First Reading: Jeremiah 20:10-13
Jeremiah said:
“I hear the whisperings of many:
‘Terror on every side!
Denounce! let us denounce him!’
All those who were my friends
are on the watch for any misstep of mine.
‘Perhaps he will be trapped; then we can prevail,
and take our vengeance on him.’
But the LORD is with me, like a mighty champion:
my persecutors will stumble, they will not triumph.
In their failure they will be put to utter shame,
to lasting, unforgettable confusion.
O LORD of hosts, you who test the just,
who probe mind and heart,
let me witness the vengeance you take on them,
for to you I have entrusted my cause.
Sing to the LORD,
praise the LORD,
for he has rescued the life of the poor
from the power of the wicked!”
Responsorial Psalm: Ps 69:8-10, 14, 17, 33-35
R. (14c) Lord, in your great love, answer me.
For your sake I bear insult,
and shame covers my face.
I have become an outcast to my brothers,
a stranger to my mother’s children,
Because zeal for your house consumes me,
and the insults of those who blaspheme you fall upon me.
R. Lord, in your great love, answer me.
I pray to you, O LORD,
for the time of your favor, O God!
In your great kindness answer me
with your constant help.
Answer me, O LORD, for bounteous is your kindness;
in your great mercy turn toward me.
R. Lord, in your great love, answer me.
“See, you lowly ones, and be glad;
you who seek God, may your hearts revive!
For the LORD hears the poor,
and his own who are in bonds he spurns not.
Let the heavens and the earth praise him,
the seas and whatever moves in them!”
R. Lord, in your great love, answer me.
Second Reading: Romans 5:12-15
Brothers and sisters:
Through one man sin entered the world,
and through sin, death,
and thus death came to all men, inasmuch as all sinned—
for up to the time of the law, sin was in the world,
though sin is not accounted when there is no law.
But death reigned from Adam to Moses,
even over those who did not sin
after the pattern of the trespass of Adam,
who is the type of the one who was to come.
But the gift is not like the transgression.
For if by the transgression of the one the many died,
how much more did the grace of God
and the gracious gift of the one man Jesus Christ
overflow for the many.
Alleluia: John 15:26b, 27a
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
The Spirit of truth will testify to me, says the Lord;
and you also will testify.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel: Matthew 10:26-33
Jesus said to the Twelve:
“Fear no one.
Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed,
nor secret that will not be known.
What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light;
what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.
And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul;
rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy
both soul and body in Gehenna.
Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin?
Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge.
Even all the hairs of your head are counted.
So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
Everyone who acknowledges me before others
I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father.
But whoever denies me before others,
I will deny before my heavenly Father.”
Reflection
Problems are all part of life. Obviously, this is not something unbeknownst to people who have reached puberty or adolescence and beyond. Except for the exceptionally blessed, no one is spared from them, not even the holiest characters in the Bible were not spared from problems nor were the mighty saints of the New Testament able to escape them, starting with St. John the Baptist. Pragmatism teaches that the sooner we discover the root of the problem and the quicker we accept and confront it, may afford us the best situation to look for solutions.
On the other hand, fear is often felt because of “the unknown”. What is unknown to us is usually a cause of worry and fear. We always like to control things in our life not because we are control freaks but we prefer surety of outcomes or results. Achieving our goals as a result of careful planning and preparation provides us with the feeling of success knowing that our efforts were not wasted.
Rules, standards or parameters are enacted and enforced in society precisely to create order and prevent excesses. In fact, when excesses occur in society, or when people are abused or placed in positions of disadvantage due to the overreach of others, which are usually to benefit only a select few, stricter rules are laid down immediately so that the excesses are contained forthwith.
What are we trying to say? Even before the fall in the Garden, God was already a law giver when He laid down a proscription for man to follow—that they may eat from any tree except of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. This prohibition that God gave, which Adam and Eve disobeyed, in itself speaks volumes and invites man to practice and conduct themselves with restraint, self-control and temperance, not for God’s sake but for mankind sake. In life, we simply can’t do anything (specially the bad deeds) that our hearts desire without suffering consequences for ourselves and for others. We were meant to be accountable for our actions or inactions because we ought to think about others too and not only ourselves. Imagine an earthly life of absolute boundlessness, when people escape responsibility because there are no rules to enforce. Conversely, imagine a world filled with people who think about others a lot. What a world that would be.
However, we shouldn’t cower in fear of what society imposes or regards as norms or standards for living life. Not everything you hear especially in social media is what it seems and worth trusting. We always have to go back to basic standards of humanity like truth, justice, equality and freedom. In fact, we are even called to fight for these standards because they have been proven to benefit mankind in the atmosphere of defending liberties and freedoms. Truth, justice, equality and freedom are principles which are subsumed into Christianity because it believes and teaches that man should be free and not be afraid, and recognized as equal by another in freedom and truth.
First Reading
The first part of the reading pictures the Prophet Jeremiah somewhat expressing fear of persecution from the enemies of God’s Word or those who can’t accept God’s commandments because to obey God requires abandoning illicit pleasures. In other words, a life of debauchery and hedonism will always run counter with Christian principles which preach things like temperance, discipline and charity. Christianity is about giving one’s life for the beloved.
Like many prophets, Jeremiah (whose mighty name translates to “the Lord exalts”) was tasked to preach a message of repentance and hope to the people of Judah, the Southern Kingdom. Other prophets might have brought God’s justice upon Israel’s enemies but no matter how you look at it, all prophets were destined by God to do one basic thing: to gather the lost sheep of Israel and bring them back into covenant relations with God. Jesus was the final prophet in the list.
