Archive for August 2, 2025

SUNDAY BIBLE REFLECTION

Posted: August 2, 2025 by CatholicJules in Sunday Reflections
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Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Ecclesiastes 1:2; 2:21–23

Psalm 90:3–4, 5–6, 12–13, 14, 17

Colossians 3:1–5, 9–11

Luke 12:13–21

The Fool’s Vanity

Trust in God—as the Rock of our salvation, as the Lord who made us His chosen people, as our shepherd and guide. This should be the mark of our following of Jesus.

Like the Israelites we recall in this week’s Psalm Response, we have made an exodus, passing through the waters of Baptism, freeing us from our bondage to sin. We too are on a pilgrimage to a promised homeland, the Lord in our midst, feeding us heavenly bread, giving us living waters to drink (see 1 Corinthians 10:1-4).

We must take care to guard against the folly that befell the Israelites, that led them to quarrel and test God’s goodness at Meribah and Massah.

We can harden our hearts in ways more subtle but no less ruinous. We can put our trust in possessions, squabble over earthly inheritances, kid ourselves that what we have we deserve, store up treasures and think they’ll afford us security and rest.

All this is “vanity of vanities,” a false and deadly way of living, as this week’s First Reading tells us.

This is the greed that Jesus warns against in this week’s Gospel. The rich man’s anxiety and toil expose his lack of faith in God’s care and provision. That’s why Paul calls greed “idolatry” in the Epistle this week. Mistaking having for being, possession for existence, we forget that God is the giver of all that we have, we exalt the things we can make or buy over our Maker (see

Romans 1:25).

Jesus calls the rich man a “fool”—a word used in the Old Testament for someone who rebels against God or has forgotten Him (see Psalm 14:1).

We should treasure most the new life we have been given in Christ and seek what is above, the promised inheritance of heaven. We have to see all things in the light of eternity, mindful that He who gives us the breath of life could at any moment—this night even—demand it back from us.

On Today’s Gospel

Posted: August 2, 2025 by CatholicJules in Personal Thoughts & Reflections
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Everything we have comes from the Lord. He holds the title to our property and to our very being. And yet, we want to be in control. We want to believe that we have earned everything on our own. All too often, when we are blessed with more, we hoard it all for ourselves, without considering the needs of our brethren who may have nothing.

Today’s first reading reminds us that the Lord, our God, is our provider, and everything we have belongs to Him.

In today’s gospel, we have heard many times that Herod succumbed to his prideful ways. He did not want to be embarrassed, so he kept a promise that he should not have made. But how many of us have dwelled on the fact that it was Herodias who caused the death of Saint John the Baptist? Her spiteful tongue and cunning ways caused His murder. How many souls and reputations have been murdered by spiteful tongues, gossip? All by folks hidden in background often instigating others to perform treacherous acts. Nothing is hidden from the Lord our God!

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Amen

Saint Eusebius of Vercelli, Bishop, Saint Peter Julian Eymard, Priest pray for us…

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First reading
Leviticus 25:1,8-17


The law of the jubilee year

The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai. He said:
    ‘You are to count seven weeks of years – seven times seven years, that is to say a period of seven weeks of years, forty-nine years. And on the tenth day of the seventh month you shall sound the trumpet; on the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout the land. You will declare this fiftieth year sacred and proclaim the liberation of all the inhabitants of the land. This is to be a jubilee for you; each of you will return to his ancestral home, each to his own clan. This fiftieth year is to be a jubilee year for you: you will not sow, you will not harvest the ungathered corn, you will not gather from the untrimmed vine. The jubilee is to be a holy thing to you, you will eat what comes from the fields.
    ‘In this year of jubilee each of you is to return to his ancestral home. If you buy or sell with your neighbour, let no one wrong his brother. If you buy from your neighbour, this must take into account the number of years since the jubilee: according to the number of productive years he will fix the price. The greater the number of years, the higher shall be the price demanded; the less the number of years, the greater the reduction; for what he is selling you is a certain number of harvests. Let none of you wrong his neighbour, but fear your God; I am the Lord your God.’


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Gospel
Matthew 14:1-12


The beheading of John the Baptist

Herod the tetrarch heard about the reputation of Jesus, and said to his court, ‘This is John the Baptist himself; he has risen from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him.’
    Now it was Herod who had arrested John, chained him up and put him in prison because of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife. For John had told him, ‘It is against the Law for you to have her.’ He had wanted to kill him but was afraid of the people, who regarded John as a prophet. Then, during the celebrations for Herod’s birthday, the daughter of Herodias danced before the company, and so delighted Herod that he promised on oath to give her anything she asked. Prompted by her mother she said, ‘Give me John the Baptist’s head, here, on a dish.’ The king was distressed but, thinking of the oaths he had sworn and of his guests, he ordered it to be given her, and sent and had John beheaded in the prison. The head was brought in on a dish and given to the girl, who took it to her mother. John’s disciples came and took the body and buried it; then they went off to tell Jesus.