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Opihi Catholic Parish of St Mary MacKillop, Temuka (2026)

24/06/2026

Thursday.

It is the one who does the will of the Father who will enter the kingdom of heaven. Christ’s words are to be listened to and acted upon because the Word of God is the foundation of our whole existence. Rains and floods may come, but the Word remains—as will we from being “founded on the rock” of Christ. The Babylonian Exile described in the first reading is the result of the people’s being disobedient to God’s Word.

A reading from the Second Book of the Kings 24:8-17

Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Nehushta the daughter of Elnathan of Jerusalem. And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father had done.
At that time the servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up to Jerusalem, and the city was besieged. And Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to the city while his servants were besieging it, and Jehoiachin the king of Judah gave himself up to the king of Babylon, himself, and his mother, and his servants, and his officials, and his palace officials. The king of Babylon took him prisoner in the eighth year of his reign, and carried off all the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king’s house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold in the Temple of the Lord, which Solomon king of Israel had made, as the Lord had foretold. He carried away all Jerusalem and all the officials and all the mighty men of valour, ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and the smiths. None remained, except the poorest people of the land. And he carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon. The king’s mother, the king’s wives, his officials, and the chief men of the land he took into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon. And the king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon all the men of valour, seven thousand, and the craftsmen and the metal workers, one thousand, all of them strong and fit for war. And the king of Babylon made Mattaniah, Jehoiachin’s uncle, king in his place, and changed his name to Zedekiah.

The word of the Lord.

A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew 7:21-29

At that time: Jesus said to his disciples, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.

The Gospel of the Lord.

Two Kinds of Paths:

The Sermon on the Mount began with the promise of nine blessings upon those who practice humility, justice, and peace. The Sermon ends with three warnings. We read the first warning on Tuesday (Matthew 7:12-14): Woe to those who walk along the easy path that leads to the wide gate. It is a path and gate that leads to destruction and eternal death. The narrow and difficult path and gate lead to eternal life. Which path are we following right now? Which path will we follow in the days ahead?

Two Kinds of Prophets:

Yesterday, we celebrated the Solemnity of the Nativity of John the Baptist, so we didn’t hear the first part of the second warning from the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 7:15-20). After contrasting two paths, Jesus highlights the difference between listening to false prophets and true prophets. False prophets are wolves in sheep’s clothing. The fruit they produce may look good at first, but ultimately it is rotten. Rotten trees produce rotten fruit; good trees produce good fruit. Lambs and sheep who follow the Good Shepherd produce good fruit, often through the dedication and sacrifice of their lives. Wolves can put on a good show, but eventually are caught and unmasked. The false prophet – the wolf in sheep’s clothing – cries out, “Lord, Lord,” but this is just empty lip-service and is only for show. It is not true faith working through charity. Instead of helping others to grow in knowledge of the good shepherd and develop a relationship with the shepherd, they merely go through the motions. They want to take advantage of others and care very little, in the end, if others are brought to Christ. Which false prophets have I followed?

Two Kinds of Builders:

The third warning brings out the need to do the will of the Father in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. We need to listen to Jesus’ words and act on them. If we do this, our lives will be built on solid rock and not sand. Jesus is the one who reveals to us the will of the Father. Every time we read the Gospel in prayer, we are listening to Jesus’ words. By keeping his commands, we remain in his love (John 15:10). God’s word enables us to find the path that leads to harmony with God’s loving will. In Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict taught that we can discern God’s will and recognize it in our conscience, but that we also need Jesus to draw us up to himself and into himself, so that in communion with him we can learn God’s will (see Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, Vol. 1, 148-150). What kind of foundation have I built my life on?

23/06/2026

Wednesday.

Solemnity of the Nativity of John the Baptist.

Why does the Church celebrate the birthday of John the Baptist? Because John is the last of all the prophets. Not only his message but his life itself proclaims the coming of Christ. John the Baptist’s mission in life, the purpose of his God-given existence, was to prepare the way of the Lord: “Behold, the Lamb of God!” And John the Baptist’s joyful leap in his mother’s womb reveals what God desires for all of us: to be transformed by the presence of Jesus and Mary. “With John the Baptist, the Holy Spirit begins the restoration to man of ‘the divine likeness,’ prefiguring what he would achieve with and in Christ” (CCC 720).

A reading from the Prophet Isaiah
49:1-6

Listen to me, O coastlands, and give attention, you peoples from afar. The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name. He made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me a polished arrow; in his quiver he hid me away. And he said to me, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.” But I said, “I have laboured in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely my right is with the Lord, and my recompense with my God.”
And now the Lord says, he who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him, and that Israel might be gathered to him—for I am honoured in the eyes of the Lord, and my God has become my strength—he says: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

The word of the Lord.

