16th Sunday Year A 2020

 16th. Sunday of Year (A)

(Wisdom 12:13, 16-19; Romans 8:26-27; Matthew 13:24-43)

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Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, among those regarding themselves as devout Jews in the time of Jesus were at least two groups who claimed to be the ‘holy remnant’, alone faithful to the commands of Israel’s God-given Law in its fullness, and who thought they, exclusively, would usher in the coming  Kingdom of God; outsiders were, they thought, ‘beyond the Pale’.  Thus, they formed two, not only ‘holy’ but also ‘closed’ remnants, distinct from merely nominal Israelites by reason of their passionate adherence to and rigid observance of their own unique understanding of the requirements for authentic Mosaic liturgical purity, traditional piety, and personal asceticism. 

Of these two groups, the Pharisees, separated themselves from other people’s popular society but not from their physical proximity; whereas the monastic community of the Essenes carried out this separation at Qumran in the Judean desert, near the Dead Sea and as far as possible from sinful Jerusalem.  The  Pharisees set out to promote the priestly character of the Jewish people by their religious observance and spiritual practices, while the Essenes pursued and expressed the same claim for their members even in their clothing: each member of the order, even the laity, wore a white linen robe, the ceremonial dress of priests in office.  The Pharisaic movement demanded ritual washing of hands before meals from all its members; the Essene community exaggerated this requirement to the extent that it demanded a full bath before every meal, in order to achieve the highest possible standards of purity.

And how exclusive these groups were!  Even the physically handicapped were not allowed to belong to the assembly of the Essene community.  So what hope was there for sinners?

The biggest difference between them, however, was that the Essene community ‘legislated’ for themselves, whereas the Pharisees assumed for themselves the mantle of Moses, as authoritative teachers not only for their members but also for the whole People of Israel.

Such pride and presumption on their part merited Jesus’ whole-hearted disgust:

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You traverse sea and land to make one convert, and when that happens you make him a child of Gehenna twice as much as yourselves. (Matthew 23:15)

And consequently, the Pharisees went ‘the whole hog’ in their claim for recognition as unique teachers in Israel by deliberately and diligently seeking out and publicly decrying Jesus, before finally colluding with Herodians and High Priests to make use of the over-riding and heartily-hated Roman power to have Him crucified for the sake of their exclusive understanding of not only the Law of Moses but, indeed, of the very will of God, as Jesus to their deep chagrin had long recognized and even dared to proclaim (Mark 7:8-9), saying:

‘You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition.  How well you have set aside the commandment of God in order to uphold your tradition.

Now, separation from ‘outsiders’ was completely alien to the ‘Church’ community  founded by Jesus, as was patently clear from the way in which He recommended His disciples to invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind to their table; and from His own sitting at table with the friends of Levi/Matthew, the former tax-collector become a disciple, and uttering those most famous words of public reprimand to critical Pharisees:

Those who are well have no need of a physician, but the sick do.  Go and learn the meaning of the words, ‘I desire mercy not sacrifice’.  I did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.  (Luke 5:31s.)

What distinguished Jesus from the Pharisees was first of all the authenticity of His Personally unique authority for Israel, for He was the Son of Him Whom the Jews said was their God, He was the Son sent by His Father for Israel’s fulfilling and salvation; and He was distinguished also by the universality of His message of salvation: fulfilling and transcending its former Jewish ‘edition’ and proclaiming His Father’s will to save all – high and low, Jews and Gentiles -- without exception: all, that is, who would turn to Him, Jesus, in faith, as the Messianic Son of Man, and Son of the Father uniquely able by His Personal self-sacrifice and gift of the Spirit to bring about the eternal salvation of each and every person willing to repent in response to His Good News of God’s great mercy and goodness. 

