17th Sunday Year A, 2023

 

(1 Kings 3:5, 7-12; Romans 8:28-30; Matthew 13:44-52)

 

Our readings this week, my dear People of God, give us great cause for gratitude and hope.  Just think of those words of St. Paul that you heard in the second reading:

Those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He might be the firstborn among many brothers; and those He predestined He also called; and those He called He also justified; and those He justified He also glorified.

That means that God foreknew each one of you baptized Catholics here present, and He predestined you to be conformed to the likeness of His Son.  How do we know that?  Because God the Father called you to faith in Jesus and, through the waters of baptism, washed you clean of all sin, to become a member of Jesus’ Body, the Church, where you are endowed with the Gift of God’s Holy Spirit.  Thus justified, you are also being glorified, for that outpouring of the Spirit of Christ into your soul is the beginning of a life-long process of glorification and sanctification whereby the Spirit of Jesus will lead you ever further along the way of Jesus to the Father.  Every time you receive Jesus in Holy Communion and open yourself up to Him in loving gratitude and prayer, that glory -- which is the presence of His Spirit in you -- will shine ever more brightly for love of the Father.  You and I, each and every one of us, known and loved by God the Father before time in His Son, are thus destined for eternal glory, IF -- by the Spirit of sanctification -- we persevere faithfully in Jesus and His Church!

What degree of glory will be ours?  That we do not know; but we do know that Mary, a girl from Nazareth, is now Queen of Heaven above all the Angels, Principalities, and Powers because she became the most loving and beautiful mother of God’s own Son-in- human-flesh.  Our own degree of eternal glory will likewise depend on our relationship with Him and His Father’s plan for us; notice that, dear People of God, egalitarianism is not on God’s agenda!

His universal goodness, however, is absolutely essential to that agenda for He loves each and every one of us, in our individuality; and that means that though there are and will be distinctions or differences, there will  be no discrimination whatsoever, because our own degree of eternal glory will also depend, of course, on our personal commitment to His Person (love) and His will (obedience) during our time on earth.

Our glorification has already begun; that we know because we love Jesus Who is in heaven and we hope for, look forward to, His heavenly promises; with the result that, although we are still subject to temptation here on earth, we are not ruled by the earthly lusts of our flesh, nor do we allow ourselves to be dominated by that earthly pride which would drive us to seek earthly success, power, and prestige above all else.

As yet, however, we cannot see the final result of our struggles, or the fullness of our on-going glorification, but St. John (1 John 3:2) does assure us that:

Beloved, now we are children of God; it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.  

What we have to do, therefore, throughout our life on earth, is to remain faithful to Jesus.

That will most certainly demand effort at times, because we have to be tested, formed, and found worthy of God’s gifts and promises, as you heard earlier:

We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose.

Surely, dear friends in Christ, we should regard ourselves as having found a treasure, a pearl of great price, indeed, the delight of our life, and we should carefully listen to and try to gratefully appreciate, Jesus’ parables in today’s Gospel reading:

The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.

Now, all of us here are in a similar position, for Jesus is the Father’s sublime treasure, His  pearl beyond compare, and He has been revealed to us by the Father:

No one can come to Me unless the Father Who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.  (John 6:44)

Why has the Father drawn us to Jesus?

God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.   (John 3:16)

Yes, Jesus is indeed the treasure, the pearl of great price, and each of us knows where He is to be found for our ever-greater delight and growth: in the life and sacraments of Mother Church; above all, in the Eucharist and the Scriptures.  Only the Spirit of Jesus, given in fullness to Mother Church, can reveal to us -- in and through her worship and teaching -- the wonder of Jesus' saving  life and love; only the Spirit of Jesus can enable us to share in the life of Jesus through her Holy Scriptures and  the sacraments given to Mother Church as sources of divine life and conduits of saving grace for us, her children; only the Spirit can gradually fill and transfigure the thoughts of our mind and the aspirations of our heart through our communion with Him: as we watch and listen for, and courageously obey, His secret guidance, leading each of us along the way of Jesus.

