Gospel: July 23, 2024
16th Week in Ordinary Time
Psalter: Week 4 / (Green/White)
St. Bridget, religious
Ps 85: 2-4, 5-6, 7-8
Lord, show us your mercy and love.
1st Reading: Mich 7: 14-15, 18-20
Gospel: Matthew 12: 46-50
While Jesus was talking to the people, his mother and his brothers wanted to speak to him, and they waited outside. So someone said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside; they want to speak with you.”
Jesus answered, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” Then he pointed to his disciples and said, “Look! Here are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
Reflection: “To do the Father’s will.”
To do the Father’s will is central to Matthew’s Gospel (cf. Mt. 6:10; 26:39, 42). We can see this teaching concerning the submission of our will to the will of the heavenly Father at the very center of the Sermon on the Mount (cf. Mt. 5–7), which is the prayer of the “Our Father.” The center of the “Our Father” is found in verse 10 where we can find the phrase “Thy will be done,” which the Lukan version of the “Our Father does not have (cf. Lk. 11:2-5).
Jesus himself lived what he taught in the Sermon on the Mount when he was praying at Gethsemane and in his succeeding passion (cf. Mt. 26:39ff.). Hence, Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel are not surprising: “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” (Mt. 12:49) The words of Jesus were only highlighting what Mary had already done. Mary was the first one to cooperate with the will of God (cf. Lk. 1:38). Mary’s fiat made it possible for us to have the chance to become members of God’s family. In Matthew, to do the Father’s will is to be incorporated into God’s family.
