Reflecting on Matthew 20: 1–16

Oh, boy. It’s that irksome parable again. Those poor workers who show up at dawn, and work in the heat all day, end up getting the same pay as the guys who showed up at the last minute. I can feel their outrage even today.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. Isaiah’s words never hit so close to home as they do when we hear this gospel today, because that is NOT the way any of us would have handled that situation.

I’ve mentioned before that I can’t stop watching baby videos on you tube. These babies are SO adorable (and I suspect most of them are actually AI), but everything changes when the new baby comes. That’s when the videos turn dark, because they show the intense jealousy the older child can feel towards the new baby. Not all, of course. There are heartwarming videos of toddlers hugging and kissing the new baby, but there are others that show the deep betrayal some toddlers feel when they realize mommy loves the new baby, too.

WH Auden wrote:

For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have:
Not universal love,
But to be loved alone.
As Abel was a threat to Cain, so it has ever been.

We don’t want to hear that our parents love us equally. We want to be taken aside and assured that the truth is we are loved more than all the others. But God’s gracious love brings  us all into the Beatific Embrace, even those who call to God at the very last minute.

Have you ever been jealous of the gifts God has given to someone else?

Reflecting on Matthew 18: 21–35

Forgiveness. Can you imagine? This servant owed the king a “great amount,” so much so that it would require selling him, his wife, their children, and all their possessions in order to repay the debt. Imagine the countries of the world forgiving our staggering national debt. That’s the kind of mercy the king showed this debtor, who fell to his knees to beg for their lives.

But how can it be that the same debtor then went to find a servant who owed him a much lesser debt, and threw him in prison until he could repay him?

The king hears about this heartless act and, enraged, gives him over to torturers, who will torment him until his debt is paid. (Hmm…how does torture repay a debt?) But the parable we hear this weekend may be less about the retribution of God than it is about a state of soul so hardened that even a kind and compassionate God could not soften it.

The forgiven servant must have had a rock-hard heart, that he could be rescued from the very brink of catastrophe and not extend that grace to his own debtors.

There’s a popular phrase, whose origin is from of old: Memento Mori  (remember that you must die.) So central is this admonition among hermetical communities like the Trappists and Benedictines that some seventeenth-century Capuchin communities decorated their chapels and cells with skeletons. One monastery placed this sign next to them: You are now what I once was, and what I am today you will one day be.

Remember your last days, set enmity aside (Sir. 28:6). Forgive everyone (including me, please). Do not go to God with anything standing in the way.

Is there anyone you still can’t quite forgive?

Reflecting on Matthew 18: 15–20

Here’s a hint about getting the inside story of a gospel text. When Jesus speaks about a particular problem (in this case the issue of confronting someone who has hurt you) you can bet that exact issue is coming up among his disciples, or the communities they founded.

I think the demographic that most understands this process is Religious communities. They are an extraordinary counterculture in many ways, but imagine living in community with someone who drives you crazy, and whose membership in your community was something over which you may have had no control.

Any kind of community life is the great testing ground of faith. Think of the family in which you grew up. I think of my own kind parents, who tried and tried to get their kids to do better as human beings. Their words are my guideposts today, although, of course, I gave them no attention then.

One of the most insightful things I‘ve ever heard occurred in a small group in the Catholic Biblical School. We were talking about today’s gospel. The student said, “I think that’s why young people crave tv sitcoms like “Friends,” where the siblings, roommates, colleagues in the workplace speak directly to the person who’s bothering them. That doesn’t happen in real life. If one of my adult kids says a harsh word to their sibling, the sibling just writes them off forever. No fighting. No conversation at all. They’ve just been cancelled.”

St. Teresa of Avila thought that relationships in community (your family, your workplace, your home) were often a greater indication of one’s relationship to God than the heights of mystical prayer. And the first teacher, of course, is the family.

Have you been able to take constructive criticism from a friend?

Reflecting on Matthew 16:21-27

Do you remember just last week, when Jesus said, “I say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church”? How quickly things change. In today’s gospel, Peter takes Jesus aside after he predicts that he will suffer and die. No! says Peter! Please, no! Nothing bad will ever happen to you!

And just like that, Jesus renames Peter, the Rock, Satan! In this renaming, Peter (now Satan) becomes the enemy of the Church, not its foundation. What a disturbing shift.

We can sense, in Jesus’ emotional response, that he knows what will meet him in Jerusalem. His quick and sharp reply to Peter’s words of comfort shows how much the coming crucifixion is looming over him. He must remain steadfast as the day draws near.

