July 7, 2025
Monday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 383
Reading 1
Jacob departed from Beer-sheba and proceeded toward Haran.
When he came upon a certain shrine, as the sun had already set,
he stopped there for the night.
Taking one of the stones at the shrine, he put it under his head
and lay down to sleep at that spot.
Then he had a dream: a stairway rested on the ground,
with its top reaching to the heavens;
and God's messengers were going up and down on it.
And there was the LORD standing beside him and saying:
"I, the LORD, am the God of your forefather Abraham
and the God of Isaac;
the land on which you are lying
I will give to you and your descendants.
These shall be as plentiful as the dust of the earth,
and through them you shall spread out east and west, north and south.
In you and your descendants
all the nations of the earth shall find blessing.
Know that I am with you;
I will protect you wherever you go,
and bring you back to this land.
I will never leave you until I have done what I promised you."
When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he exclaimed,
"Truly, the LORD is in this spot, although I did not know it!"
In solemn wonder he cried out: "How awesome is this shrine!
This is nothing else but an abode of God,
and that is the gateway to heaven!"
Early the next morning Jacob took the stone
that he had put under his head,
set it up as a memorial stone, and poured oil on top of it.
He called the site Bethel,
whereas the former name of the town had been Luz.
Jacob then made this vow: "If God remains with me,
to protect me on this journey I am making
and to give me enough bread to eat and clothing to wear,
and I come back safe to my father's house, the LORD shall be my God.
This stone that I have set up as a memorial stone shall be God's abode."
Responsorial Psalm
R.(see 2b) In you, my God, I place my trust.
You who dwell in the shelter of the Most High,
who abide in the shadow of the Almighty,
Say to the LORD, "My refuge and my fortress,
my God, in whom I trust."
R. In you, my God, I place my trust.
For he will rescue you from the snare of the fowler,
from the destroying pestilence.
With his pinions he will cover you,
and under his wings you shall take refuge.
R. In you, my God, I place my trust.
Because he clings to me, I will deliver him;
I will set him on high because he acknowledges my name.
He shall call upon me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in distress.
R. In you, my God, I place my trust.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Our Savior Jesus Christ has destroyed death
and brought life to light through the Gospel.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
While Jesus was speaking, an official came forward,
knelt down before him, and said,
""My daughter has just died.
But come, lay your hand on her, and she will live.""
Jesus rose and followed him, and so did his disciples.
A woman suffering hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him
and touched the tassel on his cloak.
She said to herself, ""If only I can touch his cloak, I shall be
cured.""
Jesus turned around and saw her, and said,
""Courage, daughter! Your faith has saved you.""
And from that hour the woman was cured.
When Jesus arrived at the official's house
and saw the flute players and the crowd who were making a commotion,
he said, ""Go away! The girl is not dead but sleeping.""
And they ridiculed him.
When the crowd was put out, he came and took her by the hand,
and the little girl arose.
And news of this spread throughout all that land.
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/070725.cfm
Commentary on
Genesis 28:10-22
Today and tomorrow we read of two strange experiences which
Jacob has. On the way from Beersheba to Haran, Jacob stops for the night.
Haran, we may remember, was the place between Ur and Canaan where Abraham lived
before moving down to Canaan. It was there, too, that he had found Rachel, the wife
of his son Isaac.
Using a stone for a pillow, Jacob lies down to sleep just
where he is. As he sleeps, he has a dream. He sees a staircase reaching from
the earth right up to heaven. And on it there were angels or messengers of God
going up and down. We normally speak of “Jacob’s Ladder” but, in fact, the
Hebrew word sullam, means a stairway.
The image in Jacob’s dream is derived from the
Babylonian ziggurat or temple tower. On the outside was a
flight of brick steps leading to a small temple at the top. As we saw in our
earlier readings from Genesis, the Tower of Babel was modelled on such a tower.
The angels or messengers of God going up and down the
staircase between earth and heaven are a sign that the Lord is offering to be
Jacob’s God. Later, Jesus would tell Nathanael that he would:
…see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and
descending upon the Son of Man. (John 1:51)
Jesus himself becomes the stairway between heaven and earth
(see John 14:6), the “one mediator between God and humankind” (1 Tim 2:5). He
is also called the Pontifex or Bridge-maker.
