This blog follows the daily bible readings of the Catholic Church

Reading 1, Is 30:19-21, 23-26

19 Yes, people of Zion living in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. He will be gracious to you when your cry for help rings out; as soon as he hears it, he will answer you.  20 When the Lord has given you the bread of suffering and the water of distress, he who is your teacher will hide no longer, and you will see your teacher with your own eyes. 21 Your ears will hear these words behind you, ‘This is the way, keep to it,’ whether you turn to right or left. 23 He will send rain for the seed you sow in the ground, and the bread that the ground provides will be rich and nourishing. That day, your cattle will graze in wide pastures. 24 Oxen and donkeys that work the land will eat for fodder wild sorrel, spread by the shovel-load and fork-load. 25 On every lofty mountain, on every high hill there will be streams and water-courses, on the day of the great slaughter when the strongholds fall. 26 Then moonlight will be bright as sunlight and sunlight itself be seven times brighter — like the light of seven days in one — on the day the Lord dresses his people’s wound and heals the scars of the blows they have received.

The vision of a fruitful earth

The prophet predicts the end of oppression “on the day of the great slaughter when the strongholds fall,” that is, when the oppressive powers of the earth are destroyed. Certainly, all the peaceful people, the meek of the world, long for the day when they well inherit the earth. Then the land will be fruitful as God intended it to be. It’s a great vision which for Jewish readers is unfulfilled as yet: they still long for the day of the Messiah. For them, the promise of a fruitful earth is still be localised in Israel/Palestine. Christian interpreters will submit this view to criticism a) because it ignores Jesus Messiah and b) because it limits the promise to one nation only. They will claim that the vision is fulfilled in Jesus who is the teacher hidden no longer and seen with human eyes. He is the one who says, “This is the way, keep to it.” But the breadth of the vision can be seen as fulfilled in the life of Jesus only if Christians retain the hope of Jesus’ return to establish the saving justice of God. Even so, we may want to indentify the crucifixion of Jesus as the day of the great slaughter when the strongholds fell.

Gospel, Matthew 9:35—10:1, 5a, 6-8

5 These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them as follows: ‘Do not make your way to gentile territory, and do not enter any Samaritan town; 6 go instead to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. 7 And as you go, proclaim that the kingdom of Heaven is close at hand. 8 Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those suffering from virulent skin-diseases, drive out devils. You received without charge, give without charge.

Freely you have received, freely give.

Jesus kept faith with Israel: his mission was to his own people, from whom would issue universal salvation. His designation of some disciples as “The Twelve” is surely proof of this: they are the tribal chiefs of the renewed people. The mission of the Twelve seems ordinary enough: they are to care for the souls and bodies of people as a sign that God’s rule is at hand. But what about “raising the dead”? Jesus believed that God’s wake- up call to the world was sounding out in his ministry and that of his disciples, who had experienced the rule of God in their experience of him. Small and intimate as it was, that experience was the beginning of the kingdom. That’s what justified the beautiful command, which should be obeyed by every generation of disciples, “Freely you have received; freely give.”