Of course, Jesus was aware that there would ultimately be a division between sinners and those chosen, for He preached a call to repentance and not all want to repent from the evil of their self-promoting and self-satisfying practices which ultimately and inevitably destroy their hosts and perpetrators.  In Jesus’ public and popularly-understood parables that division is clearly shown and taught: there were five wise virgins with five foolish ones, there were goats and sheep that needed to be ultimately separated.  However, the final manifestation and separation is not for this world, and so there always was and is still a chance for all who hear the Lord’s message – now proclaimed world-wide by the teaching of His Church -- to open themselves up to His offer of boundless mercy and saving grace, and seek to bring forth fruit worthy of repentance.

And so, in the field of the Church wheat and tares live side by side, for the ever-possible improvement and benefit even of the human tares: for the fruitless and sinful members of the Church do receive and can profit from countless blessings percolating down to them because innumerable saintly men and women have lived, and are still living, holy but largely inconspicuous lives: unknown to those around them but not unnoticed by God, Who for the sake of such fruitful and much-loved disciples of Jesus, pours out innumerable blessings upon all in Mother Church.  We cannot know how much each of us may owe to some simple, holy, person we neither knew nor would perhaps have sufficiently appreciated if we had known them.    Conversely however -- and we should never forget this -- every time we knowingly sin, we harm the whole Church by impeding the full and free flow of grace throughout the whole Body, just as when some cell or organ fails to function appropriately in our own physical bodies. 

But the wheat and the tares growing together are not only to be found in a farmer’s field as in Jesus’ parable, not only in Mother Church, but also in our individual lives; and some saints -- for example, the Curé of Ars -- are known to have asked God to let them see their sins as they really were.  That holy and humble Curé, however, was unable to bear what he was allowed to see, and he immediately besought God, of His great mercy, to withdraw the vision.

And there are many sinners today who find their lives intolerable under that stress, as the number of suicides -- even by the young, the rich, the ’successful’ -- testifies, and as a very famous French philosopher, Blaise Paschal, observed:

‘Whoever fails to see the vanity of the world must be vain himself.  For who does fail to see it except those young people surrounded with noise, distractions, and dreams of the future?  Now, take away their distractions and you will almost see them dry up with weariness; they then feel their nothingness without recognizing it; how unfortunate it must be to find oneself in unbearable sadness as soon as one is forced to think about one’s self, one’s own state, and not to be distracted from that thought.’

‘If our condition were really happy, we would not find it necessary to seek our happiness in distractions.’

Well, that is what Christian life is all about.  It is meant, in God’s great goodness, to give us real happiness, true love and fulfilment, deep peace, and unshakeable hope; it is meant to make us fully human, more human than any irreligious life – no matter however charismatically endowed and successful -- could ever make us.  For Jesus Christ alone was and is Perfect God and Perfect Man possessing the keys of life-and- love both here on earth and in heaven, and He wants so much – yes, even to the extent of allowing Himself to be crucified – to save men and women from making themselves into junkies and pleasure-seekers of all kinds -- using, abusing, themselves and/or other people, even infants!--- into power-seekers promoting violence and fear, into swindlers great and small, bringing institutions to ruin or robbing even the poorest of whatever pittance they may have for food and shelter!  And our modern slave-traders practice a business far, far, more evil than that of the slave holders of Roman times!

Dear People of God, this week-end we have some very topical and comforting teaching concerning Mother Church in Our Blessed Lord’s three parables.

First of all, note that God puts good seed in His field of the Church by drawing souls to Jesus through the discipline of faith and the obedience of love, and so we can and should reverence, respect, and whole-heartedly trust Mother Church for that good seed of God sown in her and growing to maturity through her teaching and sacraments; and that good seed is still bringing forth fruit for the Lord, fruit which, when left standing upright after the weeds have been collected and burnt, will be found fit to be joyfully and gratefully ‘gathered into the Lord’s barn’.

Again, there are many in the world looking for, and aspiring to, Mother Church.  The mustard seed parable urges such little birds not to fly to the ‘mountains’ for human help:

In the Lord I take refuge, how can you say to me, ‘Flee like a bird to the mountains’?  (Psalm 11:1),

but rather to seek and find real shelter and true rest from all storms and predators in the shelter of the Kingdom of God and in a personal relationship with Him Who is supremely Personal, loving, and loveable.

