The BreadCast

(Jer.1:1,4-10;   Ps.71:1-6,15,17;   Mt.13:1-9) “O God, you have taught me from my youth, and till the present I proclaim your wondrous deeds.” So does the seed grow, and bear fruit in the sight of the Lord. Our psalmist declares, “On you I depend from birth; from my mother’s womb you are my strength.”  Indeed we are planted in our mother’s womb and we grow by the grace of the Lord.  And as our bod...

(Amos 8:4-6,9-12;   Ps.119:2,10,20,30,40,131,Mt.4:46;   Mt.9:9-13) “Many tax collectors and those known as sinners came to join Jesus and His disciples at dinner.” It is just such as these that Amos prophesies against in our first reading; it is sinners such as Matthew whom he addresses when he declares, “Hear this, you who trample upon the needy and destroy the poor of the land!”  For the apostle...

(Amos 2:6-10,13-16;   Ps.50:16-23;   Mt.8:18-22)  “Consider this, you who forget God, lest I rend you and there be no one to rescue you.” What we should realize from our readings today is that the Word of the Lord is severe.  Old Testament, New Testament, Psalms, etc. – His chastising hand is upon us in the words He speaks to our sinful hearts.  He does not nod and smile as we walk our errant ways...

(2Kgs.22:8-13,23:1-3;   Ps.119:33-37,40;   Mt.7:15-20)  “Lead me in the path of your commands, for in it I take delight.” The people of Judah and Jerusalem have been unfaithful to God and to the covenant made with Him, and so the time of their exile draws near: soon this remaining tribe of Israel shall join the others in being cast from their promised land.  But today we hear of a faithful king, J...

(1Kgs.19:9,11-16;   Ps.27:7-9,13-14;   Mt.5:27-32)  “Of you my heart speaks; you my glance seeks.” “Your presence, O Lord, I seek.  Hide not your face from me,” David sings in our psalm; and it is the presence of the Lord that is made known to Elijah in our first reading.  And that same presence stands most openly before us in the teaching of Jesus in our gospel. Elijah comes to the mountain of Go...

(Jas.5:13-20;   Ps.141:1-3,8;   Mk.10:13-16)  “Let my prayer come like incense before you; the lifting up of my hands, like the evening sacrifice.” “The fervent petition of a holy man is powerful indeed.”  For indeed Elijah “prayed earnestly” and “no rain fell on the land for three years and six months.”  Then “when he prayed again, the sky burst forth with rain.”  And now greater things are accom...

(Jas.5:9-12;   Ps.103:1-4,8-9,11-12;   Mk.10:1-12)  “Merciful and gracious is the Lord, slow to anger and abounding in kindness.” And we must be like Him. James makes clear that we must “not grumble against one another,” nor swear on earth, any oath at all,” but rather simply speak “in the name of the Lord”: “Let it be ‘yes’ if you mean yes or ‘no’ if you mean no.  In this way you will not incur c...

(Jas.5:1-6;   Ps.49:14-20,Mt.5:3;   Mk.9:41-50)  “You lived in wanton luxury on the earth; you fattened yourselves for the day of slaughter.” “You rich, weep and wail over your impending miseries,” James warns all those who trust in their wealth.  For though they were “contented with their lot,” to find which they “condemned, even killed, the just man,” yet “like sheep they are herded into the net...

(Jas. 4:13-17;   Ps.49:2-3,6-11,Mt.5:3;   Mk.9:38-40) “Anyone who is not against us is with us.” And whoever is not with the Lord is against Him.  There are only two ways by which a man may walk.  We choose to place our lives in the hands of God, or we worship the things of this earth. Indeed, anyone who “perform[s] a miracle in [His] name” is with Him, for a tree is known by its fruit.  If indeed...

(Jas.4:1-10;   Ps.55:7-11,23;   Mk.9:30-37)  “In the city I see violence and strife; day and night they prowl about upon its walls.” The violence this world holds is known most poignantly, of course, in “the Son of Man… [being] delivered into the hands of men who… put Him to death,” but exists most pervasively and fundamentally in our own bodies, insofar as they are conformed to the spirit of the...

(Jas.3:13-18;   Ps.19:8-10,15;   Mk.9:14-29)  “The command of the Lord is clear, enlightening the eye.” What is the wisdom of which James speaks in our first reading but this enlightening of the eye and the mind by following the command of the Lord?  It is the words and the wisdom of Jesus, reflected clearly in the Lord’s own life, James relates to the waiting ear this day.  What does he instruct...

(2Sm.15:13-14,30,16:5-13;   Ps.3:2-7;   Mk.5:1-20)  “Many are saying of me, ‘There is no salvation for him in God.’” Today David’s sins rise to his neck, and he is persecuted for them.  But in accepting the persecution as chastisement from the hand of God, David regains his kingly stature, becoming once again humble and obedient to the Lord. David’s son Absalom has successfully led a rebellion aga...

