The Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time [A]
1 Kings 3:5,7-12  +  Romans 8:28-30  +  Matthew 13:44-52 [or Mt 13:44-46]
July 26, 2026

references to the Catechism of the Catholic Church cited for this Sunday by the Vatican’s Homiletic Directory:

CCC 407: cannot ignore wound of sin in discerning human situation
CCC 1777-1785: moral decision making in rapport with God’s will
CCC 1786-1789: seeking will of God in divine law in difficult circumstances
CCC 1038-1041: separation of good and evil at Judgment
CCC 1037: God predestines no one to hell

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Many years ago, an elderly lady in Scotland was so poor that the local townspeople had to support her.  Her son had gone off to America, and become very wealthy.  The neighbors often whispered to each other, “Why doesn’t John help his old mother?”

One day a neighbor suggested that she ask her son for help.  The mother defended her son, saying:  “John is thoughtful, but needs all his money.  He’s a good boy.  He writes to me every month, and with every letter he sends me postcards of America.”  The mother reached for her Bible, saying to her visitor, “I save all his letters and put the postcards in the Good Book.”

These “postcards” displayed various scenes from the United States.  One pictured Independence Hall in Philadelphia.  Others showed the White House, the U.S. Capitol, and the U.S. Treasury.  On the front of the “postcards” were portraits of famous Americans such as Benjamin Franklin, Ulysses S. Grant, Andrew Jackson, and Alexander Hamilton.  Between the leaves of this mother’s bible, these “postcards” were in fact American currency worth thousands of dollars.  She had a treasure but did not recognize it.

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Our lives are so crowded by activities and possessions that we often do not recognize the first of God’s great gifts to us:  the human soul.  People often don’t pay much attention to the soul because it’s unlike anything else in the world.  It’s not red and shiny, it doesn’t glitter, and it doesn’t draw attention to itself.  The greatness of the human soul is not its appearance.  The greatness of the human soul is its capacity.

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The human soul is capable of bearing God’s grace.  Grace is what allows us to share directly in the life of God.  But if we don’t prioritize the life of grace, our lives will lack the order needed to be a strong Christian.

About 1,500 years ago, St. Augustine cried out to God that our human souls are restless, until they rest in Him.  Many persons—even many Christians—spend years pursuing all sorts of material goods and pleasures.  However, if we were wise like King Solomon in today’s First Reading, we would learn from experience after experience that nothing finite can satisfy infinitely.

Closer to our day than St. Augustine, the British author C. S. Lewis wrote about the blessing of God’s gift of wisdom.  Through this divine wisdom, human persons can recognize—Lewis wrote—that “creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists.  A baby feels hunger,” Lewis explains, “[and] there is such a thing as food.  A duckling wants to swim, [and] there is such a thing as water.  …”  And so, Lewis concluded, “if I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

The human soul is great because it is capable of bearing God’s grace.  The human soul is a gift from God.  God infuses the soul within the human person at the moment of conception.  That soul, created in the Image and likeness of God, makes it possible for that person to receive God’s graces, each grace being a further gift from God.  However, on our part, each of us has two responsibilities.  Each of us must keep our soul in order, and each of us must seek out God’s graces.

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I’m sure that many of you watched the World Cup this summer.  Competitions at that level of professionalism are awe-inspiring.  We admire the talents of such athletes, although of course each victory represents years of tireless effort.  Athletes spend hour after hour in practice, perfecting their athletic abilities and their mental concentration.  Athletes don’t just hope that they’re going to achieve victory.  They work hard to allow their gifts to bear fruit.

The spiritual life requires from you a similar level of dedication.  God does not simply pour grace into your soul in the way that you pour gasoline into a car.  You are not a machine.  You, as a human person created in God’s Image and likeness, have to consciously make the decision to devote yourself each day to your spiritual life.  God means for you to do this prayer, penance, the practice of the virtues, and devout reception of the sacraments.  Our lives have to be oriented towards that treasure of grace—that pearl of great price—that share in God’s life.

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So this next week, as you spend time in prayer and reflection, keep these three points in mind.  First, your human soul is the first of God’s gifts to you.  Second, your human soul is a dwelling place for God’s grace.  Third, your human soul must be kept in order.

The first of these two are truths to be grateful for, and are reasons to give thanks to God, especially each time you participate in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.  The third point—devotion to prayer, penance, the virtues, and worthy reception of the sacraments—makes demands of us.  But that effort, when fortified by God’s grace, greatly deepens our share in the life of Jesus Christ.

“The Judgment of Solomon” from The Hours of Catherine of Cleves (c. 1440)
The Morgan Library & Museum, MS M.917/945, p. 53

The Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time [A]
Isaiah 55:10-11 + Romans 8:18-23 + Matthew 13:1-23 [or Matthew 13:1-9]
July 12, 2026

Jesus is a teacher.  But He differs from most teachers.  Most teachers prepare their students to leave them.  That’s such a basic fact that we take it for granted.  In a classroom setting, there is literally a “term” of study.  (The word “term” comes the Latin “terminus”, meaning “end”.)  The teacher knows that she has only a school year, or in college just a semester, to teach the students in her classroom.  So she teaches accordingly, with the end in mind.