Second, he has, up to this point, not said a word to the disciples about his death. But now that he was recognized as the Christ by Peter, they need to know what that means, fully. They’ve seen him heal, and draw great crowds as a prophetic teacher. But now they need to know the real meaning of Christly love: for the good of the world he must suffer greatly under the elders, chief priests and scribes, and be killed. But, on the third day, he will be raised.

Did the disciples understand? Certainly not. His arrest in the Garden came as a terrible shock, and they all scattered. In the same way, they didn’t understand the resurrection until the women came running to tell them. And it was then that Peter finally understood, and, as Jesus predicted, became the leader of the post-resurrection Church.

Could you have had different titles throughout your life, too?

It’s a good thing Jesus didn’t give me the keys to the kingdom. Lord knows where they would show up. 

Anyway, although he wasn’t speaking literally when he handed the keys to Peter, Jesus was using the language of the household, the family. Here’s the keys to the house, he said to Peter. Keep it safe from thieves and marauders. Keep it open for all who seek me. Keep it clean, and let plenty of fresh air and sunshine circulate. And keep the lights on, please. Don’t ever let my Church be a place of darkness.

We live in a time when the lights are, literally, going out in churches all over the world. In places of persecution, like Iraq and Syria, Christians have fled in historic numbers. In 1999, I was with a group of pilgrims who visited a Christian family in Bethlehem whose stone mason business had been operating since―imagine this―the time of Jesus. They had lived in the same neighborhood since the time of Christ. Five years later we returned to visit them. They were gone.

On the other hand, in the prosperous communities of the west, the gospel seems to be losing its power to draw people into church buildings. But here’s the thing: the buildings are not the church. The Church is the living stones. And oh, how we need to be with each other―this experience of quarantine has really brought that out into the light. It’s scary to think that, when this is all over, it may have become too convenient to just stay home on Sunday. On the contrary, we pray that this experience may draw more and more people back. It is, after all, the Eucharist that builds the kingdom whose keys will never be lost.

In what ways are you helping to “keep the lights on” in your parish?

Reflecting on  Matthew 15: 21-28

I don’t think I’d have had the humility to do what that heroic Canaanite woman did. She was finally in the presence of the great Rabbi, the Jesus the provinces were so excited about. “Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David!” she cried out. Right away we see her great humility, in addressing Jesus by his Jewish title. She was a Canaanite and knew nothing of David or Moses. But she’d done her homework, and knew that this Jew, this Jesus, was often called the Son of David.

She approached him and begged him to heal her dear daughter, who was in the clutches of a demon. The disciples with Jesus did what they so often did. They tried to shush her and get her to move on. What would the Master want with a miserable Canaanite woman?

It’s so disheartening to see the people closest to Jesus, who had traveled hundreds of miles with him, so often miss the mark when it came to compassion for non-Jews.

But this time, Jesus misses the mark too, and tells her he has only come for the Jews. Our hearts break a little every three years when this reading comes up in the lectionary, when we hear Jesus say this to her. But wait! She’s “doing theology,” that is, talking about God, with him! And he is overjoyed that this Canaanite woman, who never had the great privilege of hearing the Word of God, has more faith than most of the Jews he’d come to save.

He cures her daughter, of course. I like to imagine Jesus and this faith-filled woman exchanging a great laugh and a long, grateful hug.

When has humility brought you closer to someone than pride?

Kathy McGovern ©2026

Reflecting on I Kings 19:9a-13a

We don’t live in the time of the ancient Jews, living in a Canaanite society, who would have heard that reading about Elijah in the cave (1 Kings 19:9a, 11-13a). But if we did, we might find ourselves snickering, poking, and laughing out loud as we heard all the places Elijah sought to hear God’s voice. Here’s why.

First, this happens on the mountain of Horeb (Sinai), the very place where Moses received the Ten Commandments twenty generations before. So, as Elijah takes shelter from the Canaanites who are searching to kill him, the Lord tells Elijah to leave his place of safety and to go out in plain sight to wait, for “the Lord will be passing by.”

That’s the first AHA moment for our Jewish audience, because they remember that when Moses himself stood on that very mountain (Exodus 33 and 34), the Lord passed by and revealed to him that God is compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, and full of great love and forgiveness.

God shows love to thousands of generations, but…ahem… also does not let the guilty go unpunished. Our Jewish audience roars, because they know that terrible things happened to the Canaanite prophets who confronted Elijah. Yes! The guilty were punished, but Elijah was cared for! What a comfort to a Hebrew community who were oppressed by the Canaanites at every turn.

