The Holy Priest-Martyr Pancratius, Bishop of Tauromenia (1st-2nd c.)
1 Corinthians 7:35-8:7; Matthew 15:29-31
Abstention from meat and foods that contain meat.
Read Matthew 15:29-31
The beginning of today’s Gospel offers this very ordinary description: “Jesus went on from there and passed along the Sea of Galilee. And he went up into the hills, and sat down there.”
Mountains have a great significance in Holy Scripture. It is on the top of mountains that all manner of revelations take place; they are where God meets humanity. We can think of the sacrifice of Abraham in Genesis; Moses encountering God on Sinai in Exodus; and, the Prophet Elias on Mount Carmel and the victory over Baal. These are the moments of God and man interacting in a dramatic fashion. Our Lord’s simply sitting down on the mountain appears at first a little less dramatic, but we need to look closer.
No longer is it God appearing to man to work wonders, now it is the God-Man Jesus Christ, fully human and fully divine, who Himself works these great wonders of healing. The fullness of revelation is now approaching as Our Lord makes His way steadily towards the culmination of His earthly ministry in His passion, death, and glorious resurrection. The healings He works on the mountain point us towards this fullness of revelation that all those Old Testament moments pointed to as well. “So the multitude marvelled…and they glorified the God of Israel.”