June 18, 2025
Wednesday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 367
Reading I
Brothers and sisters, consider this:
whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly,
and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.
Each must do as already determined, without sadness or compulsion,
for God loves a cheerful giver.
Moreover, God is able to make every grace abundant for you,
so that in all things, always having all you need,
you may have an abundance for every good work.
As it is written:
He scatters abroad, he gives to the
poor;
his righteousness endures forever.
The one who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food
will supply and multiply your seed
and increase the harvest of your righteousness.
You are being enriched in every way for all generosity,
which through us produces thanksgiving to God.
Responsorial Psalm
R. (1b) Blessed the man who
fears the Lord.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Blessed the man who fears the LORD,
who greatly delights in his commands.
His posterity shall be mighty upon the earth;
the upright generation shall be blessed.
R. Blessed the man who fears the Lord.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Wealth and riches shall be in his house;
his generosity shall endure forever.
Light shines through the darkness for the upright;
he is gracious and merciful and just.
R. Blessed the man who fears the Lord.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Lavishly he gives to the poor;
his generosity shall endure forever;
his horn shall be exalted in glory.
R. Blessed the man who fears the Lord.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Whoever loves me will keep my word,
and my Father will love him
and we will come to him.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Jesus said to his disciples:
“Take care not to perform righteous deeds
in order that people may see them;
otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father.
When you give alms, do not blow a trumpet before you,
as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets
to win the praise of others.
Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.
But when you give alms,
do not let your left hand know what your right is doing,
so that your almsgiving may be secret.
And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.
“When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites,
who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners
so that others may see them.
Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.
But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door,
and pray to your Father in secret.
And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.
“When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites.
They neglect their appearance,
so that they may appear to others to be fasting.
Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.
But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face,
so that you may not appear to others to be fasting,
except to your Father who is hidden.
And your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you.”
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061825.cfm
Commentary on 2
Corinthians 9:6-11
Paul continues his exhortation to the Corinthians to be
generous. He begins with a kind of proverb: skimpy sowing means skimpy reaping:
…the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and
the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.
He further adds that each one should make their donation
according to what has been agreed, but to do it without a long face or under a
sense of compulsion:
…God loves a cheerful giver.
As Thomas à Kempis’ Imitation of Christ says,
“It is the love of the giver more than the gift of the lover that counts.” And
Paul further adds that the Source of everything we have will reward us
generously for our generosity because he is, in fact, the original source of
all that we give:
God is able to provide you with every blessing in
abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share
abundantly in every good work.
So that the more we receive, the more we are able to share
with others.
The behaviour to which he exhorts them is based on God’s own
way of acting. Paul quotes Psalm 112 describing that God is capable of
overwhelming generosity, so people need not fear of being short. God will
provide in abundance, both supplying their natural needs and increasing their
inner goodness. Paul challenges them to a God-like generosity and reminds them
of the fundamental motive for encouragement—God himself cannot be outdone:
He scatters abroad; he gives to the poor;
his righteousness endures forever.
And Paul says:
He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will
supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your
righteousness.
In other words,
You will be enriched in every way for your great
generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to God through us…
This is the paradox: the more we give of what we have and
are to others, the more enriched we become. When everyone gives, everyone gets.
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Commentary on
Matthew 6:1-6,16-18
We move today to a different theme, namely, the way in which
we are to pay our worship to God. Jesus’ teaching is based on the three basic
acts of religion expected of a devout Jew—almsgiving, prayer, and fasting. In
each case, Jesus warns his disciples not to indulge in any form of ostentation
so as to attract the admiration of others.
He presents exaggerated images of how we should not do
things in the way of ostentatious hypocrites. He speaks about people who blow
trumpets in the streets to draw the attention of everyone when they give alms
to the poor. He speaks about hypocrites who say their prayers in the most
conspicuous places so that people will marvel at how holy they are. He speaks
about people putting on gloomy and drawn looks so that everyone will know that
they are fasting. In fact, Jews were only expected to fast on one day in the
year—on the Day of Atonement, but the practice of regular fasting had become
more common in Jesus’ time.
All this, Jesus says, is not worship of God, but a kind of
self-advertisement. Such people, he says, get their reward, namely, the
admiration of the onlooker, but it is not the reward that comes from acts of
genuine worship.
When his disciples pray or fast or give alms they should do
it in such a way that their actions will be directed entirely to God and not to
themselves. We do remember earlier in the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus said
people should be able to see the good works of his disciples, but then the
purpose was not that they would be praised, but that people would be led to
glorify God.
It should also be pointed out that Jesus’ recommendation
that we pray in private where only God can see us shouldn’t be interpreted as
meaning that it is not necessary for us to take part in forms of community
prayer—which Jesus himself would have done whenever he attended the synagogue
or went to the Temple. It would be a gross misreading of this text to argue, as
people sometimes are heard to do, that it is not necessary to attend Sunday
Mass because “I can pray equally well in the privacy of my home”. To speak in
such a way is to misunderstand completely the essentially communal nature of
the Eucharistic celebration.
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https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/o1114g/
Wednesday, June 18,
2025
Opening Prayer
Almighty God, our hope and our
strength, without You we falter. Help us to follow Christ and to live according
to Your will.
