August 21, 2025
Memorial of Saint Pius X, Pope
Lectionary: 422
Reading I
The Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah.
He passed through Gilead and Manasseh,
and through Mizpah-Gilead as well,
and from there he went on to the Ammonites.
Jephthah made a vow to the LORD.
“If you deliver the Ammonites into my power,” he said,
“whoever comes out of the doors of my house
to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites
shall belong to the LORD.
I shall offer him up as a burnt offering.”
Jephthah then went on to the Ammonites to fight against
them,
and the LORD delivered them into his power,
so that he inflicted a severe defeat on them,
from Aroer to the approach of Minnith (twenty cities in all)
and as far as Abel-keramim.
Thus were the Ammonites brought into subjection
by the children of Israel.
When Jephthah returned to his house in Mizpah,
it was his daughter who came forth,
playing the tambourines and dancing.
She was an only child: he had neither son nor daughter besides her.
When he saw her, he rent his garments and said,
“Alas, daughter, you have struck me down
and brought calamity upon me.
For I have made a vow to the LORD and I cannot retract.”
She replied, “Father, you have made a vow to the LORD.
Do with me as you have vowed,
because the LORD has wrought vengeance for you
on your enemies the Ammonites.”
Then she said to her father, “Let me have this favor.
Spare me for two months, that I may go off down the mountains
to mourn my virginity with my companions.”
“Go,” he replied, and sent her away for two months.
So she departed with her companions
and mourned her virginity on the mountains.
At the end of the two months she returned to her father,
who did to her as he had vowed.
Responsorial Psalm
R. (8a and 9a) Here I am, Lord; I
come to do your will.
Blessed the man who makes the LORD his trust;
who turns not to idolatry
or to those who stray after falsehood.
R. Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.
Sacrifice or oblation you wished not,
but ears open to obedience you gave me.
Burnt offerings or sin-offerings you sought not;
then said I, “Behold I come.”
R. Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.
“In the written scroll it is prescribed for me.
To do your will, O my God, is my delight,
and your law is within my heart!”
R. Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.
I announced your justice in the vast assembly;
I did not restrain my lips, as you, O LORD, know.
R. Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
If today you hear his voice,
harden not your hearts.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Jesus again in reply spoke to the chief priests and the
elders of the people in parables
saying, “The Kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king
who gave a wedding feast for his son.
He dispatched his servants to summon the invited guests to the feast,
but they refused to come.
A second time he sent other servants, saying,
‘Tell those invited: “Behold, I have prepared my banquet,
my calves and fattened cattle are killed,
and everything is ready; come to the feast.”’
Some ignored the invitation and went away,
one to his farm, another to his business.
The rest laid hold of his servants,
mistreated them, and killed them.
The king was enraged and sent his troops,
destroyed those murderers, and burned their city.
Then the king said to his servants, ‘The feast is ready,
but those who were invited were not worthy to come.
Go out, therefore, into the main roads
and invite to the feast whomever you find.’
The servants went out into the streets
and gathered all they found, bad and good alike,
and the hall was filled with guests.
But when the king came in to meet the guests
he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment.
He said to him, ‘My friend, how is it
that you came in here without a wedding garment?’
But he was reduced to silence.
Then the king said to his attendants, ‘Bind his hands and feet,
and cast him into the darkness outside,
where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.’
Many are invited, but few are chosen.”
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/082125.cfm
Commentary on Judges
11:29-39
If anyone was looking forward to the story of Samson and his
betrayal by his girlfriend, Delilah, during our readings from the Book of
Judges, they are going to be disappointed. Our last reading from the book is,
in many ways, a very disturbing one and one wonders why it was chosen. It
reflects a rather primitive and superstitious society where life, especially
that of women, comes cheap. It is a society, too, where—at least among the
non-Hebrew religions—human sacrifice was not unknown.
The spirit of Yahweh was on Jephthah, who crossed Gilead and
Manasseh, by way of Mizpah in Gilead into the territory of the Ammonites.
Jephthah is one of the ‘lesser’ Judges. In the Old Testament, the unique
empowering of the Spirit was given to an individual primarily to enable him to
carry out the special responsibilities God had given him.
He made a vow to Yahweh:
If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then
whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return
victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the Lord’s, to be offered up by me as a
burnt offering.
What or who he expected to greet him is not certain, but it
would very likely be a human person.
