15th Sunday, Year (A)
(Isaiah 55:10-11;
Romans 8:18-23; Matthew 13:1-23)
Jesus had
just told the crowd gathered round Him the parable of the sower; His disciples
were puzzled by what appeared to be story-telling and so they asked Him, in
private:
Why do You speak to them in parables?
Why do You speak to them in parables?
He answered
and said to them:
Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries
of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.
As a man on
earth Jesus was truly humble before His Father in Heaven, He knew full well
that, as He said on another occasion (John 6:44):
No one can come to Me unless the Father Who sent Me
draws him.
He always
noticed and appreciated what His Father was doing at any given time and in any
set of circumstances, and it was for that very reason that He had just
addressed the crowds in parables because, as He said:
To know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven has not
been given to them.
Notice that
Jesus never felt any need to justify His Father before men … some so-called
disciples in today’s Church, and most pagans in today’s politically correct
society, not knowing the Father, will cry ‘injustice’ at such apparently
preferential discrimination in God’s treatment of Jesus’ disciples as distinct
from the throng of followers. Jesus, however, was both too humble to have
anything but the utmost reverence for His Father’s actions and decisions, and
also too truthful to have any ‘politically correct’, emotionally self-centered,
appreciation of the people He had come to save.
He would
certainly have been aware that the majority of those crowding round Him were
not there because they wanted to learn from His teaching, but rather out
of curiosity … for Jesus was the most renowned and controversial figure they
would come across not only that day, week, month or year, or indeed throughout
their whole lives … and their attention could only be held by the simple
and interesting human story put before them in the parable, not by any
consuming desire on their part for heavenly teaching or spiritual
guidance.
Therefore,
because they were doing just what Isaiah had foretold:
Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, and
seeing you will see and not perceive,
Jesus spoke
to them in parables so that, for the time being at least, they might retain
something of the tale that had interested them and the words Jesus had used;
later on perhaps, in His Father’s Providence, those words might still be able
to bear fruit when and if the minds and hearts of those now listening had grown
both more humble and mature in their human appreciation and more responsive to
the working of the Spirit of God in their lives.
But there
was more than that. Today people are so involved in communication
of all sorts: not just TV. and radio, but above all, the mobile-phone networks
offering seemingly endless personal outlets for whatever details of their lives
people may be moved to open up to public awareness and discussion.
Thus consulted at every hand, the opinion of the crowd is today accorded a
fearful ‘respect’ it should not have in rational thought. The crowd can
be fiercely partisan though only partially informed or even ill-informed; and
yet, few in power or authority dare gainsay or resist it since it has something
of the ‘infallibility’ of weeping women or of beautiful and innocent children
obediently shouting out words put on their smiling lips by adults incapable of
so beautiful a presentation.
It was not
like that with Jesus: speaking with His disciples about the throng following
Him. He quoted, and whole-heartedly approved of, the prophet Isaiah’s words:
Gross is the heart of this people, they will hardly
hear with their ears, they have closed their eyes, lest they see with their
eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and be converted,
and I heal them.’
In Jesus’
appreciation of and response to the people He knew so well, we can glimpse
something of the sublimely patient humility of God Who, though being infinitely
wise, true, and ‘unfoolable’, nevertheless in His true love He here
accommodates Himself to men’s needs by using simple parables to attract – even,
perhaps, at times to lightly amuse – as well as to instruct them. In like
manner, His Holy Spirit, given to us and working in and with us, constantly
adapts His divine holiness and power to our wilfulness, weakness,
self-satisfaction, and worldliness.
However,
when and where Jesus was able to speak more directly and sublimely, it gave Him
such great joy, as on this occasion, to say to His apostles:
Blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for
they hear; for assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men
desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and
did not hear it.
Many
prophets and righteous men had not been allowed to see the Word of God
made flesh; they had never heard words conveying divine truth spoken
by God such as today Jesus had addressed to the crowd. Oh! most
blessed Apostles what joy you are giving to your Lord surrounded by a throng of
those:
So gross of heart, they will hardly hear with their
ears; and have closed their eyes, lest they see with their eyes.
