July 23, 2026
Thursday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 398
Reading 1
This word of the LORD came to me:
Go, cry out this message for Jerusalem to hear!
I remember the devotion of your youth,
how you loved me as a bride,
Following me in the desert,
in a land unsown.
Sacred to the LORD was Israel,
the first fruits of his harvest;
Should any presume to partake of them,
evil would befall them, says the LORD.
When I brought you into the garden land
to eat its goodly fruits,
You entered and defiled my land,
you made my heritage loathsome.
The priests asked not,
“Where is the LORD?”
Those who dealt with the law knew me not:
the shepherds rebelled against me.
The prophets prophesied by Baal,
and went after useless idols.
Be amazed at this, O heavens,
and shudder with sheer horror, says the LORD.
Two evils have my people done:
they have forsaken me, the source of living waters;
They have dug themselves cisterns,
broken cisterns, that hold no water.
Responsorial Psalm
R. (10a) With you is the fountain of life, O Lord.
O LORD, your mercy reaches to heaven;
your faithfulness, to the clouds.
Your justice is like the mountains of God;
your judgments, like the mighty deep.
R. With you is the fountain of life, O Lord.
How precious is your mercy, O God!
The children of men take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
They have their fill of the prime gifts of your house;
from your delightful stream you give them to drink.
R. With you is the fountain of life, O Lord.
For with you is the fountain of life,
and in your light we see light.
Keep up your mercy toward your friends,
your just defense of the upright of heart.
R. With you is the fountain of life, O Lord.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Blessed are you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth;
you have revealed to little ones the mysteries of the Kingdom.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
The disciples approached Jesus and said,
“Why do you speak to the crowd in parables?”
He said to them in reply,
“Because knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom of heaven
has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted.
To anyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich;
from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away.
This is why I speak to them in parables, because
they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand.
Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled in them, which says:
You shall indeed hear but not understand,
you shall indeed look but never see.
Gross is the heart of this people,
they will hardly hear with their ears,
they have closed their eyes,
lest they see with their eyes
and hear with their ears
and understand with their hearts and be converted
and I heal them.
“But blessed are your eyes, because they see,
and your ears, because they hear.
Amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people
longed to see what you see but did not see it,
and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.”
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072326.cfm
Commentary on
Jeremiah 2:1-3, 7-8, 12-13
We have today a passage from the earliest preaching of
Jeremiah (chaps 2-6) which preceded the reforms under King Josiah. They would
again become relevant with the relapse of the people into idolatry and the
threat of the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar, when Jehoiakim was king of
Judah. The wickedness and backsliding of God’s people will be vividly portrayed
in numerous colourful figures of speech.
Today’s passage speaks in touching language of God’s
relationship with his backsliding people. The relationship is expressed in
terms of a marriage that started so well but went so badly wrong. “I remember,”
God says through his prophet, “the affection of your youth, the love of your
bridal days.” It is like a husband reminiscing about the days of his first love
and the honeymoon period that followed the wedding.
The word for “affection” here translates the Hebrew
word hesed. It stands for the intimacy between Israel and God
within the covenant, here with the accent on a mutual love. It expresses “the
most intimate degree of loyalty, love and faithfulness that can exist between
two people or between an individual and the Lord,” as one commentator puts it.
“I remember how you loved me as a bride.” Early in her
history, Israel had enjoyed a close and cordial relationship with the Lord, who
is often described figuratively as Israel’s husband. Hosea, in particular,
loves to use this image. But it was a love that did not last and was
transferred later to “foreign gods”. In the days in the Sinai desert, they were
with Yahweh but later they followed “worthless idols”. In those early days,
they showed their fidelity by following Yahweh “through a land unsown”, arid
and infertile, and where they lived in total dependence on Yahweh. Now, in
their prosperity, they go for other indulgences.
In those days, they were a people truly sacred to their
Lord, set apart to him and his service. They were the first-fruits of his
harvest of peoples. The best of the first-fruits of Israel’s crops were
supposed to be offered to God as a sign that he was their source; now here
God’s people are the first-fruits, the best and choicest of all.
And yet, in spite of all they were given, they betrayed the
trust that God had in them and disaster overcame them. God kept his promise and
brought them to a “fertile country”, “into the garden land to eat its fruits”.