Jacob then sees God standing above him and speaking to him.
This continues the image of the ziggurat where the god is present at the top of
the tower. And God identifies himself to the sleeping Jacob:
I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God
of Isaac…
Then come the promises: The land on which Jacob is lying
will be given to him and his descendants. Once again God promises that his
descendants will be as numerous as specks of dust on the earth, that they will
spread in every direction and that all the tribes of the earth will bless
themselves by Jacob and his descendants. God promises to be with Jacob and his
descendants always, and to bring them back to this land. God will not desert
them and all of his promises will be fulfilled. In this, God is unlike the gods
of pagan religions, who were merely local deities giving protection only in
their own territories. Here God assures Jacob that he will be with him wherever
he goes.
This promise, of course, has relevance to the later periods
of exile. Jacob then wakes up and realises:
Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!
If he had known, he might not have chosen just that place to
have a sleep. He is filled with fear:
How awesome is this place! This is none other than the
house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.
“This” refers both to the stone used as a pillow and the
staircase of his dream.
To commemorate his experience, Jacob takes the stone he had
used for a pillow and sets it up as a memorial stone, consecrating it with oil.
A ‘memorial stone’ (in Hebrew, messaba) might vary in shape or
size, and would be set upright and usually intended for some religious purpose.
The custom of erecting such ‘sacred pillars’ went back to the pre-Israelite
period and their pagan associations were often retained. For that reason, the
Israelite’s religion later forbade their being erected (see Lev 26:1) and
ordered the destruction of those with pagan associations (Exod 34:13).
The stone used as a pillow now marks the place of God’s
presence. The place, formerly known as Luz, is now named Bethel—“a
house of God”. Jacob anoints the stone with oil as a formal act of worship and
consecration. Practices of this kind were common in the Canaanite world and in
the Semitic world in general, but as already mentioned, were later condemned by
both the Law and the prophets (see also Exod 23:24).
Before leaving the place, Jacob makes a final vow. If God
keeps his promises and protects Jacob, then Yahweh will be his God and the
stone he has set up as a memorial will become the house of God. The passage is
not fully clear about the concept of God at this point, especially with terms
like “the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob”. The later concept of a unique
universal God seems yet to be conceived. Each of the peoples of those days had
their own protecting god who had to be served. The Israelites had their God
too, a powerful God, a God who was always with them wherever they went, but not
seen as the God of other peoples.
Several of the Church Fathers later saw in Jacob’s ladder an
image of the providential care God exercises on earth through the ministry of
the angels. Others saw in it a foreshadowing of the incarnation of the Word who
linked heaven with earth—Jesus as the Mediator mentioned above. The liturgy
makes use of verse 17 (“How awesome is this place…”) in the Office and Mass for
the dedication of a church.
The story is a continuation and a confirmation of the
covenant promise God had made earlier with Abraham. The same promises are now
made to the grandson, who, as we shall see, will be the father of the Twelve
Patriarchs, from whom all God’s people are descended. And that promise reaches
down to Jesus himself and through him to us, who are the spiritual offspring of
Jacob. In a sense that Jacob or the Israelites could never have imagined, God’s
people—with Jesus as Lord—have become a blessing for countless millions of
people all over the world.
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Commentary on
Matthew 9:18-26
There is a great contrast in the way Matthew tells this
double story compared to that told by Mark (Mark 5:21-43). Matthew strips it
down to the bare details. The twenty-three verses that Mark needs are reduced
here to nine. Matthew makes no mention of the large crowd that was following
Jesus, only that his disciples are present. He concentrates on Jesus and on
what Jesus does and says.
A synagogue official approaches Jesus and says that his
daughter has just died. He is in fact the head of the synagogue, and in Mark
and Luke we learn that his name is Jairus. In Mark’s version, the girl is
seriously ill and dies only later in the story. The man says to Jesus:
…come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.
It is an extraordinary act of faith in the power of Jesus.
