SIXTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

19 JULY 2020

 

          When Jesus began his public ministry, his message was clear:  the kingdom of heaven is in your midst.  Many became disciples, because they saw his miracles as signs of the presence of the kingdom.  They listened to his teachings and embraced his message of mercy, compassion, and unconditional love.  But as they continued to follow Jesus, questions begin to emerge about the effectiveness of his Kingdom.  To each of these questions, Jesus responds with parables that relate to their common experience, not with complicated and precise theological language.

            To the question of why evil remains in the kingdom of heaven, he tells the parable of the good seed and the weeds.  His listeners would be familiar with the weed Jesus describes.  Darnel is a poisonous plant that quickly spreads its roots.  Pulling up the weeds would endanger the entire crop.  Jesus says that Satan has planted evil in the midst of good.  God is patient with human weeds and continues to give time for people to repent.  Saint Matthew understood this dynamic.  He repented of his greed as a tax collector and embraced the Gospel.  We need to be patient with those who do evil actions.  We need to be aware of the weeds intertwined with the good in our lives.  God gives us time to separate the good from the evil.  We leave that judgment to God, who will judge at the end of time.

            To the question of why there are such insignificant beginnings in the kingdom of heaven, he tells the parable of the mustard seed.  His listeners know that the mustard seed is the tiniest of seeds.  They also know that this annual plant grows quickly.  It will never be like the giant cedars of Lebanon.  Instead, the kingdom grows through humble beginnings that do not draw attention.  Saint Benedict planted the humble seeds of a movement that produced monasteries of prayer and work throughout the centuries.  Saint Francis planted the humble seeds of poverty that formed a religious order that persists to this day.  Mother Theresa planted the seeds of compassion and care that became a worldwide movement even before she died.

            To the question of why the dynamic of the kingdom of heaven is so hidden, Jesus tells the parable of the yeast.  Jewish Christian listeners would be surprised at his analogy, because they regard yeast as a corrupting influence.  But Jesus sees it as positive.  The woman takes yeast and mixes it with three measures of wheat flour.  That is sixty pounds, enough to feed one hundred people!  The parable invites us to believe that a little yeast of the kingdom of heaven can make a huge difference in our ordinary lives.  In fact, the parable points to the perfected kingdom of heaven at the end of time, an extraordinary banquet foreseen in the banquet of the Eucharist.

            We often think of the kingdom of heaven as a kingdom that only exists in the heavenly realm, or as a kingdom that will be present at the end of time.  But Jesus speaks these parables to us today.  The kingdom of heaven is in our midst.  Like the good seed, that kingdom involves tolerance, mercy, compassion, and an invitation to see all people created in the image of God and deserving of respect.  There is an abundance of evil mixed into that kingdom, both in us and in other people.  But the Lord is patient, waiting for repentance.  The kingdom sometimes seems so insignificant that we wonder if it makes a difference.  But the Lord invites us to trust in small steps, like being generous to the poor and treating with respect those with whom we disagree.  The kingdom is often hidden.  But the Lord wants us to know that our decisions to remain faithful in marriage or strong in our commitments to the vulnerable will have an effect in daily life.  The kingdom of heaven is in our midst.  Embrace that kingdom and allow others to see its dynamic.  Do not get discouraged!

FIFTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

12 JULY 2020

 

          In the ancient world, teachers would speak to their people from a seated position. Jesus takes his seat in the boat and speaks to explain the mystery of the Kingdom of Heaven.  He does not use technical theological language.  Instead, he tells a simple parable to a crowd of Galileans familiar with farming.  They know the expense of seed.  They know the importance of good soil for producing a ten-fold harvest.  They understand the dynamics of the parable Jesus is telling.  But then Jesus puts a hook in this parable to get their attention. 

The hook is the method the farmer uses to sow the seed.  Farmers are careful not to waste expensive seeds.  But this farmer sows the seed everywhere – not only on the rich soil, but also in the hardened path, on rocky ground, and even among the thorns.  Galilean farmers would understand why these seeds would not produce any fruit.  Of course, the birds would eat the seed on the hardened path.  With little soil, the seeds sown in rocky ground would not last long.  And the seeds sown among thorns would be choked off in the blistering Palestinian sun.  But Galilean farmers would be amazed that the seeds sown in the good soil would produce such an incredible harvest:  not tenfold of what had been sown, but a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold. 

