Reading 1
Ex 2:1-15a
A certain man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman,
who conceived and bore a son.
Seeing that he was a goodly child, she hid him for three months.
When she could hide him no longer, she took a papyrus basket,
daubed it with bitumen and pitch,
and putting the child in it,
placed it among the reeds on the river bank.
His sister stationed herself at a distance
to find out what would happen to him.
Pharaoh’s daughter came down to the river to bathe,
while her maids walked along the river bank.
Noticing the basket among the reeds, she sent her handmaid to fetch it.
On opening it, she looked, and lo, there was a baby boy, crying!
She was moved with pity for him and said,
“It is one of the Hebrews’ children.”
Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter,
“Shall I go and call one of the Hebrew women
to nurse the child for you?”
“Yes, do so,” she answered.
So the maiden went and called the child’s own mother.
Pharaoh’s daughter said to her,
“Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will repay you.”
The woman therefore took the child and nursed it.
When the child grew, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter,
who adopted him as her son and called him Moses;
for she said, “I drew him out of the water.”
On one occasion, after Moses had grown up,
when he visited his kinsmen and witnessed their forced labor,
he saw an Egyptian striking a Hebrew, one of his own kinsmen.
Looking about and seeing no one,
he slew the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.
The next day he went out again, and now two Hebrews were fighting!
So he asked the culprit,
“Why are you striking your fellow Hebrew?”
But the culprit replied,
“Who has appointed you ruler and judge over us?
Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?”
Then Moses became afraid and thought,
“The affair must certainly be known.”
Pharaoh, too, heard of the affair and sought to put Moses to death.
But Moses fled from him and stayed in the land of Midian.
69:3, 14, 30-31, 33-34
Responsorial PsalmR. (see 33)
Turn to the Lord in your need, and you will live.
I am sunk in the abysmal swamp
where there is no foothold;
I have reached the watery depths;
the flood overwhelms me.
R. Turn to the Lord in your need, and you will live.
But I pray to you, O LORD,
for the time of your favor, O God!
In your great kindness answer me
with your constant help.
R. Turn to the Lord in your need, and you will live.
But I am afflicted and in pain;
let your saving help, O God, protect me;
I will praise the name of God in song,
and I will glorify him with thanksgiving.
R. Turn to the Lord in your need, and you will live.
“See, you lowly ones, and be glad;
you who seek God, may your hearts revive!
For the LORD hears the poor,
and his own who are in bonds he spurns not.”
R. Turn to the Lord in your need, and you will live.
Gospel
Mt 11:20-24
Jesus began to reproach the towns
where most of his mighty deeds had been done,
since they had not repented.
“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida!
For if the mighty deeds done in your midst
had been done in Tyre and Sidon,
they would long ago have repented in sackcloth and ashes.
But I tell you, it will be more tolerable
for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you.
And as for you, Capernaum:
Will you be exalted to heaven?
You will go down to the nether world.
For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Sodom,
it would have remained until this day.
But I tell you, it will be more tolerable
for the land of Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.”
Meditation: Matthew 11:20-24
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“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida!” (Matthew 11:21)
Jesus spoke very candidly about these cities just north of the Sea of Galilee. He had performed many miracles in these places, and yet nothing seemed to be changing. People remained closed to Jesus’ message. And what was Jesus’ message? “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17).
Jesus said that if the people of Sodom and Gomorrah—two notoriously wicked cities—had witnessed his miracles, they would have repented quickly. They would have seen his miracles as signs that God was visiting his people, and they would have repented, putting away all the obstacles that sin presents. But since Chorazin and Bethsaida didn’t repent, they faced dire consequences.
It may not be an attractive topic, but repentance is a vital part of our life in the Spirit. Without it, we would end up separated from God forever. We would remain subject to the pride and self-centeredness that trapped our first parents—and with dire consequences.
If we find repentance hard, it’s probably because we have a faulty impression of God. We imagine a thundering deity who is always ready to mete out justice with a firm, unflinching hand. We don’t think of a Father who longs to be reunited with his children. And so we avoid confessing our sins to him because we are afraid of his punishment. But this isn’t the God that Jesus revealed. This isn’t the shepherd who goes in search of the lost sheep, the father who waits eagerly for his prodigal son to come home, or the God who sacrificed his only Son so that we could be cleansed and purified.
Jesus’ words against Chorazin and Bethsaida are not the words of an angry God eager to punish the wayward. They are the words of a mournful God lamenting the path of self-destruction that these cities had chosen. They are the words of a passionate God pleading with his children: “Come back to me so that I can save you from the consequences of your sin!”
In prayer today, fix your eyes on God, your heavenly Father. Let his love free you from fear. Open your heart to him, and let him take away your sin. He sees it already. He just wants to forgive you!
“Father, I want to be set free!”
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