A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke 1:57-66, 80

The time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. And her neighbours and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. And on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child. And they would have called him Zechariah after his father, but his mother answered, “No; he shall be called John.” And they said to her, “None of your relatives is called by this name.” And they made signs to his father, enquiring what he wanted him to be called. And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And they all wondered. And immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God. And fear came on all their neighbours. And all these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea, and all who heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying, “What then will this child be?” For the hand of the Lord was with him.
And the child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to Israel.

The Gospel of the Lord.

Midsummer’s Christmas Day:

Among those born of women there has been none greater than John the Baptist are the words spoken by Jesus of his Precursor; and Gabriel, when announcing both of them, declared the same thing of each—that he shall be great. But the greatness of Jesus is that he shall be called the Son of the Most High, and the greatness of John is that he shall go before him…. Jesus, who comes from above, is above all; it is he and he alone whom all mankind is expecting. John, who is of earth, on the contrary has nothing but what he has received; but what he has received is to be the friend of the Bridegroom….

Jesus alone is light, the light without which earth would remain dead; and John is but the man sent from God, without whom the light would have remained unknown. But Jesus being inseparable from John, even as day is from dawn, it is by no means astonishing that earth’s gladness at John’s birth should partake of something of that gladness of the coming of our Redeemer. The Nativity of Saint John the Baptist is celebrated with so much pomp because it seems to enfold within itself the Nativity of Christ, our Redeemer. It is, as it were, midsummer’s Christmas day….

“Precursor at his birth, Precursor at his death, Saint John still continues,” says Saint Ambrose, “to go before the Lord.” More perhaps than we are aware of, his mysterious action may be telling on our present life. When we begin to believe in Christ, virtue comes forth, as it were, from Saint John, drawing us after him: he inclines the steps of the soul towards faith; he rectifies the crooked ways of life, making straight the road of our earthly pilgrimage lest we stray into the rugged wilds of error; he contrives that all our valleys be filled with the fruits of virtue, and that every elevation be brought low before the Lord.

Servant of God Prosper Guéranger, o.s.b. († 1875) was a Benedictine monk and the first abbot of Solesmes, which was instrumental in revitalising Benedictine life in France after the French Revolution.

Image: The Birth of Saint John the Baptist: ca 1540.

The Archangel Gabriel announced to Zacharias that his wife Elizabeth, already advanced in years and considered infertile, would bear him a son, and when Zacharias doubted the angel he was struck dumb. Tintoretto shows Zacharias (on the right of the picture) recovering his power of speech and breaking into a song of praise to the Lord.

Tintoretto, a painter of the late Renaissance, transferred the evangelical birth of John the Baptist into the contemporary context of a rich 16th century Venetian household.

22/06/2026

Tuesday.

The envoys of the king of Assyria attempt to intimidate Hezekiah, king of Judah: “Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, devoting them to destruction. And shall you be delivered?” If we “enter by the narrow gate”, the answer is yes.

A reading from the Second Book of the Kings 19:9b-11, 14-21, 31-35a, 36

In those days: Sennacherib, King of Assyria, sent messengers again to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus shall you speak to Hezekiah, king of Judah: ‘Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you by promising that Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, devoting them to destruction. And shall you be delivered?’”
Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord and spread it before the Lord. And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord and said: “O Lord, the God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth. Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear; open your eyes, O Lord, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God. Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. Therefore they were destroyed. So now, O Lord our God, save us, please, from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O Lord, are God alone.”
Then Isaiah, the son of Amoz, sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Your prayer to me about Sennacherib king of Assyria I have heard. This is the word that the Lord has spoken concerning him: ‘She despises you, she scorns you—the virgin daughter of Zion; she wags her head behind you—the daughter of Jerusalem. For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the Lord will do this.
“Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not come into this city or shoot an arrow there, or come before it with a shield, or cast up a siege mound against it. By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come into this city, declares the Lord. For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.”
And that night the angel of the Lord went out and struck down one hundred and eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians. Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went home and lived at Nineveh.

The word of the Lord.

A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew 7:6, 12-14

At that time: Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.
“So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.
“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”

The Gospel of the Lord.

