In this section you can find a daily commentary on the Gospel of the Day.

Tuesday 7 July 2020

Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Word for today

The Gospel of Matthew 9:32-38

Troubled and abandoned

The crowds, the text says, were troubled and abandoned, virtually, oppressed and forsaken. These are two perfect passive participles of  the  Greek verbs skyllo, "to flay, lacerate; to vex, trouble, annoy " – whose root is skyl, "to strip the slain enemy of their weapons, to loot" - and rhìpto, whose root is rhipt, "cast, hurl, launch," from which the meaning "cast, fling, abandon by throwing away" is derived.  The crowds are "robbed of everything, ransacked and thrown away like garbage."
Jesus feels deep compassion for the way the people have been reduced and are reduced to living their lives, or more precisely to not living: robbed of all intelligence, nobility, happiness, security, peace and harmony; cheated by power - the benefits group, by predators, by the world's kings and princes.
The Gospel describes precisely how Jesus' compassion and the passion of his heart for humanity were expressed.
First. Jesus went around to all the towns and villages.
Second. Teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom.
Third. Curing every disease and illness.
Here are the three pillars of the church, the three identifying signs of God’s workers: they help us to know the Gospel, they inspire people to build their lives following Gospel procedures in order to give life to the Kingdom of God (of love) and they help heal the sick. That is what is written. That is what Jesus did that is what is required of His workers.
Moved and guided by His loving compassion for humanity, Jesus brought all this to the people each and every day on all the roads that He travelled. That is what Jesus’ workers must bring to humanity in response to their divine calling and their love for humanity.
This is the gift that Jesus’ workers must bring to humanity. This is the kind of worker we must ask of God the Father in prayer every day; we must ask for many because the harvest of the world, the troubled and abandoned in every corner of this earth, is boundless.