The
expression ‘Word of God’ brings to our mind, first of all, the second Person of
the most Holy Trinity, begotten of the Father from all eternity, before all
time. Then it denotes, Jesus, the Word of God made flesh for us in time, Jesus
the divine yet human Person Whom we have touched and seen, the Saviour Who will
introduce us into the presence of His Father at the end of time. Finally,
it speaks to us of God’s saving message, spoken originally through
the prophets and culminating ultimately in the Good News of Jesus Himself,
which -- enshrined in the Scriptures -- resounds through all time and in all
the earth thanks to the proclamation of holy Mother Church. It is of
this latter ‘word of God’ that Isaiah spoke in our first reading:
For just as from the heavens the rain and snow come
down and do not return there till they have watered the earth, making it
fertile and fruitful, giving seed to him who sows and bread to him who eats, so
shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void,
but shall do My will, achieving the end for which I sent it.
Ultimately
that word of proclamation is one and the same word, whether heard softly in
parables or sublimely in teaching; the only difference is due, not indeed to
divine partiality, but simply to human preparedness to receive and willingness
to bear fruit:
Behold, a sower went out to sow. As he sowed,
some seed fell by the wayside; some fell on stony places, and some fell among
thorns; but others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold,
some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!
However,
there is yet another way -- more pervasive and simple -- whereby the Word
of God can reach and speak both secretly and most piercingly to men, and it
comes from the world that sustains and embraces us, from the universe that
challenges and inspires us, one and all created out of nothingness by the word
of God:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the
earth. And God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that
yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose
seed is in itself, on the earth”; and it was so. And God saw that it was
good. …. God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the
lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. God set them in the
firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to rule over the day
and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God
saw that it was good. (Genesis 1: 1, 11, 16-18)
Still today
the silent voice of creation sounds around us and it can, at any moment, strike
up a deep resonance within us:
The heavens declare the glory of God; and the
firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto
night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is
not heard. Their sound has gone out through all the earth, and their words to
the end of the world. (Psalm 19:1-4)
The Spirit
Who has been bequeathed to us in Mother Church as the Holy Spirit of both Jesus
and the Father, the Spirit Who seeks to guide us along the way of Jesus back to
the Father, is that same Spirit Who was present in the beginning:
The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was
on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face
of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there
was light.
(Genesis 1:2-4)
He still
hovers over what He has made – be it inanimate or just voiceless -- and, with
supreme artistry, He is able to touch the strings of creation in such a way as
to bring forth music of heavenly beauty for us whom He is seeking to lead along
the way of Jesus, so that our lives too might resound with and reflect
something of that soul-pervading harmony, and thus come to proclaim in faith
and truth the glory of God our Father.
That music
of what is voiceless, become sublimely beautiful thanks to the artistry of the
Spirit, can thus express not only creation’s being but our own deepest selves
as St. Paul well knew:
All creation is groaning in labour pains even until
now; and not only that, but we ourselves, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit,
we also groan within ourselves as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our
bodies.
Here again,
in this context, we can apply those words of Jesus in the Gospel:
It has been given to you to know the mysteries of the
kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.
Therefore,
creation looks to and waits for us, as St. Paul said:
Creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation
of the children of God; for creation was made subject to futility, not of its
own accord but because of the One Who subjected it, in hope that creation
itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious
freedom of the children of God.
People of
God, our readings and our celebration today are meant to renew our awareness of
and delight in the mystery and the majesty of our calling which is, indeed,
hardly able to be outlined even in the Scriptures, witness St. Paul, who
himself once experienced heavenly things he was unable to describe or speak of
in human words. Nevertheless, we do find in the book of Revelation
(21:1-5) – what is, perhaps, Scriptures final attempt to do what is not really
possible with human words -- to reveal something of the goodness and glory of
the Father in heaven:
I saw a new heaven and a new earth, and I heard a loud
voice from heaven saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and
He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with
them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes;
there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more
pain, for the former things have passed away." Then He who sat on
the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new."
That
glorious new heaven and new earth will be centred on Christ for He will
be its light and splendour; and because He is both Lord and Saviour of mankind
His true disciples will dwell there, being held in high honour and knowing
eternal peace and joy:
The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to
shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light.
There shall be no night there, and its gates shall not be shut at all by day,
and the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light. They
shall bring the glory and the honour of the nations into it, but there shall by
no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but
only those who are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. (21:23-27)
Into that
glorious city of God the waters of life flow from the very throne of God and of
the Lamb; and of those waters we are able to have a foretaste here on earth if
we can but hear something of the beautiful song of creation around us, and if we will but
allow the Spirit to open our hearts and minds to learn from the word of
God preached, and the Word of God present, in Mother Church (1 Corinthians
3:21-4:1):
For all things are yours: whether the world or life or
death, or things present or things to come--all are yours. And you are
Christ's, and Christ is God's.
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