And that is the point of the parable.  God is not a human Galilean farmer.  God spreads his love and the invitation to belong to his Kingdom to everyone.  To echo the prophet Isaiah, God’s word is like the rain and snow that come from the heavens.  God loves everyone and speaks his word to everyone.  God’s word has incredible power, and nothing can diminish the word that is not only spoken, but that acts in the lives of everyone.

However, God’s word can produce great fruit only in those who receive it.  If a person’s heart is hardened, like the well beaten path, then there will be no understanding of God’s word.  Jesus sees that happening already in his public ministry.  The Scribes and Pharisees have seen his miracles.  They have heard his teaching.  But their hearts are hardened to the word spoken by the Eternal Word of God.  The word cannot take root.

Jesus also sees what happens when the hearts of his followers are strewn with rocks.  Many of his disciples have responded with great joy and walked with him for a way.  But they lack discipline.  When they experience some kind of persecution, when they are criticized or thrown out of their families because of their decision to follow Jesus, they have fallen away.

Jesus also understands the response of those who allow the thorns of their lives to interfere with their decision to follow him.  Their priorities are not in the right place.  Even though he has looked with love at the rich young man, he watched as the rich young man goes away sad.  His priorities were focused on his wealth and the comfort provided by that wealth.  He could not trust that following Jesus would produce fruit that he could not imagine.

Like the disciples who remained with Jesus, we too have chosen to stay with him.  He looks at each of us with love and invites us to make sure that our soil is open to receive his word.  He invites us to hear that the Kingdom of Heaven is in our midst.  He invites us to make sure that we are disciplined, so that the message is not choked out by fear.  He invites us to examine our priorities to realize that wealth or status will not last.  Isaiah gives hope to a people in captivity.  Saint Paul tells the Romans that their present sufferings are nothing compared to the glory to be revealed in them.  Jesus tells us that the Kingdom of Heaven is in our midst.  He invites us to cling to the values of the Kingdom, especially the value of the dignity of human life made in the image of God.  We are living in tough times.  But if we make sure that our soil receives this message, we can produce incredible fruit beyond our wildest imaginations.             

FOURTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

5 JULY 2020

 

       The prophet Zechariah writes to a people under occupation in the Promised Land.  The Egyptians had dominated them from the south, and later the Assyrians and Babylonians had occupied them from the northeast.  After defeating the Persians, Alexander the Great’s Greek Empire is now in total control.  Zechariah knows that his people are mindful of their history of occupation and oppressions.  As a result, they see very little hope for peace or security.  But that is what he promises them.  He speaks of a savior.  This savior will not ride into Jerusalem as a mighty warrior on a horse accompanied by chariots and bows, the instruments of war and destruction.  Instead, this savior will ride into Jerusalem on a donkey, a beast signifying peace and humility.  With this hope, Zechariah tells his people to rejoice heartily and shout for joy.

            Saint Matthew recognized that this prophecy had been fulfilled when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey on Palm Sunday.  The “little ones” of the city rejoice at his entrance and lay palm branches in his path.  They hope that this savior will finally free them from the Romans, the current oppressors.  However, the wise and the learned (the scribes and Pharisees) would condemn this savior to bear the heavy yoke of a cross and be executed like a common criminal later in that week.  But some of those little ones would become witnesses to the peace of the Savior when he was raised from the dead and break through the locked doors of the room where they were hiding in fear.    

In today’s Gospel, we hear the savior addressing his disciples, his “little ones.”  Jesus has just reproached the citizens of Capernaum, the home base for his ministry, because they have not heeded his teachings, even though they have witnessed his mighty deeds.  He contrasts the wise and learned to his disciples.  They are the “little ones,” his uneducated followers who have witnessed his mighty deeds and opened their ears to his teaching.  Jesus knows that the wise and learned have piled on 613 different laws from the Law of Moses on his little ones, burdening them without making any effort to help them carry those laws.  Instead, Jesus invites them to carry his yoke, his simple and straightforward teachings about loving God and neighbor.  Instead of imposing a yoke that they alone would carry, he promises to carry the yoke with them.  He is gentle, unassuming, and considerate.  In giving himself totally on the cross out of love, he promises that they will not be alone.

