Daily Gospel Reflection
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July 11, 2022
Jesus said to his Apostles:
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth.
I have come to bring not peace but the sword.
For I have come to set
a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
and one’s enemies will be those of his household.
“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,
and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;
and whoever does not take up his cross
and follow after me is not worthy of me.
Whoever finds his life will lose it,
and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
“Whoever receives you receives me,
and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.
Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet
will receive a prophet’s reward,
and whoever receives a righteous man
because he is righteous
will receive a righteous man’s reward.
And whoever gives only a cup of cold water
to one of these little ones to drink
because he is a disciple–
amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward.”
When Jesus finished giving these commands to his Twelve disciples,
he went away from that place to teach and to preach in their towns.
While my brother’s ownership of a sword provides me with the opportunity to interpret Jesus’ instruction from today’s gospel in a literal sense, I do not believe his message is to take up arms against one’s family members. Instead, while commissioning the Twelve, Jesus uses the sword as a symbol of conflict to convey the hostility they should anticipate if they accomplish their mission as radically as Jesus suggests.
Despite the gospel’s literal imagery of severing relationships in the form of patricide and matricide, this passage is about the most important relationship in our lives—our relationship with God.
Jesus emphasizes the priority of our relationship with God by stating that even the most significant and loving relationships formed between ourselves, even the parental and filial, are utterly dwarfed in significance and love by our relationship with God.
God is the mysterious perfection of relationship—three persons in one divine being. The relationship with God that we form as we seek participation in God’s life provides not only the model but also the foundation for all other relationships.
As Jesus commissions the Twelve, he warns them that they will be persecuted and have to make sacrifices. This passage contains the first reference to the cross in Matthew’s Gospel. It pertains not to Jesus’s persecution and ultimate sacrifice but to the sacrificial obedience with which the Twelve should follow God.
Through apostolic succession, this call extends to us. We are called to follow the Word of God as closely as the Twelve followed the Word incarnate across Galilee and Judea to Jerusalem. We are called to place our relationship with God in a position transcendent to all else in our lives. From this position, our loving relationship with God elevates all of our human relationships—even those with siblings in possession of medieval weaponry.
Prayer
Lord, help us to remain true to our core Christian values, no matter what the price. When it comes to those we love, please help us hold them lightly in our hands, always preserving their freedom, rather than grasping or clinging. Finally, may we always be ready to help those who truly need help. Amen.
Saint of the Day
St. Benedict is often called the father of monasticism in the Roman Catholic Church, but his influence extends beyond monasteries—the rule of life he wrote 1,500 years ago is still a pillar of Christian spirituality today.
He was the twin brother of St. Scholastica—the two were born in 480 to a noble family in Italy. Benedict was educated in Rome, but as a young man became repulsed by the laziness and promiscuousness of his classmates. In about 500, he left the city to live in the countryside about 40 miles away.
There, he met a hermit living nearby, St. Romanus, who saw something special in Benedict. He encouraged the young man to take on a life of solitude, and offered him the use of a cave near his hermitage in an area known as Subiaco, and Benedict lived there for three years. Romanus would visit him on a regular schedule, and brought him food.
Soon, people in the region started hearing stories of Benedict’s holiness and wisdom, and many sought him out. When the abbot of a nearby monastery died, the monks asked Benedict to lead them. He agreed, and imposed on them a strict way of life. They soon changed their minds about him and tried to poison him.
On the first attempt, they poisoned his drink. Benedict received the cup, and when he blessed it, the cup broke (notice this cup in the painting of him from the Basilica, shown below). Undeterred, they poisoned his bread next. When he received it, he blessed it and a raven flew by and stole it away (the raven symbolizes him in the stained glass window below from the chapel in Dillon Hall).
Benedict returned to Subiaco and gathered people around him, founding 12 different monasteries and transforming the region into an area of learning and spirituality.
In 525, Benedict left Subiaco and settled in Monte Cassino between Rome and Naples. He destroyed a temple to Apollo there and evangelized the people living nearby. He eventually built the famous monastery, and wrote a rule of life for its monks. This “Rule of St. Benedict” has shaped Christian spirituality and monastic life for centuries.
The Rule offers practical advice for living a Christ-like life and for the administration of a monastery. It is based on common sense and encourages moderation, especially in asceticism and discipline. Prayer (especially with the psalms), study, work, obedience, stability, zeal, community, and hospitality are benchmarks of the Rule, which can be summed in the famous phrase, ora et labora, “pray and work.”
Benedict grew in holiness and became famous for his holiness and wisdom. He gave advice to kings and popes and could read peoples’ consciences. He had the gift of prophesy and worked miracles.
He died on March 21 in 543, but this date almost always falls in Lent, so the Church moved his memorial to July 11. He was named co-patron of Europe in 1964, and is patron saint of students.
The relics of St. Benedict rest in the reliquary chapel in the Basilica, and he is depicted there in a wall mural. His image also stands in a stained glass window in the chapel in Dillon Hall.
St. Benedict, your common-sense rule of life still shapes Christian spirituality—pray for us!