The BreadCast

(2Cor.11:1-11;   Ps.111:1-4,7-8;   Mt.6:7-15)   “Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.”   And what we need is to be holy as He is holy.  And it is this we ask for in the Lord’s Prayer.  We simply seek to be like Him, and that all obstacles to holiness be removed from us.  And like a loving father He meets our needs. And Paul is a father to the community at Corinth; he loves them “wit...

(2Cor.9:6-11;   Ps.112:1-4,9;   Mt.6:1-6,16-18)   “Keep your deeds of mercy secret, and your Father who sees in secret will repay you.”     In the ground, hidden and secret, the seed is planted.  From the womb of the earth it sprouts, and gives its yield.  We plant the seed; God provides the seed.  And it is through His power that anything which we plant grows and increases.  So it is with our gen...

(2Cor.8:1-9;   Ps.146:2,5-9;   Mt.5:43-48)   “Love your enemies, pray for your persecutors.”   Our psalm today begins with praise of God and the proclamation of the happiness of those “whose hope is in the Lord,” for it is He who “gives food to the hungry” and “raises up those that were bowed down.”  Freeing captives, giving sight to the blind, protecting strangers… such is our God and Father.  An...

(2Cor.6:1-10;   Ps.98:1-4;   Mt.5:38-42)   “When a person strikes you on the right cheek, turn and offer him the other.”   “Now is the acceptable time!  Now is the day of salvation!”  Alleluia!  And how do we know the salvation of the Lord except by the cross.  This is our joy.  These “difficulties, distresses, beatings, imprisonments, and riots”; the “hard work, sleepless nights, and fastings” –...

(2Cor.5:14-21;   Ps.103:1-4,8-9,11-12;   Mt.5:33-37)  “The love of Christ impels us who have reached the conviction that since one died for all, all died.” How strong is Paul’s “yes” for the Lord.  With what ardor does he cry out: “The old order is passed away; now all is new!”  How purely he is led in the Spirit to call to our very souls, “In Christ’s name: be reconciled to God!”  He has no need...

(2Cor.4:7-15;   Ps.116:10-11,15-18;   Mt.5:27-32)  “While we live we are constantly being delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be revealed in our mortal flesh.” In our gospel we continue to see how the grace of Jesus supersedes the Law of Moses.  Yesterday we were told not only must we not murder, but that we must not even be angry with or speak ill of another.  Today...

(2Cor.3:15-4:1,3-6;   Ps.85:9-14;   Mt.5:20-26)  “See the splendor of the gospel showing forth the glory of Christ.” Today the gospel is preached: Jesus, the image of God, has come among us, “glory dwelling in our land,” and removed the veil from our understanding so that now we “are being transformed from glory to glory into His very image by the Lord who is the Spirit.”  The words of life are sp...

(2Cor.3:4-11;   Ps.99:5-9;   Mt.5:17-19)  “Not the smallest letter of the law, not the smallest part of a letter, shall be done away with until it all comes true.” Jesus comes to fulfill the law and the prophets.  The law watches over us while we are here in this world.  It guards us and puts to death the sin that is inherent in our earthly nature.   There is great glory in this blessed protection...

(2Cor.1:18-22;   Ps.119:129-133,135;   Mt.5:13-16)  “God is the one who firmly establishes us.” “Light of the world” and “salt of the earth” – this is what we are by the power of God.  It is by Him we are “set on a hill” to give “light to all in the house”; it is we who preserve the integrity of creation.  It is a holy call and a demanding one, and we should not waver in our resolve to follow the...

(2Cor.1:1-7;   Ps.34:2-9;   Mt.5:1-12)  “Blessed are those persecuted for holiness’ sake; the reign of God is theirs.” Here is the core teaching of our faith.  Here are the beatitudes, the call to sweet humility which flows like blessed honey from the lips of our Savior.  And that teaching is that the humbled shall be exalted, that those who mourn and sorrow for the lack of love we find in this ta...

(Acts 9:31-42;   Ps.116:12-17;   Jn.6:60-69) “We have come to believe.”        Yes, Peter professes for the Twelve (except Judas, of course), “We are convinced that you are God’s holy one.”  They have heard His words and seen His works, and despite the difficulty of this latest and most challenging of words – that they must eat His flesh and drink His blood – their faith is not shaken as is that o...

(Dn.3:14-20,91-92,95;   Dn.3:52-56;   Jn.8:31-42)   “The truth will set you free.”   Sin binds.  Like the cords with which “the strongest men in [Nebuchadnezzar’s] army bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego,” sin fetters our souls and casts us “into the white-hot furnace.”  “Everyone who lives in sin is the slave of sin.”  But for those like these three faithful servants who “will not… worship the...