One can indeed find treasures of wisdom and pearls of beauty in the various religions and traditions whereby men and women have sought and served God throughout human history.  However, the one supreme treasure, the one pearl precious beyond all compare  is Jesus of Nazareth -- God's supreme revelation of His very own Being as the God-of- universal-love, in His only begotten Son-made-man, by His Gift of the Spirit of them Both  -- Who is to be found uniquely in the Eucharist and in the Scriptures of the Universal Catholic and Christian Church which is His Body, and which is unfailingly sustained and infallibly guided by God’s Holy Spirit into all truth about eternal life and salvation.

The question now is: what are you doing about that treasure, what efforts are you willing to make to ensure that that pearl offered you may indeed become yours for all eternity? Pope St. Gregory the Great tells a story which goes something like this: imagine someone going on, let us say, a journey on the Orient Express, travelling in luxury towards some wonderful destination, let us imagine, Venice.  It is a long journey; deliberately so, because the trip is meant to embrace many places of great interest along the way: places of beauty such as mountain villages and places of curious attraction, such as ancient bazaars.  Let us further imagine that the train stops at some of these places and, on one particular day, allows passengers to alight in order to visit a bazaar, a most famous one, during a two-hour stop by the Orient Express.  One passenger goes from stall to stall, into one bar or boutique after another; he haggles here and there for bargains to take back, and in this delightful process forgets all about the destination for which he had set out on this long, expensive, journey!  He forgets about Venice, the uniquely situated and wonderfully adorned city of history, culture and beauty, and loses himself in that smelly bazaar, distracted by little trinkets peddled by the hawkers there, and forgets all about, the train.  What a fool! 

People of God, so many Christians, so many Church members, are like that foolish traveller, allowing themselves to be distracted from seeking the Lord, by the pleasures and cares of life.  Others there are, who once were true servants of the Lord, but who -- over time – disastrously allowed themselves to lose their fervour and finally their faith.  We saw that in the life of King Solomon -- beloved of God -- as we heard in the first reading:

In Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream at night. God said, “Ask something of Me and I will give it to you.”  Solomon answered: “O LORD, my God, Give Your servant, an understanding heart to judge Your people and to distinguish right from wrong.   For who is able to govern this vast people of Yours?”

The LORD was pleased that Solomon made such a request.  However, King Solomon did not persevere in following the Lord’s statutes and commandments, becoming distracted from God by his success, by the loves of his life, and by the praises lavished on him:

When Solomon was old his wives turned his heart to strange gods, and his heart was not entirely with the LORD his God, as the heart of his father David had been.  

People of God, the gospel-treasure hidden in the Scriptures, the pearl at the centre of Church life, the delight of our Catholic conscience, is Jesus, the Word of God, now become our Saviour and our Glory, and Who ultimately will be our sublimely rich reward:

I rejoice in Your Word like one who discovers a great treasure. (Ps. 119:162 NLT)

It is for us to persevere as the prophet Micah (6:8) advises:

You have been told, O man, what is good, and what the LORD requires of you: only to do right and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God.

Finally, dear Catholic and Christian people, notice something that is in every one of our Sunday readings and which it is absolutely essential for us to know and avert to today; namely, the existence, the importance, and indeed the ultimately decisive reality of divinely distinguished GOOD as distinct from BAD, of RIGHT as distinct from WRONG:

O Lord my God, give Your servant an understanding heart to judge Your people and to distinguish right from wrong.

The Kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea.  When it is full, they haul it ashore and sit down to put what is good into buckets, what is bad they throw away.  Thus it will be at the end of the age.  The angels will separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.

Let us not, therefore, be put off by having to make decisions for what is right and good, against what is wrong and evil, for that which is good is an essential part of our Christian life and witness to Our Lord Jesus Christ in today’s adulterous world.  In Jesus we are being led on a journey of sanctification, and our destination is eternal glory as children of God. That is the hall-mark of a true Catholic and Christian.  But, if the Spirit is no longer able to move us in Jesus towards the Father, then we might end up like those nominal Catholics mentioned in our third parable today, bad fish not fit to be in the Church’s net.

16th Sunday Year A, 2023

 

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

 

Today, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in the parable of the tares, the darnel or, as we would call them, the weeds, sown in a field of good corn, we have Jesus’ answer to those who complain about, or accuse, Mother Church in order to justify their own lack of faith.  Their complaint, their accusation, frequently ends like this: “You don't need to go to Church in order to live a good life.”

