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Scripture Readings
First Isaiah 8:23b -9:3
Second 1 Corinthians 1:10 -13, 17.
Gospel Matthew 4:12 - 23 or 4: 2 - 17.
1. Subject Matter
• The liturgy today focuses on the proclamation of the advent of the Kingdom of Heaven in
Jesus Christ. It also includes the calling of the first apostles, but this is a theme subsidiary to
the other readings, as evidenced by the shape of the shorter form of the Gospel, which drops
this section.
• The close of John's preaching ministry, marks the beginning of Jesus' own. Jesus calls for
"repentance," not merely a turning from sin, but a turning as well forward towards God,
whose reign will be discovered in personal union with Jesus, the Son of God who uniquely
reveals the Father.
• In preaching the coming all the reign of God, Jesus opens to Israel and to all the world and
new and personal way of union with the Creator, which is manifested first of all in Him, in the
personal, undying, and eternal union of the Son and the Father.
• In a personal commitment to Jesus, we receive a new way of seeing the world, the shape or
religion, and the meaning of personal faith; a new "nous” (mental framework), which begins
the manifestation of the reign of God in the soul who comes to the Emmanuel who himself
perfectly incarnates that reign.
2. Exegetical Notes
• Isaiah 8:23b -9:3: The Prophet announces the coming advent of the Messianic King as
"great light", possibly indirectly referring to the prophecy of the Moabite prophet Balaam in
Numbers 24: "I see him, though not now; I behold him, though not near: a star shall rise from
Jacob and a staff shall rise from Israel." The lands which felt first the wrath of God for the
sins of their inhabitants, that is “Zebulun and Naphtali,” ( “Galilee of the Gentiles” in the time
of Jesus) whose original Jewish inhabitants were exiled by the Assyrian Tiglath-pilesar III in
743 B.C. , are now to receive, by the mercy of God, the first preaching of the new Gospel of
peace by the Messiah himself.
• 1 Corinthians 1:10 -13, 17: in this passage, St. Paul points out the absurdity of divisions
within the Corinthian church, whose factions claim as leaders. Persons who have in fact
never preached in their community (e.g., Peter, and Apollos). Paul points out that his own
work in the community was not baptism, but the preaching of the Gospel in power. In
chapter 18, he points out that this gospel is experienced by those who are being saved by it
is not a matter of human eloquence, intellectual factionalism, or any earthly dynamism, but
the power of God directly at work in them.
• Matthew 4:12 – 23: Matthew's Gospel , with Mark and Luke, places the beginning of the
preaching mission of Jesus directly after his baptism and temptation in the desert. Matthew
notes that this mission began upon the arrest of John the Baptist, upon which Jesus withdrew
to Galilee to begin his mission in the same lands which at first felt the wrath of God, on
account of the Israelites' sins. The core of Jesus' preaching is summarized: “Repent (Gk.:
“Metanoeite”) , for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
• The call to change one's pattern of mind (nous), the basic logic of one's life and relationship
to God and the world, reflects the Hebrew concept of repentance (Heb.:shub” (“turning
around “ (as on a road)), but in a different manner. Instead of turning into the "path of the
commandments, "or the "ways of the Lord", Jesus will make the object of the penitent’s
turning his own person. In this way, repentance is fixed as a path, not merely as a way out of
sin for the sinner, but becomes a permanent progression into the mystery of God's love and
the life of the Trinity. Thus love triumphs over law, and justification is based on God's
righteousness and that of his Son, and not upon any human attempt to present oneself as
righteous according to an external code of holiness or morals.
• “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand”; this phrase, Jesus gives the reason for and object of
repentance. Mark's Gospel refers to the "Kingdom of God." The word "heaven" Matthew
uses as a circumlocution for the divine name, in accordance with conventional Jewish
sensibilities in this most Jewish of the Gospels. The Word "Kingdom" does not refer to a
physical realm or sphere of power, but is an action word implying the present activity of God
acting and reigning. The underlying Hebrew term malkuth signifies a present action of
lordship, focusing on the one who rules rather fun on that which is ruled: “ God-reigning”. As
Matthew's Gospel unfolds, “God-reigning” will be revealed, precisely in the relationship of
Jesus, the eternal Son with the eternal Father, and “entering the kingdom” will be identified,
by entering into relationship with the Son. This is accomplished in penitence (metanoia) and
faith. This Kingdom of Heaven breaks into history through the person of Jesus. Matthew's
Gospel will recognize that these beginnings of change seem at first insignificant and obscure
(e.g., the parables of the mustard seed, of the leaven mixed with dough); nevertheless, this
relationship with Christ is something worth trading all other good earthly goods and realities
for ( as the pearl of great price, the treasure hidden in the field.)
• Verses 18 to 23 deal with the call of the first disciples. Matthew portrays them as being
called away in the midst of their daily work. From John's Gospel, it seems that Andrew and
John were already disciples of John the Baptist, and in turn brought James and Peter to meet
the Lord. Matthews presentation of this material nevertheless makes a close connection with
the preceding section: the vocation of the first apostles is seen as a result of a direct and
formal call by the Lord (a thing not inconsistent in itself with John's Gospel) conjoined with
the promise that they shall be "fishers of men" (a reference to the apostolic ministry.) What
Matthew makes clear is that, confronted with call by this Jesus, whom they did not yet know,
they nevertheless left the life they had behind them to follow him, to join themselves with his
life. This remains the necessary paradigm for accepting Christ and the Kingdom of Heaven
within him. Like the renunciations made by Abraham (Genesis 12) when he first began to
follow God, the apostles must leave their family and their former way of life to go into the new
and unknown country of the Kingdom of Jesus, which they, like Abraham, have not yet seen,
but nevertheless take on faith by reason of their friendship with and trust in the One who
called them.