The Narrow Path of Prayer:

The life of a Christian is a prayer. We are like diamonds, shining in many different ways. Each facet has been polished by God. Our very being renders glory to him. The simple fact that we are baptised in the death and resurrection of Christ is enough to make us a prayer. Sweeping, washing, cleaning, serving our families in small ways—all this is prayer. Studying is a prayer, if this is what we are supposed to be doing. Being sick is a prayer; being healthy is a prayer. I can’t imagine any aspect of a Christian life that is not a facet of this sparkling diamond….

Prayer makes sense only when we pray, only in the context of an ongoing relationship with God, for it is he who has fashioned this many-faceted diamond out of his infinite love. Love begets love. For this we have been created: that we might become one with God. He doesn’t place obstacles in our path but throws open the road that leads to this union. The path is narrow but the horizons are immense….

One of the greatest prayers is the prayer of forgiveness. The examination of conscience is one of the best moments of any day. You look the day over and examine yourself from the only point of view that matters: charity. If you have not forgiven someone, if you have rejected or been nasty to someone and apologies are required, make sure you do so the next day. A sin is a sin, and like a grain of sand in my shoe, it rubs. Apologise to God for all sins, great and small. Say you’re sorry. Every moment is the moment of beginning again.

Servant of God Catherine de Hueck Doherty († 1985), born in Russia, established the Friendship House in Harlem, New York City, in 1938, and later the Madonna House Apostolate in Combermere, Canada.

Image: This is a detail from Netherlandish Proverbs, painted by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.

The figure in the centre is illustrating the proverb “casting roses before swine” (similar to the biblical expression “casting pearls before swine”). Bruegel’s famous painting contains more than 100 Dutch proverbs and sayings depicted visually in a busy village scene.

The full painting is housed at the Gemäldegalerie Berlin.

The Gemäldegalerie is widely regarded as one of the finest repositories of European painting anywhere. Its breadth, depth and scholarly presentation provide an unusually complete view of Western art before the modern era, from medieval religious works through the Renaissance and Baroque periods to eighteenth-century painting.

21/06/2026

No Mass at Pleasant Point tomorrow.

21/06/2026

Monday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time.

Saints John Fisher and Thomas More. �
John Fisher and Thomas More were the first of the English martyrs who perished under King Henry VIII to be canonised. A lawyer and devoted father, More quickly rose to the highest political post, Chancellor of England. Fisher was a preacher and scholar who, as bishop, gave himself unstintingly to his flock. Henry had both men publicly executed in the summer of 1535. Before the axe fell, Thomas More declared himself “the king’s good servant, but God’s first”. In 2000, Pope John Paul II declared More the universal patron of statesmen and politicians, a witness to the truth that “man cannot be sundered from God, nor politics from morality”.

A reading from the Second Book of the Kings 17:5-8, 13-15a, 18

In those days: Shalmaneser king of Assyria invaded all the land and came to Samaria, and for three years he besieged it. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria, and he carried the Israelites away to Assyria and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
And this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods and walked in the customs of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel, and in the customs that the kings of Israel had practised.
Yet the Lord warned Israel and Judah by every prophet and every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes, in accordance with all the Law that I commanded your fathers, and that I sent to you by my servants the prophets.”
But they would not listen, but were stubborn, as their fathers had been, who did not believe in the Lord their God. They despised his statutes and his covenant that he made with their fathers and the warnings that he gave them. Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight. None was left but the tribe of Judah only.

The word of the Lord.

A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew 7:1-5

At that time: Jesus said to his disciples, “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgement you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye’, when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

The Gospel of the Lord.

Seeing as God Sees:

Give me thy grace, good Lord,
To set the world at naught;
To set my mind fast upon thee
And not to hang upon the blast of men’s mouths;
To be content to be solitary,
Not to long for worldly company…
Gladly to be thinking of God,
Piteously to call for his help;
To lean unto the comfort of God,
Busily to labour to love him…
To bewail my sins past,
For the purging of them, patiently to suffer adversity;
Gladly to bear my purgatory here,
To be joyful of tribulations;
To walk the narrow way that leadeth to life,
To bear the cross with Christ…
To pray for pardon before the judge come,
To have continually in mind the Passion which Christ suffered for me;
For his benefits unceasingly to give him thanks…
To think my most enemies my best friends,
For the brethren of Joseph could never have done him so
much good with their love and favour
as they did with their malice and hatred.
These minds are more to be desired of every man
than all the treasure of all the princes
And kings, Christian and heathen, were it gathered and laid
together all upon one heap.

Saint Thomas More († 1535) was an English lawyer, judge, chancellor, and martyr. He wrote this meditation while he was a prisoner in the Tower of London.