Strangely enough, the supremely devout Pharisees of Jesus’ time were somewhat akin to some of our faithless Catholics today in the sense that both like to imagine an exclusive religious community into which only those considered holy should be admitted. One great grief the Pharisees had against Jesus was that He did not accept their oral traditions as true criteria for holiness, but demanded from His disciples a holiness greater than that of the Pharisees.  On the other hand, neither did He always reject individuals commonly regarded as sinners; indeed, He was, at times, to be found eating and drinking with them, and even called one of them to become His disciple!

Minutely observing Jesus’ behaviour, the Scribes and Pharisees were constantly repeating to themselves thoughts like to those of Simon, their fellow Pharisee who, having invited Jesus to a meal, found himself mentally criticising Jesus’ patient indulgence towards a reputedly sinful woman who had ‘thrust’ herself, uninvited, among their company:

This man, if He were a prophet, would know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching Him, for she is a sinner. (Luke 7:39)

Of course, we are not considering here those who openly disobey and seriously contemn the teaching of Mother Church or those who would openly lead astray her faithful by their bad example, for St. Paul -- whom we so often today fear to follow -- clearly instructed his converts to get rid of such people.  Here we are thinking of those who, like today’s Gospel weeds, hide themselves among the corn; outwardly seeming to be part of the living, growing, fruit-promising crop, but secretly, by their lives destroying it.

Bearing that in mind, let us listen again to Jesus’ answer to His own ancient adversaries and to His Church’s modern critics:

The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way.  The servants said to him, 'Do you want us then to go and gather them up?'  But he said, 'No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them.   Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.”'

That pseudo-wheat mentioned in Jesus’ parable was well known in those days and was considered a great nuisance.  It resembled wheat in appearance, but had no marketable value, nor was it of any use for eating.  The rabbis described it as “prostituted wheat”.  Sowing this stuff in someone’s field was a well-known crime: the Romans had a law against such actions, which said that “If you have sown tares into another’s field so that you might damage its productivity, not only can the master (of that field) act with force or covertly, but … also he can sue for damages.”   Jesus was telling a parable about events that were part and parcel of the lives of those listening to Him.

Notice, first of all, that this parable shows us that Jesus knows full that there would be weeds as well as wheat to be found in mother Church.  Indeed, in His parable, the problem is so urgent that the master’s workers say: “Should we root out these weeds at once?”  The master, however, knew more about the agricultural issues involved: for the roots of the tares were mixed together with those of the wheat, pull one up and you draw both. Therefore, he decided to delay the removal of the weeds: while the crop was growing to let both weeds and wheat remain together; however, when it is harvest time, the wheat were to be separated and put into the barn, while the tares would be bound into bundles for burning for, though they useless for food, they could be used as fuel for the fire.

What, therefore, is the teaching of Jesus for us today, People of God? 

First of all, there is an aspect of life in the Church that is not always sufficiently appreciated by Church members today but which is perfectly obvious to any present-day large-scale farmer, just as it was to our Gospel’s little field-owner watching his crop grow: namely, the fact that, just as weeds hinder the growth, the vitality, and the quality of a good crop, so also those of sinful life in the Church harm all who are in the Church.  And so, we need to bear that in mind today when we see Mother Church disfigured in so many ways, , scandals, shortage of vocations, and dwindling numbers of believers … the disfigurement we lament  is brought about most obviously by manifestly faithless or disobedient Catholics. Nevertheless, like the tares among the wheat in our Gospel reading, to some extent, the wrongs we ourselves may have done or the good we may have failed to promote or protect, has harmed that love of Jesus and the healthy atmosphere of Christian observance of God’s  commands for our well-being that Mother Church wants to promote.  Rather, therefore, than allowing ourselves to give way to so-called righteous indignation (which should really be recognized as self-righteous indignation) about this or that aspect  of the Church, we should pity her, love her all the more, because she is suffering for the sins of those she believed who are or should have been, her true children.