Up to this he had not brought anyone back from the dead.
As Jesus and his disciples were on the way to the house, a
woman who had suffered from a bleeding problem for twelve years unobtrusively
touched the hem of Jesus’ garment.
If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.
Again, we are presented with a deep faith and trust in
Jesus’ power.
This was really the only way this unfortunate woman could
approach Jesus with other people around. Her bleeding was not only a physical
ailment. It also involved ritual uncleanness, and she was not supposed to be in
close contact with people. If they had known, they might have done something
terrible to her. Nor, for the same reason, could she approach Jesus openly
about her problem, so she quietly touched the hem of his robe. She trusted that
that would be enough and she was right.
Jesus, realising she had touched his garment, turned and
said kindly:
Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.
And the bleeding stopped instantly.
We now go back to the original story. As Jesus and his
disciples approach the house, they find a large crowd of mourners, many of them
wailing and weeping in the fashion still common in West, South and East Asia.
Jesus tells them all to:
Go away, for the girl is not dead but sleeping.
Hearing this, the crowd laughed at him. Whether the girl was
actually dead or was simply in some kind of death-like coma does not really
matter. As far as everyone there was concerned, she was dead.
Jesus went into the house, took the girl by the hand and she
“got up”. There are overtones of resurrection in the words “got up”.
In both these stories, using the literary device of
‘inclusion’ (one story wrapped inside another), we have a common theme of Jesus
as Lord of life. It is Matthew’s way of saying what we read in John:
I am the resurrection and the life. (John 11:25)
That life is to be understood in the fullest possible sense,
involving the physical, social, intellectual and spiritual aspects.
In one story, the girl is not only given back her physical
life, but is restored to the bosom of her family and all that means. In the
other story, not only is the woman’s haemorrhage stopped, but she can be fully
reinstated into normal relationships with the people around her. She is in a
very real sense made whole again. Let us today pray for Jesus to heal us and
make us whole—the wholeness that is holiness, the holiness that is wholeness.
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https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/o1142g/
Monday,
July 7, 2025
Ordinary Time
Opening Prayer
Father,
through the obedience of
Jesus, Your servant and Your Son, You raised a fallen world.
Free us
from sin and bring us the joy that lasts forever.
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 9: 18-26
While Jesus was
speaking, an official came forward, knelt down before him, and said, “My
daughter has just died. But come, lay your hand on her, and she will live.”
Jesus rose and followed him, and so did his disciples. A woman suffering
hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the tassel on his
cloak. She said to herself, “If only I can touch his cloak, I shall be cured.”
Jesus turned around and saw her, and said, “Courage, daughter! Your faith has
saved you.” And from that hour the woman was cured. When Jesus arrived at the
official’s house and saw the flute players and the crowd who were making a
commotion, he said, “Go away! The girl is not dead but sleeping.” And they
ridiculed him. When the crowd was put out, he came and took her by the hand,
and the little girl arose. And news of this spread throughout all that land.
Reflection
Today’s Gospel leads us to
meditate on two miracles of Jesus. The first one was in favor of a woman
considered unclean because of an irregular hemorrhage which had lasted for more
than twelve years; the second one in favor of a girl who had just died.
According to the mentality of that time, the person who touched blood or a
corpse or dead body was considered unclean and whoever touched that person
became unclean. Blood and death were factors of exclusion! This is why those
two women were marginalized people, excluded from participation in the community.
Whoever touched them became unclean, and therefore, would not be able to
participate in the community and could not relate with God. In order to be
admitted to participate fully in the community, it was necessary to go through
the rite of purification prescribed by the norms of the law. Now, curing the
impurity of the woman through faith, Jesus opens a new path toward God which
does not depend anymore on the rites of purification, controlled by the
priests. In resurrecting the girl, Jesus conquers the power of death and opens
a new horizon on life.
