The BreadCast

(Lv.19:1-2,11-18;   Ps.19:8-10,15,Jn.6:63;   Mt.25:31-46)   “As often as you did it for one of my least brothers, you did it for me.”   “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  Such is the golden rule and the second of the greatest commandments, which is like unto the first: Love God.  And the union of the two is made evident by Jesus in our gospel today; He makes clear that what we do to othe...

(Is.58:9-14;   Ps.86:1-6,11;   Lk.5:27-32)   “Repairer of the breach,” they shall call you, “restorer of ruined homesteads.”   “Levi gave a great reception for Jesus in his house,” but it is Jesus who invites him, and all sinners, “to a change of heart” and to join Him in the home He makes for us all in heaven.  As Levi (or Matthew) has done, so must we all: we must leave our “customs post,” that...

(Is.58:1-9;   Ps.51:3-6,18-19;   Mt.9:14-15)   “Would that today you might fast so as to make your voice heard on high!”   Brothers and sisters, in this day of fasting and penance, first we must “acknowledge [our] offense” as David in our psalm.  We must cry out to our God: “Against you only have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight.”  This is our leaven of truth.  “A contrite spirit, a h...

(Dt.30:15-20;   Ps.1:1-4,6,39:5;   Lk.9:22-25)   “The Lord watches over the way of the just, but the way of the wicked vanishes.”   In our first reading, Moses makes clear the choice we all must face: “I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse.”  “By loving the Lord… heeding His voice, and holding fast to Him,” the Israelites will be blessed with “long life” in the Promised...

(Jas.1:12-18;   Ps.94:12-15,18-19;   Mk.8:14-21)  “He wills to bring us to birth with a word spoken in truth.” But how deaf we are to His speaking. The disciples exhibit a remarkable degree of ignorance in our gospel today.  It would be comical were it not so usual, were it not such a defining trait of us humans.  Preoccupied with their forgetfulness to bring bread for their journey, when the Lord...

(Jas.1:1-11;   Ps.119:67-68,71-72,75-77;   Mk.8:11-13)  “Count it pure joy when you are involved in every sort of trial.” How well James explicates the wisdom of the cross.  First he encourages us to “realize that when [our] faith is tested this makes for endurance,” and then to “let endurance come to its perfection so that [we] may be fully mature and lacking in nothing.”  This is the wisdom of o...

(1Kgs.12:26-32,13:33-34;   Ps.106:4,6-7,19-22;   Mk.8:1-10) “Whoever desired it was consecrated and became a priest of the high places.” For this sin “the house of Jeroboam… was to be cut off and destroyed from the earth.”  Not only will their king be so punished, but the whole Israelite nation will find the wrath of the Lord for such idolatrous action.  Not learning from their forefathers, whom t...

(1Kgs.11:29-32,12:19;   Ps.81:9-15;   Mk.7:31-37) “My people heard not my voice, and Israel obeyed me not; so I gave them up to the hardness of their hearts.” The Lord has said, “There shall be no strange god among you nor shall you worship an alien god,” but the people did not listen.  Led by their corrupted king, “they walked according to their own counsels” and took to themselves the perverse g...

(1Kgs.11:4-13;   Ps.106:3-4,35-37,40;   Mk.7:24-30) “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.”  Jesus speaks these words to a foreign woman, a pagan Greek, who “beg[s] Him to expel the demon from her daughter.”  They seem harsh.  Some may interpret them so.  After all, in our gospel we find Jesus traveling to the northernmost part of Israel where “He retired to a...

(1Kgs.10:1-10;   Ps.37:5-6,30-31,39-40;   Mk.7:14-23) “The mouth of the just man tells of wisdom and his tongue utters what is right.” Today in our readings we have a passage to illustrate the great extent of the wisdom and riches of King Solomon.  “The queen of Sheba, having heard of Solomon’s fame, [comes] to test him with subtle questions.”  She had not believed the report she’d heard of him, b...

(1Kgs.8:22-23,27-30;   Ps.84:2-5,10-11;   Mk.7:1-13)  “Can it indeed be that God dwells among men on earth?” Well does Solomon do in stating, “If the heavens and the highest heavens cannot contain you, how much less this temple which I have built!”  For though the Lord will heed Solomon’s prayer and “listen to the petitions of [His] servant and of [His] people Israel which they offer in this place...

(1Kgs.8:1-7,9-13;   Ps.132:6-10;   Mk.6:53-56) “Let us enter into His dwelling, let us worship at His footstool.” “Advance, O Lord, to your resting place, you and the ark of your majesty.”  Yes, in our first reading, “the elders of Israel and all the leaders of the tribes” come to bring the ark of the Lord into the temple Solomon has built in Jerusalem.  “For the occasion [they] sacrificed before...

(1Kgs.3:4-13;   Ps.119:9-14;   Mk.6:30-34)  “He began to teach them at great length.”  “Who is able to govern this vast people of yours?” Solomon asks in his plea to God for wisdom.  And “upon disembarking Jesus saw a vast crowd” who “were like sheep without a shepherd,” our gospel tells us.  The apostles have just “returned to Jesus and reported to Him all that they had done and what they had tau...