He makes that same promise to us today.  He reminds us of our union with the Father and him through the waters of baptism.  He promises us that he will carry with us whatever yokes we assume when we obey his command to love God and neighbor.  He urges us to be meek, a virtue that is greatly misunderstood.  Meekness does not mean that we become wimps and allow everyone else to walk over us.  Meekness implies that we trust his promise of peace, even when we give nonviolent resistance to violent and manipulative oppressors.  He encourages us to face the uncertainties of this pandemic and the heated divisions, hate, and anger that have the power to discourage us and rob us of hope.

We can accept his words, precisely because of what Saint Paul tells the Romans.  As baptized members of the Body of Christ, we are not doomed to living in the flesh.  In other words, there is more to us than our fragile human bodies that come from the earth.  We are given generous amounts of God’s spirit, enabling us to maintain our conviction in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  He carried our yoke with us and will teach us the true value of being meek, of sharing a peace with him that the world cannot give.                 

THIRTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

28 JUNE 2020

 

            In his letter to the Romans, Saint Paul teaches about Baptism.  We hear this same reading at the Easter Vigil.  We hear it after listening to seven readings from the Old Testament as we sit in a darkened church looking at the newly lit Easter Candle.  Those readings speak of the history of God’s people, beginning with the creation of the world.  We hear about the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac.  We hear about Moses leading his people through the Red Sea from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the desert.  We hear the prophets calling God’s people to greater faithfulness to the Covenant and promising redemption.     

Saint Paul speaks to us after the lights come on and all the candles are lit.  God has fulfilled the promises in the Paschal Mystery.  Just as Jesus Christ had been buried in a tomb, the Elect will be immersed in the waters of baptism (in normal times when we are allowed to fill our baptismal font with water).  Just as Jesus Christ emerged from the tomb never to die again, the newly baptized will emerge from the water to live in newness of life.  Saint Paul calls all of the baptized to keep our baptismal promises.  We need to trust that every time we choose to die to ourselves and our own selfishness, we share in Christ’s dying and share in his resurrection. 

The earliest disciples believed this message.  By the time Saint Matthew recorded these words from Jesus Christ, his Jewish Christian readers had to make difficult choices about belonging to families.  In the ancient world, it was critical to belong to a human family.  When some members chose to become members of the family of the baptized, they were thrown out of their human families.  In their human families, they had been protected by Roman law, which recognized Judaism as a legal entity.  Expelled from those families, they were no longer protected.  Jesus makes it clear that they must make a choice.  They must choose membership in his family formed by baptism over their own human families, even if that choice involves the cross of persecution, exclusion, and even death.  In keeping their baptismal promises and losing their lives, he promises that they will find life in the resurrection.

Knowing the context of this message helps us to understand his seemingly harsh words about loving our parents or immediate family.  He is not saying that we must break the fourth commandment to love and obey parents.  For most of us, choosing to be a disciple will not cause us to be kicked out of our human families.  Sometimes, those preparing for baptism or reception into full communion with the Catholic Church face resentment and even opposition from their human families.  At other times, disciples might face possible recriminations when making a decision to live their baptismal promises in certain circumstances.  

Keeping our baptismal promises will not have those dire consequences.  However, we must heed the command of Jesus to love him first.  If spouses and parents put the love of Jesus Christ first, they will be better parents and spouses.  In keeping their baptismal promises to die to themselves, they will share the resurrected life of Jesus Christ more fully with children and spouses.  Parents can die to their desire to please their teenagers by allowing them to do what they want and live to trust that discipline will be more beneficial in the long run.

Just as the woman of influence in today’s first reading received much more because of her hospitality to the prophet Elisha, those we love will receive more precisely because the hospitality of the family of Jesus Christ will strengthen their bonds.  That is why Baptism is the first and most important Sacrament.  Keeping baptismal promises brings death to self.  But it also brings life with Jesus Christ and greater life for our families.        

TWELFTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

21 JUNE 2020

 

          Our readings from the Gospel of Saint Matthew resume again this Sunday.  To understand today’s passage; we need to recall the passage immediately preceding it.  Jesus has sent out his disciples to proclaim that the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.  He told them not to take much stuff with them.  They would show signs of that kingdom by curing the sick, raising the dead, cleansing lepers, and driving out demons.  But in sending them out, he also warned them that they would face opposition.  He did not sugar coat his message or make false promises about their success.  He warned that they would be rejected, much as Jeremiah had been rejected for speaking the truth, and much as he himself would be rejected and killed.          

