We are all sinners in the hands of a forgiving and loving God.

Sixteenth Sunday in OT  A  2020

If you reverence and respect all life,

If you can forgive and forget,

If you wish peace to all – to none harm,

If you do not judge, criticize or condemn,

You have God’s heart beating in your body.

In today’s Gospel parable, Jesus is suggesting that we let the weeds in the garden grow along with the wheat till harvest time.  When the question was asked:  Do you want us to go immediately to pull up the weeds?  The response was given: “No, if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them.  Let them grow together until the harvest.”

With this parable, Jesus is telling us clearly we are to be an inclusive church.  Since its earliest days, the Church has preferred to tolerate different levels of commitment and holiness.  I wonder if you can observe in your own family life different levels of commitment and holiness.   Even if this is true, are we not called to love and embrace each and every member of our family.

This attitude of acceptance is also in line with the revelation of God “as merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in kindness.”

An inclusive Church that is kind and lenient toward its own members and toward everyone else should be an inspiration to a divided world that has a tendency to judge harshly, to be quick to anger, and to uproot weeds even at the cost of damage to the good plants.  The Church is to stand forth as a sign that we are all brothers and sisters which allows honest dialogue and invigorates it.

A Church that is welcoming and has room for everyone, a Church that can forgive and forget, a Church that does not condemn, criticize or judge has God’s heart beating within the Church.

As I reflect on today’s Gospel of the parable of the weeds and the wheat, my conviction is we live in a very weedy world.  Isn’t it true, there is much too much violence, hatred, power-grabbing, self-centeredness in the world today?  We have to look no further than ourselves to recognize too much self-centeredness and not enough God-centeredness and other-centeredness.

Jesus tells us this parable to illustrate the patience of God in dealing with weeds.  Wait until the harvest.  The Church of Jesus is not to grow impatient with the weeds.

What weeds are we talking about?  Yes, the weeds of life are all about us.  We are all sinners.  We all have demons.  In terms of this parable, we all have weeds – the weeds of pride, the weeds of materialism, the weeds of anger, the weeds of lust, the weeds of self-centeredness, and the weeds of holding grudges.  Often enough, we are more aware of these weeds in the lives of others than ourselves.

There are significant weeds in the life of the Church – the weeds of sexual abuse, the weeds of power, and the weeds of not living out the Gospel that is preached.

What are we to do in the face of the weeds that are all about us?  The parable suggests that God is patient—much more patient than ourselves.  Matthew’s Gospel could be renamed the Gospel of Punishment postponed.

May we pray for the grace of the patience of God.  This does not mean passivity or helplessness or an attitude of giving up.  Does this mean we are to sit back and pick daisies while the innocent suffer?  It means we are to love ourselves who are sinners and who have weeds that disappoint us.  The truth of our lives is that we are all sinners whom the Lord has turned his gaze upon.

The evangelist Matthew is concerned that no punishment be meted out prematurely.  Beware of the overzealous volunteers, anxious to “weed out” undesirables, supremely sure of their ability to identify such undesirables with unfailing accuracy.  What looks like weeds to us may well be wheat.

What are we to make of the weediness of our Church that doesn’t always reflect the love of Jesus in the lives of people?  Do we look for a Church without weeds so that we can focus more fully on God?  As illustrated in the parable, as disillusioning as this may be, the weeds are going to be present till the harvest at the end of the world.  The Church will always be a Church of sinners.  Again, this doesn’t mean that we are to be passive recipients of evil as in sexual abuse.  We are to stand for the Gospel and hold ourselves and others to a Gospel way of living.  But at the same time, as long as people are people, there is going to be some weediness in our own hearts and in our world.

What are we to do?  What did Jesus do?  Recall the story that Jesus told of the Good Shepherd who left the 99 and went in sheep of the lost sheep that had gone astray.

Recall the story of the woman caught in adultery when Jesus said to her accusers: “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”

And to the thief that was crucified along with Jesus: “This day you will be with me in paradise.”

I call your attention to the words of St. Paul in the second Scripture reading: “The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness: for we do not pray as we ought.”  I have always taken great comfort in this reading from Paul to the Romans.  Even though I’m sure your prayer is always very focused, and you never get distracted, I confess that my mind is capable of wandering in prayer.  I am too capable of getting caught in the busyness of life and not focus on resting in the Lord Jesus.  But I am very comforted that the Holy Spirits brings my distracted and useless prayer to our loving God.  My “very weedy prayer,” so to speak, through the grace of the Holy Spirit deepens my union with Christ Jesus.  Thanks be to God.

To sum up the parable of the weeds and the wheat, at the end of the day, we are all sinners in the hands of a loving and forgiving God.

Have a Blessed Day.

Love Given Is Never Lost.