God kept on sending prophets to Israel because they kept on sinning. The biggest sin of them all was the sin of idolatry, which was unthinkable due to Israel’s close and personal encounter with the God of the universe. After having been constituted as a nation and after having been rescued from Egyptian bondage for over 400 years, and after having been propelled to international status under King Solomon, with strong diplomatic relations with other kingdoms, they still kept on courting false gods—which was an abomination and truly unexpected for a nation who was handpicked by God to be His nation, to the exclusion of others.
Sending of prophets is one of those underrated things about God’s mercy and love for Israel. Imagine if God didn’t ordain a select group of men and women to speak on behalf of the Lord? He sent prophets because He simply wants us to go back to him by hearing His message from those He sends. Being with God here and in the next life is what life is all about. Man refuses to get closer to God because we keep on pursuing lesser things in life—things which only feel good and temporarily satisfying for our material needs but are really lesser in value in terms of living the holy life and salvation.
Our world is and will always be filled with temptations which make us veer away from truth and charity. However, like the Israelites and Jews of old, we can always push temptations aside by listening to God’s word and praying. Life on earth is a test of our resolve because the forces of evil are constantly seeking the ruin of our souls. We will all be tested and we will all be judged on whether or not we trusted God until the end. Listen to Jeremiah’s prayer in the First Reading: “O LORD of hosts, you who test the just, who probe mind and heart…” (Jeremiah 20:12).
If God put His prophets and saints to the test when fulfilling their missions, who are we to be spared from testing? Being born into the earth and living one’s life is the mission. The key is to ask God what our mission is for the sake of the Kingdom and our salvation.
The standards for life have been set before us but God is not forcing anyone to side with Him, not even the prophets and saints. Our free will allows us to choose what we want to stand on and God won’t force us to any side. However, those who choose evil or those who reject God will find out in the end that they made the wrong choice and what awaits them is everlasting suffering.
When the Bible says that God avenges the death of those who obeyed him at the hands of evil men, we shouldn’t use human standards and imagery in finding out how they were avenged because God is divine and does not act like humans do. But God does avenge the death of those who obey His will with the assurance that they would be rewarded with everlasting life in God’s company – and this is all that matters.
Even a prophet like Jeremiah prayed for the fall of Israel’s enemies when he petitioned God in this way: “…let me witness the vengeance you take on them, for to you I have entrusted my cause” (Jeremiah 20:12). Unfortunately, God’s punishment was for Judah and was already set in motion. Jeremiah even witnessed the fall of Jerusalem into the hands of the Babylonians. Because of this invasion, Jeremiah hid the Ark of the Covenant in a cave, never again to be seen by human eyes until the arrival of Blessed Virgin Mary, when St. Gabriel the Archangel announced that she would become the “Theotokos”, the God bearer. The Blessed Mother is the new Ark of the Covenant.
The lesson: Away from God, there is death; in God and with God, there is life. Let us find comfort in today’s verse in the First Reading: “Sing to the LORD, praise the LORD, for he has rescued the life of the poor from the power of the wicked!”
Second Reading
In today’s Second Reading, St. Paul reminds us about the Father sending us the final and definitive prophet, in the person of His only begotten Son Jesus, who is the Word of God. The Father did not spare His only begotten Son from the mission of saving mankind. There will be no other prophet or messenger who will come after our Lord Jesus. Let us not be deceived about those who claim that they were sent by the Father and are here to draw people into their flock, preaching things which are not according to the Catholic faith.
Let’s not forget that Christ is also the one who was sent to undo the sin of Adam. If Adam sinned by eating from a forbidden tree, Jesus conquers sin by dying on the Tree of Life—the Cross. This is the reason why St Paul mentions: “Through one man sin entered the world, and through sin, death, and thus death came to all men, inasmuch as all sinned—for up to the time of the law, sin was in the world, though sin is not accounted when there is no law.”
Our faith is clear in saying that all have sinned because each and every person born in this planet inherits Adam and Eve’s sin of disobedience via the ‘original sin.’ It is because of this sin that the Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us. Without original sin, Jesus would not have come to undo what Adam failed to do.
In fact, Jeremiah’s petition and expectation to avenge the souls of those persecuted for God was realized by the coming of Jesus our Lord. God fulfilled His promise of saving mankind from the clutches of death out of love, goodness and mercy. In gratitude, we ought to live our lives spreading love, goodness and mercy towards others.
By giving us Jesus Christ, God gave us everything we ever needed and necessary in life – in this life and in the next. No sin is unforgivable if repentance is from the heart.
Gospel
The Gospel today starts out with a bit of a warning saying that God knows, sees and hears everything. Therefore, we shall all be accounted for whatever we do and say on this earth. Those who obey and hold on to God’s Word until the end will be rewarded, while those who do not shall be judged and punished.
And there is this: “…do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna” (Matt 10:28). If this does not scream accounting and judgment for the things we do and say after we die, then God’s justice has been misunderstood.
There is evil in this world and it is disguised in very attractive wrappings and ribbons. But Jesus, being the Word of God, cuts through all these outer coverings to expose evil for what it really is. In one short phrase, our Lord’s New Commandment is the all-out offensive to counter any evil: “Love one another.”
It truly becomes a choice between two sides and two sides only – good and evil – when our Lord said: “Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.”
To deny Jesus before others means that we have freely, consciously and even unabashedly done evil and we even justify it to be right and good instead of calling it evil. When this happens, the Father will also deny those who denied His Son. To be denied by God is the end for those who deny Jesus.
Let’s us pray that God never permits us to be away from him now and at any point in our lives. All praise and all thanksgiving to God for being our Father.
A blessed Sunday to everyone and Happy Father’s Day to all fathers.
– Gospel reflection by Kuya Rommel Cecilio of SLRP Bible Apostolate Ministry