(The word for ‘fertile’ in the Hebrew is karmel, which means
‘orchard’.) This was the Promised Land which was the complete opposite of the
“unsown” desert in which they had wandered for 40 years. Everything in the new
land was for them. But what did they do? They defiled it, that is, through
their idolatrous practices they made the land ceremonially unclean. “You made
my heritage loathsome.” What had been God’s inheritance given to them became
hateful in God’s eyes.
The very priests no longer paid attention to God. “They
never even bothered to ask, ‘Where is the Lord?'” They never consulted Yahweh.
Those same priests whose responsibility it was to administer the Law had become
strangers to God. “Those who dealt with the Law”, namely, the priests, “knew me
not”. “The shepherds,” that is, the king and the ruling classes, “rebelled
against me.” The prophets prophesied in the name of Baal and not of Yahweh,
putting their trust in “useless idols” which were utterly powerless.
God, through Jeremiah, calls on the heavens to witness to
this appalling situation. “Stand aghast, you heavens!” In the Hebrew it is a
powerful combination of similar-sounding words: shommu shamayim.
The people have committed a double crime. On the one hand,
they have turned their backs on God, the source of living water, of true life.
At the same time, they have tried to provide water
themselves in cisterns that consistently leak and provide no regular supply of
water. A kind of watertight plaster was used to prevent cisterns from leaking.
The image here is that the idols, which God’s people are now worshipping, will,
like broken cisterns, always fail to provide the people with the life they
need. Only Yahweh can provide this water.
The lovely image of God as living water is one that is found
often in the Scriptures. “From your delightful stream you give them to drink”
(Ps 36:9). “All you who are thirsty come to the water”, cries Isaiah (55:1).
Jesus speaks to the Samaritan woman of the living water which only he can give
(John 4). Again, in the Temple at Jerusalem Jesus cried out to the people around:
“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and let the one who believes in me drink.
As the Scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of
living water'” (John 7:37-38)4). In Revelation, the one on the throne says, “I
am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will
give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life” (Rev 21:6)
In our own days, there are so many, including many who are
baptised, who try to replace God, the source of life-giving water, with other
things they believe will provide the happiness and contentment they seek. It
may be money in all its forms, success, fame, popularity, material goods, sex,
etc. Yet all these are in the long run (and often enough in the short run) no
better than leaking cisterns which (to mix the metaphor!) quickly turn to
bitter-tasting ashes.
Let us learn to see that the vision of Jesus is truly the
Way, the way to wholeness and life.
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Commentary on
Matthew 13:10-17
Today’s passage continues from the Parables of the Kingdom
and forms an interlude between the parable of the sower and its interpretation.
Jesus is asked by his disciples why he speaks to the people in parables. The
implication is that he does not speak in parables to his own disciples.
It would be possible to interpret Jesus’ reply as meaning
that he speaks clearly to his disciples but to the people in riddles because
they are outsiders. This would seem to contradict the purpose of speaking in
parables, which is to use helpful and familiar images in order to lead towards
a better understanding of a deeper message (the parable of the sower is a good
example).
The Jerusalem Bible sees it somewhat
differently:
“Those who saw so dimly could be further blinded by the
light of full revelation. Jesus, therefore, does not reveal with complete
clarity the true nature of the messianic kingdom which is unostentatious.
Instead he filters the light through symbols; the resulting half-light is
nevertheless a grace from God, an invitation to ask for something better and
accept something greater.”
It seems that we are dealing here again with the difference
between ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’. The ‘insiders’ are those who give Jesus a
ready hearing. Naturally, they are more open to hearing about the ‘mysteries’
of the Kingdom and to assimilating what they hear. The ‘outsiders’ on the other
hand, are precisely that because they have closed minds; they are not ready to
listen.
In the particular context of Matthew’s Gospel, those who
refuse to listen are those who have rigidly bound themselves within the
confines of the Mosaic Law and who refuse to listen to the message of Jesus.
His message is a “fulfilment” as well as being a radical restatement of the Law
and the proclamation of a totally new covenant in the person of Jesus as
Messiah. Or, as the Jerusalem Bible puts it:
“The ill-disposed will even lose what they have, namely,
that Jewish Law which, without the perfection Christ brings to it, is destined
to become obsolete.”
