for July 21
Tuesday of the Sixteenth Week of Ordinary Time

Both of today’s readings require our attention.

The first reading concludes the short book of the prophet Micah. Today’s verse may have been added to the text later, after Micah’s death, because they appear more suited to a liturgical ceremony than to the preaching of a prophet. But they beautifully express the image of an all forgiving God. Recalling from Israel’s past the history of God’s generosity towards his people (that is, the exodus from Egypt and the abundance of the Promised Land), these verses eloquently implore God once again to visit his people with his mercy and forgiveness. This theme of looking back through Israel’s history to see the continuing pattern of forgiveness and mercy occurs repeatedly in the Old Testament. But this looking back never loses itself in nostalgia, but anticipates the future. If we look forward from the perspective of the past, we will find how the Lord delights in clemency, treads our guilt underfoot and casts our sins into the sea—all phrases used by Micah. Not bad thoughts to take to prayer!

Today’s gospel is rather startling the way it appears to go against the grain of the traditional Marian devotion in our Church. We see how developing the full faith of the church required the compilation of different traditions, a process that evolved over time.

In a nutshell, the verses originally appeared in Mark’s gospel. Matthew incorporated them in his gospel almost verbatim, but Luke made subtle but significant modifications to adapt them to be more consistent with his larger themes.

Apart from these verses, Mark hardly mentions Mary of Nazareth, the mother of Jesus, in his gospel. Mark apparently only knew the early tradition concerning the strong opposition Jesus met in his own family, and for Mark this included Jesus’ immediate family members. Our notion of the holy family and even the special role of Mary in salvation history are unknown to Mark.

Matthew followed Mark, but with some alterations. He mentions Mary as part of his infancy narrative that tells of the circumstances surrounding Jesus’ birth. But the story as Matthew tells it centers on Joseph and gives only a secondary role to Mary. So in the verses under discussion, Matthew was willing to follow Mark’s lead and incorporate the rather jarring mention of Mary.

But Luke could not accept Mark’s version without making significant alterations. Luke in his gospel develops an expanded portrait of Mary with his Annunciation scene and his concentration on Mary who “pondered all these things in her heart.” For Luke, Mary becomes the model of discipleship. How then could Luke accept a scene in which Jesus seems to draw a rather stark contrast between his own disciples huddled around him and his mother and other family members standing outside? Clearly, in Luke’s version the “distancing,” if that’s what we term it, is less pronounced. The relationship between discipleship and blood relationship have no hint of excluding anyone: My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and act on it.

This kind of background to the Scriptures can constrain some of our unbounded enthusiasms and overly simplistic pieties. Maybe there were a lot of issues in Jesus’ family that were in fact hard to work out. But the gospels record little of those historical realities. Our thoughts slip into idle speculation and yield limited results if we overindulge our curiosity.

For our prayer, maybe it is best to focus on the point that Mark and, following Mark, Matthew want to make in their gospels. Following Jesus as a disciple brings us into an intimate companionship with Jesus himself. And Jesus is always available to us, inviting us into his presence so that he can share his affection with us. In other words, with Jesus, it’s even more than family.
—Walter F. Modrys SJ

Today’s readings can be found on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops website.