Claretian Communications Foundation, Inc.
13TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME
Psalter: Week 1 / (Green/White)
St. Anthony Mary Zaccaria, priest
Responsorial Psalm: Ps 119: 2, 10, 20, 30, 40, 131: One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
1st Reading: Amos 8: 4-6, 9-12
Hear this, you, who trample on the needy, to do away with the weak of the land. You who say, “When will the new moon or the Sabbath feast be over that we may open the store and sell our grain?
Let us lower the measure and raise the price; let us cheat and tamper with the scales, and even sell the refuse with the whole grain. We will buy up the poor for money and the needy for a pair of sandals.”
Yahweh says, “On that day, I will make the sun go down at noon; and darken the earth in broad daylight.
I will turn your festivals into mourning and all your singing into wailing. Everyone will mourn, covered with sackcloth; and every head will be shaved. I will make them mourn, as for an only son, and bring their day to a bitter end.”
Yahweh says, “Days are coming when I will send famine upon the land; not hunger for bread or thirst for water, but for hearing the word of Yahweh.
Men will stagger from sea to sea, wander to and from, from north to east, searching for the word of Yahweh; but they will not find it.
Gospel: Matthew 9: 9-13
As Jesus moved on from there, he saw a man named Matthew, at his seat in the customhouse; and he said to him, “Follow me!” And Matthew got up and followed him.
Now it happened, while Jesus was at table in Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners joined Jesus and his disciples.
When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why is it that your master eats with sinners and tax collectors?”
When Jesus heard this, he said, “Healthy people do not need a doctor, but sick people do.
Go, and find out what this means: What I want is mercy, not sacrifice. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
REFLECTION:
“A life with God.”
When Jesus calls, he calls people to a changed life. Jesus always calls us to move away from a life of sin to a life with God. Jesus does not care about our past.
Jesus summons us to conversion because he cares about our relationship with him from this time onward to eternity.
Today’s Gospel narrates the call of Matthew who was a tax collector. The Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Luke identify the apostle Matthew as Levi (cf. Mk. 2:13- 17; Lk. 5:27-28).
Jesus called him from his custom-post. His office at the custom-post symbolizes his old life which was characterized by cheating and corruption.
Jesus called him to a new life. His old life was sick and rotten. He responded and never looked back. Jesus called him to a changed life, to a life with God.
It is a life that refuses to give in to the temptation of cheating. It is a life that refuses to participate in any form of corruption.
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