Sometimes in films and fiction, and even in the liberal talk of those wanting to show themselves in a popular light, we are presented with the picture of a jolly sinner, a loveable rogue, an attractive scoundrel; or again, with a Christian who understands all, sympathizes with and embraces all, condemning no sin for such great love of the sinner, and apparently having no convictions other than a desire to accommodate with whatever is with men.   In actual fact though, such sinners, rogues, and paragons, are the very wolves in sheep's clothing of which the Gospel assures us that they only tend to kill and destroy, for there is nothing lovable in condoned sin and indulged weakness.

People of God, we should not to allow ourselves to be over-scandalized, and most certainly not put-off Mother Church, because of the behaviour of individuals, be they every so highly placed, ever so many, ever so arrogant or despicable.  We must never forget those words of St. Peter in answer to Our Lord (John 6:67–68):

Jesus then said to the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?”   Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.

The second aspect to learn from today’s readings, is that we should never become despondent over Mother Church in her trials, no matter how powerful or popular her enemies may become; because in every parable of today’s Gospel God’s wheat was finally and successfully gathered in, and the minute mustard seed became a tree offering shelter and refuge, and the yeast ultimately permeated and leavened the chosen measure.

The corn sown by Jesus can grow only in the field which He, the Lord and Saviour, has chosen; any seed that falls by the wayside, among thorns or on the stony path, surely perishes in one way or another.  The seed of Jesus’ planting is His Word proclaimed authoritatively by the Apostles chosen by Jesus and subsequently sent out by Him to bring His Good News to the whole world, and such seed can only grow in Jesus' Church, watered by life-giving showers of His Most Holy Spirit.  Moreover, in that field there will always be true and faithful workers to be found, called and appointed by the Master to look after the seed He has sown; and through them, by His Spirit, He will always provide His People with the guidance and spiritual nourishment they need, nor He will ever fail to endow them with the grace and spiritual inspiration necessary for their supernatural fulfilment.  

People of God, we should always have a loving, personal, concern for and commitment to, Mother Church, and therefore we must always confidently hope and trust in Jesus, as we were encouraged in the first reading:

^Your might is the source of justice; Your mastery over all things makes You lenient to all; (and) You show Your might when the perfection of Your power is disbelieved.   But though You are master of might, You judge with clemency, and with much lenience You govern us; for power, whenever You will, attends You.

And we should always turn in our prayers and needs to His most Holy Spirit, for the Spirit has been given to guide and protect Mother Church and to form each and every one of us in Jesus, for the Father.  Remember and treasure the words of St. Paul in our reading:

In the same way, the Spirit too 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.  ^ And the One who searches hearts knows what is the intention of the Spirit, because He intercedes for the holy ones according to God’s will.                       

14th Sunday Year A, 2023

 

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

 

My dear People of God, in the first reading from the prophecy of Zechariah, who lived some 470 years before the coming of Our Lord, we heard him say:  

See, your King shall come; a  just Saviour is He, meek and riding on a colt, the foal of an ass, He shall proclaim peace.  

And how beautifully Our Lord fulfilled that prophecy, not only literally when He chose to ride into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday as we call it, but also by His words expressing the very essence of the mission given Him by His heavenly Father:

Come to Me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, 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 is light.

There He speaks not of the physical --commonly experienced -- rest, He speaks of a “rest for your souls”: a rest transcending all the terror and turmoil of this world, even all the secret anxieties and anguish of our minds and hearts.

How are the weary and burdened to find this unique and definitive rest?

Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek and humble of heart.

Jesus’ teaching, People of God, can be summarized as follows: all who are wearied and overwhelmed by troubles -- deserved or underserved -- should turn to Jesus for true rest,  rest for the soul: which does not allow any compromising or embitterment to soil such souls. This most wonderful rest is a rest from the assaults and depredations of sin.  However, it is a rest only for those who will take Jesus’ yoke upon themselves; it is only for those who, by putting their faith and trust in Him and striving to live according to His word, allow themselves to be gradually formed in the likeness of their Lord by His most Holy Spirit.

There are many people today who, far from wanting that gift of peace from Jesus, desire, above all, to feel the thrills of pleasure and excitement, and for such ends they resort to drugs, to glorying in whatever moments of pride, satisfaction, sensuality and pleasure, may come their way; thereby wearying and burdening themselves with yet greater troubles.  For, as those sought-after moments of excitement, pleasure, and exultation inevitably become less frequent and less satisfying, they find themselves more and more aware of a gnawing fear of that inevitable time when -- either through old age or suffering, or even through the dreadful curse of boredom -- weariness will cloud over their search for worldly fulfilment and they will find themselves empty, embittered, and alone, being forced to recognize that what they once had considered best and most desirable has finally shown itself to be both empty and unfulfilling.

