July 8, 2025
Tuesday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 384
Reading I
In the course of the night, Jacob arose, took his two wives,
with the two maidservants and his eleven children,
and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.
After he had taken them across the stream
and had brought over all his possessions,
Jacob was left there alone.
Then some man wrestled with him until the break of dawn.
When the man saw that he could not prevail over him,
he struck Jacob’s hip at its socket,
so that the hip socket was wrenched as they wrestled.
The man then said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”
But Jacob said, “I will not let you go until you bless me.”
The man asked, “What is your name?”
He answered, “Jacob.”
Then the man said,
“You shall no longer be spoken of as Jacob, but as Israel,
because you have contended with divine and human beings
and have prevailed.”
Jacob then asked him, “Do tell me your name, please.”
He answered, “Why should you want to know my name?”
With that, he bade him farewell.
Jacob named the place Peniel,
“Because I have seen God face to face,” he said,
“yet my life has been spared.”
At sunrise, as he left Penuel,
Jacob limped along because of his hip.
That is why, to this day, the children of Israel do not eat
the sciatic muscle that is on the hip socket,
inasmuch as Jacob’s hip socket was struck at the sciatic muscle.
Responsorial Psalm
Psalm
17:1b, 2-3, 6-7ab, 8b and 15
R. (15a) In justice, I shall
behold your face, O Lord.
Hear, O LORD, a just suit;
attend to my outcry;
hearken to my prayer from lips without deceit.
R. In justice, I shall behold your face, O Lord.
From you let my judgment come;
your eyes behold what is right.
Though you test my heart, searching it in the night,
though you try me with fire, you shall find no malice in me.
R. In justice, I shall behold your face, O Lord.
I call upon you, for you will answer me, O God;
incline your ear to me; hear my word.
Show your wondrous mercies,
O savior of those who flee from their foes.
R. In justice, I shall behold your face, O Lord.
Hide me in the shadow of your wings.
I in justice shall behold your face;
on waking, I shall be content in your presence.
R. In justice, I shall behold your face, O Lord.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
I am the good shepherd, says the Lord;
I know my sheep, and mine know me.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
A demoniac who could not speak was brought to Jesus,
and when the demon was driven out the mute man spoke.
The crowds were amazed and said,
“Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.”
But the Pharisees said,
“He drives out demons by the prince of demons.”
Jesus went around to all the towns and villages,
teaching in their synagogues,
proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom,
and curing every disease and illness.
At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them
because they were troubled and abandoned,
like sheep without a shepherd.
Then he said to his disciples,
“The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few;
so ask the master of the harvest
to send out laborers for his harvest.”
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/070825.cfm
Commentary on Genesis
32:23-33
We jump a few chapters in our story of Jacob and come to an
experience even more strange than the vision of the ladder/staircase going up
to heaven. Jacob has been preparing to meet with his estranged brother Esau. He
was not at all sure what kind of meeting it was going to be with the brother
whom he had cheated out of his birth-right. Each one was now rich and powerful
in his own domain.
As our reading opens we are told that Jacob takes his two
wives (Rachel and Leah), his two slave-girls and his 11 children (the youngest,
Benjamin, has been conceived but not born), together with all his possessions,
across the River Jabbok to a safer place while he stays behind alone.
‘Jabbok’ is possibly a play on ‘Jacob’. (The author loves
toying with names in this way—see below.) The river is an eastern tributary of
the Jordan originating near present-day Amman. It is known today as the Wadi
A-Zarqa and flows westwards into the Jordan about 30 km north of the Dead Sea.
Jacob is now alone and then, during the whole night until
dawn, he wrestles with an unknown man. As is clear later on, this ‘man’ is a
messenger of the Lord, if not the Lord himself, in human form. Is this to be
seen as a ‘real’ experience or was it just another dream or some purely
internal experience? ‘Wrestled’ in Hebrew (ye’abeq) is a play on ‘Jacob’
(ya‘aqob) and ‘Jabbok’ (yabboq).