Making vows was a common practice among the Israelites and
they were not to be broken. While Jephthah clearly worships Yahweh, he seems to
share some of the thinking of his non-Hebrew contemporaries. The text clearly
implies that Jephthah was prepared to vow a human sacrifice, according to the
custom of his pagan neighbours. Human sacrifice was forbidden by the Law, but
made its way into Israel through Canaanite influence. The author merely records
the fact, but was not likely to have approved the action.
Jephthah did enter the Ammonite territory and was
victorious:
He inflicted a massive defeat on them from Aroer to the
neighborhood of Minnith, twenty towns, and…the Ammonites were subdued before
the Israelites.
As he returned to his house at Mizpah, his daughter came out
to meet him, dancing to the music of tambourines. It was customary for women to
greet armies returning victoriously from battle in this way. So Miriam, the
sister of Moses, together with the other women danced and played tambourines to
celebrate the defeat of the Egyptians in the Sea of Reeds (Exod 15:20). A
similar scene played out when David came back after defeating the Philistines
(1 Sam 18:6).
Now this girl was Jepthtah’s only child—he had no other son
or daughter. On seeing her, he tore his clothes and cried out:
Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low; you have
become the cause of great trouble to me. For I have opened my mouth to the
Lord, and I cannot take back my vow.
Tearing the clothes was a common practice for expressing
extreme grief. His vow, too, even in this situation he sees as irrevocable.
The daughter replied with extraordinary equanimity:
My father, if you have opened your mouth to the Lord, do
to me according to what has gone out of your mouth, now that the Lord has given
you vengeance against your enemies, the Ammonites.
She puts her life on a lower level than his vow and his
military victory. We need, of course, to remember that in such societies, the
individual counted for very little, as would also be the case in authoritarian
societies in much later times.
She then made a request to her father:
Let this thing be done for me: grant me two months, so
that I may go and wander on the mountains and bewail my virginity, my
companions and I.
In other words, she will never be a mother. To be childless
was considered a misfortune and, for a woman, a disgrace. At this time, a man
married a woman for the primary purpose of having children, especially sons.
And a woman existed to become the mother of children, preferably sons. To be
kept from marrying and rearing children was a bitter prospect for an Israelite
woman. Hence Jephthah’s daughter now asks permission to spend two months
mourning the fact that she will be put to death before she can bear children.
The very reason of her existence is to be denied.
The father granted his daughter’s request. And, when the two
months were over she went back to her father and—as the reading euphemistically
expresses it—he treated her as the vow had required him to do. In other words,
she was burnt to death as a sacrificial victim.
The words of the next sentence are poignant:
She had never slept with a man.
In the case of many Christian and Hebrew martyrs this was
often a matter of glory, but here it is full of pain and tragedy. Jephthah’s
daughter never became a mother. And perhaps there is in this comment a
criticism of the whole story by the author. There was probably no greater
contribution that could be made for the nation of Israel than to produce sons
for it. That contribution had been denied here.
The story of Jephthah’s vow was apparently intended to
explain an annual festival celebrated in Gilead, the real significance of which
was unknown. It was observed by the daughters of Israel each year over a period
of four days mourning the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.
In plain terms, Jephthah immolates his daughter rather than
break the vow he has made. Human sacrifice was always regarded with abhorrence
in Israel. This is expressed in the scene where Abraham is prevented by God
from sacrificing his son Isaac (Gen 22), but this story is told without any
expression of blame, the emphasis apparently falling on the importance of
fulfilling a vow once made.
In the Gospel, Jesus during the Sermon on the Mount, teaches
us not to make any vows or oaths of this kind. The disciple of Christ will be a
person of such transparent integrity and reliability that his ‘Yes’ always
means ‘Yes’ and his ‘No’ always means ‘No’. With such a person, a Jephthah
situation will never arise.
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Commentary on
Matthew 22:1-14
In our readings we have jumped from chapter 20 to chapter 22
and read another Kingdom Parable, not unrelated to yesterday’s, about the
workers in the vineyard.
Yesterday it was a question of resentment at God’s
generosity to latecomers in his Kingdom. Today it is rather sadness over the
Jewish leaders’ refusal to accept Jesus as Messiah and Lord. The parable is a
kind of potted history and is more like an allegory than a parable.
