What is your spiritual risk tolerance?

If I were your financial advisor, one of my standard questions to you would be “What is your risk tolerance?”

 Are you pretty cautious and conservative or do you have a growth outlook on the stock market and you are open to being aggressive with your risk tolerance.  Conventional wisdom has it that the older we get, we should be more conservative with our finances and protect our assets.

Now it would be fake news if I were your financial advisor.  But the real question I would ask you is what is your spiritual risk tolerance?

There is a side of us that wishes to be very conservative.  We wish to preserve the great tradition that has been handed down to us as Roman Catholics.  We are a Church that is apostolic – that is to say, we are a Church built upon the apostles’ faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior.

In the light of today’s Gospel parable of the merchant searching for fine pearls, we are challenged to look again at our spiritual risk tolerance.  “The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls.  When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all he has and buys it.”  That doesn’t sound like a conservative strategy when one finds a pearl of great price.  It sounds more like a riverboat gambler willing to risk everything in the process of acquiring the pearl of great price.

In the spiritual life, the risk tolerance we are called to embrace is to die to ourselves and our control of everything and open ourselves in trust and faith to God’s plan for our lives.  That conversion is not so easy for any one of us.  We are used to what are used to, but  Jesus calls us to let go and let God.

The older we get instead of getting more conservative in our risk tolerance, may we have a greater spiritual risk tolerance and more of a willingness to turn our lives over the Lord.

In your faith life, what is your pearl of great price and what are you willing to sacrifice to acquire this pearl of great price?  We know what Jesus asked the first apostles:  “Leave everything behind:  come follow me.”  With each and every person that I have the privilege of baptizing, the pearl of great price that the newly baptized receives is the very life of Christ Jesus.  Indeed for us who are the community of the baptized and a Eucharistic community as well, the life of Christ Jesus is within us – a pearl of great price.  What are you willing to sell and to sacrifice to deepen your relationship with Christ Jesus?

How do you encounter the Lord in your life?  In the Scriptures, in the mystery of the Eucharist, in each and every relationship in your life, in the beauty of God’s creation, in the times of quiet during the course of the day, and in both the joys and struggles of your life?  In other words, there is no area of your life in which you do not have the opportunity of encountering the Lord.   But we need to ask honestly is the Lord on a front burner or is the Lord a long distance phone call for you?

The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field which someone has found; he hides again, goes off happy, sells everything he has and buys the field.  The thing of it is that the kingdom of heaven remains hidden for us until we make it our first priority in our lives.  The reign of love, justice and peace that characterizes the kingdom  of God requires us to give up judging and discriminating against others, to give up consuming more than our share of the earth’s resources, and to give up our desire to control others and have it our way.

As we reflect on how our relationship with Jesus is our pearl of great price, we find added insight from today’s first Scripture reading.    Solomon was offered a pearl of great price when God said to him:  “Ask something of me and I will give it to you.”  In effect, God was offering to Solomon a pearl of great price.  If God asked us the same question, how would we respond?  Solomon asked for a wise and understanding, listening heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong.

As a father, as a mother, as a son or a daughter, as a priest or as a parishioners, in our work life and in our neighborhood, may we have the grace of a wise and listening heart.  We pray for this grace for the leaders of government, for the leaders of the Church, for each one of us in our family life and in all dimensions of life.   If we all had wise and listening hearts, God’s peace and God’s love would reign in this world more freely.

May we pray for the centering and the focus that we need to commit ourselves to sell everything to acquire the pearl of great price – our life in Christ.   Will the people that surround you in life recognize what is your pearl of great price?  Even conceding that we are unfinished in our spiritual growth, we ask for the grace that the desire in our hearts be the desire to live in gratitude for the life in Christ that is within us.

Yes, we need to be patient with our own shortcomings and the shortcomings of others.  The kingdom of heaven we seek here on earth is not the perfection of us suddenly being without sin.  That’s not going to happen.  The kingdom here on earth is sharing with one another  love,  compassion, and  forgiveness.  With God’s grace in us, that can happen.

