Monday of the Seventeenth in Ordinary Time 

The Responsorial Psalm invites us to always: “Give thanks to the Lord for he is good” (Psalm 106).  

Exodus 32: 15-34 shows the need we have for something visible and present that we can deal with to experience our relationship (interaction) with God and be assured of God’s relationship (interaction) with us. An invisible, intangible God just seems too vague, too far away to give us confidence he is “with us.” 

While Moses was in camp, he fulfilled this need. In a sense, he was an “idol” for the people: not that they worshipped him, but that he made them feel safe. When he delayed on the mountain, they said to Aaron, “make us a god to be our leader; as for the man Moses… we do not know what has happened to him.”  

Our “idol” can be the tangible observances of the law (“legalism”), or the visible, felt external practices of some devotion. It can be an authority figure (e.g., “clericalism”) or an inspiring minister (religious “hero-worship”). It can be the visible and reassuring splendor of the Church itself (“triumphalism”). These become idols for us when we fail to subordinate them consciously to the living God and to use them only as aids to personal interaction with God as Person. When we put our faith in these things, that is idolatry. 

When they fail us, we turn to other gods, leave the Church, and seek another religion. A classic example of this is the Protestant Reformation, when ministry in the Church was so corrupt and corrupting that the early reformers could not “find” Christ in the Church — and especially in Eucharist — so they turned away from the mystery of Christ’s living presence in the sacraments and focused on the Bible instead. They could not “Give thanks to the Lord for he is good” in people, so they made the unchanging words of the Book their only sure link with God. 

Matthew 13: 31-35 focuses us on the living, active presence of God in the Church itself — in the people who are the present, visible, living body of Christ. Jesus invites us to see God’s life in the smallest mustard seed, his action in the seemingly inert lump of dough that is in fact always rising. The “Church” is the “assembly” of people made alive by grace, in whom Jesus is present and active, even when he seems to be “delayed” on some faraway mountain. With faith, we penetrate to his presence in the ministering Church (both clerical and lay), even when what we see and hear sometimes obscures it more than reveals it. In spite of appearances, we continue to “Give thanks to the Lord for he is good.” And he is good in the Church. That is our faith. 

Initiative: Be a priest. Let Jesus appear in your words and actions. 

— Fr. David M. Knight

View today’s Mass readings, Lectionary #401, on the USCCB website here

Fr. David M. Knight (1931-2021) was a priest of the Diocese of Memphis in Tennessee, a prolific writer, and a highly sought after confessor, spiritual director, and retreat master. He authored more than 40 books and hundreds of articles that focus primarily on lay spirituality and life-long spiritual growth.