August 1, 2026
Memorial of Saint Alphonsus Liguori, Bishop and Doctor of
the Church
Lectionary: 406
Reading 1
The priests and prophets said to the princes and to all the
people,
“This man deserves death;
he has prophesied against this city,
as you have heard with your own ears.”
Jeremiah gave this answer to the princes and all the people:
“It was the LORD who sent me to prophesy against this house and city
all that you have heard.
Now, therefore, reform your ways and your deeds;
listen to the voice of the LORD your God,
so that the LORD will repent of the evil with which he threatens you.
As for me, I am in your hands;
do with me what you think good and right.
But mark well: if you put me to death,
it is innocent blood you bring on yourselves,
on this city and its citizens.
For in truth it was the LORD who sent me to you,
to speak all these things for you to hear.”Thereupon the princes and all the
people
said to the priests and the prophets,
“This man does not deserve death;
it is in the name of the LORD, our God, that he speaks to us.” So Ahikam,
son of Shaphan, protected Jeremiah,
so that he was not handed over to the people to be put to death.
Responsorial Psalm
R.(14c) Lord, in your great love, answer me.
Rescue me out of the mire; may I not sink!
may I be rescued from my foes,
and from the watery depths.
Let not the flood-waters overwhelm me,
nor the abyss swallow me up,
nor the pit close its mouth over me.
R. Lord, in your great love, answer me.
But I am afflicted and in pain;
let your saving help, O God, protect me.
I will praise the name of God in song,
and I will glorify him with thanksgiving.
R. Lord, in your great love, answer me.
“See, you lowly ones, and be glad;
you who seek God, may your hearts revive!
For the LORD hears the poor,
and his own who are in bonds he spurns not.”
R. Lord, in your great love, answer me.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness
for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Herod the tetrarch heard of the reputation of Jesus
and said to his servants, “This man is John the Baptist.
He has been raised from the dead;
that is why mighty powers are at work in him.”
Now Herod had arrested John, bound him, and put him in
prison
on account of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip,
for John had said to him,
“It is not lawful for you to have her.”
Although he wanted to kill him, he feared the people,
for they regarded him as a prophet.
But at a birthday celebration for Herod,
the daughter of Herodias performed a dance before the guests
and delighted Herod so much
that he swore to give her whatever she might ask for.
Prompted by her mother, she said,
“Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist.”
The king was distressed,
but because of his oaths and the guests who were present,
he ordered that it be given, and he had John beheaded in the prison.
His head was brought in on a platter and given to the girl,
who took it to her mother.
His disciples came and took away the corpse
and buried him; and they went and told Jesus.
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/080126
Commentary on
Jeremiah 26:11-16,24
Today we have a continuation of yesterday’s reading about
the reaction to Jeremiah’s prophecy about the future fate of the Temple and
Jerusalem. We saw yesterday how Jeremiah had been arrested by the religious
leaders after he had warned that the Temple and Jerusalem would be reduced to
ruins if the people did not change their ways. His words sounded sacrilegious
to his hearers, and now judgement is being passed on him.
In a verse that comes between the two passages, but not in
either reading, we are told that the leaders of Judah were told of the
situation and held a formal trial at the New Gate of the Temple. The priests
and prophets told the leaders and the people gathered round that Jeremiah
deserved to die because of what he had said against the Temple and the holy
city. His accusers pass sentence on him even before Jeremiah has had a chance
to defend himself.
When Jeremiah does get the opportunity to speak, he says
that everything he told them came directly from the Lord. They were not his own
thoughts. Once again he tells them that they have only to change their ways and
submit themselves to God’s law and the threatened disaster will not take place.
Jeremiah is in their hands and he says they can do what they like with him. But
if they execute him, they will have innocent blood on their hands:
…for in truth the Lord sent me to you to speak all these
words in your ears.
This statement produces a division between the court
officials and the people over the religious leaders, the priests and the
prophets. The former say that Jeremiah does not deserve to die because what he
has said he has spoken in God’s name.
What happens next in the passage is not contained in our
reading (see Jer 26:17-23). First, some of the elders remind the people that
the prophet Micah had made prophecies very similar to those of Jeremiah, but he
was not condemned to death. Micah had said that:
Zion shall be plowed as a field;
Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins,
and the mountain of the temple a wooded height. (Mic 3:12)
But then we are told of another prophet by the name of
Uriah, who was preaching the same message as Jeremiah. When the king wanted to
eliminate him, he fled into Egypt, but he was pursued, brought back, executed
and dumped in a common grave.
However, Jeremiah was rescued from certain death by some
high-powered intervention. Ahikam, son of Shaphan, was a highly-placed
official, a scribe in the court of King Josiah and always well-disposed to
Jeremiah. He was also the father of Gedaliah, who would become governor of
Jerusalem after its destruction in 586 BC, and would also befriend Jeremiah.
