Before reading the Scriptures for this week, read Isaiah 6: 8-13 which speaks of the mission of Isaiah before the establishment of a remnant of Israel through judgment. In the passages, particularly the gospel and Isaiah 35 passage, notice the imagery of "sight" and "hearing".

Matthew 11:2-11

Notice the setting of this saying on John the Baptist -- John's imprisonment before his execution. Jesus first responds to John's disciples -- what does he mean by his answer? Why is it that the one is blessed who takes no offense at Jesus?

In the second part of the passage, Jesus speaks to a different audience, one that he presumes had gone to the wilderness to see John. Look at Jesus' social and economic analysis. What is the point of his social analysis? What is the point of the last sentence in the passage?

James 5:7-10

What is the point of the exhortation to patience in the James passage? How does this passage help us read the Gospel passage?

Isaiah 35:1-10

This passage seems to move through various stages:

(1) vv. 1-2: What God will do outside those "within" and how the outsiders will see.

(2) vv. 3-4: Exhortation to those "within" as they await what God will do

(3) vv. 5-7: What God will do "within" the insiders

(4) vv. 8-10: The highway of holiness

What is the relationship between these parts? What does the whole passage presuppose about a current situation? How does the movement of the whole passage lead to the highway? What is the purpose of the highway of holiness? How do we find ourselves in Jesus Christ here? What is "Zion" for us? What is the "hope" for the "insiders"? What does "seeing" and "hearing" have to do with reaching the "end" or "goal" of the passage?

In Benedict XVI's Encyclical on Hope helps us see the importance of this hope in the midst of the sufferings on the "highway to holiness" spoken of here in our readings. He writes, "Certainly, on our many sufferings and trials we always need the lesser and greater hopes; a kind of visit, the healing of internal and external wounds, a favourable resolution of a crisis, and so on. . . . In truly great trials, where I must make a definitive decision to place the truth before my own welfare, career and possissions, I need the certitude of that true, great hope of which we have spoken here. For this too we need witnesses who have given themselves totally, so as to show us the way day after day. We need them if we are to prefer goodness to comfort, even in the little choices we face each day, knowing that this is how we live life to the full. . . . . the capacity to suffer for the sake of the truth is the measure of humanity. Yet this capacity to suffer depends on the type and extent of the hope that we bear within us and build upon. The saints were able to make the great journey of human existence [on the highway of holiness] in the way that Christ had done before them, because theywere brimming with hope" (para. 39). How do the passages of our readings structure hope and what does the "highway of holiness" have to do with this hope? How do we allow our faith to be transformed into such "hope"?

Enjoy Diego!!