The parable of the leaven shows us yet another aspect of the Kingdom of God here on earth in which the power of Mother Church’s teaching, worship, and fellowship can not only illuminate some of the most pressing human questions and most immediate personal difficulties and anxieties we encounter daily, but which can penetrate to the very core of our being and lift up the whole tone of our life to transcendent aspirations that will lead us ultimately to eternal fulfilment and a human joy divinised beyond all our earthly imagining in the Lord.

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ we owe such much to Our Lord for this blessed time spent at Mass for His glory and our refreshment!  To Him be glory, honour, and our whole-hearted and most grateful thanks now and for ever.

(2020)

15th Sunday Year A 2020

15th. Sunday of Year (A)

(Isaiah 55:10-11; Romans 8:18-23; Matthew 13:1-23)

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You may well have thought that the sower in the Gospel parable did a pretty careless job: sowing on patches of rock, and among thorns; and one popular translation apparently tries to make the sower seem a little more accurate in his work by saying that some seeds ‘fell on the edge of the path’!   That, however, though verbally more precise, is not accurate enough for most modern translations, which say quite clearly:

            Some seed fell on the path and birds came and ate it up.         

All this, however, can be understood if we realize that in Palestine of Jesus’ day sowing preceded ploughing; hence, in the parable, the sower is depicted as striding over the unploughed stubble.  As he sows on all hands, he knowingly allows some seed to fall on the path which locals have made walking through the stubble, since he thinks that such seed should be able to take root well enough when he comes along to plough up that unwanted footpath.  Also, we should not be surprised that some grains fall upon rocky ground, for the underlying limestone -- thinly covered with soil -- hardly shows above the surface and is not noticed until the ploughshare jars against it!   It is more surprising that he allows seed to fall among the thorns in the fallow, but that may well be because he is a working man who simply has neither the time nor the energy ... even if he has the patience! ... to keep stopping and starting, avoiding first this and then that; he needs must work over the whole field in order to get the job done in preparation for the seasonal weather and, as I have said, to have some hope for, possibly, just a little bit extra this time – most welcome in his relative poverty -- from what might appear to be the otherwise fruitless patches of land.  How many circumstances there were to frustrate, even thwart, the sower’s labours!  How much there was that could dishearten him!   

Nevertheless, he had known a few years – so treasured in his memory – when quite wonderful crops had resulted:

            Some a hundred-fold, some sixty, some thirty!!

Crops beyond expectations, larger by far than those other harvests that he had also known and remembered for the paucity of their yield!

Dear People of God, this was a parable meant by Our Blessed Lord to show – on the one hand -- that the rich blessings of God’s Kingdom here on earth will come to fruition despite what might be the insignificant beginnings, and slow, laborious, development of that Kingdom, and despite all human opposition that might make it appear -- humanly speaking – impossible for it to succeed.

My word that goes forth from My mouth shall not return to Me void, but shall do My will, achieving the end for which I sent it.

The Kingdom of God will, indeed, come for those who have firm faith in Jesus and patient trust in God’s great goodness and mercy; because those wonderfully prophetic words from Isaiah are fulfilled most sublimely in the very Person of Jesus Himself:

My Word (My beloved Son-made-flesh) shall not return to Me void, but shall do My will, achieving the end for which I sent (Him).

And so, in Our Lord’s own life on earth among men, He suffered ‘social obstructions and human opposition’ to such an extent that He – the very Son of God made man -- died maligned and even hated, left alone and deserted: an abject failure in the sight of men.  But, His trust in His Father was unshaken; He committed Himself without reserve to Him:

            Father, into Your hands I commend My Spirit.

The Kingdom of God in our souls expands to its full extent in the same way.  With the sower we must do our best: first, to set out with confidence each recurring season to work well and then to trust, calmly and firmly, in the goodness of God, our Father.  We must, however, work at the whole field: not only in the good parts, but also in those which are thorny and stony, on the trodden down and hard pathway;  we must work not only at that which comes easier to us, but also in those areas of life which we find it more difficult, where the rough, stony, mediocre ground seems more abundant than the fertile.  The point is, we must work at our whole being-before-God with simple sincerity, and quiet, persevering, endeavour, and then trust in God with calm peace, and confident expectancy.  Results are His gift, for His glory, and for our greater well-being and true joy.

