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Scripture Readings
First Hosea 6:3-6
Second Romans 4:18-25
Gospel Matthew 9:9-13
1. Subject Matter
• How God uses our affliction/resistance/sin to draw us to himself
• Trusting in the promises/the effective Word of God
• Following Christ
2. Exegetical Notes
• “In their affliction, people will say: ‘Let us strive to know the Lord’” – “God does not wait until
man has ceased to be unjust in order to love him; he loves him already in his unjustness…. If
God does not wait for us to be just in order to love us, it is because his love is, precisely, the
only force that can make us just…. The love of God reveals itself as the great, the unique
power which is truly creative; the supreme creation of God is discovered to be this new heart
which God wishes to place in man…. The purest souls of Israel…will be the first to realize
this life of humility in faith, of which the Gospel Beatitudes are only the final achievement.
And this is a very special kind of humility, founded as it is on a feeling of the nothingness of
sinful man in which is mingled no bitterness, no despair. It is, in fact, the assurance that God
has taken this same nothing into his merciful and all-powerful hands, to draw from it a new
creation which reveals him.” (Louis Bouyer)
• “Abraham…did not weaken in faith…did not doubt God’s promise…. He…was fully
convinced that what God had promised he was also able to do” – “Abraham is our father, and
his faith is the ‘type’ of Christian faith…. Though Abraham had so many human motives for
despairing of ever having a posterity, he believed, in virtue of the confident hope that the
divine promise inspired in him. He took God at his word and believed in the creative power of
God to do what seemed impossible…. Abraham’s faith is the pattern for Christian faith,
because its object is the same: belief in God who makes the dead live.” (Joseph Fitzmyer)
• “Matthew got up and followed him” – “Jesus’ authoritative Word, which calms the storm
(8:26) and pronounces forgiveness (9:2), also compels human response…. Jesus’ powerful
Word creates discipleship. The story should not be psychologized; nor should the reader
speculate about previous contact between Jesus and Matthew, on the basis of which he was
‘ready’ to follow. The point is the Jesus’ call is effective. People do not volunteer to be
disciples.” (NIB)
• “God’s approach to his people is presented with the language of conjugal love, while Israel’s
infidelity, its idolatry, is designated as adultery and prostitution. In the New Testament, God
radicalizes his love until he becomes himself, through his Son, flesh of our flesh, authentic
man. Thus, God’s union with man has assumed its supreme, irreversible and definitive form.
And in this way, the definitive form of human love is also drawn, that reciprocal ‘yes’ that
cannot be revoked. It does not alienate man, but liberates him from the alienations of history
to return him to the truth of creation…. Christ’s grace is not superimposed from outside of
man’s nature, it does not violate it, but liberates and restores it, by raising it beyond its
frontiers.”
• “God has come to meet man. He has shown him his face, opened up his heart to him…. The
great and central task of the Church today is, as it ever was, to show people this path and to
offer a pilgrim fellowship in walking it. We know God, not simply with our understanding, but
also with our will and with our heart. Therefore the knowledge of God, the knowledge of
Christ, is a path that demands the involvement of the whole of our being.”
• “Abraham, the father of faith, is by his faith the rock that holds back chaos, the onrushing
primordial flood of destruction, and thus sustains creation. Simon, the first to confess Jesus
as the Christ and the first witness of the Resurrection, now becomes by virtue of his
Abrahamic faith, which is renewed in Christ, the rock that stands against the impure tide of
unbelief and its destruction of man.”
• “What should be said therefore of the temptation, which is very strong nowadays, to feel that
we are self-sufficient to the point that we become closed to God’s mysterious plan for each of
us? The love of the Father, which is revealed in the person of Christ, puts this question to us.
In order to respond to the call of God and start on our journey, it is not necessary to be
already perfect…. Weaknesses and human limitations do not present an obstacle, as long as
they help make us more aware of the fact that we are in need of the redeeming grace of
Christ.”
• “Christ draws us into his life, into the act of eternal love by which he gives himself up to the
Father, so that we are made over into the Father’s possession with him and that through this
very act Jesus Christ himself is bestowed upon us. Thus the Eucharist is a sacrifice: being
given up to God in Jesus Christ and thereby at the same time having the gift of his love
bestowed on us, for Christ is both the giver and gift. Through him, and with him, and in him
we celebrate the Eucharist.”
7. Other Considerations
• On Caravaggio’s famous painting “The Calling of Matthew:” “X-rays suggest that the clumsy
figure of Saint Peter, almost totally covering the slender youth playing the part of Jesus, may
have been added at a later stage for dogmatic reasons, illustrating how the Catholic Church
intermediates salvation. The genius of this painting lies in the contrast between how an
everyday scene from the streets of Rome is combined with the biblical calling of Jesus and
Peter thereby giving new force to the message of the gospel: to leave the worldly goods to
live a life in poverty and piety. A couple of details should be noted: The hand of Jesus is an
echo of the hand of Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, whereas the hand of Peter is
like the hand of God himself. This likeness may or may not be coincidental, but if intended it
must be meant to refer to the human nature of Jesus as well as the divine nature of the
Church.” http://home.worldonline.dk/lfmat/Contarellifiles/contarellibottomeng.htm
Recommended Resources
Hahn, Scott:
http://www.salvationhistory.com/library/scripture/churchandbible/homilyhelps/homilyhelps.cfm.