Here we have an example of how the prophet’s integrity is
rewarded, although it might not always turn out like this. Whatever the
consequences, Jeremiah had to speak out what he believed was the Lord’s
message. Quite unknown to him, circumstances worked in his favour and preserved
his life.
This is an example of one’s life being in the hands of the
Potter. Jeremiah would die when his time had come and not before. Neither he
nor anyone else could change that. Clearly, Yahweh had some more work for him
to do.
For us it is the same. In our lives, too, God’s Providence
can work in strange ways and use very unexpected instruments. Let us today
count our blessings and recall how many times God’s love has been experienced
through surprising and unexpected interventions.
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Commentary on
Matthew 14:1-12
Our reading is about the death of John the Baptist at the
hands of Herod. When Herod the Great died, his kingdom was divided among four
of his sons. One of them, the Herod of today’s Gospel (also known as Herod
Antipas), is called a “tetrarch”, meaning that he was the ruler of a fourth
part, or a quarter of a territory.
Herod Antipas ruled over Galilee and Perea from 4 BC to 39
AD, that is, all during the life of Jesus and beyond. He is the same one who
wanted to see Jesus, and whom Jesus called “that fox”. He is the one to whom
Pilate sent Jesus during his trial. His rather painful and loathsome death is
described in Acts (12:20-23). Although only a tetrarch, Matthew calls him
‘king’ because that was his popular title among the Galileans and also in Rome.
It seems that, by all accounts, Herod was a nasty man and,
as revealed by today’s story, a weak and highly superstitious one as well. It
is striking that, even today, many seemingly powerful people are made insecure
by superstition (for example, needing to wear the same ‘lucky’ business suit or
only drive or ride in a particular model of car).
Herod was hearing extraordinary things about Jesus and he
came to the conclusion that Jesus was a reincarnation of John the Baptist whom
he had executed for reasons he knew very well to be totally wrong. Now here was
John’s spirit come back to taunt him, for he had killed God’s servant. This
leads to a retelling by Matthew of the events which led to John’s death.
John, who was no respecter of persons, had openly criticised
Herod for taking his half-brother Philip’s wife, Herodias, as his own partner.
This was in clear contravention of the Mosaic Law. Herod’s fault was not so
much in marrying a close relative, but for taking her as his wife when Philip
was still living and, at the same time, putting away the wife he already had.
It was already an extraordinarily incestuous family.
Herodias was a granddaughter of Herod the Great and therefore a niece of Herod
Antipas. First, she married another uncle, Herod Philip, who lived in Rome. He
was a half-brother, from a different mother, of Herod Antipas. It was on a visit
to Rome that Herod Antipas persuaded Herodias to leave her husband for him.
This, of course, was strictly forbidden by the Mosaic law:
You shall not uncover the nakedness of your brother’s
wife; it is your brother’s nakedness. (Lev 18:16)
Herod, doubtless under pressure from Herodias, had wanted to
rid himself of the embarrassment John was causing him, but was afraid to do
anything because, in the eyes of the people, John was a prophet and spoke in
the name of God.
Herodias got her chance on the occasion of Herod’s birthday.
Knowing her new husband’s weaknesses, she got her daughter to dance in his
presence. According to the Jewish historian Josephus, the daughter was known as
Salome. She later married her granduncle, another Philip, and a son of Herod
the Great who ruled over the northern territories. He is mentioned by Luke.
Whether the dance was lascivious (as old Hollywood movies
have suggested) we do not know, but Herod was greatly taken by the performance.
In the presence of his courtiers and very likely having drunk too much wine, he
promised the girl he would give her anything she wanted, even half his kingdom.
Under the prompting of her mother, she asked for the head of John the Baptist
delivered on a dish. Herod was clearly appalled and also afraid, but he had
made his oath in the presence of a large number of people. He could not go
back. John was decapitated and his head delivered as requested. His disciples
came and buried the body and then went to tell Jesus.
There are echoes in this story of Jesus’ own death. He also
died because of the moral weakness of Pilate, who gave in to the threats of the
Jewish leaders for the sake of his own career. Jesus’ death, too, was the
result of blind hatred. And when he died his disciples arranged to have him
buried.
Undoubtedly John was a martyr. He died as a witness to truth
and justice in the service of God. Herod, on the other hand, put expediency and
his own convenience before truth and justice. He was in an immoral relationship
with a woman and he gave in to what he felt would be the criticism and perhaps
the derision of others. He had indeed made an oath, but it was one that, in the
circumstances, he was obliged not to observe.
