July 9, 2025
Wednesday of the Fourteenth
Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 385
Reading 1
Genesis
41:55-57; 42:5-7a, 17-24a
When hunger came to
be felt throughout the land of Egypt
and the people cried to Pharaoh for bread,
Pharaoh directed all the Egyptians to go to Joseph
and do whatever he told them.
When the famine had spread throughout the land,
Joseph opened all the cities that had grain
and rationed it to the Egyptians,
since the famine had gripped the land of Egypt.
In fact, all the world came to Joseph to obtain rations of grain,
for famine had gripped the whole world.
The sons of Israel were among those
who came to procure rations.
It was Joseph, as governor of the country,
who dispensed the rations to all the people.
When Joseph's brothers came and knelt down before him
with their faces to the ground,
he recognized them as soon as he saw them.
But Joseph concealed his own identity from them
and spoke sternly to them.
With that, he locked them up in the guardhouse for three days.
On the third day Joseph said to his brothers:
"Do this, and you shall live; for I am a God-fearing man.
If you have been honest,
only one of your brothers need be confined in this prison,
while the rest of you may go
and take home provisions for your starving families.
But you must come back to me with your youngest brother.
Your words will thus be verified, and you will not die."
To this they agreed.
To one another, however, they said:
"Alas, we are being punished because of our brother.
We saw the anguish of his heart when he pleaded with us,
yet we paid no heed;
that is why this anguish has now come upon us."
Reuben broke in,
"Did I not tell you not to do wrong to the boy?
But you would not listen!
Now comes the reckoning for his blood."
The brothers did not know, of course,
that Joseph understood what they said,
since he spoke with them through an interpreter.
But turning away from them, he wept.
Responsorial Psalm
R. (22) Lord,
let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you.
Give thanks to the LORD on the harp;
with the ten-stringed lyre chant his praises.
Sing to him a new song;
pluck the strings skillfully, with shouts of gladness.
R. Lord, let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you.
The LORD brings to nought the plans of nations;
he foils the designs of peoples.
But the plan of the LORD stands forever;
the design of his heart, through all generations.
R. Lord, let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you.
But see, the eyes of the LORD are upon those who fear him,
upon those who hope for his kindness,
To deliver them from death
and preserve them in spite of famine.
R. Lord, let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia,
alleluia.
The Kingdom of God is at hand:
repent and believe in the Gospel.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Jesus summoned his
Twelve disciples
and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out
and to cure every disease and every illness.
The names of the Twelve Apostles are these:
first, Simon called Peter, and his brother Andrew;
James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John;
Philip and Bartholomew,
Thomas and Matthew the tax collector;
James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus;
Simon the Cananean, and Judas Iscariot
who betrayed Jesus.
Jesus sent out these Twelve after instructing them thus,
"Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town.
Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
As you go, make this proclamation: 'The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.'"
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/070925.cfm
Commentary on
Genesis 41:55-57; 42:5-7,17-24
Today’s reading finds us in Egypt with Joseph, the second
youngest son of Jacob’s twelve sons. We have skipped the whole saga of how
Joseph came to be sold into slavery by his brothers, and the gradual process by
which he rose from being a Hebrew slave to becoming the Pharaoh’s right hand
man. This was largely due to his ability to interpret dreams and to his
personal integrity. It was Joseph who had predicted the famine that is now on
the land, and Joseph who had made preparations to deal with it when it came.
As the effects of the famine began to be felt in Egypt, the
people cried out to the Pharaoh for food. The Pharaoh referred the people to
his grand vizier, his most senior official, saying:
Go to Joseph; what he says to you, do.
Such was Pharaoh’s confidence in the ability of his chief
official (who was, of course, an Israelite—a point that would not be lost on
those hearing this story read to them).
Joseph threw open the granaries where, because of his
foresight, the surplus of previous harvests had been stored, and he sold the
grain to the Egyptians. But the famine was not confined to Egypt and people
came from “all the world” to buy grain from Joseph.
