From Season to Season

 And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them,  until it came and stopped over the place where the child was. They were overjoyed at seeing the star,  and on entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother. They prostrated themselves and did him homage. Then they opened their treasures  and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh .  —Matthew 2:9b-11 When Saint Luke wrote his account of the birth of Jesus, he spoke of shepherds tending their flocks by night. Inspired an angelic messenger and the multitude of the heavenly host with their songs of God’s glory, these shepherds “went in haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger” (Luke 2:16). We hear this story in the gospels proclaimed in the Masses of Christmas “ During the Night ” and “ at Dawn .”    Saint Matthew’s account of the birth of Jesus has a very different tone. Concerned as he is with demonstrating how Jesus was the fulfillm...

“The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments." —Matthew 22:40   One of the assignments that students find most challenging is condensing a chapter or book into a brief, concise summary. It’s quite difficult to take the words and ideas of another person, reflect on them, discern what is most important in the text, and then present the most important points or themes in your own words. And yet, as teachers and professors can attest, this is an invaluable way of helping students hold on to what is most important for their studies. In a sense, this is the task that is being presented to Jesus in today’s Gospel. On this Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time, our Gospel is a continuation of the passages we have heard over the past two Sundays. Jesus is in conversation with the religious leaders of the Jewish people and they continue to question him, hoping to trip him up by asking for impossible answers. In this Sunday’s passage, Jesus is asked which of the com...

“What will you give me if I had him over to you?” “What’s that man’s life worth to you?” “How much is your power, your agenda, your comfort, your security worth to you?”   We’ve heard the story and we know the answer: 30 pieces of silver.   It’s a very specific amount. In Exodus we read that 30 pieces of silver was the value of a slave. Later in the Old Testament, the Prophet Zechariah received 30 pieces of silver as payment for his work as a shepherd. Saint Matthew wants us to make those connections. And we could, of course, spend time reflecting on the theological or symbolic value of those pieces of silver, and perhaps you can do that on your own today.   But as I reflected on the Readings of this “Traitor Wednesday,” I found myself coming back to the Lenten series on morality and the Ten Commandments that led at Saint Pius X Church [in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin] these past six weeks. And, one of the basic ideas of morality that we explored in the ser...