16 June 2025 (Monday)
Monday of week 11 in Ordinary Time.
Ordinary Weekday (Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time)
Readings from the Bible of the Roman Catholic Church:
First Reading : 2 Corinthians 6:1‐10
As his fellow workers, we beg you once again not to neglect the grace of God that you have received. For he says: At the favourable time, I have listened to you; on the day of salvation I came to your help. Well, now is the favourable time; this is the day of salvation. We do nothing that people might object to, so as not to bring discredit on our function as God’s servants. Instead, we prove we are servants of God by great fortitude in times of suffering: in times of hardship and distress; when we are flogged, or sent to prison, or mobbed; labouring, sleepless, starving. We prove we are God’s servants by our purity, knowledge, patience and kindness; by a spirit of holiness, by a love free from affectation; by the word of truth and by the power of God; by being armed with the weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left, prepared for honour or disgrace, for blame or praise; taken for impostors while we are genuine; obscure yet famous; said to be dying and here are we alive; rumoured to be executed before we are sentenced; thought most miserable and yet we are always rejoicing; taken for paupers though we make others rich, for people having nothing though we have everything.
Responsive Psalm : Psalm 97(98):1‐4
The Lord has made known his salvation.
Sing a new song to the Lord for he has worked wonders. His right hand and his holy arm have brought salvation.
The Lord has made known his salvation.
The Lord has made known his salvation; has shown his justice to the nations. He has remembered his truth and love for the house of Israel.
The Lord has made known his salvation.
All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. Shout to the Lord, all the earth, ring out your joy.
The Lord has made known his salvation.
Gospel : Matthew 5:38‐42
Jesus said to his disciples: ‘You have learnt how it was said: Eye for eye and tooth for tooth. But I say this to you: offer the wicked man no resistance. On the contrary, if anyone hits you on the right cheek, offer him the other as well; if a man takes you to law and would have your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone orders you to go one mile, go two miles with him. Give to anyone who asks, and if anyone wants to borrow, do not turn away.’
For our reflection today:
The Sermon on the Mount, as it is reported by Matthew, is the place in the New Testament where we see Jesus clearly affirming and decisively exercising the power over the Law that Israel received from God as the cornerstone of the covenant. The new law he brought has its synthesis in love. This love will make man overcome the classic friend-enemy opposition in his relations with others, and will tend from within hearts to translate into corresponding forms of social and political solidarity, even institutionalised. The irradiation of Jesus “new commandment” will therefore be very broad in history. At this moment, we would like above all to point out that in the important passages of the ‘Sermon on the Mount’, the contrast is repeated: "You have heard that it was said. But I say to you‘; and this is not in order to “abolish” the divine Law of the old covenant, but to indicate its ’perfect fulfilment", according to the meaning intended by God the Lawgiver, which Jesus illuminates with a new light and explains in all its fulfilling value of new life and generator of new history: and he does so by attributing to himself an authority that is that of God the Lawgiver. It can be said that in that expression repeated six times: I say to you, there resounds the echo of that self-definition of God, which Jesus also attributed to himself: ‘I am’. (St. John Paul II, General Audience, 14 October 1987)
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