Celebrating with Fr Delmonte his 60th anniversary of his priestly ordination

 

Eleventh Sunday in OT B  2024

 

It is a privilege for me to be with you celebrating Fr Al’s 60th  priesthood anniversary.  I had the great privilege of serving as your pastor for twelve years from 1993 to 2005.  One of my best moves as pastor was to invite three great senior priests to live and minister at St Louis == Msgr Gerry Krieg, Fr Ray Booth and Fr Al Delmonte. I remember clearly inviting Fr Al to come to St Louis to live and minister among us. At that time, I thought I was the young and handsome pastor giving these old guys a place to live. It didn’t take long before parishioners were seeing Fr Al as the young and handsome priest, and I was one of the older guys…I guess it’s good to be humble.

Now Fr Al and I are golfing buddies.  Now I must admit some of my drives off the tee go a bit astray.  Thankfully, Fr Al has eagle eyes and always is able to find my ball.  When we come to this desolate place on the golf course tracking down  my golf ball, Fr Al usually remarks: “I have never been to this part of the golf course before.” Then we get to the putting green. I putt the ball toward the hole and Fr Al remarks:  “That’s a great putt.”  But then as the ball continues past the hole, He adds: “I changed my mind.”

More than golfing buddies, Fr Al is a man of God celebrating 60 years in praise of God in and in the service of God’s people.

Additionally to celebrating Fr Al’s 60th anniversary of priesthood, we celebrate Father’s Day in which we give thanks to all the dads in our parish community, and we thank them for the love they share with their children and thank them for the love they give to all in our parish community.  We remember our deceased dads as well as we entrust to the fulness of god’s eternal life.

Reflecting on the Scriptures which the homilist is supposed to be doing.

Then Jesus told us parables to explain the mystery of the KINGDOM OF God.  In today’s parables, our focus is drawn to seeds and how they grow.  The farmer sows the seeds, and miraculously they grow. 

 the first parable is sometimes called the “Parable of the Seed Growing Secretly.”  “This is how it is with the Kingdom of God:  it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land and would sleep and rise night and day and through it all the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how. 

The MESSAGE FOR us in this parable is in the Kingdom of God, God is in charge.  God gives the growth. your heavenly father never sleeps, never stops loving, never stops reaching out.   INDEED, there is a profound truth in us reaffirming that God cares and god is in charge.

This Kingdom of God that Jesus is announcing isn’t one that happens from the top down. The Kingdom of God is planted, it begins in very small ways, and over time it grows and grows. And it doesn’t grow because we do things to make it happen, it grows because God is secretly at work, in ways we don’t see or know or comprehend. The Kingdom is a divine work, not a human achievement.

This is the good news. The Lord is at work, the Lord is faithful, the Lord plants and waters and makes it grow. It sounds like a horrible idea (because we’re not in control!) but it’s the plan the Lord has started—and it works.

Our response is what we call “faith”: trusting in this Jesus, following him where he leads us. If we listen to the little promptings he gives us, act on the little whispers  that is how the Kingdom will break in—and break in powerfully. You don’t have to wield earthly power to make things happen. You just have to have faith that the Lord’s power, the power of the Kingdom of God, is real. And the point? It’s very real.

 

In the second parable, the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed sown in the ground; it is the smallest of all the seeds on the earth.  But once it is sown, it springs up and becomes the largest of plants and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade.”

The message is there is a mustard seed planted in the heart of each one of us on the day of our baptism.  It is the life of Christ Jesus that is within us.  This mustard has incredible potential to become within us the wellspring of eternal life.

A most important message is we must never forget who the sower is and who is the seed.  Yes, it is God who gives the growth.  As St. Paul in the second reading, we walk by faith, not by sight.

A couple of examples:

St Therese of Lisieux, the little flower.  She did not see herself to be the mighty rose but just a mere little SUNFLOWER, a mustard seed if you will.  Her mantra was simply to do little things with great love.  For THERESE, ALL is grace.  We can be assured the grace of God is at work in the most insignificant of ways.  St Therese is known as one of the great doctors in the history of the Church but she saw herself as a little flower, a mustard seed.   but  she did know that all is grace, all is a gift of god.

In the simple ways that you serve and help and love in your family like, like Therese, do little things with great love and believe that all is grace.  The grace of God is present to you 24/7.

 

Another example is our own fathers.  From birth, they have placed within us a tiny mustard of their love.  with divine assistance, our dads have nurtured us from the day of our birth to this day.  they have revealed to us god’s unending love for us by the example of their lives.  we are their grateful sons and daughters.

Another example  of a father’s love is the life and ministry of Fr Al Delmonte.  this young man from Auburn, NY, a student at St Bernard’s Seminary that is now closed was ordained to the priesthood in 1964.  sixty years later as a priest, father al’s tiny mustard of faith and ministry has blessed us in abundant ways over all these years.  For father al and for all of us, god is in charge.  thanks be to god, god called father al to the ordained ministry as a priest who to this day and hopefully many more days to come serves the people of god in faithful and loving ways.  thank you father al.