Who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God,
for ever and ever. Amen.
Gospel Reading - Matthew 6: 1-6, 16-18
Jesus said to his disciples: "Take care not to perform
righteous deeds in order that people may see them; otherwise, you will have no
recompense from your heavenly Father. When you give alms, do not blow a trumpet
before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets to win
the praise of others. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. But
when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right is doing, so
that your almsgiving may be secret. And your Father who sees in secret will
repay you. "When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to
stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see
them. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray,
go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And
your Father who sees in secret will repay you. "When you fast, do not look
gloomy like the hypocrites. They neglect their appearance, so that they may
appear to others to be fasting. Amen, I say to you, they have received their
reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you may
not appear to others to be fasting, except to your Father who is hidden. And
your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you."
Reflection
The Gospel of today continues the meditation
on the Sermon on the Mount. In the previous days we have reflected at length on
the message of chapter 5 of Matthew’s Gospel. In today’s Gospel, and the
following days, we meditate on the message of chapter 6 of this Gospel. The
sequence of chapters 5 and 6 can help us to understand it. The following is the
schema:
•
Matthew 5: 13-12: The Beatitudes: solemn opening
of the new Law
•
Matthew 5: 13-16: The new presence in the world:
Salt of the earth and light of the world
•
Matthew 5: 17-19: The new practice of justice;
relationship with the ancient law
•
Matthew 5: 20-48: The new practice of justice:
observing the new Law.
•
Matthew 6: 1-4: The new practice of piety: alms
•
Matthew 6: 5-15: The new practice of the works
of piety: prayer
•
Matthew 6: 16-18: The new practice of the works
of piety: fasting
•
Matthew 6: 19-21: New relationship to material
goods: do not accumulate
•
Matthew 6: 22-23: New relationship to material
goods: correct vision
•
Matthew 6: 24: New relationship to material
goods: God and money
•
Matthew 6: 25-34: New relationship to material
goods: abandonment to Providence.
Today’s Gospel treats three themes: almsgiving (6: 1-4),
prayer (6: 5-6) and fasting (6: 16-18). These are three works of piety of the
Jews.
•
Matthew 6: 1: Be careful not to parade your
uprightness to attract attention. Jesus criticizes those who do good works to
be seen by others (Mt 6: 1). Jesus says to build up interior security not in
what we do for God, but in what God does for us. From the advice that He gives
comes a new type of relationship with God: “Your Father who sees all that is
done in secret will reward you” (Mt 6: 4). "Your Father knows what you
need before you ask him” (Mt 6: 8). "If you forgive others their failings,
your heavenly Father will forgive your failings” (Mt 6: 14). It is a new way
which opens itself now to have access to the heart of God our Father. Jesus does
not allow the practice of justice and piety to be used as a means for self
promotion before God and before the community
(Mt 6: 2, 5, 16).
•
Matthew 6: 2-4: How to practice almsgiving. To
give alms is a way of sharing, and highly recommended by the first Christians
(Acts 2: 44-45; 4: 32-35). The person who practices almsgiving and sharing to
promote themselves before others merits exclusion from the community, as it
happened to Ananias and Saphira (Acts 5:1-11). Today, in society as well as in
the Church, there are people who make great publicity of the good that they do
for others. Jesus asks the contrary: do good in such a way that the left hand
does not know what the right hand does. It is the total detachment and the
total gift in total gratuity of the love which believes in God the Father and
imitates all that He does.
•
Matthew 6: 5-6: How to practice prayer. Prayer
places the person in direct relationship with God. Some Pharisees transformed
prayer into an occasion to show themselves before others. At that time, when
the trumpet sounded at the three moments of prayer; morning, noon and evening,
they should stop where they were to pray. There were people who sought to be in
the corners in public places, in such a way that everybody would see that they
were praying. Well, such an attitude perverts our relationship with God. This
is false and has no sense. This is why Jesus says that it is better to close up
ourselves in our rooms to pray in secret, maintaining the authenticity of the
relationship. God sees you even in secret, and He always listens to you. It is
a question of a personal prayer, not of a community prayer.
•
Matthew 6: 16-18: How to practice fasting. At
that time the practice of fasting was accompanied by some very visible external
gestures: not to wash one’s face, not to comb one’s hair, to wear sober dress.
These were visible signs of fasting. Jesus criticizes this form of fasting and
orders the contrary, so others cannot be aware that you are fasting: bathe, use
perfume, and comb your hair well. In this way, only your Father who sees in
secret, knows that you are fasting and He will reward you.
Personal Questions
•
When you pray where others can see you, such as
at Mass, do you make a show of your praying, or do you do it humbly and without
grand showy gestures?
•
When you give or help someone, either at the
collection, or on the street, or near others, do you talk louder or make a show
of it, or do you become quieter and more private with the other person?
•
It is rare these days that anyone fasts and also
goes out in the manner Jesus describes. But we have other ways to do that. When
giving, or doing some manner of sacrifice for others, do you complain, or groan
to others about it, or give subtle clues that you are doing this thing?
Concluding Prayer
Yahweh, what quantities of good
things You have in store for those who fear You, and bestow on those who make
You their refuge, for all humanity to see. (Ps 31: 19)
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