And yet, my dear people, rest for your soul is not the greatest gift Jesus offers, nor is it the supreme secret He has to teach us.

You will remember that for the greater part of our Gospel reading Jesus was speaking to His Father, or to us about His Father.  To the weary and overburdened He offers rest first of all, indeed; but for those who, having become His disciples and, through faithful perseverance, have also begun to experience something of His rest, He puts before them the prospect of a far greater blessing yet to come.  For it is His supreme desire to lead His true disciples to a foretaste of the glory and splendour of their heavenly and eternal fulfilment in His Father’s presence:

All things have been delivered (entrusted) to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father.  Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.

People of God, “no one knows the Father except the Son”, that we can understand; but what follows is the supreme manifestation of the infinite love of God, namely, the fact that the Son chooses to reveal the Father to His faithful and persevering disciples.  In fact, He makes knowledge of the Father -- that is, a personal appreciation of, relationship with, and responsiveness to, His Father -- a sign or token of authentic discipleship.  True disciples of Jesus should know their heavenly Father in such a P/personal way because Jesus has taught us that, in order to pray as His disciples, we must learn to use and to mean the  word ‘Father’ as He would have us, in the prayer He gave us as the norm and model for all our prayers.

We can glimpse further along this road of true discipleship if we consider the words of the apostle Philip who once said to Jesus:

Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us. (John 14:8)

Philip was indeed orientated in the right direction, because he did long to see the Father; but Jesus was truly disappointed at the little progress Philip seemed to be making, and His disappointment was such that He suggested that Philip hardly knew Him at all:

Have I been with you so long, and yet you still do not know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, 'Show us the Father'?  Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me?   (John 14:9-10)

Jesus obviously considered that His whole life’s mission was to make the Father Personally known and loved; and, consequently, He found it both disappointing and frustrating that Philip who -- as a chosen apostle -- had both shared His presence and experienced His teaching so intimately and for so long , nevertheless, still seemed unable to recognize the Father in Jesus Himself.

People of God, this awareness of and love for the Father is what Jesus longs to see in us above all else; but it is a shared knowledge, shared by Jesus with us: it can never be our own possession, it is ours only in, with, and through Jesus.  Therefore, if we have no longing for the Father, no desire to see Him, no awareness of His beauty, wisdom, goodness and power, then we have not yet come to know Jesus.  Jesus’ gift of rest for the weary and the burdened is as nothing compared to that which His very being cries out to bestow: that is, knowledge of, and love for, His and our, your and my, Father.

Jesus knew full well that it was His Father Who sent His disciples to Him (John 6:44):

No one can come to Me unless the Father Who sent Me draws him.

and Jesus the Son longed to reciprocate.  He desired above all else to bring those the Father had entrusted to His care to recognize the One Whose call had led them unknowingly thus far; and in coming to recognize Him as Father, to love, praise and serve Him as true sons and daughters of His, with and in Jesus, by His Holy Spirit:

Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.

Philip, Jesus feared, apparently knowing so little of the Father, could not, as yet, have come to know Jesus Himself truly, despite such close proximity and intimate communion with Him.

People of God, how long have you been receiving the Eucharist?  Have you really come to know Jesus: not with mere book knowledge, not with a knowledge of ritual and prescriptions, but with a living, loving, personal knowledge?  If you want to know the answer, it is not hard to find.  Do you love, long to know more of, the Father?  If not, then no matter what facts or opinions you may know about Jesus, no matter how long you may have been attending Mass and receiving Communion or practicing devotions and doing good works, you still have not come to know Him anywhere near well enough.

Dear people, ask Jesus to help you come to know the Father.  There can be nothing more fulfilling and glorious than such knowledge of the all holy, all wise, totally beautiful and infinitely good God, because such knowledge, appreciation, and love, is, actually, the unshackled presence of the Spirit, the bond of love between Father and Son, dwelling and active within each of us.  That is the beginning, even here on earth, of heavenly life and beatitude.   (2023)