The land of Canaan was also affected, so Jacob’s sons also
made the same journey with others to get food. And it was Joseph, as the
effective ruler of the country, to whom they all had to go. Jacob had kept his
youngest son, Benjamin, behind with him in case his other sons might not be
able to return.
As the sons of Jacob come into the presence of the chief
minister, they bow down before him, their faces touching the ground. This is
exactly what Joseph had foretold they would be doing when, many years before,
he told them the dream he had of their sheaves of wheat bowing down before his
(Gen 37:5-8). And it was this dream which had so angered them that they sold
him into slavery. Now they come to the same brother—still unrecognised by
them—to be saved from death. How ironic! How God works in strange ways to help
us!
Joseph, of course, recognised his brothers, but said nothing
at this stage. Instead he treated them as if they were strangers and threw them
into prison for three days with the prospect of even worse things to come. They
were getting a taste of the treatment he had experienced as a result of their
rejection.
On the third day, Joseph told them they could save their
lives if they did what he wanted. They could rely on him because, he said:
…for I fear God…
He spoke to them very severely and earlier had accused them
of being spies. They can take grain back home with them for their families, but
they have to leave one of their brothers behind as a pledge. Then, after they
get home, they are to bring back their youngest brother, Benjamin, whom Joseph
had never seen—otherwise they will be condemned to die.
The brothers immediately began to discuss among themselves
their situation. They knew that Jacob, now an old man, would be very reluctant
to let Benjamin fall into the hands of the Egyptians. But they had little
choice and the brothers agreed to Joseph’s conditions.
At the same time, they realised that all this was a just
punishment for the way they had treated their brother Joseph:
Alas, we are paying the penalty for what we did to our
brother; we saw his anguish when he pleaded with us, but we would not listen.
That is why this anguish has come upon us.
Reuben, the only one who was against Joseph’s being killed,
now blamed his brothers for their present situation.
Did I not tell you not to wrong the boy? But you would
not listen. So now there comes a reckoning for his blood.
They presumed Joseph was long dead.
They said all this in Joseph’s presence, not realising that
he understood every single word of their language, because when he had
addressed them, he had spoken through an interpreter. Joseph now hurriedly
leaves their presence and breaks down in tears. Such tenderness on the part of
a high-ranking official is rare in the Hebrew Testament.
When he returned to their presence he had one of the
brothers, Simeon, bound before their eyes as a hostage for the production of
Benjamin on their next visit. He also gave orders that the brothers’ bags were
to be filled with grain and that the money taken from them should be given back
to each man. He also gave them provisions for their journey home (this last
paragraph is not in our reading today). Tomorrow we will see the happy outcome
of this drama.
For obvious reasons much of this lovely account of Joseph
(beginning in chap 37) has to be left out, but it is well worth reading the
whole story—one of the most touching in the whole of the Old Testament—a
beautiful story in its own right.
Joseph stands out as a man of great compassion, a man of
strong and sensitive feelings, and a person of the utmost integrity. He would
have been a rarity in his day and even in our own. As we read this story we
could perhaps reflect with some profit on our own sense of justice, compassion,
and the level of our integrity in our dealings with friends, colleagues and
strangers.
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Commentary on
Matthew 10:1-7
We begin today the second of the five discourses of Jesus
which are a unique feature of Matthew’s Gospel. It consists of instructions to
Jesus’ disciples on how they are to conduct their missionary work and the
reactions they can expect in carrying it out.
It begins by the summoning of the inner circle of twelve
disciples. Matthew presumes we already know about their formal selection, which
he does not recount (the Gospels of Mark and Luke clearly distinguish the
selection of the Apostles from their later missioning). These twelve disciples
are now called Apostles.
The two words are distinct in meaning and we should not
confuse them. A disciple (Latin discipulus, from discere,
to learn) is a follower, someone who learns from a teacher and assimilates that
teaching into his or her own life. An apostle (Greek, apostolos from apostello)
is someone who is sent out on a mission, someone who is deputed to disseminate
the teaching of the master to others. In the New Testament a distinction is
made between the two. All the Gospels, for instance, speak of the Twelve
Apostles and Luke mentions 72 disciples.
