Fr. Roger J. Landry
Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Thursday of the 18th Week of Ordinary Time, Year I
Memorial of the Dedication of St. Mary Major
Numbers 20:1-13, Ps 95, Mt 16:13-23
To listen to an audio of today’s homily, please click here:
The following points were made in the homily:
- There’s a beautiful part of Mass, right before the proclamation of the Gospel, when we make a sign of the Cross over our foreheads, mouths and heart with a prayer for the Lord to be in our minds, on our lips and in our hearts. One would figure that we’d make a sign of the Cross over our ears to help our hearing, as was done at our baptism. We bless our hearts, rather, because we’re supposed to be hearing with our hearts, hearing with love and gratitude in a way that changes us at our core, symbolized Biblically by the heart. Once the heart is willing to believe, then the mind can more deeply grasp it, and once mind and heart together believe, then it is so much easier to proclaim what we have come to know and love.
- We see the opposite of this type of opening in today’s first reading, commented upon by the Psalm. The hearts of the Israelites in the desert were not open to the meaning of all God’s miracles to free them from Pharaoh in Egypt and then to care for them in the desert. That led to their constant murmuring, as if God was leading them through all of these theophanies to their graves rather than the Promised Land. Today they complain, “Why have you brought the LORD’s assembly into this desert where we and our livestock are dying? Why did you lead us out of Egypt, only to bring us to this wretched place which has neither grain nor figs nor vines nor pomegranates? Here there is not even water to drink!” As a result, God gave Moses the command to strike the rock twice and have it bring forth water. Even though the Israelites and their animals were able to lubricate their throats and hydrate themselves, their hearts did not much benefit through increased faith. And this scene we remember practically every morning in the invitatory Psalm before the Office of Readings in which we pray: “Oh, that today you would hear his voice: ‘Harden not your hearts as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the desert, Where your fathers tested me; they tested me though they had seen my works.” Every morning as we cry out with joy to the Lord, acclaim him as the Rock of Salvation, thank him and joyfully sing psalms to him, God appeals to us not to harden our hearts anew and test him and his patience by a lack of faith. As we prepare to drink from the living water he gives us, he wants us to remember Meribah and open ourselves to faith.
- We see the need for this continuous openness in the Gospel scene. After Peter had heard God the Father tell him in his mind that Jesus was not only the Messiah but the Father’s Son, after Peter had confessed him with his lips, we see that his heart was still closed to the type of Messiah Jesus would be and the way by which the Son of God would redeem us. When Jesus announced that he would “go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised,” Peter thoroughly closed the hearing of his heart and said, ““God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.” His heart was closed to God’s will, his love, his center was opposed, just like Satan’s was, which is why Jesus changed Simon’s name anew to the great tempter. Our hearts remain closed when we don’t love what Jesus did for us and when we don’t will what he will say tomorrow, in the continuation of this Gospel, that if we wish to be his disciple, we must deny ourselves, pick up our cross and follow him. Are our hearts truly open to those words? Do we want to accept and live them?
- Today we celebrate the Memorial of the Dedication of the Basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome, erected to celebrate the decree of the Council of Ephesus that Mary was the Theotokos or Mother of God. It’s an opportunity for us to focus on Mary’s heart. In his 2000 commentary on the third part of the Message of Fatima, where Mary encouraged the shepherd children and all of us to consecrate ourselves to her Immaculate Heart, the future Pope Benedict XVI said, “In biblical language, the heart indicates the center of human life, the point where reason, will, temperament and sensitivity converge, where the person finds his unity and his interior orientation. According to Matthew 5:8, the immaculate heart is a heart which, with God’s grace, has come to perfect interior unity and therefore God. To be “devoted” to the Immaculate Heart of Mary means therefore to embrace this attitude of heart, which makes the fiat, ‘your will be done’ the defining center of one’s whole life.” Mary’s heart was open. Mary’s heart did not test God. Mary’s heart teaches us how to love, be faithful, to be obey. On this feast of the anniversary of the dedication of the liturgically greatest Church dedicated to her, we ask her to give us that type of heart.
- As we prepare to receive the Body and Blood of her Son, whose own human heart was umbilically connected to Mary’s in the womb and whose heart beat in synchrony with hers then and thereafter, we ask the Lord to be in our minds, our lips and our hearts, so that we may, like Mary, and like Peter, with all our heart, confess Jesus whom we’re about to receive as the Messiah and Son of God and as the Living Water welling up within us to eternal life.
The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1
NM 20:1-13
The whole congregation of the children of Israel
arrived in the desert of Zin in the first month,
and the people settled at Kadesh.
