Daily Gospel Reflection - Saturday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
July 30,2022
Saturday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
Gospel: Mt 14:1-12
Herod the tetrarch heard of the reputation of Jesus
and said to his servants, “This man is John the Baptist.
He has been raised from the dead;
that is why mighty powers are at work in him.”
Now Herod had arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison
on account of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip,
for John had said to him,
“It is not lawful for you to have her.”
Although he wanted to kill him, he feared the people,
for they regarded him as a prophet.
But at a birthday celebration for Herod,
the daughter of Herodias performed a dance before the guests
and delighted Herod so much
that he swore to give her whatever she might ask for.
Prompted by her mother, she said,
“Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist.”
The king was distressed,
but because of his oaths and the guests who were present,
he ordered that it be given, and he had John beheaded in the prison.
His head was brought in on a platter and given to the girl,
who took it to her mother.
His disciples came and took away the corpse
and buried him; and they went and told Jesus.
*United States Conference of Catholic
Bishop Robert Barron
Friends, in today’s Gospel, Herod has John the Baptist beheaded, making him a protomartyr of Christ’s followers, the first of many martyrs to come.
Can we read that terrible and wonderful book of martyrs, the book of Revelation, without seeing the power of bold, truthful proclamation in the early Christian Church? And the cloud of witnesses grows up and down the Christian centuries. Today, from Pakistan to Nigeria, from Egypt to Iraq, ordinary Christians routinely risk their lives simply by declaring their faith and worshiping according to their consciences.
They are walking in the footsteps of great martyrs of the tradition, from Stephen, Peter, and Paul to Miguel Pro shouting “Viva Cristo Rey” to his executioners; Martin Luther King Jr. taking an assassin’s bullet because he insisted on being a drum major for New Testament justice; and Franz Jaggerstätter, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Edith Stein challenging to their dying breaths the lies of Nazism.
And what we see in these martyrs is not ordinary courage but a courage elevated and transfigured through love. We see a willingness to give away even one’s life out of love for Christ and his people.
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