But here’s the funny part that the writer surely put in the story to give the Jews strength. God can’t be found in the heavy and strong wind, nor the earthquake, nor the fire. Why? Because wind, earthquake and fire are all Canaanite gods! And you’ll never find the true God there.

What places do we look for God today that can never satisfy?

Kathy McGovern ©2026 

Reflecting on Matthew 14: 13-21        

What a moment that must have been. Imagine turning over to Jesus everything you had left to eat while traveling with him to that “deserted place.” Between them they only had five loaves and two fish. I suspect they had already portioned that out in their minds as they looked forward to dinner. And now he’s asking them to turn that over!

Imagine watching him take, bless, break and share that humble offering, and then passing it out to the enormous crowd who had followed him out to that place, begging him to cure their sick.

But wait. What is happening? The crowd is eating contentedly. From whence has come all this food?

Matthew’s gospel is filled with Jewish allusions, because his audience is Jewish and he shapes his memories so that they will resonate with the stories. Hence, he is careful to note that everyone is spread out on the grass, evoking Psalm 23:2, “in green pastures he gives me repose.” Somehow there is plenty to eat, and look, there are TWELVE (evoking the twelve tribes of Israel) wicker baskets of food left over.

In contrast, when St. Luke recounts this famous moment to his Gentile audience (9:10-17) he leaves off these evocative Jewish phrases.
There is a famous and touching mosaic found on the floor of a fourth-century church on the northwestern shore of Lake Galilee, the site where Jesus is thought to have performed this miracle. The two fish and the plate holding the loaves are clearly visible. But here’s the real miracle: there are only four loaves on the plate.

That fifth loaf? That’s you and me, and the whole Church, whose mission is to be leaven for the world.                           

How are you participating in this Eucharistic miracle?

Kathy McGovern ©2026 

Reflecting on 1 Kings 3:5, 7-12

The young Solomon really touches my heart. Here he is, a mere youth, who has suddenly inherited the realm of his father, King David. In time, of course, he will surpass his father’s territory and wealth, but when we meet him today, he is the new king, and appears to be quite terrified.

That alone warms our hearts, that an entitled young man would be terrified of making a mistake with the responsibilities thrust upon him. History has lots of terrible stories of young (or old) kings tearing through their empires just because they could.

But young Solomon has the grace to respond to the Lord’s invitation to ask for anything by asking for an understanding heart. That’s where the term “the wisdom of Solomon” begins to take shape.

We see him in several other encounters— remember the story of the two women who each claimed to be the mother of the baby? You can find it in I Kings 3: 16-28. His wisdom shines in that episode as well.

In fact, there are seven “wisdom books” in the Old Testament, books like Job and the Book of Wisdom, which are thought to be influenced by King Solomon.

I’m sorry to confess that if God invited me to ask for anything, I don’t think an understanding heart would even make my top ten. But how wise King Solomon was to ask for understanding so as to “know what is right.”

My top ten would include pleas for an end to global hunger, devastating climate catastrophes, and an end to divisions in the Church and the world.  Come to think of it, “knowing what is right” pretty much covers all of that.

What would be your first request of God?

Kathy McGovern ©2026

Reflecting on Matthew 13: 24-43

I like that householder. He knows that he didn’t plant weeds in his field of wheat. “The enemy” planted them, but to what avail? To make him look ridiculous when it’s time to harvest? To trick him into pulling the weeds, hence pulling up the wheat as well? To lure him into a revenge plan, which almost never turns out as hoped? He doesn’t fall for any of those traps.

Instead, he does the kind thing, the strong thing. He lets the weeds and wheat grow up together, and then, at harvest, throws the weeds into the fire and saves the wheat.

“You’ve got lipstick on your teeth.” “We caught you in a lie.” “I don’t believe that the dog ate your homework.” Insert your own moments of humiliation, when a kind but firm superior told you that you’re not coming off as well as you hoped.

But wait! That same person of authority then hands you your next assignment (or your next paycheck) and you realize that, mess that you are, those around you continually choose to forgive and overlook the weaknesses you’ve carried around all your life.

I’ll bet you, too, have dear ones in your life whose weaknesses you’d love to pluck out so they could be the full and happy people you long for them to be. But plucking never works. It’s the hard work of patient forbearance that eventually brings us all to the place where we can gratefully look back at those who loved us through it all.

So let the hard things about your students and your kids grow up next to the wonderful things we all love about them. Give them the grace the householder gave his field.

What hard things about you did your loved ones overlook as you were growing up?

Kathy McGovern ©2026