• "In an apocryphal saying of Jesus that has been transmitted by Origen, he says: "Whoever
comes close to me come close to the fire." Whoever comes close to them, accordingly, must
prepare to be burned … it burns, yet. A fire, but one that makes things bright and cure and
three and grand. Being a Christian, then, is daring to trust oneself to this burning fire …
Christ is the one who brings peace. For this message is in fact they're precisely in order to
conflict with our behavior, to tear man out of his life of lies and to bring clarity and truth." (God
and the World, pp.222,223).
• "Faith is not just a system of knowledge, things we are told; at the heart of it is a meeting with
Jesus. His meeting with Jesus, among all those other meetings we have need of, is a truly
decisive one. I'll are other meetings leave the ultimate goal unclear, where we are coming
from, where we are going. At our meeting with him, the fundamental light dawns, at which I
can understand God, man, the world, mission, and meaning -- and by which all the other
meetings fall into place." (God and the World, p. 251.)
• “Someone is waiting for me, someone wants me and needs me. God is there first and loves
me. And that is the trustworthy ground on which my life is standing and on which I myself
can construct it .”
• "When we talk of the living God, it means: this got chosen itself to us; it looks out from
eternity into time and put himself in to relationship with us. We cannot define him in whatever
way we like. He has "defined" himself and net stands now before us as our Lord, over us
and in our midst. This self revelation of God, but it virtue of which he is not our conception.
But our Lord, rightfully stands therefore, in the center of our Creed.. that is why the heart of
all our creeds is our Yes Jesus to Christ. "By the power of the Holy Spirit he was born of the
Virgin Mary." We genuflect at this clause, because at this point the heavens, the veil behind
which God is secluded, are swept away, and the mystery touches us directly. (God Is Near
Us, pp. 11-12.)
• "The "Kingdom of God" is a theme that runs through the whole of Jesus' preaching. … Jesus
always speaks as the Son, … the relationship between Father and Son is always present as
the background of his message. In this sense, God is always at the center of the discussion,
yet precisely because Jesus himself is God -- the Son -- his entire preaching is a message
about the mystery of his person, it is Christology, that is discourse concerning God's
presence in his own action and being. And we will see that this is the point that demands a
decision from us, and consequently this is the point that leads to the Cross and Resurrection.
(Jesus of Nazareth, pp. 62 to 63.)
7. Other Considerations
• Repentance (metanoia) is a double turning, both away from sin and towards God. For the
sinner who has already come into the justification of Jesus Christ by faith, the turning from
sin can also be manifested by continued turning from the “path of the sin, thus including
turning away from sins which the patent has not actually yet committed. Even our Blessed
Lady, in her following of Christ, continues to turn away from sin, though by the particular
graces given to her, she has never committed even a venial sin. Nevertheless, by continually
turning towards God, she manifests the virtue of repentance. The virtue of repentance,
therefore, marks all and only those members of the body of Christ who are on the road to
salvation and in a state of sanctifying grace.
• At the heart of today's Gospel is a truth that Christians seemed to have forgotten: that God is
with us, God is among us. We are no longer alone. In the person of Jesus Christ, the life of
God has broken into the life of the world, into our life, in a definitive and permanent way. He
is Emmanuel, God-with-us. Through the person of Jesus Christ, the reign of God has been
shown in history and history, my history, cannot be the same, cannot be told without him in
the story. His love for me does that. Nobiscum Christus! I will never be alone, et nunc et
semper, for Christ and Christ’s Father are with me. And the joy of that should make me
want to dance like David before the Ark.
• The identification of the Kingdom of Heaven, and God's grace with the person of Jesus Christ
is seen in the sacramental life of the Catholic Church; to mention only its beginning and end,
it is the body of Christ, the son of God, that is the instrument by which the waters of the world
have been sanctified to provide the sacrament of Baptism ( the waters that touched his
sacred Body touching now our own bodies) and the Eucharist, which is the lifeblood of the
Church being the sacramental union of the body, blood soul and divinity of Christ with the
bodies and souls those who have accepted the preaching of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Recommended Resources
Benedict XVI, Pope. Jesus of Nazareth. New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Auckland:
Doubleday, 2007.
Brown, Raymond E., S.S., Fitzmeyer, Joseph, S.J., and Murphy, Roland E., O. Carm. The
Jerome Biblical Commentary. Two Vols. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc.,
1968.
Jurgens, William A. The Faith of the Early Fathers. 3 Vols. Collegeville, Minnesota: The
Liturgical Press, 1979.
Oden, Thomas C., Gen Ed. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. New Testament Vol.
Ia, Matthew 1-13. Mario Simonetti, ed.Downer’s Grove, Illinois,: Intervarsity Press, 2001.
Thomas Aquinas, St. Catena Aurea: Commentary on the Four Gospels Collected out of the
Works of the Fathers. Albany, N.Y.: Preserving Christian Publications, Inc., 2001.
Cameron, Peter John, O.P., ed. Benedictus: Day by Day with Pope Benedict XVI. Yonkers, NY:
Magnificat/Ignatius Press, 2006.