This gives meaning to the words which Jesus uses. Speaking
of the ‘insiders’ he says:
For to those who have, more will be given, and they will
have an abundance, but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be
taken away.
Those who have opened themselves to the Word of God will
find themselves evermore enriched, while those who have not even begun to
accept the Word will end up in even a worse situation than they are now.
Similarly, those to whom the parables are addressed:
…look but do not see, listen but do not hear or
understand.
This happens, not because the parables are difficult, but
because the hearers are not prepared to listen. In fact, they are, one might
almost say, watered down and easily digestible versions of the full message.
And Jesus quotes words of Isaiah (9:13) which are not meant
to be understood as God deliberately blocking his Word from reaching people as
this would not make any sense. The prophet is better understood as speaking in
a strongly sarcastic tone:
You will indeed listen but never understand,
and you will indeed look but never perceive.
For this people’s heart has grown dull,
and their ears are hard of hearing,
and they have shut their eyes,
so that they might not look with their eyes,
and hear with their ears
and understand with their heart and turn—
and I would heal them.
That is where the issue lies. If we are prepared to see and
to listen, it will mean a radical change in our lives, in our attitudes, in our
values and priorities, in our relationships. Many are not ready to have their
lives turned upside down. They prefer to remain blind and deaf.
On the contrary, Jesus says to the ‘insiders’:
But blessed are your eyes, for they see [i.e.
understand and accept], and your ears, for they hear. Truly I tell you, many
prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it and
to hear what you hear but did not hear it [i.e. listen, accept and
carry out].
And to the extent that we have become ‘insiders’ with
Christ, we too are deeply blessed. But we do need to be sensitive to our own
tendencies not to see or not to listen because of our unreadiness to go all the
way in our following Jesus, or in our reluctance to let go and make the changes
in our lives he is asking of us.
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https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/o2165g/
Thursday, July 23, 2026
Ordinary Time
Opening Prayer
Lord,
be merciful to your people.
Fill us
with your gifts and make us always eager to serve you in faith, hope and love.
You live and reign with the Father
and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Gospel Reading - Matthew 13: 10-17
Then
the disciples went up to Jesus and asked, 'Why do you talk to them in
parables?' In answer, he said, 'Because to you is granted to understand the
mysteries of the kingdom of Heaven, but to them it is not granted. Anyone who
has will be given more and will have more than enough; but anyone who has not
will be deprived even of what he has. The reason I talk to them in parables is
that they look without seeing and listen without hearing or understanding. So, in
their case what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah is being fulfilled: Listen and
listen but never understand! Look and look but never perceive! This people's
heart has grown coarse, their ears dulled, they have shut their eyes tight to
avoid using their eyes to see, their ears to hear, their heart to understand,
changing their ways and being healed by me.
'But blessed are your eyes because they see, your ears
because they hear! In truth I tell you, many prophets and upright people longed
to see what you see and never saw it; to hear what you hear, and never heard
it.
Reflection
Chapter 13 speaks to us about the discourse of the
Parables. Following the text of Mark (Mk 4: 1-34), Matthew omits the parable of
the seed which germinates alone (Mk 4: 26-29), and he stops on the discussion
of the reason for the Parable (Mt 13: 10-17) adding the parable of the wheat
and the darnel (Mt 13: 24-30), of the yeast (Mt 13: 33), of the treasure (Mt
13: 44), of the pearl (Mt 13: 45-46) and of the dragnet (Mt 13: 47-50).
Together with the parable of the sower (Mt 13: 4-11) and of the mustard seed
(Mt 13: 31-32), there are seven parables in the Discourse of the Parables (Mt 13: 1-50).
•
Matthew
13: 10: The question. In the Gospel
of Mark, the Disciples ask for an explanation of the parables (Mk 4: 10). Here
in Matthew, the prospective is diverse. They want to know why Jesus, when he
speaks to the people, speaks only in parables: “Why do you talk to them in parables?” Which is the reason for this
difference?
