Blessed they who dwell in your house! continually they praise you. Blessed the men whose strength you are! They go from strength to strength. How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord, mighty God!

A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew (Mt 13:47-53, today’s readings).

Jesus said to the disciples: “The Kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea, which collects fish of every kind. When it is full they haul it ashore and sit down to put what is good into buckets. What is bad they throw away. Thus it will be at the end of the age.”

Jesus makes a comparison of the kingdom of heaven that the disciples would have been intimately familiar with. The bad catch that is thrown away would have particular meaning to them as well as the good, which they put into buckets. Jesus shares this parable to bring to mind the end of the age, the final judgment. To discern good and bad in relation to the end of the age is to know God’s will and move forward with it in the present moment, just as the Israelites moved forward whenever the cloud of the LORD’s glory rose among them on their journey in the desert. “But if the cloud did not lift,” we hear in Exodus, “they would not go forward; only when it lifted did they go forward.” In his Word and in the glory of his resurrection, Jesus is with us as we discern through prayer and move throughout the day.

God, help me take to heart the parables as they apply to today’s events. Open my eyes to the coexistence of good and evil in the world and their separation in the final judgment. To take from the parables what Jesus says to me as a follower is to trust in his every word. As the Israelites watched for the cloud to rise before the day’s journey, I want to see your glory made manifest as I give witness to your kingdom through my life. “Blessed the men whose strength you are!” the psalmist sings. “They go from strength to strength.” Strengthen my desire, Lord, to make myself a dwelling that calls attention to your glory. Saint Ignatius of Loyola, pray for us!

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.