July 30, 2025
Wednesday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 403
Reading 1
As Moses came down from Mount Sinai
with the two tablets of the commandments in his hands,
he did not know that the skin of his face had become radiant
while he conversed with the LORD.
When Aaron, then, and the other children of Israel saw Moses
and noticed how radiant the skin of his face had become,
they were afraid to come near him.
Only after Moses called to them did Aaron
and all the rulers of the community come back to him.
Moses then spoke to them.
Later on, all the children of Israel came up to him,
and he enjoined on them all that the LORD
had told him on Mount Sinai.
When he finished speaking with them,
he put a veil over his face.
Whenever Moses entered the presence of the LORD to converse with him,
he removed the veil until he came out again.
On coming out, he would tell the children of Israel
all that had been commanded.
Then the children of Israel would see
that the skin of Moses' face was radiant;
so he would again put the veil over his face
until he went in to converse with the LORD.
Responsorial Psalm
R. (see 9c) Holy is the Lord our God.
Extol the LORD, our God,
and worship at his footstool;
holy is he!
R. Holy is the Lord our God.
Moses and Aaron were among his priests,
and Samuel, among those who called upon his name;
they called upon the LORD, and he answered them.
R. Holy is the Lord our God.
From the pillar of cloud he spoke to them;
they heard his decrees and the law he gave them.
R. Holy is the Lord our God.
Extol the LORD, our God,
and worship at his holy mountain;
for holy is the LORD, our God.
R. Holy is the Lord our God.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
I call you my friends, says the Lord,
for I have made known to you all that the Father has told me.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Jesus said to his disciples:
"The Kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field,
which a person finds and hides again,
and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
Again, the Kingdom of heaven is like a merchant
searching for fine pearls.
When he finds a pearl of great price,
he goes and sells all that he has and buys it."
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/073025.cfm
Commentary on Exodus
34:29-35
Today’s reading comes after an account of God’s covenant
being renewed with his people. The first covenant had fallen through when the
Israelites set up the golden calf as an image of God and worshiped it with
sacrifices and holocausts. God had been displeased and Moses was so angry at
the sight of the revelling Israelites that he threw the tablets on the ground
where they were smashed to pieces. It was the end of that covenant. It was not
God who had broken it, but the people who had reneged on solemn promises to
keep the Lord’s commandments. Moses then asked God who was to be their leader
from now on, to renew the covenant. If they were to continue their journey, the
people needed the assurance that the Lord was with them.
Moses was told to cut two new tablets so that the Lord could
write on them as he did with the first pair. Then Yahweh appears and speaks
consoling words:
The Lord, the Lord,
a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin… (Exod 34:6-7)
They are to know that this is the God they are dealing with.
Of course, if they alienate themselves from him, they will be the losers. He
will not force himself on them.
God then makes a new covenant with the Israelites and gives
them a set of instructions for them to follow. It is a summary of commandments
already given. Finally, Moses is told to put all this in writing as the terms
of the covenant between God and Israel.
And Moses, we are told, stayed up on the mountain with
Yahweh for 40 days and 40 nights, eating and drinking nothing, and on the
tablets he wrote the words of the covenant—the Ten Words, the Decalogue
(Greek, deka logoi).
Here today’s passage takes up the story. It is a story of
uncertain origins and records a tradition about the radiance of Moses’ face,
expressed by the verb qaran meaning ‘horn’. The radiance is
seen like two horns of light rising from the head of Moses and represented as
such in many works of art, including the famous statue by Michelangelo in St
Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Our passage makes use of this tradition to describe
Moses on his descent from the mountain back to his people.
As Moses came down from the mountain with the two newly
inscribed tablets, he was not aware of the radiance of his face after having
been speaking face to face with the Lord. When Aaron and the people saw the
face of Moses, the radiance of his skin was such that they were afraid to go
near him.
Moses told them not to fear and invited them to come close.
Aaron and the other leaders approached and then the rest of the people
followed. And Moses passed on to them all the instructions that he had received
from the Lord on Mount Sinai. Once he had finished speaking, Moses put a veil
over his face.
From now on, whenever Moses went into the Lord’s presence,
he removed the veil to speak face to face with the Lord. This can refer to the
times when Moses went into the Tent of Meeting to talk with God, which we saw
in yesterday’s reading.
When he came out again, he would give the Lord’s instructions
and the Israelites would see the radiance of his face, but then Moses would put
the veil back again until the next time he spoke with the Lord.
Paul sees in Moses’ veil a symbol of the failure of many of
his people to recognise in Jesus the true Messiah and Saviour. When they read
the Old Testament, it is as if a veil is concealing its full meaning from them:
…to this very day, when they hear the reading of the old
covenant, the same veil is still there; it is not unveiled since in Christ it
is set aside. (2 Cor 3:14)
It is significant in this context, that Moses only put on
the veil after he had passed on the Lord’s message.
The symbol of the veil also occurs in John’s description of
Jesus’ resurrection. When the Beloved Disciple looks into the tomb he notices
that the veil which covered the face of Jesus is now wrapped neatly into one
place. On seeing this, he believed, that is, he knew that his Lord was with the
Father. The veil represents the humanity of Jesus by which his disciples could
look on him during his earthly life; now, face to face with the Father in
glory, there is no need any more for this veil.
Finally, we might say that the veil that Christ wears now is
his community. We are the Body of Christ and it is through his Body that he now
communicates with the world. How well are we fulfilling this responsibility,
especially on a community level?