•
Matthew
13: 11-13: “Because to you is granted to
understand the mysteries of the kingdom of Heaven, but to them it is not
granted. Anyone who has will be given more and will have more than enough; but
anyone who has not will be deprived even of what he has. The reason I speak to
them in parables is that they look without seeing and listen without hearing or
understanding. Jesus answers: “Because
to you is granted to understand the mysteries of the kingdom of Heaven. Anyone
who has will be given more and will have more than enough; but anyone who has
not will be deprived even of what he has.“ Why is it granted to the
Apostles to know and not to others? Here is a comparison to help us to
understand. Two persons listen to the mother who teaches: is someone who does not cut and sew.” One of them is the daughter
and the other is not. The daughter understands and the other one understands
nothing. Why? Because in the house of the mother the expression “cut and sew” means to slander. Thus,
the teaching of the mother helps the daughter to understand better how to put
into practice love, helping her so that what she already knows may grow,
develop. Anyone who has will be given
more. The other person understands nothing and loses even the little that
she knew regarding love and slander. She remains confused and does not succeed
in understanding what love has to do with cutting and sewing! Anyone who has not will be deprived even of
what he has. A parable reveals and hides at the same time! It reveals for
“those who are inside”, who accept Jesus as the Messiah Servant. It hides from
those who insist in saying that the Messiah will be and should be a Glorious
King. These understand the image presented by the parable, but they do not
succeed to understand the significance. The Disciples, instead grow in what
they already know concerning the Messiah. The others do not understand anything
and lose even the little that they thought they knew on the Kingdom and on the
Messiah.
•
Matthew
13: 14-15: ”The fulfilment of the
prophecy of Isaiah. Just like some other time (Mt 12: 18-21), in this
different reaction of the people and of the Pharisees before the teaching of
the parables, Matthew again sees here the fulfilment of the prophecy of Isaiah.
He even quotes at length the text of Isaiah which says: “Listen and listen, but never understand! Look and look, but never
perceive! This people’s heart has grown coarse, their ears dulled, they have
shut their eyes tight to avoid using their eyes to see, their ears to hear,
their heart to understand, changing their ways and being healed by me.”
•
Matthew
13: 16-17: “But blessed are your eyes
because they see, your ears because they hear.“ All this explains the last
phrase: “But blessed are your eyes
because they see your ears because they hear. In truth I tell you, many
prophets and upright people longed to see what you see and never saw it, to
hear what you hear and never heard it!”
•
The Parables: a new way of speaking
to the people about God. People
remained impressed about the way in which Jesus taught. “A new way of teaching!
Given with authority! Different from that of the Scribes! (Mk 7: 28). Jesus had
a great capacity for finding very simple images to compare the things of God
with the things of life which people knew and experienced in the daily struggle
to survive. This presupposes two things: to be inside the things of the life of
the people, and to be inside the things of God, of the Kingdom of God. In some
parables there are things that happen and that seldom arrive in life. For
example, when has it ever happened that a shepherd, who has one hundred sheep,
abandons the flock with 99 to go and look for the lost sheep? (Lk 15: 4). Where
have we ever seen a father who accepts with joy and a feast his son who had
squandered all his goods, without saying a word of reproach to him? (Lk 15:
20-24). When has it been seen that a Samaritan man is better than a Levite,
than a priest? (Lk 10: 29- 37). The parable makes one think. It leads the
person to enter into the story beginning from the experience of life. And through
our experience it urges us to discover that God is present in our daily life.
The parable is a participative form of teaching and of educating. It does not
change everything in one minute. It does not make one know, it makes one
discover. The parable changes our look, it renders the person who listens to be
a contemplative, it helps her to observe reality. This is the novelty of the
teaching of the parables of Jesus, different from that of the doctors who
taught that God manifests himself only in the observance of the law. “The
Kingdom is present in your midst” (Lk 17: 21). But those who listened did not
always understand.
Personal Questions
•
Jesus
says: “To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the Kingdom.” When I
read the Gospels am I like those who understand nothing or like those to whom
it has been granted to know the Kingdom?
•
Which
is the parable of Jesus with which I identify myself more? Why?
Concluding Prayer
Yahweh, your faithful love is in the heavens,
your constancy reaches to the clouds, your saving justice is like towering
mountains, your judgements like the mighty deep. (Ps 36: 5-6)
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