Memorial of Saint Clare, Virgin
August 11, 2023
Friday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Today’s Readings:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/081123.cfm

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Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings continue to take us through Deuteronomy, and for the next two weeks, through Joshua, Judges, and Ruth.

The word “Deuteronomy” means “second law” because the book is a reiteration and refinement of the Law given in Exodus. The Book of Deuteronomy is basically three big speeches by Moses, the commissioning of Joshua as Israel’s next leader, and a recounting of the death of Moses.

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Today’s speech is powerful and beautiful. Moses calls on the people to remember and give thanks for the immense blessings they have received at the hand of God.

Ask now of the days of old, before your time,
ever since God created man upon the earth;
ask from one end of the sky to the other:
Did anything so great ever happen before?
Was it ever heard of? 
Did a people ever hear the voice of God
speaking from the midst of fire, as you did, and live?

Deuteronomy 4:32-33

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At length, Moses recounts the sacred history of the people and tells them that, because of it, they are called to respond in covenanted fidelity.

This is why you must now know, and fix in your heart,
that the LORD is God in the heavens above and on earth below,
and that there is no other.
You must keep his statutes and commandments which I enjoin on you today,
that you and your children after you may prosper,
and that you may have long life on the land
which the LORD, your God, is giving you forever.”

Deuteronomy 4: 39-40

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Moses offered these encouraging and directive speeches because he sensed he was near the end of his life and that Israel was moving into a new phase of its life.

In our Gospel, Jesus feels the same way. In the section immediately preceding today’s reading, Matthew says this:

From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised

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In today’s passage, Jesus calls his disciples to live in covenanted fidelity by imitating his life.

Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,
take up his cross, and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world
and forfeit his life?
Or what can one give in exchange for his life?

Matthew 16: 25-26

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I’ve read this Gospel passage a thousand times in the past sixty or seventy years. And I ask myself each time, “Do you really take this seriously? Do you really understand that your life is not for yourself but for God and all of God’s beloved creatures?”

It takes radical courage to live that kind of understanding. But continually remembering God’s Presence and Promises throughout our own lives strengthens us. That’s what Moses was trying to tell his people. That’s what Jesus is encouraging his disciples to recognize.

Jesus promises that, at the end of time, each will be repaid according to the level of their generosity. But the repayment doesn’t wait for the end times. Remembering our lives in grateful prayer will convince us of this: there is no true happiness, no deep joy, unless we learn to live beyond our own self-interests.

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Poetry: Unless a Grain of Wheat Falls into the Ground and Dies – Malcolm Guite

Oh let me fall as grain to the good earth
And die away from all dry separation,
Die to my sole self, and find new birth
Within that very death, a dark fruition,
Deep in this crowded underground, to learn
The earthy otherness of every other,
To know that nothing is achieved alone
But only where these other fallen gather.

If I bear fruit and break through to bright air,
Then fall upon me with your freeing flail
To shuck this husk and leave me sheer and clear
As heaven-handled Hopkins, that my fall
May be more fruitful and my autumn still
A golden evening where your barns are full.

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Music: Unless a Grain of Wheat – Bernadette Farrell

Unless a grain of wheat shall fall upon the ground and die,
it remains but a single grain with no life.

If we have died with him then we shall live with him;
if we hold firm, we shall reign with him.
Unless a grain of wheat shall fall upon the ground and die,
it remains but a single grain with no life.

If anyone serves me then they must follow me;
wherever I am my servants will be.
Unless a grain of wheat shall fall upon the ground and die,
it remains but a single grain with no life.

Make your home in me as I make mine in you;
those who remain in me bear much fruit.
Unless a grain of wheat shall fall upon the ground and die,
it remains but a single grain with no life.

If you remain in me and my word lives in you,
then you will be my disciples.
Unless a grain of wheat shall fall upon the ground and die,
it remains but a single grain with no life.

Those who love me are loved by my Father;
we shall be with them and dwell in them.
Unless a grain of wheat shall fall upon the ground and die,
it remains but a single grain with no life.

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you;
peace which the world cannot give is my gift.
Unless a grain of wheat shall fall upon the ground and die,
it remains but a single grain with no life.