With whom do I identify more? John the Baptist, the fearless
champion of truth and justice? Or Herod, the vacillator, the one who
compromised truth and justice because of pressure of opinion and his own
personal interests? I am sure all of us can think of times when we compromised
with what we knew was the good or right thing to do and took the line of less
resistance.
John is an example to us of integrity. And like him, we
have, each one of us, been called in our own way to be prophets, to be
spokespersons for God’s way. It may not always be easy.
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Saturday,
August 1, 2026
Ordinary
Time
Opening Prayer
God our Father
and protector, without you nothing is holy, nothing has value. Guide us to
everlasting life by helping us to use wisely the blessings you have given to
the world.
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 14: 1-12
At that time Herod the tetrarch
heard about the reputation of Jesus and said to his court, 'This is John the
Baptist himself; he has risen from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers
are at work in him.' Now it was Herod who had arrested John, chained him up and
put him in prison because of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife. For John had
told him, 'It is against the Law for you to have her.' He had wanted to kill
him but was afraid of the people, who regarded John as a prophet. Then, during
the celebrations for Herod's birthday, the daughter of Herodias danced before
the company and so delighted Herod that he promised on oath to give her
anything she asked. Prompted by her mother she said, 'Give me John the
Baptist's head, here, on a dish.' The king was distressed but, thinking of the
oaths he had sworn and of his guests, he ordered it to be given her, and sent
and had John beheaded in the prison. The head was brought in on a dish and
given to the girl, who took it to her mother.
John's disciples came and took the body and buried it; then
they went off to tell Jesus.
Reflection
Today’s Gospel describes the way in which John
the Baptist was the victim of corruption and of the arrogance of the
government of Herod. He was killed without a process, during a banquet of the
king with the great of the kingdom. The text gives us much information on the
time in which Jesus lived and on the manner in which power was used by the
powerful of that time.
•
Matthew 14: 1-2. Who is Jesus for Herod. The
text begins by informing about the opinion which Herod had of Jesus: "This
is John the Baptist himself, he has risen from the dead, and that is why
miraculous powers are at work in him”. Herod tries to understand Jesus starting from the fear which
assailed him after murdering John. Herod was very superstitious and hid
his fear behind the ostentation of his riches and of his power.
•
Matthew 14: 3-5: The hidden cause of the
murdering of John. Galilee, the land of Jesus, was governed by Herod Antipas,
the son of King Herod, the Great, from the year 4 BC until the year 38 AD,
after Christ. Forty-three years in all!
During the time of the life of Jesus,
there were no changes of government in Galilee! Herod was the absolute Lord of
everything, he did not render an account to anyone, he did whatever passed
through his mind. Arrogance, lack of ethics, absolute power, without control
from the people! But the one, who commanded in Palestine since the year 63
before Christ, was the Roman Empire. Herod, in Galilee, so as not to be
dismissed, tried to please Rome in everything. Above all, he insisted on an
efficient administration which would bring riches to the Empire. His concern
was his own promotion and his security. For this reason, he refrained from any
type of subversion. Matthew says that the reason for murdering John was because
he had denounced Herod, because he had married Herodias, the wife of his
brother Philip. Flavio Joseph, a Jewish writer of that time, says that the true
reason for the imprisonment of John the Baptist was the fear of Herod that
there would be a popular revolt. Herod like to be called the benefactor of the
people, but in reality, he was a tyrant (Lk 22: 25). The denunciation of John
against Herod was the drop that caused the glass to overflow: “It is against the Law for
you to have her”. And John
was put in prison.
•
Matthew 14: 6-12: The plot of the murderer. An
anniversary and a festive banquet, with dances and orgy! Mark says that in the feast were “the
great of the court, the officials and the important people of Galilee” (Mk 6: 21). This is the
environment in which the murdering of John the Baptist is planned. John, the
prophet, was a living denunciation of that corrupt system. This is why, he was
eliminated with the pretext of a problem of personal revenge. All this reveals
the moral weakness of Herod. So much power accumulated in the hands of one-man
incapable to control himself! In the enthusiasm of the feast and of the wine,
Herod makes a promise by oath to Salome, the young dancer, daughter of
Herodias. Superstitious as he was, he
thought that he had to maintain this oath, and respond to the caprice of the
girl; and because of this he ordered the soldier to bring the head of John on a
tray and give it to the dancer, who then gave it to her mother. For Herod, the
life of his subjects was worthless. He disposes of them as he disposes of the
staircases in his house!
The three characteristics of the
government of Herod: the new Capital, large estates, and the class of
functionaries:
•
The New Capital. Tiberiade was inaugurated when
Jesus was only 20 years old. It was called like that in order to please
Tiberius, the emperor of Rome. It was inhabited by the lords of the earth, the
soldiers, the policemen, the unscrupulous judges (Lk 18: 1-4). The taxes and
the products of the people were channeled toward it. It was there that Herod
made his orgy of death (Mk 6: 21-29). Tiberiades was the city of the palaces of
the King, where those who wore soft, delicate dresses lived (cf. Mt 11: 8). It
is not known by the Gospels that Jesus entered this city.