Fifteenth Sunday in OT  A  2020

In this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus shares the parable of the sower and the seed and the four different types of soil that receives the seed.  Jesus is the sower and the seed is the Word of God.  Sometimes this seed is thrown on the path; sometimes on rocky ground; sometimes the seed is choked among thorns; and then about 25 % of the time the seed falls on rich soil and bears fruit a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold. 

We can imagine Jesus telling this parable in response to the disciples’ complaints, “We’re wasting our time”. “No one’s listening”.  The Gospel message is too demanding.

Maybe some parents can identify with the grumbling of the first disciples.  What about the experience of many parents who poured out all their love and faith into their children, taught them the Catholic faith, sent them to religious education classes or to Catholic schools, only to have them, as adults, leave our Church and go elsewhere.

Maybe the message of Jesus to the first disciples applies to us as well.  Jesus points to a sower sowing seed in a nearby field and answers them, “Let’s learn from him we that we have to continue sowing.”

When it comes to facing failures in life, the farmer in today’s gospel parable sounds a lot like many of us.  We work hard, and only sometimes succeed.  Most of what we want to plant in the lives of those around us doesn’t “take”; it doesn’t become rooted and permanently planted in their lives.

All of us must deal with failure, those areas where the best we’re given to others comes up lacking, falling short of our hopes, our dreams, and our great expectations.

Jesus himself knew the pain of failure:

·        He was born and raised in Nazareth and his hometown folks rejected Him.

·        His handpicked twelve apostles?  Well, one of them sold Him out for 30 pieces of silver and the others fled when he was crucified.

·        Peter wasn’t too swift to take His message to heart, Thomas was the doubter, and the others weren’t much better either.

Up to this point the homily sounds terribly dismal and discouraging.  But my message today is that we need to remember that Jesus did not let apparent failure stop him.  In His parable, Jesus went on to speak about a crop that yielded a harvest in successful amounts, some yields bringing spectacular results.  Today’s Gospel is not a dirge -- it is a celebration; it is a story of hope, not of despair.

It's amazing to see the sower – apparently how free and generous of spirit he is –  is not overly concerned that some of the seed will not produce crop but he continues to sow, trusting that eventually his seed will bear abundant fruit.

We can easily look at the big picture and say our world is a mess now.  Covid-19 has ravaged our entire planet.  We are hurting but we need to see that there is also an amazing amount of goodness in the lives of so many people.

Examples of the seed of God’s word falling on good soil:

·        On Friday afternoon here at St. joseph’s I presided over the wedding of Heidi Kelleher and John Costello.  They began their married life at the altar of God asking God’s blessing on their life together.

·        On Saturday morning, we celebrated a First Communion Mass for 18 of our First Communicants.  For our First Communicants and their families, this is the day the Lord has made and let us be glad and rejoice in it.

·        At our 10:00 Mass this morning, we are welcoming our RCIA candidates into the fullness of the sacramental life of the Church.  Our faith community rejoices in the beautiful journey of faith of our RCIA candidates.

The Gospel message calls to reflect on a profound Gospel message:   LOVE GIVEN IS NEVER LOST.   Part of life is trial and effort.  Jesus’ attitude was the same.  He threw our love like the sower throws out the seed.  He knows it may fall on hard ground, but he gives it anyway.  He gave love on Calvary to everyone.   God is like that.   The seed of our love may take years to flower but give it away.  In the words:  Do not be afraid.  Do not let your hearts be troubled.

Love given is never lost.

What about ourselves?  What kind of soil are we in receiving the Word of God into our hearts?  What are our demons, temptations, our sinfulness that keep the Word of God from being more deeply rooted in our hearts?  What are the areas of our lives in which Jesus is not yet Lord?

In these days of the coronavirus, we can easily be overwhelmed by the anxiety, the uncertainty, the stress of finding our way in the midst of this pandemic.

As a way of focusing our spiritual faith journey, may I suggest five simple seeds that the Gospel wishes to implant in the good soil of our hearts:

            God’s love is a gift.

             God loves changes us,

            God’s love is always with us.

            God’s love saves us.

            God’s love is to be shared.

Before our shortcomings get the best of us, it is comforting to know that there are millions of saints in heaven today, enjoying eternal happiness, who had some, of not all, of our present failings.  We, too, can be with them one day if we do what they did.  They humbly entrusted themselves to the forgiveness of our all loving God.  Please God, they and we are God’s forgiven sinners.

As we now transition into the Liturgy of the Eucharist, may we ask for the grace of letting the seeds that come God be rooted in the soil of our hearts.

We so need to be the good soil to receive God’s Word and God’s love within us.

 Again, five simple seeds of God’s grace that are abundantly given to us:

God’s love is a gift.

God’s love changes us.

God’s love is always with us.

God’s love saves us.

