The meaning of the Sunday Mass Readings for September 2024 is made clearest by Catholic Doctrine. Catholic doctrines are the essentially unchangeable clarifications of Revelation and Faith that only the Magisterium (the pope and bishops) has the God-given authority to make and that must be accepted as objectively true in order to be Catholic. I have written two columns explaining in more depth what doctrine is and why the Church needs it. Eloquently making the case for doctrine is Christopher Ruddy in the August/September 2024 Issue of First Things.
Let’s learn always-true, not-to-be-contradicted doctrines in the Catechism of the Catholic Church that we can take away from this September’s Sunday Readings.[1]
September 1, Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time
In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells us that it is not what goes into a person but what comes out of a person’s heart that defiles or makes impure, a person. The Catechism uses this verse to teach about emotions since “Our Lord called man’s heart the source from which [emotions] spring” (CCC 1764[2]). In a society that seems to be obsessed with the “heart” and emotions, Catholic Doctrine provides the following wisdom. Emotions are essential to human nature (CCC 1763) – to be human is to have emotions. The most fundamental emotion is love of something that seems to be good, and this love creates a desire to have that which is loved (CCC 1765).
However, human nature is corrupted by Original Sin, and what seems to be good can actually be bad. Emotions are bad if something bad is loved, good if something good is loved (CCC 1766). Having involuntary emotions, even bad emotions, is not sinful (CCC 1767). Bad emotions become sinful if one does not use one’s mind and will to control them (CCC 1768). As it’s been said, either we control our emotions, or they control us. Catholic Doctrine and Reason give us the best knowledge of how to control our emotions. (Reason is the objectively true knowledge we get from secular evidence and logic).
So Jesus gave a “novel interpretation of the precepts of the Law regarding purity” (CCC 574). A sense of the many precepts in the Judaism of Jesus’ time can be gained by skimming the Book of Leviticus. “Jesus did not abolish the [Old Testament] Law [that began with Moses] but rather fulfilled it with such perfection that he revealed its ultimate meaning and redeemed the transgressions against it” (CCC 592). The challenge this gave to the Jews of Jesus’ time is pointed out in my commentary for the Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time.
Catholic Doctrine takes literally the verse from today’s Second Reading about God being changeless. “In God ‘there is no variation or shadow due to change.’ God is ‘He who Is,’ from everlasting to everlasting, and as such remains ever faithful to himself and his promises” (CCC 212).
- From the Second Reading[3] (James 1:17-18, 21b-22, 27): Jas 1:17 is cited in CCC 212 and 2642; and Jas 1:27 in CCC 2208.
- From the Gospel (Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23): Mk 7:14-23 in CCC 574; and Mk 7:21 in CCC 1764.
September 8, Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
In today’s Gospel Jesus uses His finger and even His spit to make a man hear and speak. Jesus “performs healings and illustrates his preaching with physical signs or symbolic gestures” (CCC 1151). The Catechism cites this miracle to teach doctrine about the Sacraments. “Since Pentecost, it is through the sacramental signs of the Church that the Holy Spirit carries on the work of sanctification. The sacraments of the Church do not abolish but purify and integrate all the richness of the signs and the symbols of the cosmos and of social life” (CCC 1152). For example, think water used and elevated in Baptism, bread and wine in the Eucharist, rings in Matrimony. “A sacramental celebration is a meeting of God’s children with their Father, in Christ and the Holy Spirit; this meeting takes [place] through actions and words” (CCC 1153).
- From the Gospel (Mark 7:31-37): Mk 7:32-36 is cited in CCC 1504; and Mk 7:33-35 in CCC 1151.
September 15, Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
The Catechism quotes verses in today’s Second Reading, about the uselessness of wishing well someone ill-clad and hungry without helping them, to teach about the traditional Works of Mercy – “charitable actions by which we come to the aid of our neighbor. . . . Instructing, advising, consoling, comforting are spiritual works of mercy, as are forgiving and bearing wrongs patiently. The corporal works of mercy consist especially in feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned, and burying the dead” (CCC 2447).
The verse from today’s Gospel about Jesus teaching that He must be rejected by the leaders of the Jews (CCC 572) is used by the Catechism to teach about Jesus’ relationship to the most important parts of Jewish religion: obedience to the Law of Moses, the necessity of worship in the Temple, and faith in one God. Jesus gives the Law “its ultimate interpretation in a divine way” (CCC 581). Jesus is “greater than the Temple” (CCC 590). “Jesus performed acts, such as pardoning sins, that manifested him to be the Savior God himself” (CCC 594). The challenge Jesus presents to devout Jews is that either He is “a man who [falsely] makes Himself God’s equal or [He] is speaking the truth” (CCC 589) to bring a New Covenant to fulfill and replace the Old Covenant (CCC 839-840).
We can add that this is the challenge Jesus presents to everyone who encounters Him throughout history. To paraphrase C. S. Lewis, when Jesus claimed to be God – and He most certainly did – He was either a lunatic, a liar, or the Lord. Christ is Lord! See CCC 446-451.
- From the First Reading (Isaiah 50:5-9a): Is 50:4-10 is cited in CCC 713.
- From the Second Reading (James 2:14-18): Jas 2:14-26 is cited in CCC 162; and Jas 2:15-16 in CCC 2447.