They tell the story of the great humanist Erasmus.  When asked why he didn’t leave the Church since he was such a critic of its faults. Erasmus said:  “I hope to embrace an imperfect Church just as the Church embraces an imperfect me.”  There is such a message there.  Our lesser angels within us can be concerned about the hypocrisy of other Church goers, but in a larger sense all of can probably say:  “The only hypocrite I have to worry about on Sunday morning is myself.

St Paul in the second Scripture reading gives us a simple profession of faith which I invite you to take with you today.  Paul says:  We know that all things work together for good for those who love God.”  As we deal with our own history of loss, pain, failure, and sin, we see what a demanding doctrine Paul asks to confess.  All of this – all that is in your life story – works together for the good.  Can you believe this?

Have a blessed day.

At the end of the day, we are all sinners in the hands of a loving and forgiving God.

As I reflect on today’s Gospel of the parable of the wheat and the weeds, 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. 

Where have the weeds come from?   In the Gospel, the servants said to the master:  Do you want us to go and pull them up?  He replied:  “No, if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them.  Let them grow together until the harvest.”

I have that same question when I look out at my garden:  Where have the weeds come from?  Their ongoing presence in my garden is more the result of my laziness of myself as a gardener than some spiritual wisdom.

Not so with Jesus.  Jesus tells that 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?  This is an important awareness in the spiritual life of anyone of us and in the spiritual life of the Church as a whole.

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Yes, the weeds of life are about us.  We are all sinners.   We all have demons.  In term 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 in the face of the weeds that are 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.\

I confess I am impatient with myself when I am not the person of prayer, the person of humility, the person of unselfish love that the Gospel calls me to live out.  I am disillusioned with the Church that we do not communicate the love, the healing, and the forgiveness of Jesus in the lives of people. 

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 that we are to sit back and pick daisies while the innocent suffer?  It means we are to love ourselves and others 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 Gospel tells us that God can tolerate weeds far better than we can.  This God sounds a bit like that crazy landowner who left the weeds with room to grow.  A mentor for me is Pope Francis who said:  “Who am I to judge?”  Following the example of Pope Francis, may we refrain from judgment.  May we experience the joy of the Gospel and witness to the kindness and patience of God in the way we are with one and all.

The evangelist Matthew is concerned that no punishment be meted out prematurely.  Beware of 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.

In acknowledging the weediness of our own hearts,  Paul challenges us to believe that the Holy Spirit can bear the burden of our weakness  and can pray in and for us, leading us in the kind of prayer that opens us to God’s will.  In the second reading, Paul writes:    “The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes with inexpressible groanings.”

I have always taken great comfort in this reading from Paul to the Romans.  Even though priests are supposed to be experts in prayer, I confess that my mind is capable of wandering in prayer.  I am capable of getting caught in the busyness of life and not focus on resting in the Lord Jesus.  If you too are capable of being too distracted in prayer and think that your prayer is accomplishing precious little, take heart in the words of St Paul.  Thanks be to God, the Holy Spirit who bears the burden of our weakness is praying within us.  The Holy Spirit brings our distracted and useless prayer to our loving God.  Because our prayer is joined with the prayer of the Holy Spirit, that prayer is very precious in the sight of God.  Our “very weedy prayer,” so to speak, will deepen our union with Christ Jesus.

What are to make of the weediness of our very 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, 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 that we are to the passive recipients of evil as in sexual abuse.  We are to stand for the Gospel and hold ourselves and others up 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?   In fact, aren’t we in the field ourselves, still growing?   And just what are we, weeds or wheat, or both at different times?  Would we want someone other than God  misjudging us before we have had time to grow to full maturity?

The apostle Paul said something very remarkable in his second Letter to the Corinthians:  Paul boasted of his weakness.  He boasted of his weediness so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.  Like Paul, we do not have to deny the weeds of our lives or the weeds of the Church.  We can let them grow till the harvest to make us more aware of our need for God’s grace.  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.

To test your memory from last week’s Gospel, Jesus said:  “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the little ones.”

We had a most beautiful experience of the truth of the words of Jesus in Vacation Bible School this past week with thirty of our little ones accompanied by teens and adults.  At the closing Mass on Friday, I asked our VBS students what they had learned about God’s love this past week.

The students shared with me the five themes of the week:

                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.

