Alleluia!
Alleluia!
Blessed are you,
Father,
Lord of heaven and earth,
For revealing the mysteries of the kingdom to mere children.
Alleluia!
The Lord be with you.
A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew.
Jesus exclaimed,
I bless you,
Father,
Lord of heaven and earth,
For hiding these things from the learned and the clever,
And revealing them to little ones.
Yes,
Father,
That is what it pleased you to do.
Everything has been entrusted to me by my Father,
And no one knows the Son except the Father,
Just as no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
The Gospel of the Lord.
There's something remarkable about that gospel.
It starts with a blessing.
What's so remarkable about that,
You may well ask?
Well,
It's remarkable because of what comes just before today's gospel.
Just before the gospel,
The mood is bleak.
We heard about it yesterday at Mass.
Three towns were mentioned.
Do you remember?
Koratzin,
Bethsaida,
And Capernaum.
And we heard yesterday that they had rejected Jesus.
That comes just before today's gospel.
How does Jesus respond to that rejection in today's gospel?
With self-pity?
With resentment?
No.
He responds with a blessing.
It is remarkable.
What does he bless?
Whom does he bless?
He blesses the Father.
He blesses the Father's will.
The Father's mysterious will.
You see,
Those three towns,
Koratzin,
Bethsaida,
And Capernaum,
They are the learned and the clever.
And yet,
They're the very ones who reject Jesus.
But out of that defeat,
That apparent defeat,
Comes victory because we have the little ones.
That little flock of the Lord's disciples.
They recognize him.
They welcome him.
And for that little victory,
Jesus blesses the Father.
There's something in this for us,
I think.
Life is full of ups and downs.
You don't need me to say that.
When the downs come,
And they can be crushing,
We know that.
When the downs come,
It can be so difficult to see God in it all.
Where is God's will?
It can be so easy to fall into self-pity and resentment.
But today's gospel teaches us that out of these apparent defeats,
Over and over again,
Mysteriously,
God brings the victory of his love.
Just look at the crucifix here.
Out of all that horror comes the resurrection and the unlocking of the gates to heaven.
So let's take inspiration from our Lord's example today.
When he was faced with the mystery of the Father's will,
My goodness,
It's so mysterious.
When rejection and failure came his way,
He was still able to bless the Father.
It's asking a lot to do that,
I know.
It takes faith,
Grown-up faith.
Trust that out of apparent defeats,
Out of even our own sufferings,
The Father can and does bring unexpected victories of his love.
Often we can't see it.
Usually we won't see it.
Not this side of heaven.
But the challenge today,
And it is a big one,
Is for us to persevere.
In tomorrow's gospel,
The Lord will give us some guidance on how to do that.
But for today,
With God's grace,
We persevere,
Trusting that out even of suffering,
He brings unexpected victories of love.