Jacob has struggled all his life to prevail, first with
Esau, then with Laban, his uncle who is the father of his wife, Rachel. Now, as
he is about to re-enter Canaan, he is shown that it is with God that he must
“wrestle”. It is God who holds his destiny in his hands.
When the ‘man’ sees that Jacob is getting the upper hand, he
strikes Jacob on the hip and dislocates it. The hip socket is in the fleshy
part of the thigh. There is a hint of injury to the sexual organs and, indeed,
with Benjamin, his 12th and youngest son, already conceived, Jacob will have no
more children. God came to him in such a form that Jacob could wrestle with him
successfully, yet he also showed Jacob that he could disable him at will.
With the coming of morning the stranger says:
Let me go, for the day is breaking.
But Jacob will not let the man go without receiving his
blessing. He seems to suspect the divine origin of his opponent. There is also
an indication that Jacob is still having problems over their father’s blessing
which he got by deceit. He wants now a direct blessing from God himself.
“What is your name?” asks the stranger. “Jacob” is the reply.
Then, the stranger says:
You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you
have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed.
The probable meaning of the word ‘Israel’ is ‘May God show
his strength’, but here it is understood as ‘He has been strong against God’.
At the very moment Jacob reaches full maturity as father and
patriarch, his descendants acquire their national name. Later, Israel’s
encounters with God will constantly entail intense struggle, with the divine
and human alike. God will later confirm Jacob’s new name (Gen 35:10). The
present incident, where the name Israel is alluded to, is referred to in a
passage from Hosea (12:5) where the mysterious wrestler is explicitly called
“the Lord”.
Jacob then asks the stranger his name but the only answer he
gets is:
Why is it that you ask my name?
Given that the stranger is God himself, it is wrong to ask
such a question and, in any case, it cannot be answered. The name of Yahweh
could not be uttered by any observant Israelite, but the man does give Jacob
his blessing.
Jacob, however, is now well aware of who the stranger is:
…I have seen God face to face, yet my life is preserved.
In the Hebrew Testament, to look upon the face of God spells
instant death, except by special privilege. So in Exodus we read:
Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as one
speaks to a friend. (Exod 33:11)
After these encounters his face shone so brightly that he
had to keep it veiled when speaking to his countrymen. But God also said to
Moses:
…you cannot see my face, for no one shall see me and
live. (Exod 33:20)
Only God’s ‘back’ or ‘feet’ or ‘form’, in a symbolic sense,
were allowed to be seen.
So Jacob calls the place where he had his experience with
the stranger “Peniel”, which means ‘face of God’. The word is a variant of
‘Penuel’, the name of a town on the north bank of the River Jabbok in Gilead.
Then he leaves, limping because of his damaged hip. Limping
is a frequent motif in myth and legend (Oedipus, too, limps), suggesting a
maturing in his relationship with God, who is the real Lord of his life. It
parallels in some ways the experience of Abraham at Moriah where he was told to
sacrifice his only son. Although less whole physically, it is precisely through
his experience that he becomes more spiritually complete. He is now Israel and
not just Jacob.
And, the reading tells us, to this day Jews will not eat the
sciatic nerve which runs near the hip, because that is where God had struck
Jacob. Although mentioned nowhere else in the Hebrew Testament, this dietary
prohibition is found in the later writings of Judaism. Jacob retained in his
body, and Israel retained in her dietary practice, a perpetual reminder of this
fateful encounter with God.
Finally, the Jerusalem Bible comments on
this scene:
“This enigmatic story, probably Yahwistic, speaks of a
physical struggle, a wrestling with God from which Jacob seems to emerge
victor. Jacob recognises the supernatural character of his adversary and
extorts a blessing from him. The text, however, avoids using the name of Yahweh
and the unknown antagonist will not give his name. The author has made use of
an old story as a means of explaining the name ‘Peniel’ (‘face of God’) and the
origin of the name ‘Israel’. At the same time he gives the story a religious
significance: Jacob holds fast to God and forces from him a blessing;
henceforth all who bear Israel’s name will have a claim on God.
It is not surprising that this dramatic scene later served
as an image of spiritual combat and of the value of persevering prayer (e.g. St
Jerome and Origen). It was advice that Jesus himself gave, and also St Paul.