(Ex.32:7-14;   Ps.106:4,19-23;   Jn.5:31-47)   “If you believed Moses you would then believe me, for it was about me that he wrote.”   As Moses wrote, so Jesus speaks.  As Moses wrote, so Jesus is.  The eternal life to which the Scriptures testify is now in our midst.  The Word has come to life; the Law is now fulfilled.  The “form [we] have never seen” now stands before us.  The “voice [we] have...

(Sir.35:1-12;   Ps.50:5-8,14,23;   Mk.10:28-31)   “The just man’s sacrifice is most pleasing, nor will it ever be forgotten.”   Peter is moved today to voice his fear that all that he and his fellow apostles have offered, even their very lives, will not be enough to secure the kingdom of God.  But Jesus reassures all who serve Him: “I give you my word, there is no one who has given up home, brothe...

(Sir.17:19-27;   Ps.32:1-2,5-7,11;   Mk.10:17-27)   “Jesus fixed His gaze on them and said, ‘For man it is impossible but not for God.’”   With these incisive words and particularly with this intent look, Jesus “encourages those who are losing hope.”  His disciples are “completely overwhelmed” at His statement: “It is easier for a camel to pass through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter t...

(Sir.17:1-15;   Ps.103:13-18;   Mk.10:13-16)   “Let the children come to me and do not hinder them.”   O how the Lord “looks with favor upon [our] hearts, and shows [us] His glorious works”!  And because “His majestic glory their eyes beheld, His glorious voice their ears heard,” so the “people were bringing their little children to Jesus to have Him touch them,” so they were offering their precio...

(Sir.6:5-17;   Ps.119:12,16,18,27,34-35;   Mk.10:1-12)   “They are no longer two but one flesh.”   How much more clearly could the Lord speak of the unity found in marriage and so the respect due this sacrament?  How better could He get His point across to you that marriage is indissoluble, that it is not to be played with, that you commit adultery as you consider divorcing your spouse?  “At the b...

(Sir.5:1-8;   Ps.1:1-4,6,40:50;   Mk.9:41-50)   “Mercy and anger are alike with Him; upon the wicked alights His wrath.”   “The way of the wicked vanishes.”  It must vanish.  It cannot but vanish, for there is no place for wickedness in the kingdom of God.  And so, what is wicked must “be thrown into Gehenna”: what is to “enter life” must be purified.  Thus does the Lord command – Cut off your han...

(Sir.4:11-19;   Ps.119:165,168,171-172,174-175;   Mk.9:38-40)   “Those who serve her serve the Holy One; those who love her the Lord loves.”   Such is wisdom, she who “instructs her children and admonishes those who seek her,” she under whose counsel we become the children of God. And I cannot help but think as I contemplate this personification of wisdom, how well and how appropriately she is emb...

(Sir.2:1-11;   Ps.37:3-5,18-19,27-28,39-40;   Mk.9:30-37) “My son, when you come to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for trials.” Is Jesus not “teaching His disciples in this vein” when He speaks of His imminent death, a death they shall share, and calls them to “remain the least one of all and the servant of all,” even as He is?  Their arguing about importance reveals that they have not understoo...

(Sir.1:1-10;   Ps.93:1-2,5;   Mk.9:14-29)   “There is but one, wise and truly awe-inspiring, seated upon His throne: It is the Lord.”   “The Lord is King, in splendor robed,” and He alone knows “wisdom’s root” and all “her subtleties”; for it is He who created her and “poured her forth upon all His works.”  And so He alone, whose “throne stands firm from of old,” He alone understands all things, a...

(Gn.11:1-9;   Ps.33:10-15;   Mk.8:34-9:1)   “What profit does a man show who gains the whole world and destroys himself in the process?”   Listen to what the men of old said among themselves at a time when “the whole world spoke the same language, using the same words.”  As they were migrating, they stopped in a valley and declared: “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in...

(Gn.9:1-13;   Ps.102:16-23,29;   Mk.8:27-33)   “The children of your servants shall abide, and their posterity shall continue in your presence.”   In our first reading from Genesis, God remakes the world.  As once He sent forth Adam and Eve upon their creation, so now He blesses Noah and his sons with the same words: “Be fertile and multiply and fill the earth.”  Here we are reminded that “in the...

(Gn.8:6-13,20-22;   Ps.116:12-15,17-19;   Mk.8:22-26)   “Noah then removed the covering of the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was drying up.”   A return to earth, the flood waters having ceased.  A new day dawns in this “the first month, on the first day of the month.”  The world is made anew, and it shall last, and man shall last upon it, until the last day comes.  Here is the second...

(Gn.6:5-8,7:1-5,10;   Ps.29:1-4,9-11;   Mk.8:14-21)   “The voice of the Lord is over the waters, the Lord, over vast waters.”   “Mighty” indeed is the voice of God, but who can hear it?  Who listens to its “majestic” ringing in their ears? In the time of Noah the Lord’s “heart was grieved,” for He “saw how great was man’s wickedness on earth, and how no desire that his heart conceived was ever any...