However, that does not mean the two roles are mutually
exclusive. On the contrary, all of us who are called to be disciples are also
expected to be apostles, actively sharing our faith with others. It is very
easy for us to see ourselves, ‘ordinary’ Catholics, as disciples and to regard
priests and religious as doing the apostolic work of the Church. That would be
very wrong. Every one of us called to be a disciple is, by virtue of Baptism
and Confirmation, also called to be an apostle.
Applied to the twelve men (yes, they were all men—and
therein lies the source of many disputes!), the word ‘apostle’ does have a
special sense. They would become, so to speak, the pillars or foundations on
which the new Church would be built, with Peter as their leader. They would
have the special role of handing on and interpreting the tradition they had
received from Jesus, a role which in turn they handed on those whom we now call
the bishops, with the pope, as leader and spokesperson.
Later on, Paul would be added to their number and Matthias
would be chosen to replace the renegade Judas. In fact, it is interesting to
see the mixed bunch of people that Jesus chose. We know next to nothing about
most of them, but they were, for the most part, simple people—some of them
definitely uneducated and perhaps even illiterate. Judas may well have been the
most qualified among them. And yet we see the extraordinary results they
produced, and the unstoppable movement they set in motion. The only explanation
is that it was ultimately the work of God through the Holy Spirit.
The first instructions they are given are to confine their
activities to their own people. They are not to go to pagans at this stage, or
even to the Samaritans. As the heirs to the covenant and as God’s people, the
Jews are to be the first to be invited to follow the Messiah and experience his
saving power. And their proclamation is the same one that Jesus gave at the
outset of his public preaching:
The Kingdom of Heaven [i.e. of God] has
come near.
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https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/o1144g/
Wednesday,
July 9, 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 10: 1-7
Jesus summoned his Twelve
disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to
cure every disease and every illness. The names of the Twelve Apostles are
these: first, Simon called Peter, and his brother Andrew; James, the son of
Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and
Bartholomew, Thomas, and
Matthew the tax collector; James, the son of
Alphaeus, and
Thaddeus; Simon the Cananean, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus. Jesus sent
out these Twelve after instructing them thus, “Do not go into pagan territory
or enter a Samaritan town. Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.’”
Reflection
The second great Discourse:
The Discourse of the Mission begins in chapter 10 of the Gospel of Matthew.
Matthew organizes his Gospel as a new edition of the
Law of God
or like a new “Pentateuch” with its five books. For this reason, his Gospel
presents five great discourses or teachings of Jesus followed by a narrative
part, in which he describes the way in which Jesus puts into practice what He
had taught in the discourses. The following is the outline: Introduction: the birth and preparation of
the Messiah (Mt 1 to 4)
•
Sermon on the Mount: the entrance door into the
Kingdom (Mt 5 to 7)
•
Narrative Mt 8 and 9
•
Discourse on the Mission: how to proclaim and spread
the Kingdom (Mt 10)
•
Narrative Mt 11 and 12
•
Discourse on the Parables: The mystery of the Kingdom
present in life (Mt 13)
•
Narrative Mt 14 to 17
•
Discourse on the Community: the new way of living
together in the Kingdom (Mt 18)
•
Narrative 19 to 23
•
Discourse on the future coming of the Kingdom: the
utopia which sustains hope (Mt 24 and 25)
Conclusion: Passion, Death and Resurrection (Mt 26 to 28)
Today’s
Gospel presents to us the beginning of the Discourse on the Mission in which
the accent is placed on three aspects: (a) the call of the disciples (Mt 10:
1); (b) the list of the names of the twelve Apostles who will be the recipients
of the
Discourse on the Mission (Mt
10: 2-4); (c) the sending out of the twelve (Mt 10: 5-
7).
•
Matthew 10:1: The call of the twelve disciples.
Matthew had already spoken about the call of the disciples (Mt 4:18-22; 9:9).