Then the disciples approached Jesus and said, ‘Why do You speak to the people in parables?’  He said to them in reply, ‘Because they look but do not see, and hear but do not listen or understand.’

It was no arbitrary decision of Our Lord which led to Him speak in parables to the people.  No, it was the inevitable consequence of, and a most appropriate accommodation with, the poor dispositions of those who listened to Him.  With a parable He offered them wisdom and life, hidden in a tale, in a little human story, they might find interesting enough to remember, one in which, someday, they might be able to glimpse and appreciate a little of the hidden life contained in it.

That is why we, dear People of God, as disciples of Jesus, must work at the whole field of our lives.  It is not enough to be good to our own family, if we are deaf and blind to the needs of others; it is not enough to be sober and thrifty if we are also ill-tempered or wrapped up in the things of this world; it is not enough to say, ‘I don’t do anyone any harm’ if we don’t seek to promote anything good because it is good; it is not enough to be a ‘good mum’ if you want children more for your pleasure or your imagined fulfilment, rather than for your children’s prospective good.

What beauty we see or what truth we hear, what love we conceive, depends so very much on who we are; that is, on what we have made of ourselves thus far:

            They look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand.

A man who is lustful may be generous hearted and hard working – but he cannot rightly conceive or meditate upon the love of God, because love for him has a twisted meaning; he cannot really imagine or appreciate a disinterested love or deep soul-satisfying joy because pleasure and passion clouds and distorts his outlook.  And such distortion spreads elsewhere and can come to contaminate all we do unless we react firmly against it and any other such vices which may have found a place in our character and a part in our life.  If we are slaves in one aspect of our life, we cannot be truly free in any other, because we are not really ourselves, the selves God intended us to be.  As Jesus said in this respect:

To anyone who has, more will be given, and he will grow rich; from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

And so, People of God, I would recommend you today to aim at being consistent in your endeavours to let God’s W/word take root, and God’s Kingdom come to reign, in your lives ... not just in one part, but in the whole of your lives, for that alone will bring true, lasting, joy and peace into your hearts:

Blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear!  Amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, but did not see it; to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.

Yes, you will find God at work in your life, you will become aware of Him speaking in your heart, and you will rejoice as they alone can rejoice who have found a love beyond compare, a love which time can never tarnish nor changing circumstances disturb.  That, indeed, is the aim of all our religious practices: to recognize and respond with love to God in all aspects and occurrences of life; to see God’s beauty and loveable-ness in all persons and in all things, and to rejoice in Him with all our heart:

             I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.

May we have that purpose fulfilled both here and in eternity, through Jesus Christ Our Lord, and may His Gospel parable for today influence and guide our whole lives, for the sower did his utmost to get the very best out of the land he had; and so should, so must, we!

14th Sunday Year A 2020

 14^th. Sunday of year (A)

  (Zechariah 9:9-10; Romans 8:9, 11-13; Matthew 11:25-30)

Recall the picture painted of the King-to-come in the first reading from the prophecy of Zechariah:

Rejoice heartily, O daughter Zion, shout for joy, O daughter Jerusalem! See, your King shall come to you; a just Saviour is He, meek, and riding on an ass, on a colt, the foal of an ass.

He shall banish the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem; The warrior’s bow shall be banished, and He shall proclaim peace to the nations. His dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth. 
 

The King-to-come whom the prophet foretold is, of course, Jesus, who will establish God’s kingdom over all the earth, proclaiming peace and banishing war, in all, a just Saviour, Who by His victory over sin and death, will conquer the power of Satan and free mankind from its thraldom to sin.