20/06/2026

Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

The Prophet Jeremiah sensed the terror “on every side”, former friends intent on taking their “revenge on him”. Yet, despite his terror, Jeremiah declares with faultless faith, “the Lord is with me as a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble; they will not overcome me.” Mindful of this historical precedent, Jesus Christ commands, “Have no fear… do not fear those who kill the body.” But how is it possible to live fearlessly? Saint John tells us that perfect love casts out fear. The love that Jesus Christ offers is so perfect and total that “even the hairs of your head are all numbered”. Through our embrace of the overflowing, “free gift by the grace of that one man, Jesus Christ”, we can live unafraid.

A reading from the Prophet Jeremiah 20:10-13

Jeremiah said: I hear many whispering. Terror is on every side! “Denounce him! Let us denounce him!” say all my close friends, watching for my fall. “Perhaps he will be deceived; then we can overcome him and take our revenge on him.” But the Lord is with me as a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble; they will not overcome me. They will be greatly shamed, for they will not succeed. Their eternal dishonour will never be forgotten. O Lord of hosts, who tests the righteous, who sees the heart and the mind, let me see your vengeance upon them, for to you have I committed my cause.
Sing to the Lord; praise the Lord! For he has delivered the life of the needy from the hand of evildoers.

The word of the Lord.

A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew 10:26-33

At that time: Jesus instructed his Apostles: “Have no fear of them, for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. What I tell you in the dark, say in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father knowing. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. So everyone who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.”

The Gospel of the Lord.

Four Reasons Not to Fear:

The Gospel is taken from the second major sermon in Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus has just told his disciples that they will be rejected, persecuted, and killed (Matthew 10:14-25). Now, he tells them: “Fear no one.” Jesus then gives four reasons why we should not be afraid. First, all of our deeds – whether good or evil – are known to God. The evil that Jesus’ disciples face will not go unpunished. The good that we do on behalf of the Kingdom will not go unrewarded. Second, physical persecution can harm the body but, in itself, does not harm the soul. While we should not fear our fellow human beings, we should have a healthy fear of falling into the temptations of the devil, who seeks to harm our bodies and our souls. The third reason we should not fear those who persecute us is that the Father cares for us much more than other creatures. A fourth reason not to fear is that Jesus is our advocate and stands before the Father, interceding for us as our heavenly high priest.

Jeremiah’s Prophetic Ministry:

In the First Reading, we hear Jeremiah’s lament that he is surrounded by people who wish to harm him. The background to this lament is that the Lord commissioned Jeremiah to stand in the Benjamin Gate of Jerusalem and call Judah to repentance and Sabbath observance. Jeremiah promised that if the people continued to violate the Sabbath by working and carrying burdens in and out of Jerusalem on the holy day, they would be destroyed. But if the people repented, royalty and abundant commerce would flow to the Temple through the Benjamin Gate in perpetuity (Jeremiah 17:19-27). Jeremiah took his message to the Temple (Jeremiah 19:14-15), but was arrested, beaten, and placed in stocks by Pashhur, the chief priest (Jeremiah 20:1-2). In response to these experiences, Jeremiah cried out in complaint to the Lord that his prophetic ministry has meant nothing but suffering for him. Despite the threats against his life, Jeremiah trusts in the Lord: “the Lord is with me, like a mighty champion: my persecutors will stumble, they will not triumph.” Jeremiah knows that his suffering is a test from the Lord and, one day, the Lord will vindicate him and punish his persecutors. Jeremiah ends his lament with praise: “Sing to the Lord, praise the Lord, for he has rescued the life of the poor from the power of the wicked!”

Adam’s Sin and Christ’s Gift:

In the Letter to the Romans, Paul reflects on the origin of our sinful human condition. He undertakes a comparison between Adam and Christ and brings out their differences. The sin of Adam led to spiritual death, the death of our original union with God. This separation from God was transmitted to all of humanity. Before the giving of the Law of Moses at Sinai, there was sin in the world. But humanity was not guided by a divinely revealed law. Paul suggests that between Adam and Moses, people were less culpable for their sins. People still had the natural moral law to guide them, yet they still sinned. But when the people of Israel broke the Law at Mt. Sinai, this was a serious transgression and was akin to the original sin of Adam. All humanity and Israel needed a savior. Just as the sin of one affected the many, so also the gift of one affects the many. While Adam’s original sin led to the spiritual death of humanity, Christ’s gracious gift offers eternal life to us

19/06/2026

Saturday.

