Homily for Thursday, Week 18 of Ordinary Time

Homily for Thursday
Week 18 of Ordinary Time

Aug. 7, 2025
Ps 95: 1-2, 6-9
Num 20: 1-13
Matt 16: 13-23
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph Residence, N.R.

(by Raphael)

“If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts” (Resp. Ps.).

The readings and the psalm today present us with a rock of salvation, and both readings show a leader who fails.

Commentators have always been puzzled as to why the Lord was displeased with Moses in the episode concerning the water at Kadesh.  Whatever the reason, God found him unfaithful in showing forth the Lord’s holiness in the eyes of Israel and banned him from entering the Promised Land (Num 20:12).

Even after Jesus designated Simon as the rock foundation of his Church (Matt 16:18), Simon, now Peter the rock, evidently failed to accept God’s plan for our redemption (16:22-23).

Perhaps Moses wasn’t entirely obedient in how he carried out God’s instructions.  Peter certainly had his own ideas about what Jesus should do.  The hardening of human hearts is, as Jesus says, an obstacle to what God wants to do (16:23).

The way to salvation, the only way, is indeed based on the rock of our salvation.  That rock, finally, is Christ, as St. Paul affirms:  “they drank from a spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ” (1 Cor 10:4).  Our salvation lies in letting God soften, mold, and shape our hearts; in learning to “think as God does” (Matt 16:23) as much as our hard heads allow us to; in “kneeling before the Lord who made us” (Ps 95:6).