How will He free mankind?  St. Paul told us in our second reading that Jesus, the Risen Lord, embraces all who turn to Him at His Father’s call, and bestows on them a Gift, the Holy Spirit, Who will abide with them and in them:

If the Spirit of the One Who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, you are not in the flesh, and the One Who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit Who dwells in you.  If you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

A just Saviour, indeed, is He Who gives the Gift of His Spirit to those who, answering His Father’s call, believe in Him; that is the background painted by the prophet Zechariah and by Saint Paul, and with that background in mind we can well understand Jesus’ words in the Gospel:

Come to Me, all you who labour 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 your souls.  For My yoke is easy and My burden light.

Jesus is inviting those who believe in Him and His Good News to come to Him and take His yoke upon themselves, that is to embrace and obey His gift of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit of Truth and of Love, that He might free them from their thraldom to sin and introduce them into His Kingdom where the Spirit rules:

Those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.

We come across Jesus calling out publicly ‘Come to Me’ again on the occasion of one of Israel’s greatest feasts when crowds were everywhere to be found:

On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as Scripture says, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” 
 

And then St. John (7:37-39) goes on to tell us:

He spoke this concerning the Spirit, Whom those believing in Him would receive; for the  Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet  glorified.

We have other words of Jesus reported by St. Matthew (25:31-36) where He speaks openly of His Kingdom:

When the Son of Man comes in His glory ... all the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats: He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left.  Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.

The Kingdom to be thus fully manifested when Jesus comes in glory was inaugurated in the very first ‘church’ preaching of the word of Jesus as St. Luke (10:1-2.9) tells us:

After these things the Lord appointed seventy others also, and sent them two by two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was about to go (saying): ‘Heal the sick there, and say to them, “The Kingdom of God has come near to you.”’

And so, dear People of God, know yourselves, your situation, and your calling: you have heard the call of the Father, and the Good News of Jesus proclaimed to you by Mother Church; you have been made -- through baptism and the Gift of the Holy Spirit – an adult member of the Body of Christ and a privileged citizen not indeed of the Roman Empire but of the Kingdom of God, and as such, the Holy Spirit is now reminding you that, as a responsible citizen of that Kingdom and loyal disciple of its King and Lord, you should learn to fight against the enemies of that Kingdom in  the strength that He gives now and will give you, that is, against sin in your own life first of all, and then -- according to the measure of your endowment by the Spirit – against sin in the world around.

Let us now turn back to St. Paul in our second reading that we may learn what this, our Christian struggle and fight against sin, involves:

Brothers, we are not debtors to the flesh, to live according to the flesh; for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

Life lived according to the flesh: a settled practice, that is, of living in accordance with our bodily lusts and vengeful desires, will lead us to death, eternal death; because such passions when indulged make slaves of those who give way to, and learn to delight in, them: slaves who take no account the needs of others, have no respect for the harmonious balance and blend of nature, and who totally ignore the fullness and beauty of our being as planned for each one of us by God, our heavenly Father.  The restraining of such native selfishness, the curbing and destruction of blind bodily lusts and longings for revenge, the restraining discipline and careful training of all unruly impulses, is what St. Paul means when he speaks of ‘putting to death the deeds of the body by the S/spirit’, for it is only through the Spirit communing with our spirit, recalling and enabling us to appreciate the teaching of Jesus, that we can find strength to walk perseveringly in accordance with the light of life.

However, dear friends in Christ, there is another aspect of Jesus’ teaching to be found in promises such as this:

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.  I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.  These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. (John 10:10-11, 15:11)

For ultimately, dear People of God, it is joy in the Lord that most truly saves us, because Jesus came as Saviour that we might have life in fulfilment of our being: not earthly life as we know it, not an earthly life to delight in and learn to wallow in, but the life for which we were originally made, the life for which we are intended, the life of the Risen Jesus, Who has conquered sin and death on our behalf, and Who now calls us to follow Him where He -- our Head – awaits us, urging us to let ourselves be born anew, by His Spirit, as members of His Body.  Our Head, Jesus, is in heaven, and we, His disciples on earth, can be born anew to a life leading heaven-wards where HE our Head awaits us as His Body, born anew to a life of total fulfilment for us, because it will be a life in the context of the Divine Life of Beatitude, where the bonds of mutual Truth and Love, Troth indeed,  eternally embrace Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.