DAILY GOSPEL COMMENTARY: “DO NOT WORRY ABOUT TOMORROW”
(Mt 6:24–34).

GOSPEL OF SATURDAY OF THE 11TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME
Mt 6:24–34

Jesus said to his disciples: “No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. 
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they? Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span? Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin. But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them. If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith? So do not worry and say, ‘What are we to eat?’ or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear?’ All these things the pagans seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 
But seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides. Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil.”

GOSPEL COMMENTARY FROM THE NAVARRE BIBLE, ST. MATTHEW (WITH PERMISSION)

• 24 Man’s ultimate goal is God; to attain this goal he should commit himself entirely.
  • But in fact some people do not have God as their ultimate goal, and instead choose wealth of some kind — in which case wealth becomes their god. Man cannot have two absolute and contrary goals.
• 25-32 In this beautiful passage Jesus shows us the value of the ordinary things of life, and teaches us to put our trust in God’s fatherly providence.
  • Using simple examples and comparisons taken from everyday life, he teaches us to abandon ourselves into the arms of God.
• 27 The word “span” could be translated as “stature”, but “span” is closer to the original (cf. Lk 12:25). A “cubit” is a measure of length which can metaphorically refer to time.
• 33 Here again the righteousness of the Kingdom means the life of grace in man which involves a whole series of spiritual and moral values and can be summed up in the notion of “holiness”.
  • The search for holiness should be our primary purpose in life. Jesus is again insisting on the primacy of spiritual demands. Commenting on this passage, Pope Paul VI says:
    • “Why poverty? It is to give God, the Kingdom of God, the first place in the scale of values which are the object of human aspirations. Jesus says: ‘Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness’. And he says this with regard to all the other temporal goods, even necessary and legitimate ones, with which human desires are usually concerned. Christ’s poverty makes possible that detachment from earthly things which allows us to place the relationship with God at the peak of human aspirations” (General Audience, 5 January 1977).
• 34 Our Lord exhorts us to go about our daily tasks serenely and not to worry uselessly about what happened yesterday or what may happen tomorrow.
  • This is wisdom based on God’s fatherly providence and on our own everyday experience: “He who observes the wind will not sow; and he who regards the clouds will not reap” (Eccles 11:4).
  • What is important, what is within our reach, is to live in God’s presence and make good use of the present moment: “Do your duty ‘now’, without looking back on ‘yesterday’, which has already passed, or worrying over ‘tomorrow’, which may never come for you” (J. Escrivá, The Way, 253).

VIDEO COMMENTARY ON TODAY’S GOSPEL
TOPIC: DO YOU WORRY A LOT?

We can all relate to today’s short story and readings. Jesus tells us in the gospel reading not to be too anxious about food and clothing, that is, the earthly things. Worrying is part and parcel of human life. True. But do we worry about the right things?

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