- From the Gospel (Mark 8:27-35): Mk 8:27 is cited in CCC 472; Mk 8:31-33 in CCC 557; Mk 8:31 in CCC 474, 572, and 649; Mk 8:34 in CCC 459 and 1615; and Mk 8:35 in CCC 2544.
September 22, Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Today’s Second Reading ends by addressing a universal question: Why does God not always give us what we ask Him? St. James tells us that God does not answer our prayers when we ask out of selfishness. The Catechism explains: “God cannot answer [selfish prayers], for he desires our well-being, our life” (CCC 2737).
Why should we petition God even when we are not selfish? God does want us to make petitions. “Our Father knows what we need before we ask him, but he awaits our petition because the dignity of his children lies in their freedom” (CCC 2736). In other words, in order to have the best relationship with God, we must freely choose to have that relationship. God does not force us to have a relationship with Him. Love cannot be forced but must be freely chosen. God does not force us to love Him. The best way to pray is to pray for our lives and the lives of others to be in harmony with Catholic Doctrine.
We should also remember that we and those for whom we pray will not be given the fullness of life – life without pain and sorrow, as God intended for us when He created the first humans – until we enter the Kingdom of God. “Christian petition is centered on the desire and search for the Kingdom to come, in keeping with the teaching of Christ [in the Lord’s Prayer]” (CCC 2632).
As Jesus did in last week’s Gospel, He tells His disciples in today’s Gospel that He will be killed and rise from the dead. The Catechism cites both these passages and others, to teach that “Christ enjoyed in his human knowledge the fullness of understanding of the eternal plans He had come to reveal” (CCC 474). This is one example of how Jesus was fully God while simultaneously being fully human.
- From the Second Reading (James 3:16-4:3): Jas 4:2-3 is cited in CCC 2737.
- From the Gospel (Mark 9:30-37): Mk 9:31-32 is cited in CCC 557; Mk 9:31 in CCC 474; and Mk 9:37 in CCC 1825.
September 29, Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
The only citation of verses from the First Reading is in reference to the brief mention of the seventy elders who receive God’s spirit. The Catechism uses this passage to teach that their ministry, as well as the Old Covenant priesthood beginning with Aaron, is “a prefiguring of the ordained ministry of the New Covenant” (CCC 1541). The ordained ministry of the New Covenant is the ministry of those who have received the Sacrament of Holy Orders. This ministry is exercised fully by bishops and shared by priests and deacons (CCC 1536). Jesus Christ is “the true priest” (CCC 1545) and the “high priest and unique mediator” (CCC 1546). The priesthood of the Old Testament “finds its fulfilment in Christ Jesus” (CCC 1544). The Church’s ordained ministry is the means by which “Christ unceasingly builds up and leads his Church. For this reason it is transmitted by its own sacrament” (CCC 1547).
The Second Reading’s warning to the rich is used by the Catechism to teach that love for the poor “is incompatible with immoderate love of riches or their selfish use” (CCC 2445). I am emphasizing “immoderate” and “selfish” to make the same point I made for the Second Sunday of Easter: when Catholic Doctrine rejects unbridled capitalism, it does not promote socialism. There is a virtuous middle ground between central management of the economy by the government and a completely unregulated economy. “The Church has rejected the totalitarian and atheistic ideologies [of] ‘communism’ or ‘socialism.’ She has likewise refused to accept, in the practice of ‘capitalism,’ individualism and the absolute primacy of the law of the marketplace . . . (CCC 2425).”
This passage is also used by the Catechism to define a just wage: “the legitimate fruit of work” and “the opportunity to provide a dignified livelihood [for the worker and his or her family] . . . taking into account the role and productivity [of the worker], the state of the business, and the common good” (CCC 2434). More doctrine on economic activity can be found in CCC 2426-2436.
A verse from today’s Alleluia is cited by the Catechism to teach that the “disciple of Jesus continues in his word so as to know ‘the truth [that] will make you free’ and that sanctifies. To follow Jesus is to live in ‘the Spirit of truth’ . . . To his disciples, Jesus teaches the unconditional love of truth” (CCC 2466). Catholic Doctrine has the fullness of truth about God and our relationship with Him.
- From the First Reading (Numbers 11:25-29): Nm 11:24-25 is cited in CCC 1541.
- From the Second Reading (James 5:1-6): Jas 5:1-6 is cited in CCC 2445; and Jas 5:4 in CCC 1867, 2409, and 2434.
- From the Alleluia (John 17:17b, 17a): Jn 17:17 is cited in CCC 2466.
- From the Gospel (Mark 9:38-48): Mk 9:43-48 is cited in CCC 1034.
[1] There are too many citations, or references, in the Catechism to the verses in a month of Sunday Mass readings to identify all the pertinent doctrines, so I will use my best judgment to select which verses and doctrines to cover in a column that may not exceed 2,000 words. The bullet points allow you to explore further the Biblical basis of Catholic Doctrine.
[2] CCC abbreviates Catechism of the Catholic Church. Any number after it is the number of a paragraph in the Catechism. For example, “CCC 1764” means paragraph 1764 of the Catechism.
[3] If a Reading is not listed, then none of its verses is cited by the CCC.
