Gospel Reading : Matthew 10:16-23
“Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.
Beware of men; for they will deliver you up to councils, and flog you in their synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear testimony before them and the Gentiles. When they deliver you up, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.
Brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved.
When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next; for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel, before the Son of man comes.”
What do the Fathers say?
St John CHRYSOSTOM. Having removed all care and anxiety from the Apostles, and armed them with the miraculous powers, He proceeds to foretell the evils which should befall them.
Firstly, that they might know his knowledge of the future;
secondly, that they should not think that these things befell them because of the want of power in their Master;
thirdly, that they might not be amazed if these things had come upon them unexpectedly;
fourthly, that after hearing these things, they might not be dismayed in the season of His cross;
and lastly, that they might learn a new method of warfare.
“I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves”; to show His excellent might, that the sheep would overcome the wolves though they were in the midst of them; and though they received many bites from them, yet they were not destroyed, but rather converted them.
And it is a much greater and a more wonderful power that can change their hearts than that can kill them. Among wolves He teaches them to show the meekness of sheep.
Pope St GREGORY the Great. For he who undertakes the office of preacher ought not to do evil, but to suffer it, and by his meekness to mollify the wrath of the angry, and by his wounds to heal the wounds of sinners in their affliction.
And even should the zeal of right-doing ever require that He should be severe to those that are placed under Him, His very severity will be of love and not of cruelty, outwardly maintaining the rights of discipline, and inwardly loving those whom He corrects.
Too many, when they are entrusted with the reins of government, burn to make the subjects feel them, display the terrors of authority, and forgetting that they are fathers, rather desire to be thought lords, changing a station of lowliness into that of lofty dominion, if they ever seem outwardly to fawn on any one, they inwardly hate him; of such He spoke above; They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. (Mat. 7:15.)
St John CHRYSOSTOM. Their consolation under their hardships was the excellent power of Him who sent them.
Be not dismayed, though you be sent into the midst of wolves; for I am able to bring it to pass that you suffer no hurt, and that you should not only prevail over the wolves, but be made more terrible than lions.
But it is good that it should be thus; hereby your virtue is made brighter, and My power is more manifested.
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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