Gospel: July 21, 2025
July 21, 2025 (Monday)
16th Week in Ordinary Time
Psalter: Week 4 (Green/White)
St. Lawrence of Brindisi, priest and doctor
Ex 15:1bc-2, 3-4, 5-6
Let us sing to the Lord; he has covered himself in glory.
1st Reading: Exodus 14:5-18
Gospel: Matthew 12:38-42
Then, some teachers of the law and some Pharisees spoke up, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.” Jesus answered them, “An evil and unfaithful people want a sign; but no sign will be given them except the sign of the prophet Jonah. In the same way, as Jonah spent three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of Man spend three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. At the judgment, the people of Nineveh will rise with this generation, and condemn it; because they reformed their lives at the preaching of Jonah, and here, there is greater than Jonah. At the judgment, the Queen of the South will stand up and condemn you. She came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and here, there is greater than Solomon.
Reflection:
“The sign of Emmanuel.”
Perhaps the teachers of the Law wanted to see a miracle of Red Sea proportions. They had heard of healings, but if Jesus did something like that, then they would believe. Yet, they forgot that the parting of the Red Sea didn’t make Pharaoh and his army stop pursuing the Israelites. One might have thought that Pharaoh and his forces would have turned back, awestruck at God’s power. But their anger had blinded them to the Lord. Now the Lord is in their midst, and the teachers and Pharisees are blind to his presence, and they refuse to repent. If they can’t understand who Jesus is through the miracles he has already demonstrated, then no sign will convince them. They don’t realize that Jesus himself is the sign they are to recognize; the sign of Emmanuel—God with them, but they are unaware. And so, the only sign he can give them is his death and resurrection, foreshadowed by Jonah in the whale. Are my emotions, ambitions or sins blinding me to God’s power and presence in my life? Christ’s resurrection was a sign for all people, for all time. Lord, open my eyes. Lord, deepen my faith.