(1Jn.5:5-13;   Ps.147:12-15,19-20;   Mk.1:7-11) “God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.”  How reassuring John is to us who believe – “I have written this to you to make you realize that you possess eternal life” – for how easily we can forget the grace that is ours “in the name of the Son of God.”  How sure he is.  How clear in his explanation.  How loving.  One has little reason t...

(1Jn.3:11-21;   Ps.100:1-5;   Jn.1:43-51) “We should love one another.”  In our gospel, “first [Jesus] came upon Philip” – whose name means “love” – and invited him to follow Him.  Love brought with him one in whom “there is no guile,” and he (Nathanael) declared openly to the Lord: “You are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.”  And so we must all be of love, and be without deceit.  We mus...

(Is.35:1-10;   Ps.85:9-14,Is.35:4;   Lk.5:17-26)   “A highway will be there, called the holy way.”   Jesus is the highway; holy is He!  He is the stream that “will burst forth in the desert.”  It is He who “strengthen[s] the hands that are feeble [and] make[s] firm the knees that are weak,” that they might walk along His way.  It is He who forgives sins.  For “no one unclean may pass over” the saf...

(Rm.11:1-2,11-12,25-29;   Ps.94:12-15,17-18;   Lk.14:1,7-11)   “The Lord will not cast off His people, nor abandon His inheritance.”   Today the gifts and call of the Israelites, which are “irrevocable,” are spoken of beautifully in our readings. Indeed, the majority of Jews rejected and even persecuted Jesus and His followers.  But as Paul tells us, the Lord has always and will always leave a rem...

(Rm.8:18-25;   Ps.126:1-6;   Lk.13:18-21)   “Hoping for what we cannot see means awaiting it with patient endurance.”   We cannot see the coming of the kingdom of heaven.  It comes so gradually; it rises imperceptibly, “like yeast which a woman took to knead into three measures of flour.”  It grows like the tiny mustard seed, which “became a large shrub and the birds of the air nested in its branc...

(Rm.4:13,16-18;   Ps.105:6-9,42-43;   Lk.12:8-12)   “All depends on faith, everything is a grace.”   Faith is our father; it brings us to life for it makes us children of “the God who restores the dead to life and calls into being those things which had not been.”  By faith we entrust ourselves into God’s hands and become as Abraham, who is “our father in the sight of God in whom he believed.”  “H...

(Zec.8:20-23;   Ps.87:1-7,Zec.8:23;   Lk.9:51-56)   “Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.”   God is with us, brothers and sisters.  And though all upon earth turn their faces from Him now, though in ignorance they reject Him and our preaching of His Word – there shall come a day when all nations find their home in Him.  In that day the Lord shall reign. As Jesus sets His fac...

(Zec.8:1-8;   Ps.102:16-23,29;   Lk.9:46-50)   “The city shall be filled with boys and girls playing in her streets.”   “Even if this should seem impossible in the eyes of the remnant of this people, shall it in those days be impossible in my eyes also, says the Lord of hosts.”  Sometimes we lose sight of the kingdom of heaven.  Sometimes our faith fails because of the difficult circumstances in w...

(Col.1:24-2:3;   Ps.62:6-7,9;   Lk.6:6-11)   “We admonish all men and teach them in the full measure of wisdom, hoping to make every man complete in Christ.”   It is Paul’s desire to see the nations “enriched with full assurance by their knowledge of the mystery of God – namely Christ – in whom every treasure of wisdom and knowledge is hidden.”  It is his desire for us all to be filled with this w...

(Nm.13:1-2,25-14:1,26-29,34-35;  Ps.106:4,6-7,13-14,21-23;  Mt.15:21-28)   “They forgot the God who had saved them.”   But He did not forget them.  Though He curses them in our first reading for their lack of faith, and though they shall indeed all – except for Joshua and Caleb – die in the desert over forty years, their children shall enter and take the Promised Land from the five tribes which in...

(Jer.28:1-17;   Ps.119:29,43,68,79-80,95,102;   Mt.14:22-36)  “Let those turn to me who fear you and acknowledge your decrees.” Hananiah does not fear the Lord; he cares nothing for His decrees.  And so he prophesies that the Lord will bring “the vessels of the house of the Lord and all the exiles back from Babylon” within two years, though the Lord has not said this.  And he refuses to turn to Je...

(Ex.20:1-17;   Ps.19:8-11,Jn.6:69;   Mt.13:18-23)   “What was sown on good soil is the man who hears the message and takes it in.”   “The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul…  The command of the Lord is clear, enlightening the eye…  More precious than gold” and “sweeter also than syrup or honey from the comb” is the word of God.  How beautifully our psalm speaks of the words of everlas...

(Gn.22:1-19;   Ps.115:1-6,8-9;   Mt.9:1-8)   “God put Abraham to the test.”   And so is his faith in the living God made known.  And so we see to what faith and obedience we are called.  All that we hold back from the Lord, all that is due our God – and our neighbor – we must give without hesitation at the voice of His command. In Leviticus 5, a ram is prescribed as the sacrifice for those who hav...