Here, at the beginning of the Discourse on the Mission, he presents a summary:
“He summoned His twelve disciples, and gave them authority over unclean spirits
with power to drive them out and to cure all kinds of diseases and all kinds of
illness.” The task, or the mission, of the disciple is to follow Jesus, the
Master, forming community with Him and carrying out the same mission of Jesus:
to drive out unclean spirits, to cure all sorts of diseases and all sorts of
illness. In Mark’s Gospel they receive the same two-fold mission, formulated
with
other words: Jesus
constituted the group of twelve to remain with Him and to send them out to
preach and cast out devils” (Mk 3: 14-15).
•
1) To be with Him, that is to form a community, in
which Jesus is the center.
•
2)To preach and to be able to cast out devils, that
is, to announce the Good News and to conquer the force of evil which destroys
the life of the people and alienates people.
Luke says that Jesus prayed
the whole night, and the following day He called the disciples. He prayed to
God so as to know whom to choose (Lk 6: 12-13).
•
Matthew 10: 2-4: The list of the names of the Twelve
Apostles. A good number of these names come from the Old Testament. For
example, Simon is the name of one of the sons of the Patriarch Jacob (Gen 29:
33). James is the same as Jacob (Gen 25: 26). Judas is the name of another son
of Jacob (Gen 35: 23). Matthew also had the name of Levi (Mk 2: 14), who was
another son of Jacob (Gen 35: 23). Of the Twelve Apostles seven have a name
which comes from the time of the Patriarchs. Two are called Simon; two are
called James; two are called Judas; one Levi! Only one has a Greek name:
Philip.
This reveals the people’s
desire to start history again from the beginning! Perhaps it is good to think
about the names which are given today to children when they are born, because
each one of us is called by God by his/her name.
•
Matthew 10: 5-7: The sending out or the mission of the
twelve apostles to the lost sheep of Israel. After having given the list of the
names of the twelve, Jesus sends them out with the following command: “Do not
make your way to gentile territory, and do not enter any Samaritan town. Go
instead to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as you go, proclaim that
the Kingdom of Heaven is close at hand.” In this one command there is a
three-fold insistence on showing that the preference of the mission is for the
house of
Israel:
1) Do not go
among the gentiles,
2) do not
enter into the towns of the Samaritans,
3) rather go
to the lost sheep of Israel. Here appears a response to the doubt of the first
Christians concerning opening up to pagans.
Paul, who strongly affirmed
the openness to the Gentiles, agrees in saying that the Good News of Jesus
should first be announced to the Jews and then to the gentiles (Rm 9: 1-11, 36;
cf. Acts 1: 8; 11: 3; 13: 46; 15: 1, 5, 23-29). But then, in the same Gospel of
Matthew, in the conversation of Jesus with the Canaanite woman, openness to the
gentiles will occur (Mt 15: 21-29).
•
The sending out of the Apostles to all peoples. After
the Resurrection of Jesus, there are several episodes on the sending out of the
Apostles not only to the Jews, but to all peoples. In Matthew: “Go and make
disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to observe everything which I have
commanded. And I will be with you until the end of time” (Mt 28: 19-20). In
Mark: “Go to the entire
world, proclaim the Good News to all creatures. Those who will believe and will
be baptized will be saved; those who will not believe will be condemned” (Mk
16: 15). In Luke: "So it is written that the Christ would suffer and on
the third day rise from the dead, and that in His name, repentance for the
forgiveness of sins would be preached to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
You are witnesses to this” (Lk 24: 46-48; Acts 1: 8) John summarizes all in one
sentence: “As the Father has sent Me, so I also send you!” (Jn 20: 21).
Personal Questions
•
Have you ever thought about the meaning of your name?
Have you asked your parents why they gave you the name that you have? Do you
like your name?
•
How has your name influenced who you have become and
how your life was formed?
•
Jesus calls the disciples. His call has a two-fold
purpose: to form a community and to go on mission. How do I live this two-fold
purpose in my life?
Concluding Prayer
Seek Yahweh and His
strength, tirelessly seek His presence!
Remember
the marvels He has done, His wonders, the judgments He has spoken. (Ps 105:
4-5)
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