First Reading — Deuteronomy 7:6-11
Rashi
On 7:7
לא מרבכם NOT ON ACCOUNT OF YOUR BEING [MORE] NUMEROUS — This is to he understood according to its plain sense. But its Midrashic explanation (taking לא מרבכם in the sense of “not because you are great") is: Because you do not regard yourselves as great when I shower good, upon you, therefore חשק … בכם DID [THE LORD] DELIGHT IN YOU
כי אתם המעט FOR YOU ARE LITTLE — you regard yourselves as small, as, e.g., Abraham did who said, (Genesis 18:27) “For I am dust and ashes", and as, e.g., Moses and Aaron did who said, (Exodus 16:7) “And we, what are we?". Not as Nebuchadnezzar who said, (Isaiah 14:14) “I will be like the Most High", and Sennacherib who said, (Isaiah 36:20) “Who are they among all the gods of these countries [that have delivered their countries out of my hand?]", and Hiram who said, (Er. 28:2), “I am a god, I sit in the seat of God" (Chullin 89a).
כי אתם המעט — Here you have the word כי used in the sense of “because".
On 7:8
כי מאהבת — Here, however, you have the word כי used in the sense of “but": NOT ON ACCOUNT THAT YE WERE MORE NUMEROUS … DID GOD DELIGHT IN YOU … BUT ON ACCOUNT OF THE LORD'S LOVE TO YOU.
ומשמרו את השבועה means, on account of His keeping the oath.
On 7:9
לאלף דור TO A THOUSAND GENERATIONS — But elsewhere (5:10) it states: to thousands of generations! The explanation is: Here where it is connected with (refers to) "those who keep His commandments" it states that God's grace is extended to a thousand generations; but there where it is associated with "those who love Him" it states that it is extended to thousands of generations (Sotah 31a);
לאהביו are those who do the commandments out of love.
ולשמרי מצותיו are those who do them out of fear.
On 7:10
ומשלם לשנאיו אל פניו AND HE REPAYETH THEM THAT HATE HIM TO THEIR FACE [IN ORDER TO MAKE THEM PERISH] — i.e. during their lifetime (cf. Rashi on Genesis 11:28 s. v. על פני) he repayeth them their good recompense, in order to banish them from the future world (cf. Onkelos).
On 7:11
היום לעשותם [WHICH I COMMANDED THEE] TO-DAY TO DO THEM — to do them to-day, but only in the time to come — in the future world — to receive the reward for them (Eruvin 22a).
Responsorial Psalm — Psalm 103:1-2, 3-4, 6-7, 8, 10
Gregory of Nyssa
On 102:8
God is not an expression, and he does not have his essence in voice or utterance. God is of himself what also he is believed to be. He is named by those who call on him, not what he is essentially (for the nature of him who alone is unspeakable), but he receives his names from what are believed to be his works in regard to our life. To take an instance ready at hand, when we speak of him as God, we so name him from his overlooking and surveying all things and seeing through the things that are hidden. But if his essence is prior to his works, and if we understand his works by our senses and express them in words as we are best able, why should we be afraid of calling things by words of later origin than themselves? For if we stop interpreting any of the attributes of God until we understand them, and if we understand them only by what his works teach us, and if his power precedes its exercise and depends on the will of God, while his will resides in the spontaneity of the divine nature, are we not clearly taught that the words that represent things are of later origin than the things themselves and that the words that are framed to express the operations of things are reflections of the things themselves? And that this is so, we are clearly taught by holy Scripture, by the mouth of great David, when, as by certain peculiar and appropriate names, derived from his contemplation of the works of God, he thus speaks of the divine nature: "The Lord is full of compassion and mercy, long-suffering, and of great goodness." Now what do these words tell us? Do they indicate his operations or his nature? No one will say that they indicate anything but his operations. At what time, then, after showing mercy and pity, did God acquire his name from the display of his works? Was it before a person's life began? But who was there to be the object of pity? Was it, then, after sin entered into the world? But sin entered after humankind. The exercise, therefore, of pity, and the name itself, came after humanity. What then? Will our adversary [Eunomius], wise as he is above the prophets, convict David of error in applying names to God derived from his opportunities of knowing him? Or, in contending with him, will he use against him the pretense in his stately passage as out of a tragedy, saying that "he glories in the most blessed life of God with names drawn from human imagination, whereas it gloried in itself alone, long before people were born to imagine them"? The psalmist's advocate will readily admit that the divine nature gloried in itself alone even before the existence of human imagination but will contend that the human mind can speak only so much in respect of God as its capacity, instructed by his works, will allow. "For," as says the Wisdom of Solomon, "by the greatness and beauty of the creatures proportionably the Maker of them is seen."
Second Reading — 1 John 4:7-16
Polycarp of Smyrna
On 4:9
Let us then continually persevere in our hope, and the earnest of our righteousness, which is Jesus Christ, "who bore our sins in His own body on the tree," "who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth," but endured all things for us, that we might live in Him. Let us then be imitators of His patience; and if we suffer for His name's sake, let us glorify Him. For He has set us this example in Himself, and we have believed that such is the case.
Gospel — Matthew 11:25-30
Hilary of Poitiers
On 11:25
The hidden things of heavenly words and their power are hid from the wise, and revealed to the babes; babes, that is, in malice, not in understanding; hid from the wise because of their presumption of their own wisdom, not because of their wisdom.
On 11:25
The justice of this the Lord confirms by the sentence of the Father’s will, that they who disdain to be made babes in God, should become fools in their own wisdom; and therefore He adds, Even so, Father; for so it seemed good before thee.
On 11:27
Or that we may not think that there is any thing less in Him than in God, therefore He says this.
On 11:27
And also in the mutual knowledge between the Father and the Son, He teaches us that there is nothing in the Son beyond what was in the Father, for it follows, And none knoweth the Son but the Father, nor does any man know the Father but the Son.
On 11:27
For this mutual knowledge proclaims that they are of one substance, since He that should know the Son, should know the Father also in the Son, since all things were delivered to Him by the Father.
On 11:28
He calls to Him those that were labouring under the hardships of the Law, and those who are burdened with the sins of this world.
On 11:28
He holds forth the inducements of a pleasant yoke, and a light burden, that to them that believe He may afford the knowledge of that good which He alone knoweth in the Father.
On 11:28
And what is more pleasant than that yoke, what lighter than that burden? To be made better, to abstain from wickedness, to choose the good, and refuse the evil, to love all men, to hate none, to gain eternal things, not to be taken with things present, to be unwilling to do that to another which yourself would be pained to suffer.