The king (God) gives a wedding banquet (the happiness of the
Messianic age) for his son (Jesus the Messiah). But when he invites people (the
Jews) to attend, they refuse to come and make all kinds of excuses. Others
actually attack the king’s servants and messengers (the prophets and the early
Christian evangelisers).
The king became angry and:
…sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned
their city.
This is surely a reference to the Roman army under the
emperor Titus which sacked and destroyed Jerusalem in AD 70. The Temple, the
heart of Judaism, was also destroyed and plundered and has never since been
rebuilt. Today an Islamic mosque stands on the site.
Because the invited guests will not come, the servants (the
Jewish disciples of Jesus) are instructed to go out and bring in anyone they
can find:
Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all
whom they found, both good and bad, so the wedding hall was filled with guests.
All are called—both the good and the sinful.
The climax of the story at first seems somewhat unfair.
People have been pulled in from highways and byways, and now one is condemned
for not wearing a wedding garment! But the parable has in fact moved to the
final judgement. In fact, Matthew may be combining what were originally two
original parables into one.
The wedding garment clearly stands for faith and baptism
combined with a lived-out commitment to the Gospel, something necessary to be
accepted into the eternal happiness of the Kingdom.
As Jesus says at the end:
For many are called, but few are chosen.
Many were called and invited to attend the banquet, but more
than that was expected of them. They had to answer the call by saying an
unqualified ‘Yes’ to Jesus. Being baptised and having the label ‘Christian’ or
‘Catholic’ is not enough. We have also to live out in our lives and
relationships what we claim to believe in.
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https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/o1205g/
Thursday,
August 21, 2025
Ordinary
Time
Opening Prayer
God our Father,
may we love you in all things and
above all things and reach the joy you have prepared for us beyond all our
imagining.
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 22: 1-14
Jesus began to speak to them in
parables once again, 'The kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a king who gave
a feast for his son's wedding. He sent his servants to call those who had been
invited, but they would not come. Next, he sent some more servants with the
words, "Tell those who have been invited: Look, my banquet is all prepared,
my oxen and fattened cattle have been slaughtered, everything is ready. Come to
the wedding." But they were not interested: one went off to his farm,
another to his business, and the rest seized his servants, maltreated them and
killed them. The king was furious. He dispatched his troops, destroyed those
murderers and burnt their town. Then he said to his servants, "The wedding
is ready; but as those who were invited proved to be unworthy, go to the main
crossroads and invite everyone you can find to come to the wedding."
So these servants went out onto the roads and
collected everyone they could find, bad and good alike; and the wedding hall
was filled with guests. When the king came in to look at the guests, he noticed
one man who was not wearing a wedding garment, and said to him, "How did
you get in here, my friend, without a wedding garment?" And the man was
silent. Then the king said to the attendants, "Bind him hand and foot and
throw him into the darkness outside, where there will be weeping and grinding
of teeth." For many are invited but not all are chosen.'
Reflection
Today’s Gospel presents the parable of the
banquet which we also find in the Gospel of Matthew and of Luke, but with
significant differences, which result from the point of view of each
Evangelist. The background which leads both Evangelists to repeat this parable
is the same. In the communities of the first Christians, both those of Matthew
and those of Luke, the problem of living together between the converted Jews
and the converted pagans, continued to be very alive. The Jews had ancient
norms which prevented them from eating together with the pagans. Even entering
into the Christian communities, many Jews kept the ancient custom of not
sitting at the same table with the pagans. Thus, Peter had conflicts in the
communities of Jerusalem, because he had entered the house of Cornelius, a
pagan, and for having eaten together with him (Ac 11: 3). This same problem
existed, though in a diverse way, in the communities of Luke and of Matthew. In
Luke’s community, in spite of the difference in race, of class and of gender,
they had a great ideal of sharing and of communion (Ac 2: 42; 4: 32; 5: 12).
For this reason, in Luke’s Gospel (Lk 14: 15-24), the parable insists on the
invitation addressed to all. The master of the feast, angry and upset because
the first guests, who were invited, did not arrive, sends his servants to call
the poor, the cripple, the blind, and invites them to participate in the
banquet. But there is still place. Then, the master of the feast orders that
all be invited, until his house is full. In Matthew’s Gospel, the first part of
the parable, (Mt 22: 1-10) has the same objective as that of Luke’ Gospel. It
succeeds in saying that the master of the feast orders to let the “good and the
bad” enter (Mt 22: 10). But at the end, he adds another parable (Mt 22: 11-14)
concerning the wedding garment, which insists on that which is specific of the
Jews, the need of purity in order to be able to present oneself before God.
