The Word today, 15C
- Admin
- Jul 12
- 3 min read
July 14 - July 19, 2025
St Camillus of Lellis, priest
Exodus 1:8-14, 22 For the next three weeks almost, the lectionary offers readings from Exodus, including such passages as the Ten Commandments. We start today with the story of the oppression Israelites in Egypt—a common human story of aggression towards the immigrant—not unknown in our Irish experience!
Matthew 10:34-11:1 This passage can surprise and even offend. The sword, however, is not the sword of judgment but the sword of decision, as the following verses show.
St Bonaventure, bishop and doctor
Exodus 2:1-15 The story of Moses’ birth is told with delicious irony—the daughter of the Pharaoh appoints the child’s own mother as wet nurse. Moving quickly on, the adult Moses commits a crime and has to run away.
Matthew 11:20-24 In these difficult days, it is good to be aware that even Jesus himself met with refusal and rejection. His reaction may seem harsh, but it is in the line of prophetic invective, a kind of last chance call to repentance.
Our Lady of Mount Carmel
Exodus 3:1-6, 9-12 Genuine encounters with the divine can never be “told” in ordinary words and so it is that Moses’ encounter with the mysterium tremendum et fascinans must be given in symbol. Fire—both material and somehow immaterial or spiritual—is both attractive and awesome, inviting and dangerous. Tomorrow we hear the second part of the burning bush.
Matthew 11:25-27 The importance of this reading could hardly be exaggerated. It belongs with the baptism and the transfiguration, revealing something of the inner life of Jesus. At the same time, it is an invitation to us all, to be open to God’s self-disclosure in Jesus, in all simplicity and trust.
Exodus 3:13-20 We are about to hear an extra-ordinary passage, a passage of signal importance of the Jewish people and of great import for the Christian tradition. The name of God—I AM WHO I AM or YHWH— comes from the verb to be. In Jewish tradition, this holy name is never spoken out loud. In Christian tradition, we speak of God as “holy Being who lets be” (John Macquarrie). It is all, of course, deeply mysterious, yet liberating and even practical.
Matthew 11:28-30 In Jewish tradition, the Torah or the Law was regarded as a (very) welcome yoke, that is, guidance which you help the faithful plough a straight furrow in life. Jesus’ yoke or burden is, in addition, easy and light.
Exodus 11:10-12:14 Our reading from Exodus has moved quickly on and today we hear the instructions for the Passover. This memorial celebration kept alive in all subsequent generations not just the memory of the Exodus but the actual experience of it.
Matthew 12:1-8 Reading this passage, one could be naughty and ask what were the Pharisees doing in cornfield on the Sabbath!! This is Matthew’s version of a familiar story from Mark. He brings out the meaning even more strongly with this addition: What I want is mercy, not sacrifice.
Exodus 12:37-42 Our image today is that of a people on the move. A pilgrim people, liberated from oppression, travels while the Lord himself keeps vigil over them.
Matthew 12:14-21 The historical Jesus did, of course, encounter opposition. (He could hardly have said what he said and done what he did and escape severe criticism.) The historical Jesus may very well have grasped his destiny of suffering in the light of the prophets, and in particular in the light of the Suffering Servant from Isaiah, as in our reading.
References
-United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. (2025bj, July 13). Fifteenth Sunday in ordinary time. USCCB. https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/071325.cfm
-Sunday readings. (n.d.-s). Hearers of the Word. https://www.tarsus.ie/SundayReadings
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