•
Matthew 9: 18-19: The death of the little girl. When
Jesus was still speaking, an official of the place came to intercede for his
daughter who has just died. He asks Jesus to go to impose His hands on her so
that “she will live.” The official thinks that Jesus has the power to make his
daughter rise from the dead. This is a sign of much faith in Jesus on the part
of the little girl’s father. Jesus rises and goes with him, taking only His
disciples. This is the starting point of both episodes which follow: the cure
of the woman who had been suffering for the past twelve years from a
hemorrhage, and the resurrection of the little girl. The Gospel of Mark
presents both of these episodes, but with many details: the official was called
Jairus, and he was the president of the Synagogue. The little girl was not dead
as yet, and she was twelve years old, etc. (Mk 5: 21-43). Matthew gives a
briefer version of Mark’s lively narration.
•
Matthew 9: 20-21: The situation of the woman. While
they were on the way to the official’s house, a woman who had been suffering
for twelve years because of an irregular hemorrhage got close to Jesus seeking
to be cured. Twelve years with a hemorrhage! This is why she was marginalized,
excluded, because as we have said, at that time blood rendered the person
impure. Mark says that the woman had spent all she had with doctors, but
instead of improving her situation had become worse (Mk 5: 25-26) But she had
heard some speak about Jesus (Mk 5: 27). This is why a new hope sprang up in
her. She told herself, “If I can just touch His clothes, I shall be saved.” The
catechism of that time said: “If I touch His clothes, I will remain impure.”
The woman thinks exactly the contrary! This was a sign of great courage! It was
a sign also that women were not in agreement with everything that the religious
authority taught. The teaching of the Pharisees and of the scribes failed to
control the thinking of the people. Thank God!
The woman got close to Jesus
from behind. She touched the end of His cloak and she was cured.
•
Matthew 9: 22. The word of Jesus which enlightens.
Jesus turns and seeing the woman declares: “Courage, My daughter, your faith
has saved you.” A brief utterance, but which makes us see three very important
points:
(1)
In saying “My daughter,” Jesus accepts the woman in
the new community which has formed around Him. She was no longer excluded.
(2)
What she expected and believed takes place in fact:
she was cured. This proves that the catechism of the religious authority was
not correct and that in Jesus was opened a new path which gave people the
possibility of obtaining the purity which the law demanded and also to enter
into contact with God.
(3)
Jesus recognizes that without the faith of this woman,
He would not have been able to work the miracle. The cure was not a magic rite,
but an act of faith.
•
Matthew 9: 23-24: In the house of the official. After
that Jesus goes to the house of the official. Seeing the agitation of those who
were mourning because of the death of the little girl, He asks everybody to get
out of the room. And He says: “The little girl is not dead, she is sleeping!”
People laugh, because they know how to distinguish when a person sleeps or when
she is dead. Death was for them a barrier that nobody could go beyond. It is
the laughter of Abraham and of Sarah, that is, of those who do not believe that
nothing is impossible for God (Gen 17: 17; 18: 12-14; Lk 1: 27). The words of
Jesus still have a very deep significance. The situation of the communities at
the time of Matthew seemed to be in a situation of death, even though they
heard said, “It is not death, you are asleep! Wake up!”
•
Matthew 9: 25-26: The resurrection of the little girl.
Jesus does not attach any importance to the people’s laughter. He waits for
everyone to get out of the house. Then He enters, takes the little girl by the
hand, and she gets up. Mark keeps the words of Jesus, “Talita kúmi!” which mean, “Little girl, I tell you to get up!” (Mk
5: 41). The news spread throughout that region. The people believed that Jesus
is the Lord of life who overcomes death.
Personal Questions
•
Today, what are the categories of people who feel
excluded from participating in the Christian community? What are the factors which
cause the exclusion of so many people and render life difficult for them in the
family and in society?
•
“The little girl is not dead. She sleeps!” She is not
dead! You are sleeping! Wake up! This is the message of today’s Gospel. What
does it tell me? Am I one of those who laugh?
•
Have I suffered ridicule from others in society for
having Faith? If not, why not? Trusting in God goes against many modern
beliefs. Should I expect this reaction?
Concluding Prayer
I shall praise You to the
heights, God my King, I shall bless Your name for ever and ever.
Day after day I shall bless
You,
I shall praise Your name for
ever and ever. (Ps 145: 1-2)
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