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Commentary on
Matthew 9:32-37
We come today to the end of the section recounting ten
miracles of Jesus (chaps 8-9). The last miracle described is that of a man
whose deafness arises from his being possessed by a demon. It follows
immediately the cure of two blind men, a story which we did not read and which
is told again by Matthew in chapter 20. It seems to correspond to the healing
of the blind man Bartimaeus in Mark (chap 10), although there are significant
differences.
The man is brought to Jesus by the people. Jesus drives out
the demon and the man immediately is able to speak. There is a double reaction.
The people are astounded:
Never has anything like this been seen in Israel.
The implications of Jesus’ divine origins are very clear. On
the other hand, Pharisees were saying:
By the ruler of the demons he casts out the demons.
Elsewhere Jesus will show the absurd illogicality of that
charge.
Stories of the blind, deaf, and mute in the Gospel always
have a deeper meaning. Far more serious than physical blindness, deafness and
an inability to speak are being spiritually blind, deaf and mute. The Pharisees
in the Gospel represent such people, and we see it happening in this story.
They are blind because they cannot see or do not want to see God at work in
Jesus. They are deaf because they do not hear or do not want to understand what
he says. And they are also mute because they cannot speak the words of life
that Jesus gives them.
The very same can happen to each one of us. Let us pray
today to be able to see clearly, to understand what God says to us and to be
able to share it with others.
This section of Matthew concludes with a general description
or summary of what Jesus was doing. He was going through all the towns and
villages of Galilee; he was teaching in synagogues; he was proclaiming the Good
News of the Kingdom; and he was healing all kinds of diseases and sickness.
But behind all that he does, is his deep compassion for the
needs of the people. He sees them harassed and dejected, wandering and aimless,
like sheep without a guiding shepherd—a familiar image in the Old Testament
(see Ezekiel 34). Then, looking at his disciples, he says:
The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few…
Jesus cannot do it all on his own. In fact, he will hardly
step outside the boundaries of Palestine. He needs many helpers.
Today, the situation has not changed. The harvest is as big
as ever; people are as lost and rudderless as they have ever been in spite of
the great strides in knowledge we have made. Where are the labourers? They are
not just the bishops, the priests, the religious brothers and sisters. That is
a very narrow concept of labourers.
Every single baptised person is called, in some way, to be a
harvester, to help people find and experience the truth and love that God gives
in Jesus. Every single person, in that sense (and it is a very real sense) has
a vocation, a call to serve and to build the Kingdom. What and where and with
whom is my vocation?
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https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/o1143g/
Tuesday,
July 8, 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: 32-38
A demoniac who could not
speak was brought to Jesus, and when the demon was driven out the mute man
spoke. The crowds were amazed and said,
“Nothing like this has ever
been seen in Israel.” But the Pharisees said, “He drives out demons by the
prince of demons.” Jesus went around to all the towns and villages, teaching in
their synagogues, proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom, and curing every
disease and illness. At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity
for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a
shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is abundant, but the
laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his
harvest.”
Reflection
Today’s Gospel presents two
facts: (1) the cure of a possessed mute person (Mt 9: 32- 34) and (2) a summary
of the activity of Jesus (Mt 9: 35-38). These two episodes end the narrative
part of chapters 8 and 9 of the Gospel of Matthew, in which the Evangelist
seeks to indicate how Jesus put into practice the teachings given in the Sermon
on the Mount (Mt 5 and 7). In chapter 10, the meditation which begins in the
Gospel of tomorrow, we see the second great discourse of Jesus: The Discourse
of the Mission (Mt 10: 1-42).
