THIRTEENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Monday

Year II

Readings

First Reading
Am 2:6–10, 13–16

Responsorial Psalm
Ps 50:16bc–17, 18–19, 20–21, 22–23

Gospel
Mt 8:18–22

Meditation on Today’s Readings

Taken from the Vatican II Sunday and Weekday Missal
Written by Celia Sirois

Divine judgment appears in both of today’s first readings. In Genesis, the Lord visits the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to determine if their actions correspond to the outcry against them, while the prophecy of Amos announces a day of judgment for “three crimes of Israel, and for four.” In both, the Lord God is understood to be “the judge of all the world.” Abraham’s conversation with God probes and proves the justice of the divine judge. As judge, God is as anxious as Abraham to distinguish between the innocent and the guilty, so the bargaining is pressed to its natural limit. Abraham, who has been called to father a people who keep the way of the Lord by doing what is just, learns that the judge of all the world does indeed act justly.

The excerpt from Matthew’s Gospel includes a hard saying about discipleship. Scholars agree that the words of Jesus—“Let the dead bury their dead”—are a “hyperbole,” a deliberate exaggeration intended to shock. Jesus means that even the solemn obligation of burying the dead must yield to the demands of true discipleship.

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