Today, he tells them not to be afraid.  He knows that the values of the Kingdom of heaven will collide directly with greed, the desire for power and wealth, and the need for revenge.  By the time Saint Matthew had written this Gospel, many disciples had been thrown out of synagogues, separated from their families, and some of them killed.  Yet, Jesus tells them not to be afraid.  His Father loves them so intimately that he counts the number of hairs on their heads.  While tyrants have power to kill the body, they have no power to kill the soul.

            Saint Paul explains this dynamic in his letter to the Romans.  He contrasts the sin of Adam with the redemption won by Jesus Christ.  Saint Paul defines death as separation.  Adam caused separation from God and brought death into the world by disobeying and refusing to trust in God’s love.  Jesus is the new Adam who has destroyed death by entering physical death and restoring us to intimate union with the Father.  There is no death for those who keep their baptismal promises and remain united with Jesus Christ.

            Jesus gives this same message to us, his disciples.  He sends us out to proclaim that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.  He knows that we will not always be met with success.  If we boldly proclaim the message that the human person deserves respect, whether in the womb or in the person of someone of color, we will know resistance and rejection.  That is what happened to the prophet Jeremiah.  He has the courage to tell the truth to his people that they had not been faithful to the Covenant.  As they cling to their conviction that the temple in Jerusalem will save them, he insists that they face destruction by the Babylonians.  For telling the truth, he is labeled an enemy of the kingdom and is treated horribly.  After crying out his lament at his unjust treatment, he insists that the Lord is with him as a mighty champion.

            In these difficult days, as we emerge gradually from our confinement, we need to trust that the Lord is with us as a mighty champion.  In the midst of divisions and arguments about how we should proceed, he strengthens us to proclaim the light of the Gospel.  We have learned through this ordeal that our families and relationships are the most important qualities of our lives.  They reveal to us the Kingdom of heaven.  One of our parishioners wrote a beautiful commentary about how the shelter in place made him more aware of his role as husband and father to two children.  His message is in my bulletin column.  Fathers, be sure to read it today.  In keeping these priorities, we need not be afraid.  Dorothy Day trusted that God would remain a mighty champion in the 1930’s, when she faced withering criticism for opening the first Catholic Worker house and publishing her periodical, The Catholic Worker.  Karol Wojtyla was educated in a secret seminary when the Nazis controlled Poland.  He served his priesthood and episcopate under Communist domination.  He fearlessly proclaimed the Gospel in those conditions.  When he was elected Pope as John Paul II, his first words were “Do not be afraid.”  Because the Lord loves each of us, we can proclaim the Kingdom of heaven without fear.         

THE MOST HOLY BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST

14 JUNE 2020

 

          After Moses had led his people into the Sinai Desert, they found themselves in a hostile and deserted place.  There was no food and no water.  Moses showed them manna, which was the resin of a tamarisk tree or the secretion of an insect found on it.  They had never known this food and named it manna, which in Hebrew means “what is this?”  Moses also struck thin rock formations in the desert to reveal water concealed from human sight.  Moses told the people that manna and water were gifts from God.  Manna and water became their food and drink as God tested them and taught them through adversity how to behave not as slaves, but as free people.

            Centuries later, Jesus of Nazareth led a large crowd of people to another hostile and deserted place.  He fed them with five loaves and two fish, not to satisfy their physical hunger, but to reveal to them the truth about his identity.  He is the living bread come down from heaven, the Incarnate Word of God dwelling in their midst.  He gives them his flesh to eat and his blood to drink, promising eternal life to those who respond.  Just as manna was something completely new, so this gift of his flesh and blood was completely new and unexpected. 

            The Lord is leading us these days into new and uncharted territory.  He is leading us out of our isolation from this pandemic.  We are taking baby steps.  For those who gather for Mass, we must wear masks, refrain from any kind of singing, and keep social distancing.  We are trying to figure out how to open up our parish ministries and school in a gradual way to keep everyone safe.  We are emerging from this pandemic with a clearer awareness of sins that divide us in our culture, especially the sin of racism.  We are trying to learn how to handle this sin against the dignity of the human person. 