(Sir.47:2-11;   Ps.18:31,47,50-51;   Mk.6:14-29) “Herod feared John, knowing him to be an upright and holy man.” O how the Lord has given power to His great men.  It is He who “gave great victories to [the] king.”  David “called upon the Most High God, who gave strength to his right arm”; and as David “made sport of lions as though they were kids,” as he “slew the giant” and his “tens of thousands...

(1Kgs.2:1-4,10-12;   1Chr.29:10-12;   Mk.6:7-13)  “Yours, O Lord, is the sovereignty; you are exalted as head over all.” Solomon begins his reign, and the apostles begin their mission.  But how different is their manner of rule.  Solomon sits in sovereignty upon a throne, while the apostles are sent in poverty to all towns.  Solomon’s reign is of the physical universe, with the riches of the world...

(2Sm.24:2,9-17;   Ps.32:1-2,5-7,   Mk.6:1-6) “I acknowledged my sin to you; my guilt I covered not.” The Lord can heal only those who believe in Him, who turn to Him in their guilt to be saved. David has sinned against the Lord once again.  His kingdom had been blessed by the Lord and was flourishing in His sight.  Rather than accept the blessings the Lord poured upon him and so find their increas...

(2Sm.18:9-10,14,24-25,30-19:3;   Ps.86:1-6;   Mk.5:21-43) “Hearken, O Lord, to my prayer, and attend to the sound of my pleading.” Today in our readings we hear of desperate pleas made to the Lord.  In our gospel there are at least two “earnest appeal[s]”: Jairus “fell at [the] feet” of Jesus and begged Him to heal his dying daughter; and without words the woman “who had been afflicted with a hemo...

(2Sm.12:1-7,10-17;   Ps.51:12-17;   Mk.4:35-41) “I have sinned against the Lord.” David is the man who “took the poor man’s ewe lamb and made a meal of it for his visitor.”  To feed his lust he has feasted on another man’s wife.  And he sees the injustice of this; he recognizes his guilt when his sin is exposed.  But why has he done it?  “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this merits death!”...

(2Sm.11:1-10,13-17;   Ps.51:3-7,10-11;   Mk.4:26-34) “The seed sprouts and grows without his knowing how it happens.” Jesus in our gospel tells us of the kingdom of God and of its gradual growth without our knowing.  Seed is scattered, the Word is sown in our souls, and as we “[go] to bed and [get] up day after day,” remaining in the presence of the Lord, good fruits little by little reveal themse...

(2Sm.7:18-19,24-29;   Ps.132:1-2,3-5,11-14,Lk.1:32;   Mk.4:21-25)  “If your sons keep my covenant and the decrees which I shall teach them, their sons, too, forever shall sit upon your throne.” Yes, “the Lord has chosen Zion; He prefers her for His dwelling.”  His blessings are upon His Church and its people, for “the Lord swore to David a firm promise from which He will not withdraw: ‘Your own of...

(2Sm.7:4-17;   Ps.89:4-5,27-30;   Mk.4:1-20) “Your house and your kingdom shall endure forever before me; your throne shall stand firm forever.” David seems intent on establishing the Lord’s presence forever by building a permanent house in which He might dwell, but how well our God answers the great king’s thoughts with the promise of making “his posterity endure forever.”  It is the Lord who est...

(2Sm.6:12-15,17-19;   Ps.24:7-10;   Mk.3:31-35) “Lift up, O gates, your lintels; reach up, you ancient portals, that the King of glory may come in!” In our first reading David leads all the Israelites in, “bringing up the ark of the Lord with shouts of joy and to the sound of the horn.”  “Dancing before the Lord with abandon,” he brings the ark into Jerusalem and sets it within its tent or taberna...

(2Sm.5:1-7,10;   Ps.89:20-22,25-26;   Mk.3:22-30)  “Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven.” How different are the scribes who come to Jesus from the Israelites who come to David to crown him king.  “The tribes of Israel came to David in Hebron and said: ‘Here we are, your bone and your flesh.’”  So united would they be to him whom the Lord had said would “shepherd [His]...

(2Sm.1:1-4,11-12,19,23-27;   Ps.80:2-7;   Mk.3:20-21)  “They mourned and wept and fasted until evening for Saul and his son Jonathan.”  For David’s leading his men in mourning for Saul, it might have been said of him what was said of Jesus: “He is out of His mind.”  But even to the end David proves himself sincere in his respect for God’s anointed, even slaying the man who claims to have dispatche...

(1Sm.24:3-21;   Ps.57:2-4,6,11;   Mk.3:13-19) “Sovereignty over Israel shall come into your possession.” Today we see David at perhaps his most humble and obedient in the sight of God – we see why he is the great king of Israel. David is being hunted down by Saul once again in his jealousy.  His psalm, our psalm today, is his cry for protection from the Lord in whom he trusts: “I call to God Most...