Gospel Reading : Matthew 11:20-24
Then he began to upbraid the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent.
“Woe to you, Chorazin! woe to you, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.
But I tell you, it shall be more tolerable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you.
And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You shall be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you that it shall be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you.”
What do the Fathers say?
Pope St GREGORY the Great. Sackcloth is the roughness which denotes the pricking of the conscience for sin, ashes denote the dust of the dead; and both are wont to be employed in penitence, that the pricking of the sackcloth may remind us of our sins, and the dust of the ash may cause us to reflect what we have become by judgment.
St JEROME. Tyre and Sidon had trodden under foot the law of nature only, but these towns named, after they had transgressed the natural and the written Law, also made light of those wonders which had been done in them.
St RABANUS. We see the words of the Saviour fulfilled; Chorazin and Bethsaida would not believe when the Lord came to them in person; but Tyre and Sidon have afterwards believed by the preaching of the Apostles.
St JEROME. And you, Caperna-um, will you be exalted to heaven? You shall be brought down to Hades.; and it may be understood in two different ways. Either, you shall go down to hell because you have proudly resisted my preaching; or, you that has been exalted to heaven by entertaining me, and having my mighty wonders done in you, shalt be visited with the heavier punishment, because you would not believe even these.
St REMIGIUS. And they have made the sins not of Sodom only and Gomorrah, but of Tyre and Sidon light in comparison, and therefore it follows, For if the mighty works which have been done in you had been done in Sodom, it would perhaps have remained unto this day.
Sources:
Bible readings from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Second Catholic Edition, copyright © 2006 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
Quotes of the Fathers from :
Thomas Aquinas’ Catena Aurea Translated by St John Henry Newman
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