•
Matthew
22: 1-2: The invitation addressed to all. Some manuscripts say that the
parable was told for the chief priests and for the elders of the People. This
affirmation can serve even as a key for the reading, because it helps one to
understand some strange points which appear in the story which Jesus is
telling. The parable begins like this: “The Kingdom of Heaven may be compared
to a king who gave a feast for his son’s wedding.” This initial affirmation
recalls the most profound hope: the desire of the people to be with God always.
Several times the Gospel refers to this hope, suggesting that Jesus, the son of
the King, is the bridegroom who comes to prepare the wedding (Mk 2: 19); Rev
21: 2; 19: 9).
•
Matthew
22: 3-6: The invited guests do not want to come. The king invites in a more
insisting way, but the guests do not want to come. “But they were not
interested: one went off to his farm, another to his business; and the rest
seized his servants, maltreated them and killed them." In Luke what
prevents them from accepting the invitation are the duties of daily life. The
first one says: "I have bought a piece of land and must go to see
it." The second one: "I have bought five yoke of oxen and am on my
way to try them out." The third one: "I have just got married and so
am unable to come!" (cf. Lk 14: 18-20). According to the norms and customs
of the time, those persons had the right and even the duty not to accept the invitation
they had received (cf. Dt 20: 5-7).
•
Matthew
22: 7: An incomprehensible war! The reaction of the king before the refusal
is surprising. “Then the king was furious, and he dispatched his troops,
destroyed those murderers and burnt their town.” How is such a violent reaction
to be interpreted? The parable was told for the chief priests and for the
elders of the people (Mt 22: 1), for those responsible for the nations. Many
times, Jesus had spoken to them about the need for conversion. He even shed
tears over the city of Jerusalem and said: “If you too had only recognized on
that day the way to peace! But in fact, it is hidden from your eyes. Yes, a
time is coming when your enemies will raise fortifications all round you, when
they will encircle you and hem you in on every side; they will dash you and the
children inside your walls to the ground; they will leave not one stone
standing on another within you, because you did not recognize the moment of
your visitation.” (Lk 19: 41-44). The violent reaction of the king in the
parable probably refers to the fact of the prevision of Jesus. Forty years
later, Jerusalem was destroyed (Lk 19: 41-44; 21: 6;).
•
Matthew
22: 8-10: The banquet was not cancelled. For the third time, the king
invites the people. He tells his servants: “The wedding banquet is ready, but
those invited were unworthy; go to the main crossroads and invite everyone you
can find to come to the wedding.
Going out on the streets, those servants collected together
everyone they could find, bad and good alike; and the wedding hall was filled
with guests.” The bad who were excluded because they were considered to be
impure from participation in the worship with the Jews, are now invited,
specifically, by the king to participate in the feast. In the context of that
time, the bad were the pagans. They also, are invited to participate in the
wedding feast.
•
Matthew
22: 11-14: The wedding garment. These verses tell us that the king went
into the wedding hall and saw someone who was not wearing a wedding garment.
And the king asked: “How did you get in here, my friend, without a wedding
garment?” And he was silent. The story says that the man was bound hands and
feet and thrown into the darkness outside. And the story concludes: “Many are
invited but not all are chosen.”
Some scholars think that it is a question of a second
parable which was added to lessen the impression which one has after the first
parable, which speaks about “the good and the bad” who enter into the feast (Mt
22: 10). Even if one admits that it is not the observance of the Law which
gives us salvation, but rather faith in the gratuitous love of God, that, in no
way, diminishes the need for purity of heart as a condition to be able to
appear before God.
Personal Questions
•
Who are the persons who are normally invited to
our feasts? Why? Who are the persons who are not invited to our feasts? Why?
•
Which are the reasons which today prevent many
persons from participation in society and in the Churchy? Which are some of the
reasons that persons give to exclude themselves from the duty to participate in
the community?
Are those reasons just?
Concluding Prayer
Do not thrust me away from your presence,
do not take away from me your spirit
of holiness. Give me back the joy of your salvation, sustain in me a generous
spirit. (Ps 51: 11-12)
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