Exclusively published to the Touchstone website each week, these Daily Reflections are brief commentaries on the lectionary readings contained in the St. James Daily Devotional Guide. The reflections are penned by Patrick Henry Reardon, editor of the Daily Devotional Guide and a senior editor of Touchstone. Father Reardon provides here a very brief directional clue for one of the readings each day. Long-time readers of the Daily Devotional Guide will find these reflections an additional help to their reading of Holy Scripture which they can print and keep with their Guide.

The Daily Reflections will be updated weekly.

Sunday, January 6

Psalm 97 (Greek & Latin 96): This psalm is explicitly interpreted for us in the New Testament. The Epistle to the Hebrews, telling how "God, who at sundry times and in divers manner spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son," went on to tell of the reverence and service shown to this Son by the holy angels as He entered into the world through the Incarnation: "And again, when He bringeth in the firstbegotten (prototokos) into the world, he saith, ‘And let all the angels of God worship Him’" (1:1f,6). This quotation is, of course, from Psalm 96, which the author of Hebrews here interprets with reference to that ministry of the angelic hosts to the incarnate Lord. Indeed, the relationship of the angels to Christ is the dominant motif of the first chapter of Hebrews. Matthew also tells of the ministry of the announcing angel just prior to the birth of the firstbegotten (prototokos) (1:20-25, with some manuscript variants on verse 25). Similarly, Luke describes how the Mother of Jesus placed the firstbegotten (prototokos) in a manger, His entry into the world then being announced by the angels (2:7-13).

Monday, January 7

Psalm 114 (Greek & Latin 113A): There are two events described in this psalm, the turning back of the Red Sea at the Exodus, and the identical phenomenon of the Jordan River at Israel’s entrance into Canaan. These two occasions, which are also juxtaposed in Joshua 4:23, form the psalm’s twin poles, Israel’s departure from Egypt and her entrance into the Promised Land. Between these two events lie the giving of the Law and the forty years’ wandering of God’s people in the wilderness. Whereas the two poles of that crucial period, the Red Sea and the Jordan, are marked by God’s removal of the waters from their native settings, the time in between them is marked by God’s miraculously given water for His people wandering through the dry sands of the desert.

Tuesday, January 8

Psalm 117 (Greek & Latin 116): This is the shortest of the psalms. Its initial line touches two poles of a tension, as it were. The first pole, that of universality, is indicated by the repetition of the word "all." No nation or people is to be excluded from the praise of God. "Go forth," says our Lord, "and make disciples of all nations" (Matthew 28:19). That is to say, the Church is to be absolutely universal with respect to her geographical extension; there is a radical sense in which she is to recognize no national borders. The other pole of the address, indicated by the words "nations" and "peoples," is what we may think of as regional, perhaps even provincial. That is to say, within the universality of the Church, respect is accorded to the distinct and distinguishing forms of individual races and other ethnic groupings. These are called to the praise of God within the particularities of their own history and culture, especially through their inherited languages.

Wednesday, January 9

Psalm 121 (Greek & Latin 120): The thoughts in today’s psalm are clearly those to which the believing mind will cleave, especially in times of trial. References to God’s "guarding" me appear six times in eight verses. God’s protection of me is complete (". . . . shall guard you from every evil"), because He "neither sleeps nor slumbers." For all that, the protection that God provides for me is not a merely individual blessing. I pray this psalm and lay claim to its blessings by reason of my adherence to His chosen people, the Church. My personal confidence in God’s guardianship stands within a context determined by His covenanted interventions in human history. The Lord is the Guardian of my soul because He is "the Guardian of Israel." I may trust in Him, because He has made me too a child of Abraham.

Thursday, January 10

Psalm 147 (Greek & Latin 146 & 147): A good interpretive key to this psalm is provided by the line that says of God that "He counts the multitude of the stars, and calls them all by name." The parallel text that jumps to mind is in Genesis 15, where God tells Abraham, "Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them." And to what point? The Lord goes on, "Thus shall be your seed." The context of this promise is God’s covenant with Abraham, who as yet had no offspring and was married to a woman past the time of bearing children. God’s promise had to do with a numerous progeny who would share in the covenant with Abraham. Our psalm’s reference to the multitude of the stars, then, points to the numerous children of Abraham, for they are the Church.

Friday, January 11

Matthew 5:33-48: In this text the "greater righteousness" of the Gospel (5:20) is contrasted with the limited righteousness of the Mosaic Law with respect to swearing, revenge, and hatred. The prohibition against the taking of oaths is identical to that in James 5:12. With respect to one’s duties to his neighbor, the Gospel emphasis is positive love (5:44), which more than fulfills all the negative prescriptions of the Mosaic Law (cf. Romans 13:8-10).

Saturday, January 12

Matthew 3:1-12: Unlike the gospels of Mark and Luke, Matthew portrays John the Baptist as proclaiming the proximity of the Kingdom (3:2). In thus regarding the preaching of John as the beginning of the Gospel (cf. 11:13), Matthew’s perspective matches that of the earliest apostolic proclamation (cf. Acts 1:22; 10:37). Even though the Sadducees and Pharisees were two distinct groups, often hostile to one another, Matthew here lumps them together for the first of five times. They are mentioned together because of their common opposition to Jesus. In this text, John is giving them an initial warning to repent.

 

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