God’s love is to be shared.

Have a Blessed Day.

Our yoke is too heavy only when we try to carry our yoke alone.

Fourteenth Sunday in OT  A 2020

Fourth of July Weekend

On this Fourth of July weekend, we are thankful for the blessings we have as Americans.  Despite the struggles of wrestling in the midst of our pandemic crisis, we are thankful for what we have.  We call the Fourth of July our Independence Day – our Declaration of Independence.

As written in our Declaration of Independence:  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.“

However, at times we lose track of the founding values of our nation’s beginnings.  Our sense of independence sometimes gets translated into I can do what I want.  When we are not acting out of our better angels, sometimes  we live as if we are even independent of God.  Rather than being free, we get caught up in the shackles of our own pride and selfishness.

The message of the Gospel says something else.  When we are dependent on God, then we find ourselves most independent.  It may seem strange but depending on God is where we find ourselves most independent.  It’s not necessarily the freedom to do what I want, but it is the true freedom to do what I ought.  It is the freedom to do what we’ve been shown by Jesus, the freedom to love others freely and without reservation.

We read in today’s Gospel:  “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves.  For my yoke is easy and my burden light.”

Jesus says:  Come to me.  To come to someone is to be willing to be united with that person.  It is to be open to Him, to let His will make a difference to what you yourself will and do.

Jesus says:  “Come to me and I will give you rest.”  The Lord is inviting us to rest in Him.  Is it like the Fourth of July which we had a cookout and fireworks?  Is it like taking a vacation in which we get a chance to relax and travel?  Is it like retirement when we can withdraw from a hectic schedule and enjoy leisure time?  Is it just taking a nap when we are feeling especially pressured and or exhausted?

“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.”  To rest in Jesus is to rest purposely and actively in Him.  It is to drink deeply of the Spirit of Jesus.  It is not just an invitation to enjoy a restful time, but to rest in the presence of love.    St Augustine wrote of our need to rest in Jesus: “Our hearts are restless, Lord, until they come to rest in you.”

The rest that the Lord offers is not just taking a nap; the rest the Lord offers is to live in the presence of the God who is a God of love.  Jesus has asked us to make your home in me as I make mine in you.  The rest that the Lord offers us is that He Himself will sustain us and enliven our spirit by our making our home in Christ Jesus.

In our rest, we need to listen to the voice of Jesus summoning us to a deeper wisdom. 

Just as a tree cannot survive unless its roots are firmly planted in soil, we cannot grow in the spiritual life unless we take the time to rest in Christ Jesus.  This is prayer.   To pray is to take notice of the wonder and mystery of life.  Prayer is all we can offer in return for the mystery by which we live.  Prayer doesn’t light up the sky in a fireworks display, but it does open us up to the wisdom of God that is within us.

Prayer is our relationship, our encounter with the Lord.  In prayer, sometimes we use words, and sometimes words are not necessary.  Just as in the deep human relationships of our lives, words are beautiful and needed at times, but at other times it is simply enough to be in the presence of the one you love.  So, it is in the ways we encounter the Lord.

Jesus says:  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.  Is the yoke that the Lord is asking of us a heavy burden?  Do we feel overwhelmed by the crosses of our life?  Is the Lord asking too much of us?

The yoke the Lord is asking of us is the yoke of mission.  We are to share in the mission of Jesus.  The yoke the Lord is witnessing and living out is the law of love.  The yoke we are given is the mission of love, the great commandments. 

Our yoke is too heavy a burden only when we try to carry our yoke alone, when we try to be a lone ranger in the spiritual life.  This is such an important truth.  Our yoke is too heavy only when we try to carry our yoke alone.

It is so important for us to know and deeply believe that we are never alone.  Jesus is with us and Jesus carries our burden along with us.  The yoke we embrace is a vision that we are better together.  We do what we do only in Christ Jesus who strengthens us.   We’re met to be yoked with Jesus.  Then Jesus will give you His wise and understanding Father.

Jesus doesn’t do things for you; He does things with you.

The yoke the Lord calls us to is a vision of the Church that is rooted in Christ Jesus, in which we rest and are enlivened by the love of Jesus that is within us, and that we belong to a community of faith that is better together.  Often enough, it takes a trusting childlike trust to experience the merciful ways of God in our lives.  What has been hidden from the wise and the learned has been revealed to the little ones.

Would you believe that the deep secrets of life are hidden from the wise and the learned and are instead revealed to the childlike!  Why?  Children don’t have the luxury of self-sufficiency.  They need the help and love of their parents.

Despite our intelligence, as we are capable of being childlike, what a great comfort we find in the promises of Jesus to be with us; there is a place to go when death or loss or suffering descends upon us.

Everything depends upon how close you will let Jesus come to you.

Have a blessed day.