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TWELFTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME
Monday
Year II
Readings
First Reading
2 Kgs 17:5–8, 13–15a, 18
Responsorial Psalm
Ps 60:3, 4–5, 12–13
Gospel
Mt 7:1–5
Meditation on Today’s Readings Taken from
the Vatican
II Sunday and Weekday Missal
Written by Celia Sirois
The gift promised to Abram in the reading
from Genesis is forfeited by Israel in the selection from 2 Kings.
Unlike Abram who “went as the Lord directed him,” the
Israelites went their own way, rejecting “the covenant which
[God] had made with their fathers.” So “in his great
anger,” God condemned them to the cruel tyranny of Assyria.
God’s anger here, as elsewhere in the Bible, gives God’s
judgment an emotional force which is difficult for us to bear. But
as Abraham Heschel explains, in the Bible divine anger signifies
God’s care, and divine judgment springs from God’s desire
to save.* That is why biblical people, though
fully aware of the terrifying reality of God’s anger, came
not only to tolerate it but to trust it.
The biblical image of God as judge, impatient
with human hypocrisy, underlies Jesus’ warning against passing
judgment in today’s Gospel. Jesus tells us that God alone
is judge, and this God will pass on us the verdict we so glibly
pass on others.
The copyright for the Sunday
Missal Introductions is:
Copyright (c) 2001, Daughters of St. Paul
The copyright for the Weekday
Missal Introduction is:
Copyright (c) 2002, Daughters of St. Paul |