•
Matthew 9: 32-33a: The cure of a mute person. In just
one verse Matthew describes the arrival of the possessed person before Jesus,
the expulsion of
the demon and the attitude
of Jesus. The illnesses were many and social security non-existent. The
illnesses were not only deficiencies of the body: deafness, blindness,
paralysis, leprosy and so many other sicknesses. In fact, these illnesses were
nothing else than a manifestation of a much deeper and vast evil which undermined
the health of people, and that is the total abandonment and the depressing and
inhumane state in which they were obliged to live. The activity and the cures
of Jesus were directed not only against physical sickness, but also and above
all against this greater evil of material and spiritual abandonment, in which
people were obliged to live the few years of life. Then, in addition to the
economic exploitation which stole half of the family stipend, the official
religion of that time, instead of helping people to find strength in God, to
resist and have hope, taught that sickness was a punishment from God for sin.
This increased in them the sentiment of exclusion and condemnation. Jesus did
quite the contrary. The acceptance of Jesus, full of tenderness, and the cure
of the sick, form part of the effort to knit together human relationships among
people and to reestablish community and fraternal living in the villages of
Galilee, His land.
•
Matthew 9: 33b-34: The twofold interpretation of the
cure of the mute man. Before the cure of the possessed mute man, the reaction
of the people is one of admiration and of gratitude: “Nothing like this has
ever been seen in Israel!” The reaction of the Pharisee is one of mistrust and
malice: “It is through the prince of devils that He drives out devils!” They
were not able to deny the facts which cause admiration in the people, the only
way which the Pharisees find to neutralize the influence of Jesus before the
people is to attribute the expulsion to the power of the evil one. Mark
presents an extensive argument of Jesus to demonstrate the lack of coherence
and the malice of the interpretation given by the Pharisees (Mk 3: 22-27).
Matthew does not present any response by Jesus to the interpretation of the
Pharisees, because when malice is evident, truth shines by itself.
•
Matthew 9: 35: Tireless, Jesus goes through the
villages. The description of the tireless activity of Jesus is beautiful in
which emerges the double concern to which we referred: the acceptance full of tenderness
and the cure of the sick: “Jesus went through all the towns, teaching in their
synagogues, preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom and curing all kinds of
diseases and all kinds of illness.” In the previous chapters, Matthew had
already referred several times to this itinerant activity of Jesus in the
villages and towns of Galilee (Mt 4: 23-24; 8: 16).
•
Matthew 9: 36: The compassion of Jesus. “Seeing the
crowds, He felt sorry for them because they were harassed and dejected, like
sheep without a shepherd.” Those who should be shepherds were not shepherds;
they did not take care of the flock. Jesus tries to be the shepherd (Jn 10:
11-14). In this, Matthew sees the realization of the prophecy of the Servant of
Yahweh, who took upon Himself our sickness, and bore our infirmities” (Mt 8: 17
and Isa 53: 4). As it was for Jesus, the great concern of the Servant was “to
find a word of comfort for those who were discouraged.” (Isa 50: 4). Jesus
shows the same compassion toward the abandoned crowd on the occasion of the
multiplication of the loaves: they are like sheep without a shepherd (Mt 15:
32). The Gospel of Matthew
has a constant concern in revealing to the converted Jews of the communities of
Galilee and of Syria that Jesus is the Messiah announced by the prophets. For
this reason, frequently, he shows
that in Jesus’ activity the
prophecies are fulfilled (cf. Mt 1: 23; 2: 5, 15, 17, 23; 3: 3; 4: 14-16,
etc.).
•
Matthew 9: 37-38: The harvest is rich, but the
laborers are few. Jesus transmits to the disciples the concern and the
compassion which are within Him, and in paraphrase: “The harvest is rich, but
the laborers are few! Therefore, pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out
laborers for His harvest!”
Personal Questions
•
Compassion for the tired and hungry crowds. In the
history of humanity, there have never been so many tired and hungry people as
today. Television transmits the facts but does not offer any response. Do we,
Christians, have the same compassion of Jesus and communicate it to others?
•
The goodness of Jesus toward the poor disturbed the
Pharisees. They have recourse to malice to neutralize the discomfort caused by
Jesus. Are there many good attitudes in the people who disturb me? How do I interpret
them: with pleasant admiration as the crowds or with malice as the Pharisees?
Concluding Prayer
Sing to Him, make music for
Him, recount all His wonders!
Glory in
His holy name, let the hearts that seek Yahweh rejoice! (Ps 105: 2-3)
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