RBWords

     Appropriately enough, on the feast of St. Matthew, the apostle and evangelist, the gospel passage is taken from the Gospel of Matthew!  The scene is similar to the one in the Gospel of Luke in which Jesus responds to scribes and Pharisees who find fault with his table companions and with him for eating with them!  Here, however, we do not have a series of parables about God's initiative in searching for the lost.  Rather Matthew situates this in a series of confrontations with the scribes and Pharisees.  The righteous folks are continually challenged in their rigid views that would deny Jesus' authority to forgive sin, to heal, and cast out demons.  I cannot help but notice how the tone of all of this is being played out in the ministry of Pope Francis!

 

     Pope Francis is challenging the church to be more "welcoming" and less concerned with minutiae and little rules.  On major moral issues he simply brushes the media aside by saying that the church's teaching is already clear but is not heard because its representatives are so condemning and righteous!  He challenges us to go and learn the meaning of mercy!  As my father would have said, "He is really stirring the pot!"  Jesus had (and has) a way of doing that.  Do we feel "stirred up" by his teaching?  Is Pope Francis saying something new, or does it seem new because we have forgotten it for so long?   AMEN