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Commentary on
Matthew 13:44-46
Today we read the 5th and 6th of the Parables of the Kingdom
which have basically the same message, but with some difference in emphasis. In
the first of these today, a man unexpectedly discovers treasure in a field and
quickly puts it back again. In ancient times it was common to hide treasure in
the ground since there were no banks as we know them. There were, however,
‘bankers’, people who could handle money, probably closer to what we would call
moneylenders. (Remember the parable of the talents, where the man who hid his
talent was told he should have deposited it with a banker so that it could earn
interest. Instead, he did what someone in this parable had done—buried it in a
field.)
The finder then goes and quietly buys the field, selling
everything he has in order to do so; the treasure is now his.
In the second parable, a jewel merchant comes across a magnificent
pearl. Again, he sells all the lesser pearls he already has in order to gain
possession of it.
These, Jesus says, are images of the Kingdom. Yet there is a
significant difference between them. In the first parable, the man comes on the
treasure purely by accident. He was not looking for anything like that. He just
came across it while working in someone else’s field. That is the way that
Christ can come into some people’s lives. They are living their lives with a
greater or lesser degree of happiness and satisfaction and then, out of the
blue, they are brought face to face with the Christian message. It can happen
in so many ways and has been described in many accounts of conversion. The
effect is to turn their whole life around.
In the second case, the man is looking for something. He has
a very definite goal in mind—the perfect pearl. Similarly, a person can be
looking for real meaning in their life. They may have tried many things already
with only partial satisfaction. Then they come across the Gospel of Jesus and
they know that here is the answer they have been looking for. Everything else
is abandoned as they focus entirely on following the Way of Jesus. They know
that this is it.
Once we truly understand what it really means to live under
the Lordship of God, once we have a full understanding of the vision of life
that Jesus proposes, then everything else pales into insignificance. And,
whatever enticements may come our way, we know that there is no other way to
go. Jesus is the Way, Jesus is Truth, and Jesus is Life. We would not exchange
his Way for anything.
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https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/o1174g/
Wednesday,
July 30, 2025
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 13: 44-46
Jesus said
to his disciples: 'The kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field
which someone has found; he hides it again, goes off in his joy, sells
everything he owns and buys the field. Again, the kingdom of Heaven is like a
merchant looking for fine pearls; when he finds one of great value he goes and
sells everything he owns and buys it.
Reflection
The Gospel today presents
two brief parables from the discourse of the Parables. Both are similar to each
other, but with significant differences to clarify better determinate aspects
of the Mystery of the Kingdom, which the parables are revealing.
•
Matthew 13: 44: The parable of the treasure hidden in
the field. Jesus tells a very simple and brief story which could happen in the
life of any person. He says: The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure hidden in
a field; someone finds it and hides it again, then he goes off with great joy,
he sells everything he owns and buys the field.” Jesus does not explain, he
only says: “The Kingdom of Heaven is similar to a treasure hidden in a field.”
In this way he urges the auditors to share with others what this story has
aroused in them. I share some points that are discovered:
(a)
The treasure, the Kingdom, is already found in the
field, in life. It is hidden. We go through the field and step over the plants
without being aware.
(b)
The man finds the treasure, just out of chance. He did
not expect to find it, because he was not looking for it.
(c)
Seeing that it is a question of a very important
treasure, what does he do? He does what we all would do in order to take
possession of the treasure. He goes and he sells everything that he has and he
buys the field. And, thus, together with the field he obtains the treasure
also, the Kingdom. The condition is to sell everything!
(d)
If the treasure, the Kingdom, is already in my life,
then an important aspect of life begins to have a new value.
(e)
In this story, what dominates is gratuity. The
treasure is found by chance, independently of our programs. The Kingdom comes!
And we must draw the consequences and not allow this moment of grace to go by
without bearing fruit.
•
Matthew 13: 45-46: The
parable of the merchant of fine pearls. The second parable is similar to
the first one, but with an important difference. Let us try to discover it. The
story is the following: “The Kingdom of
Heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls; when he finds one of great
value, he goes off and sells everything he owns and buys it.” I share some
points that I have discovered:
(a)
it is the story of a merchant of pearls. His
profession is to look for pearls. This is the only thing that he does in his
life: to look for and to find pearls. Looking, he finds a pearl of great value.
Here the discovery of the Kingdom is not just by chance, but it is the fruit of
a long search.
(b)
The merchant of pearls knows the value of the pearls,
because many persons would like to sell him the pearls that they find. But the
merchant does not allow himself to be deceived. He knows the value of his
merchandise.
(c)
When he finds a pearl of great value, he goes and
sells everything which he owns and buys the pearl. The Kingdom is the greatest
value.
•
Summarizing the teaching of the two parables. Both of
them have the same objective: to reveal the presence of the Kingdom, but each
one reveals it in a diverse way: through the discovery of the gratuity of God’s
action in us, and through the effort and the search which each human being
makes to discover always better, the sense of his/her life.
Personal Questions
•
A hidden treasure: have I found it sometimes? Have I
sold everything in order to be able to buy it?
•
To look for pearls: which is the pearl that you are
looking for and you have not as yet found?
Concluding Prayer
I will sing of your
strength,
in the morning
acclaim your faithful love; you have been a stronghold for me, a refuge when I
was in trouble. (Ps 59: 16)
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