August 12, 2013

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Monday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time 
Lectionary: 413

Reading 1DT 10:12-22

Moses said to the people:
“And now, Israel, what does the LORD, your God, ask of you
but to fear the LORD, your God, and follow his ways exactly,
to love and serve the LORD, your God,
with all your heart and all your soul,
to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD
which I enjoin on you today for your own good?

God asks the same thing of us today.  He asks us to love Him with all our heart and soul and to love our neighbor.  This is the entire law of God.

Think! The heavens, even the highest heavens,
belong to the LORD, your God,
as well as the earth and everything on it.
Yet in his love for your fathers the LORD was so attached to them
as to choose you, their descendants,
in preference to all other peoples, as indeed he has now done.

God loved the Hebrew people so much that He chose them above all others to reveal Himself to them.  And we, their natural and spiritual descendants have inherited the things promised to them.

Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and be no longer stiff-necked.
For the LORD, your God, is the God of gods,
the LORD of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome,
who has no favorites, accepts no bribes;
who executes justice for the orphan and the widow,
and befriends the alien, feeding and clothing him.
So you too must befriend the alien,
for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt.

Therefore, we must imitate God.  His rain falls upon the entire world equally.  He loves all men equally.  We must do the same. 

The LORD, your God, shall you fear, and him shall you serve;
hold fast to him and swear by his name.
He is your glory, he, your God,
who has done for you those great and terrible things
which your own eyes have seen.
Your ancestors went down to Egypt seventy strong,
and now the LORD, your God,
has made you as numerous as the stars of the sky.”

And so, we must lean upon God always and rest in His loving kindness.  Knowing that He loves us and will have mercy upon us, if we do as He commands.

Responsorial PsalmPS 147:12-13, 14-15, 19-20

R. (12a) Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
Glorify the LORD, O Jerusalem;
praise your God, O Zion.
For he has strengthened the bars of your gates;
he has blessed your children within you.
R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
He has granted peace in your borders;
with the best of wheat he fills you.
He sends forth his command to the earth;
swiftly runs his word!
R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
He has proclaimed his word to Jacob,
his statutes and his ordinances to Israel.
He has not done thus for any other nation;
his ordinances he has not made known to them. Alleluia.
R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.

Praise the Lord at all times.  If you do, peace will reign in your household and in your family.  

GospelMT 17:22-27

As Jesus and his disciples were gathering in Galilee,
Jesus said to them,
“The Son of Man is to be handed over to men,
and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day.”
And they were overwhelmed with grief.

Jesus revealed to the Apostles what sort of death awaited Him in Jerusalem.  And that He would rise again on the Third day.

When they came to Capernaum,
the collectors of the temple tax approached Peter and said,
“Does not your teacher pay the temple tax?”
“Yes,” he said.
When he came into the house, before he had time to speak,
Jesus asked him, “What is your opinion, Simon?
From whom do the kings of the earth take tolls or census tax?
From their subjects or from foreigners?”
When he said, “From foreigners,” Jesus said to him,
“Then the subjects are exempt.
But that we may not offend them, go to the sea, drop in a hook,
and take the first fish that comes up.
Open its mouth and you will find a coin worth twice the temple tax.
Give that to them for me and for you.”

The Jews wanted Jesus to pay the temple tax.  And Jesus asked St. Peter, "Who should pay a tax, the Son or the foreigner visiting?"  St. Peter answered, "The Son is exempt.  The visitor should pay."  

If we read between the lines, this means that Jesus is the Son of God.  Because the Temple in question is the one built to worship God.  

Keep reading.  Because Jesus does an interesting thing.  He has St. Peter go to the shore and catch a fish.  Within that fish, he finds the money to pay the tax for Jesus and for himself?!  Thus Jesus again links St. Peter to Himself as when He named him Peter.  Signifying that St. Peter is the Rock.  Formerly, God was the only Rock upon which the faithful would cling.  But now, Jesus is again showing in a symbol, the coin gathered from the fish, that St. Peter will represent Him before the people.

Why a fish?  In my opinion it is because fish are immersed in water.  Water symbolizes the Holy Spirit.  Therefore a fish symbolizes an inhabitant of heaven who is immersed in the Holy Spirit as the fish is immersed in water.