            In these new and uncertain times, we become more grateful for the gift of the Lord’s Real Presence in the Eucharist.  Especially after having been deprived of the Eucharist for over two months, we can better appreciate the importance of this gift.  We are in intimate communion with the Lord when we receive his real presence.   Saint Paul also says that participating in the Eucharist also strengthens our communion with each other.  That is why we process together as we approach the Sacrament.  In more normal times, we raise our voices in song as we join the Communion procession.  As Saint Augustine remarked, we say “Amen” to the Body of Christ, because we are saying “Amen” to who we are – Christ’s Body on this earth.

            Walter Ciszek was a Jesuit priest who served as a missionary to the Soviet Union in the middle of the last century.  He was imprisoned in a Siberian gulag, where he was not allowed to celebrate the Sacraments.  In his memoir, He Leadeth Me, Father Ciszek recalls that the faithful would wait until the noon break to gather.  “In small groups the prisoners would shuffle into the assigned place, and where the priest would say Mass in his working clothes, unwashed, disheveled, bundled up against the cold.  We said Mass in drafty storage shacks, or huddled in mud and slush in the corner of a building site foundation of an underground.  The intensity of devotion of both priests and prisoners made up for everything; there were no altars, candles, bells, flowers, music, snow-white linens, stained glass or the warmth that even the simplest parish church could offer.  Yet in these primitive conditions, the Mass brought you closer to God than anyone might conceivably imagine.  The realization of what was happening on the board, box, or stone used in the place of an altar penetrated deep into the soul.”

            We celebrate this same Mystery at this altar.  As the Lord feeds us with his flesh and blood, we trust that he forms us more completely into one Body, testing us, and teaching us how to behave as truly free people learning to trust in God’s love.

THE MOST HOLY TRINITY

7 JUNE 2020

 

            Saint Paul loved the Christian community of Corinth.  He preached the Gospel there and invited its diverse community to see their unity in Christ.  Jews and Greeks, rich people and poor people, slaves and free people responded to his invitation.  Within these divisions were factions divided by social class, intellectual class, and economic class.  Yet all were baptized into the one Lord Jesus Christ.  He expressed his love for them in writing two letters, affirming the ways in which they displayed that unity in Christ.  But he also loved them enough to call them on the ways they had failed to live their baptismal promises.  He criticized them for abuses in the Lord’s Supper.  He told them to stop arguing about which gifts of the Holy Spirit were more important.  He chided them for being selfish in contributing to his collection for the poor in Jerusalem.  He warned them against accepting false prophets.  He corrected their false teachings about the resurrection and their arguments about who was the most Christ-like.

            In today’s second reading, he brings his letters to the Corinthians to a close.  His ending makes it clear that he loves them very much.  Ironically, he tells his fractured community to rejoice.  They can rejoice when they mend their ways and stop arguing.  They can rejoice when they make efforts to reach across their divides to encourage one another.  They need to agree with one another.  Paul is not saying that they cannot have different points of view.  Rather, they need to agree with one another on the essentials of the love of God.  He urges them to live in peace, respecting one another’s differences.  And he tells them to greet one another with a holy kiss – not the betraying kiss of Judas, but the loving kiss of those who live as one family.

            Saint Paul gives this advice, not because the Christian community of Corinth has gotten it all together, but because of his words in the final sentence – the greeting which the priest gives at the beginning of Mass.  Saint Paul knows the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, a grace that transformed him being a murderous opponent of the Body of Christ into being its most effective evangelist.  Saint Paul dedicated his life to the love of God, manifested in today’s Gospel statement that God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son.  Even in the midst of his own struggles and persecutions, Saint Paul was sustained by the fellowship of believers, knit together by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

            Saint Paul speaks this same message to us today.  We live a culture that is deeply divided and turned against each other.  We are trying to emerge from a pandemic with those divisions in full display.  We see with painful new eyes the sin of racism in our country.  The many who march in peaceful protest are harmed by those who are intent on looting and violence. We are fearful for the future.  As Saint Paul gives his message to us, who are members of the Body of Christ, we know the divisions and tensions within our Christian community.  We are divided into conservative and progressive camps.  We are trying to be healed of the damage done by the clergy sexual abuse crisis.  We do not always agree with one another.

            We are beginning to emerge from our isolation, and we have the opportunity to appreciate anew the fellowship which is at the heart of our parish.  At the very highest level of being, the triune Godhead breaks through to heal and strengthen us.  Within the Trinity of absolute unity, there is also absolute diversity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  We are not only invited to participate in that Mystery, but the Trinity gives us courage to confront injustice, work for peace, and learn to respect one another in our differences without fear.  May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.