Saturday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Today's Mass Readings

Today’s readings speak to us about God’s loving dedication to the poor and the outcasts.
In today’s first reading, the prophet Micah warns the people of Judah that God will allow them to be destroyed by their enemies because of their greed. The rich people of Judah have used their power to take land and houses away from the poor. Not only was this a form of manipulation of other Jews, but it manipulated the law which mandated certain practices – such as forgiveness of debts and land redistribution – precisely to mitigate such greed from creating an unjust situation. When conquered by their enemies, the Jews will no longer have the power which they have abused. They can no longer be greedy when they no longer have any control! The theme of God’s dedication to the poor and outcast continues in today’s gospel reading from Matthew. As the Pharisees, who were some of the elites of Jesus’ day, plot His death, Jesus goes off and cures all of those who needed his attention. Those who needed curing were most likely outcast from Jewish society precisely because of their ailments. They are the ones who receive Jesus’ attention even as His death looms.

Matthew’s allusion to the prophet Isaiah (Mt 17-21) indicates that Jesus has come to bring the justice promised by the prophets. We see in the quotation from Isaiah that the justice that Jesus brings extends even to the Gentiles, the non-Jews, who were certainly numbered among the outcasts.

Let us reflect today on how well we mirror God’s loving kindness toward the poor and the outcasts. Do we work for justice or do we contribute to widening gap between the rich and the poor in our country? Do we find ways to challenge systems that keep poor people poor or are we satisfied with simply tossing a couple of dollars into the poor box? Let us determine one way that we might contribute to God’s justice so that our actions may cry out with the psalmist, “Do not forget the poor!”

- Tim Gabrielli