Texts taken from the Missal “On Your Word” July-August 2023

13th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)
1st week, psalter

FIRST READING

From the Second Book of Kings (2 Kings 4:8-11, 14-16a)
One day Elisha was passing through Shunem, where there was a distinguished woman who urged him to eat a meal. Afterward, whenever he passed by, he would stop there to eat. She said to her husband, “I know that he is a holy man of God who passes by us regularly. Let us make a small upper room with masonry walls, and put a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp there, so that when he comes to us, he can withdraw there.” One day when he came by, he withdrew to the upper room and lay down. Elisha [said to Gehazi, his servant], “What can be done for her?” Gehazi said, “Unfortunately, she has no son, and her husband is old.” Elisha said, “Call her.” He called her, and she stood at the door. Then he said, “Next year, at this same season, you will be holding a son in your arms.” - The word of God.

Commentary on the first reading

The hospitality of the woman of Shunem is rewarded beyond all expectation. Jesus says in the Gospel: “Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward.” These men of God, who have given their entire lives to the Lord, who no longer live for themselves even for a minute, who are wholly devoted to their mission, still need help and assistance. The woman and her elderly husband recognize Elisha as such a man, and they build him a place where he can take refuge and rest, in a beautiful family setting. Have you welcomed the prophet as such? You will receive the “prophet’s reward,” which in this case is the gift of life. A long-awaited child will therefore be born and will be a sign of the generosity of the parents who loved Elisha. We can and must apply the same reasoning to our priests: they too identify with their mission, live for their people, and also need esteem and love. They do not have a natural family because you are their family. By loving them, you will receive the “prophet’s reward.”

SECOND READING

From the Letter of Saint Paul the Apostle to the Romans (Romans 6:3-4, 8-11)
Brothers and sisters, do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Through baptism, we were therefore buried with him into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him, knowing that Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more; death no longer has power over him. For when he died, he died to sin once for all; but now he lives, and he lives for God. So you too must consider yourselves dead to sin but alive for God, in Christ Jesus. - The word of God. 

Commentary on the second reading

In just a few lines, the apostle Paul explains the reality of death to us in a remarkable way. By this term, we mean the cessation of biological life, the end of our time on this earth, and violent separation from the world of our loved ones. We all know how dramatic the moment of our loved ones’ death is, and how we too think about our own death with a sense of dismay and fear. From the divine and Christian perspective, things are different. When a person dies, they actually continue to live, because the soul is immortal; they simply enter another dimension, and it is only the biological body that is placed underground. In the Christian sense, true death is sin, separation from God. Therefore, little by little, we must become accustomed to this dimension of true life, which is already within us through grace and which will be fully revealed when we leave time behind. This means looking to the future as full and definitive fulfillment, not as the end of everything. Eternal life is already within us through grace, because Christ rose for us. This is the true “good news”!

GOSPEL OF THE DAY

From the Gospel according to Matthew (Matthew 10:37-42 )
At that time, Jesus said to his apostles: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever keeps his life for himself will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person because he is righteous will receive a righteous person’s reward. And whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is a disciple, truly I tell you, will not lose his reward.” - The word of the Lord. 

Commentary on the Gospel of the day

Following Jesus literally means “losing one’s life.” This is not just a figure of speech: the Christian no longer belongs to himself, because he lives in Another. The expression frightens us because when we hear that we must lose our life for Christ, we immediately think of a violent death or that we must suffer something terribly serious. It is not so. Let us use an analogy: when people say of a young man in love that he has “lost his head,” we are using an image; in reality, his head is still in its place, but it is “lost” to ordinary things because he is always thinking about the girl, day and night, doing everything to please her. Everything seems to lose its value, and he would give the whole world for one of her smiles, her attention, and her reciprocated love. The same thing is meant by “losing one’s life” for Jesus: it means being unable to assign great value to passing things, even the worries of the day, because our true interest, our true life, is Christ, as Saint Paul says: “For me, to live is Christ.” To live such a passion for Christ, we must feel desperately loved by him, who was the first to “go outside himself” to have us. Then it will be easy for us to “lose our heads” for the Lord.