If I were to summarize the message of the gospel which I have been preaching for 49 years now, I could not express it in more beautiful and inspiring ways that these students shared with me at the closing Mass.

What has been hidden from the wise and the learned has been revealed to little ones.

Again,                   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.

Moving to 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.  Without any doubt in my mind this past week in Vacation Bible School, the seed fell upon the good soil of our younger parishioners. They revealed the five very basic truths of our faith.  You may be sure that my prayers for these young parishioners that they will trust and share the mystery of God’s love all the days of their lives.

While I am overjoyed with the enthusiasm of our young parishioners, what is very sobering for me that the mystery of God’s love is not received by many, many people to the degree that God’s love changes us.  Sometimes my preaching and ministry doesn’t have the desired effect I would like.  It is in this context that I pray over today’s Gospel parable.

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 have to 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.

Amazing to see the sower – apparently how free and generous of spirit he is – the fact that he 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 imagine Jesus telling this parable in response to the disciples’ complaints, “We’re wasting our time”. No one’s listening”.  He then 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.”

What about the experience of many parents who poured out all of 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.

We can easily look at the big picture and say our world is a mess now, but it always has been.  We need to see that there is also an amazing amount of goodness in it.

The Gospel message that I have you pray over is simply:   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.

I would conclude by going back to the wisdom of our Vacation Bible School participants:

                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.

Have a blessed day.

Is the yoke the Lord asks of us too heavy a burden?

“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.”

“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, a parade, 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 not to flop passively into a state of inactivity or to sink into an exhaustion-induced come but rather 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.  The Gospel message invites us never to forget to listen to the voices of little ones who carry God’s presence.  The “little ones” for me on Friday were the campers at Camp Stella Maris where I went to celebrate Mass.  Their enthusiasm and love of life caused me to pause and wonder and to see the face of God as I celebrated Mass in their presence.  The “little ones” may be incidental parishioners who welcome just a friendly from you.   The “little ones” may be your elderly parents who are no longer as sharp as they once were but still very much contain within them the presence of God. 

The little ones need not be people.  We can interpret them of aspects of ourselves we tend to disown – our weak points, failures, jealousies, feelings of insecurity.  In our faith journey may one day we realize to see reality more clearly we must see the world with the eyes of a child and renounce our need to find security in power or status -- being wise and learned.

This past Wednesday after visiting one of our hospitalized parishioners, I ran into one of our parish ushers/greeters who was going to visit this same elderly parishioner to bring her flowers.  His only contact with this parishioner was as one of our parish ushers.   My strong hunch is that his act of random kindness will enable this elderly parishioner rest in Jesus.

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.  Mindfulness of God rises slowly, the fruit of our 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 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.

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.

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.

There is no better example of this trusting, childlike faith than St Therese of Lisieux in her autobiography, THE STORY OF THE SOUL.  St Therese’s describes her spirituality as the little way.  For St. Therese, everything is grace.  Her “little way” is to do ordinary things with extraordinary love. Because Therese rested in Jesus and trusted in Jesus, everything is grace. 

The One who knows us best, our Gracious God, invites us daily to life shared with God.  Our invitation reads:  “Come as you are.  Bring only yourselves.  Surrender all burdens at the door, anything that keeps from moving joyfully toward God.  Do you trust the sender of this invitation?

Have a blessed day.

The Fourth of July -- a celebration of our nation's independence and a celebration of our dependence on the merciful love of God.

This Tuesday we celebration the anniversary of our nation's Declaration of Independence.  We give thanks to God for the freedom and the blessings we enjoy as Americans,  It is a day of parades, fireworks, golf, and family picnics.  May it also be a spiritual day in which we give thanks that we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights and that we are one nation under God.

As we value our freedom and independence, may we reflect on the freedom we have as sons and daughters of God.  Jesus saved us from the slavery of sin and invited us to live with the freedom of the children of God.  As we value our independence as a nation, may we in faith recognize our dependence on God.  Our true freedom is based on our trusting faith that our loving God goes with us in all experiences of life; that our loving God promises us that our future is full of hope; and that we enjoy true inner freedom when we trust that our lives are in the hands of God.

At one and the same time, we celebrate our independence as Americans and our dependence on God's plan for us the disciples of Jesus.