, like Jesus, tried to build up life in
communities: Essenes, Pharisees and, later on, the Zealots. But in Jesus’
community, there was something new which made it different from the other
groups: the attitude concerning the poor and the excluded. The communities of
the Pharisees lived separated. The word “Pharisee” meant “separated.” This was
the attitude concerning the poor and
the excluded. The communities of the Pharisees lived
separated from the impure people. Some Pharisees considered the people ignorant
and damned (Jn 7: 49) in sin (Jn 9: 34). They could learn nothing from the
people (Jn 9: 34). On the contrary, Jesus and His community lived in the midst
of people who were excluded, considered impure; tax collectors, sinners,
prostitutes, lepers (Mk 2: 16; 1: 41; Lk 7: 37). Jesus recognizes the richness
and the values which the poor possess (Mt 11: 25-26; Lk 21: 1-4). He proclaims
them blessed, because the Kingdom is theirs, of the poor (Lk 6: 20; Mt 5: 3).
He defines His mission in this way: “To announce the good news to the poor” (Lk
4: 18). He Himself lives poorly. He possesses nothing for Himself, not even a
stone to lay His head on (Lk 9: 58). And to anyone who wants to follow Him, who
wants to live like Him, He orders that that person choose either God or money!
(Mt 6: 24). He orders His followers to choose the poor, as He proposed it to
the rich young man! (Mk 10: 21). This different way of accepting the poor and
of living with them is a sign of the Kingdom of God.
Personal Questions
•
Can a person who lives concerned about his
wealth or with acquiring the goods which the propaganda of consumerism offers
free himself from all this in order to follow Jesus and live in peace in a
Christian community? Is this possible? What do you think?
•
What does this mean for us today: “Go, sell all
you possess and give it to the poor?” Is it possible to do this concretely? Do
you know anybody who has actually done this for the Kingdom?
•
Let us say you own a kitchen with pots and pans
and stove, and its cost was not small. You use this kitchen to feed your
family, or the poor, or some in the community. If you didn’t have this kitchen,
you couldn’t do this. How does Jesus’ advice to the young man apply to you to
sell your pots, pans and kitchen? Which is the greater good?
•
Continuing the kitchen question, if you also
purchased the food and gave it away, this is obviously a certain good. What if
you only used the kitchen to provide “cooking” for people who brought their own
food (offering your time and resource)? Or if you sold your cooked food “at
cost”? Or if you charged only enough for a small salary for your “service” to
the community? What if you made a profit while doing this? At what point(s)
does the picture change? Why?
Concluding Prayer
Yahweh is my shepherd, I lack nothing. In grassy meadows He lets
me lie down. By tranquil streams He leads me to restore my spirit. He guides me
in paths of saving justice as befits His name. (Ps 23: 1-3)
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