Today we have a recurring guest blogger: Fr. Arthur F. Rojas, pastor of PRESENTATION OF THE B.V.M CHURCH, PORT EWEN AND SACRED HEART CHURCH, ESOPUS. For more information on this parish, check out their website at Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary & Sacred Heart Churches - Port Ewen - Esopus, NY (presentationsacredheart.org)
Item for the blog of Dcn. Thomas Tortorella on the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Scripture reading for this reflection can be found at Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time | USCCB
© All Rights Reserved personally by Rev. Fr. Arthur F. Rojas, July 14th, 2024 ©
In the readings at Mass in the Ordinary Form for part of July, St. Amos the prophet makes his appearance not only at a number of daily Masses but also in the first reading at Mass today (Amos 7:12-15). Amidst the revolutionary spirit of July in a civil and historical sense (Independence Day on July 4th, 1776 as well as France’s Bastille Day on July 14, 1789), the holy prophet Amos speaks truth to his fellow Hebrews, who in his time were divided politically between the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. God has Amos focus His message to Israel in particular, for its leaders had allowed Israel’s affluence to smother their people’s God-given sense of compassion to the poor and the marginalized in society. Since the political division of Hebrews between Israel and Judah caused the northern leadership to set up their own temple at Bethel to deter Israelites from supporting the divinely established Temple at Jerusalem, the message of the prophet Amos was a challenge not only to the king but also to Amaziah the priest, whose position at Bethel relied on royal patronage. Are we Catholic Americans more open today than Amaziah to a message that exhorts us to look at our society with God’s eyes as to what needs healing and improving as well as to give thanks for our blessings? Do we support or encourage our clerics and hierarchs to speak to us and to society in general about applying Gospel values to the concrete aspects of our daily lives as individuals as well as communities? In an age where “cancel culture” still runs rampant, are we willing to support each other in standing up and standing out for Christian values, even when they contradict or even challenge contemporary American culture?
Centuries after the witness of St. Amos, Our Lord Jesus Christ came to Palestine and established the new Israel, the Catholic Church, to convey His message, the Gospel, in word and in deed to the world as attested partially by Mark 6:7-13, the Gospel reading for today in the Ordinary Form. Christ endows His first emissaries, the Apostles, with “authority over unclean spirits,” to heal the sick (a prefiguration of the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick and the Church’s charitable initiatives), and to preach repentance. He teaches the Apostles how to handle welcome and rejection. Although this mission was given firstly to the Apostles, over time and space via the Sacrament of Baptism (and reinforced by the Sacraments of Confirmation and Holy Orders in other ways) you and I as baptized Catholics have been invested by God with a share of Christ as priest, prophet, and king (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 1267-68, also 898, 899, 909, 910, 1546). Together with the ministerial priesthood from Holy Orders, the baptismal priesthood of the Christian faithful is called throughout time and space, including today and including the Hudson Valley, to prepare the world for the return of Christ in glory (cf. Nicene Creed) through private, communal, and sacramental prayer, through our faithful living and sharing of the Gospel and its moral truths with persons high and low, and through the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy.
I think that we all as you pointed out father, be willing participants in this militant Church to fight for tge kingdom of God, in the now. Thank you my dear friend Rev. Presbyter of the Almighty
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