•
The large estates. Scholars say that during the
long government of Herod, the large estates grew causing harm to community
property. The Book of
Henoch
denounces the lords of the land and expresses the hope of the little ones: “And then the
powerful and the great will no longer be the lords of the land”. (Hen
38: 4). The ideal of ancient times was the following: “Each one will peacefully sit under his
vine and nobody will frighten them” (1 Mac 14: 12; Mi 4: 4; Zc 3: 10). But the politics of
the government of Herod made this ideal impossible.
•
The class of functionaries. Herod created a
whole class of functionaries faithful to the project of the King: the Scribes,
the merchants, the lords of the land, the officers of the market, the tax
collectors, the militia, the policemen, the judges, the local heads. In every
village there was a group of persons which supported the government. In the
Gospels, some Pharisees appear together with the Herodians (Mk 3: 6; 8: 15; 12:
13), and that shows the alliance between the religious power and the civil
power. The life of the people in the villages was very controlled, both by the
government and by the religion. Much courage was necessary to begin anything
new, as John and Jesus did! It was the same thing as attracting to self the
anger of the privileged ones, both from the religious and the civil powers.
Personal Questions
•
Do you know any persons who died victims of
corruption and domination of the powerful? And here among us, in our community
and in the Church, are there victims of authoritarianism and of the abuse of
power?
•
Herod, the powerful, who thought he was the lord
of life and death of people, was a coward before the great and a corrupt
flatterer before the girl who danced. Cowardice and corruption marked the
exercise of the power of Herod. Compare all this with the exercise of religious
power and civil orgy, in the different levels of society and of the Church.
Concluding Prayer
The humble have seen and are glad.
Let your courage revive, you who seek God. For God
listens to the poor, he has never scorned his captive people. (Ps 69: 32-33)
Saint Alphonsus Mary de’ Liguori, Bishop and Doctor
Alphonsus Liguori was born in Marianella, in the Kingdom of
Naples, Italy. He was the eldest of seven and came from a noble family. He went
to law school at the age of sixteen and became a distinguished lawyer. At the
age of 27, after losing an important case through an error of interpretation,
he suffered a serious depression. Later, he decided to give up his career
because of the corruption in the courts of Naples.
In 1723, after a long period of discernment, he gave up his
legal career and, against his father’s wishes, began his training for the
priesthood. He was ordained on 21 December, 1726, at the age of 30. He spent
his first years as a priest with the homeless and marginalized youth of Naples.
He founded “Evening Chapels” which were run by the young. They became centres
of prayer, community, the Word of God, social activities and education. At the
time of his death, there were 72 of these chapels with over 10,000 active
participants.
In 1729, Alphonsus left his family home and began his
missionary work in the interior regions of the Kingdom of Naples, where he
found people who were much poorer and more abandoned than any of the street
children in Naples.
On 9 November, 1732, Alphonsus founded the Congregation of
the Most Holy Redeemer (in Latin: Congregatio Sanctissimi Redemptoris—CSsR).
The congregation’s goal was to teach and preach in the slums of cities and
other poor places. They also fought Jansenism, a very negative form of
spirituality which created an exaggerated sense of sin, and which deterred
people from receiving the Eucharist. A companion order of contemplative nuns,
Redemptoristines, was founded at the same time by Sister Maria Celeste.
Alphonsus was consecrated bishop of the diocese of Sant’
Agata dei Goti in 1762. He tried to turn down the appointment because he felt
too old and too sick to care properly for the diocese. During this period he
wrote sermons, books, and articles to encourage devotion to the Blessed
Sacrament and the Blessed Virgin Mary. In 1775, he was allowed to retire from
his office and went to live in the Redemptorist community in Pagani,
Italy—where he died on 1 August, 1787.
He was canonized in 1831 by Pope Gregory XVI, and proclaimed
a Doctor of the Church in 1871 by Pope Pius IX. He was named Patron of
Confessors and Moralists by Pope Pius XII in 1950, who also wrote an
encyclical Haurietis Aquas about him.
Alphonsus’ greatest contribution was through his book, Moral
Theology. This work was the fruit of his pastoral experience, his ability
to respond to the practical questions posed by the faithful and from his
contact with their everyday problems. He strongly opposed a sterile legalistic
approach to morality and rejected the strict rigorism of the time, coming from
theological elites quite out of touch with people’s ordinary lives. His system
of moral theology was noted for its balance, avoiding both laxism and excessive
rigor.
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