Because “they would not pay attention” to the prophets and “abandoned the house of the Lord”, they could not prosper. The warning Jesus speaks to us is: “No one can serve two masters…do not be anxious about your life…seek first the kingdom of God”. It comes with a promise: “all these things will be added to you.” When we give ourselves over to the mercy of God, without worrying, we can look forward to hearing him say: “I will establish his descendants for ever, and his throne as lasting as the days of heaven.”

A reading from the Second Book of Chronicles 24:17-25

After the death of Jehoiada, the princes of Judah came and paid homage to the king. Then the king listened to them. And they abandoned the house of the Lord, the God of their fathers, and served the Asherim and the idols. And wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this guilt of theirs. Yet he sent prophets among them to bring them back to the Lord. These testified against them, but they would not pay attention.
Then the Spirit of God clothed Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada the priest, and he stood above the people, and said to them, ‘Thus says God, “Why do you break the commandments of the Lord, so that you cannot prosper? Because you have forsaken the Lord, he has forsaken you.” ’ But they conspired against him, and by command of the king they stoned him with stones in the court of the house of the Lord. Thus Joash the king did not remember the kindness that Jehoiada, Zechariah’s father, had shown him, but killed his son. And when he was dying, he said, ‘May the Lord see and avenge!’
At the end of the year the army of the Syrians came up against Joash. They came to Judah and Jerusalem and destroyed all the princes of the people from among the people and sent all their spoil to the king of Damascus. Though the army of the Syrians had come with few men, the Lorddelivered into their hand a very great army, because Judah had forsaken the Lord, the God of their fathers. Thus they executed judgement on Joash.
When they had departed from him, leaving him severely wounded, his servants conspired against him because of the blood of the son of Jehoiada the priest, and killed him on his bed. So he died, and they buried him in the city of David, but they did not bury him in the tombs of the kings.

The word of the Lord.

A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew 6:24-34

At that time: Jesus said to his disciples, “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

The Gospel of the Lord.

Loving and Serving God:

One of the greatest temptations we face in life is to make money (mammon) our god. We can obsess over it and focus almost all our attention on it. We can place our trust more in it than in our Creator. What Jesus teaches us in the Sermon on the Mount is that we were made for much more than making and hoarding money. Jesus frames the topic with the word “service,” which in Hebrew also meant “worship” (avad). In the Exodus story, the people were called to serve/worship the Lord God and not Pharaoh. Will we worship and serve money, or will we worship and serve the Lord? No one can serve – totally and exclusively – two different lords. Here, Jesus uses a Semitic expression that compares two things with the words love and hate. Jesus invites us to love God and hate mammon. This means that we are called to love God more than money. Instead of serving money, we need to be good administrators and use our wealth to serve others.

Worldly Anxiety vs. Heavenly Trust:

Jesus warns against stockpiling earthly treasures, exhorting his disciples to build treasure in heaven by good deeds. This can be done only if we are free from anxiety through the knowledge that the Maker of all things is our provident and caring Father. Anxiety and fear imprison, whereas faith in the Father frees us to give and trust, to be satisfied with our ‘daily bread,’ allowing us to ‘seek first the kingdom of God” (Gray and Cavins, Walking with God, 262). Jesus lists three specific areas of concern that represent the necessities of life: eating, drinking, and clothing. “While these are important, they are not the ultimate goal of life. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? We should look after these basic needs, but focus on what is more important” (Mitch and Sri, The Gospel of Matthew, 110). We will not conquer worldly anxiety unless we trust more fully in our heavenly Father and his providential care.

Seek First the Kingdom of God:

Instead of seeking wealth first, we are called to seek the Kingdom of God first. “Jesus assures his disciples that, if they put God’s Kingdom first, God will care for their earthly necessities as well” (Mitch and Sri, The Gospel of Matthew, 112). Seeking God’s Kingdom first “does not mean not seeking anything else; it is a matter of priorities” (Martin, Bringing the Gospel of Matthew to Life, 120). The verb “seek” has the sense of “keep seeking” or being on a permanent quest. “The kingdom of God is the reign of God, inaugurated by Jesus and to be brought to fulfillment at the end of this age. Jesus’ disciples are to strive to live under God’s reign now so that they can enter into its fullness” (Martin, Bringing the Gospel of Matthew to Life, 120). Divine righteousness is found in the Kingdom and communicated through the Sacraments of the Church. By grace, we have been saved and made righteous. We are called to seek out God’s saving grace and cooperate with this grace to build up the Kingdom of God in this world.

Opihi Catholic Parish of St Mary MacKillop

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