It was here that Miriam died, and here that she was buried.As the community had no water,
they held a council against Moses and Aaron.
The people contended with Moses, exclaiming,
“Would that we too had perished with our kinsmen in the LORD’s presence!
Why have you brought the LORD’s assembly into this desert
where we and our livestock are dying?
Why did you lead us out of Egypt,
only to bring us to this wretched place
which has neither grain nor figs nor vines nor pomegranates?
Here there is not even water to drink!”
But Moses and Aaron went away from the assembly
to the entrance of the meeting tent, where they fell prostrate.
Then the glory of the LORD appeared to them,
and the LORD said to Moses,
“Take your staff and assemble the community,
you and your brother Aaron,
and in their presence order the rock to yield its waters.
From the rock you shall bring forth water for the congregation
and their livestock to drink.”
So Moses took his staff from its place before the LORD, as he was ordered.
He and Aaron assembled the community in front of the rock,
where he said to them, “Listen to me, you rebels!
Are we to bring water for you out of this rock?”
Then, raising his hand, Moses struck the rock twice with his staff,
and water gushed out in abundance for the people
and their livestock to drink.
But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron,
“Because you were not faithful to me
in showing forth my sanctity before the children of Israel,
you shall not lead this community into the land I will give them.”
These are the waters of Meribah,
where the children of Israel contended against the LORD,
and where the LORD revealed his sanctity among them.
arrived in the desert of Zin in the first month,
and the people settled at Kadesh.
It was here that Miriam died, and here that she was buried.As the community had no water,
they held a council against Moses and Aaron.
The people contended with Moses, exclaiming,
“Would that we too had perished with our kinsmen in the LORD’s presence!
Why have you brought the LORD’s assembly into this desert
where we and our livestock are dying?
Why did you lead us out of Egypt,
only to bring us to this wretched place
which has neither grain nor figs nor vines nor pomegranates?
Here there is not even water to drink!”
But Moses and Aaron went away from the assembly
to the entrance of the meeting tent, where they fell prostrate.
Then the glory of the LORD appeared to them,
and the LORD said to Moses,
“Take your staff and assemble the community,
you and your brother Aaron,
and in their presence order the rock to yield its waters.
From the rock you shall bring forth water for the congregation
and their livestock to drink.”
So Moses took his staff from its place before the LORD, as he was ordered.
He and Aaron assembled the community in front of the rock,
where he said to them, “Listen to me, you rebels!
Are we to bring water for you out of this rock?”
Then, raising his hand, Moses struck the rock twice with his staff,
and water gushed out in abundance for the people
and their livestock to drink.
But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron,
“Because you were not faithful to me
in showing forth my sanctity before the children of Israel,
you shall not lead this community into the land I will give them.”
These are the waters of Meribah,
where the children of Israel contended against the LORD,
and where the LORD revealed his sanctity among them.
Responsorial Psalm
PS 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9
R. (8) If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us sing joyfully to the LORD;
let us acclaim the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us joyfully sing psalms to him.
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us bow down in worship;
let us kneel before the LORD who made us.
For he is our God,
and we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides.
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Oh, that today you would hear his voice:
“Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
as in the day of Massah in the desert,
Where your fathers tested me;
they tested me though they had seen my works.”
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us sing joyfully to the LORD;
let us acclaim the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us joyfully sing psalms to him.
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us bow down in worship;
let us kneel before the LORD who made us.
For he is our God,
and we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides.
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Oh, that today you would hear his voice:
“Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
as in the day of Massah in the desert,
Where your fathers tested me;
they tested me though they had seen my works.”
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Gospel
MT 16:13-23
Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi
and he asked his disciples,
“Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”
They replied, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah,
still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
Simon Peter said in reply,
“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah.
For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.
And so I say to you, you are Peter,
and upon this rock I will build my Church,
and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.
I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven.
Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;
and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
Then he strictly ordered his disciples
to tell no one that he was the Christ.
and he asked his disciples,
“Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”
They replied, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah,
still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
Simon Peter said in reply,
“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah.
For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.
And so I say to you, you are Peter,
and upon this rock I will build my Church,
and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.
I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven.
Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;
and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
Then he strictly ordered his disciples
to tell no one that he was the Christ.
From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples
that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly
from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed and on the third day be raised.
Then Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him,
“God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.”
He turned and said to Peter,
“Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me.
You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”
that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly
from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed and on the third day be raised.
Then Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him,
“God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.”
He turned and said to Peter,
“Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me.
You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”
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