Something greater

Greetings on this the Monday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Readings: Ex 14:5-18; Ex 15:1bc-2, 3-4, 5-6; Mt 12:38-42
Notes: A story from when I was young.

Our Explorer group went on a camping trip.
I had spent much time at the same farm we camped that weekend.

In the summers and during harvest season I would assist in the dairy operation however was helpful: milking cows, dehorning calves, gathering hay, clearing fields of stones, etc. My favorite task was to look over the farm while the farmer and his wife and kids could get away from the farm for a little. Made me feel important.

So we knew the place well, but not all of us did.

While we were out doing farm chores another member of our group stayed behind at the cabin. I don’t recall the reason he didn’t come help work but there it is.
He got hungry. So he went into the nearby corn field, ripe for the harvest, and picked a pot of corn. He came back to the cabin and boiled them up, ate them and was full.

Full of himself at his cleverness.

We too picked corn.
When our tasks were completed we picked some corn to eat.
He didn’t want any of our corn because he was full.

But we picked the corn from the sweet corn field.
He picked his corn from the cow corn field.
Cow corn is fibrous, dry, and tasteless.

Sweet corn is better.
Delicious, sweet and perfect.

Much, much better.

Leave us alone. Let us serve the Egyptians’? Far better for us to be the slaves of the Egyptians than to die in the desert.

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the children of Israel to go forward. And you, lift up your staff and, with hand outstretched over the sea, split the sea in two, that the children of Israel may pass through it on dry land.

Go with Moses.
Go with Jesus.

The LORD himself will fight for you; you have only to keep still.

First Reading
Far better for us to be the slaves of the Egyptians than to die in the desert.

But Moses answered the people, “Fear not! Stand your ground, and you will see the victory the LORD will win for you today.

Responsorial
Let us sing to the Lord; he has covered himself in glory.

Gospel Acclamation
If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

Gospel
there is something greater than Jonah here.
there is something greater than Solomon here.

the sign of Jonah the prophet.
Just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.

Peace be with you,
Deacon Gerry