Something similar is true with parents.  Parents, of course, are the first and best teachers of their children in the ways of Faith.  Parents also have to teach their children many practical lessons about how the world works, for both good and ill.  Parents have eighteen years during which to teach their children.  Maybe for a few more years after high school, parents can help teach their children less directly.

But in most cases, the day comes when the child starts living his or her own life.  For most, that start is their wedding day.  In Matthew 19, Jesus quotes the Book of Genesis in order to teach us that “‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’” [Mt 19:5].  Parents therefore parent their children with this leave-taking in mind.

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Jesus is a teacher.  But Jesus is a teacher for the sake of being a Savior.  Jesus is not our teacher for a term, or a semester, or even for a few decades of our youth.  Jesus teaches in order for us to follow him more closely, not less.  Jesus teaches us not in order for us to stand on our own two feet, but to abide in Him, as He taught at the Last Supper [Jn 15:1-17].

We need to keep that goal of Jesus in mind whenever we listen to Him teach.  During the three years before His death, Jesus engaged in public ministry:  both teaching and working miracles.  During these three years, Jesus taught in many different ways.  Jesus often taught in parables.  Parables engage the imagination with their use of symbols and images.

In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus does something that He rarely does.  He explains the parable that He has just taught.  Most likely, Jesus explains this parable because it is the heart of His teaching ministry.  This parable is about sowing the Word of God.

At the end of the Gospel Reading, Jesus explains something that helps us apply this parable to our own lives.  He says that “the seed sown on rich soil” is “the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit”.  The “seed sown on rich soil” is the goal that Jesus is striving for in everything He does.  The “seed sown on rich soil” is what He spoke about about His Last Supper:  Jesus abiding within your life.  Jesus explains what makes for “seed sown on rich soil”.  The “seed sown on rich soil” is “the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit”.  Jesus is pointing your attention to three actions that you need to be carry out.

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Focus first on what to “hear the word” means and demands.  It demands that we know exactly what “word” Jesus is speaking about.  What “word” is this?

St. John the Evangelist tells us in the first chapter of his Gospel account.  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … / And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth”…. / And from his fulness have we all received, grace upon grace.” [Jn 1:1,14,16]

The Word is Jesus.  The Word is not a book.  The Word is a divine Person:  the Second Person of the Trinity.  The Word of God is God the Son.  The Father speaks through His divine Word, Who is His Son.

This divine Word speaks to man by different means.  The Word of God speaks to us through Sacred Scripture.  Yet St. John, who says in the very first verse of his Gospel that Jesus is the Word, says something else that’s key in the very last verse.  In the very last verse of St. John’s account of the Gospel, he writes this:  “There are also many other things that Jesus did, / but if these were to be described individually, / I do not think the whole world would contain the books that would be written” [Jn 21:25].

This dovetails with what St. Paul wrote in his Second Letter to the Thessalonians.  St. Paul wrote about the Church handing down the Word of God, exhorting the Thessalonians in these words:  “brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by our letter” [2 Thess 2:15].  For 2000 years, the Church has handed down the Word of God by “word of mouth” and by “letter”:  through Tradition and Scripture.  Our part as Christians is to take the time to sit ourselves down to hear the Word of God, both through Scripture and Tradition.

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So once we have heard the Word of God, we have to understand it.  Despite what some claim, the Bible does not explain itself.  Nor does praying to the Holy Spirit for enlightenment guarantee a truthful understanding of Scripture.  That’s proved by the existence of thousands of Christian denominations with contradictory beliefs.

Some 2000 years ago, Jesus gave His Church a special gift so that the Church could authentically understand the Word of God.  Jesus gave to His Church apostles, who were entrusted with teaching authority.  Through apostolic succession, bishops have continued to carry out that authority for generation after generation.  The word “bishop” literally means “overseer” or “supervisor”, and the Church’s teaching ministry is one area where bishops oversee.  They don’t carry out all of the Church’s teaching ministry.  But they oversee the teaching carried out by others within the Church.  That overseeing includes stepping in to make correction when it’s needed.

Now in our day and age we are very blessed, both with devoted catechists, and with insightful teaching resources.  The Church and our Faith are some 2000 years old, so it does not matter how old you are:  there’s more to learn about the Faith!  The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible is the best study bible available today, and the same series also offers individual books of the bible for reading and study.

But there are also online resources that are faithful means of understanding the Word of God.  Father Mike Schmitz, the Newman Center chaplain at the University of Minnesota in Duluth.  He’s well known online for hosting the Bible in a Year as well as the Catechism in a Year.  Both are available as podcasts and also on YouTube.  Another online resource is a priest from Austria, Fr. Johannes Schwarz.  He has a series of three-minute illustrated videos on YouTube, the series being called simply “3 Minute Catechism”.

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So that brings us to the third action that Jesus teaches us to carry out.  It’s not enough to hear the Word of God, and it’s not enough to understand it.  You also must bear fruit.  By bearing fruit, Christ abides in us, we abide in Christ, and we have hope for abiding in God’s Presence forever in Heaven.

We bear fruit when we allow the Word of God to guide us in our vocations.  We bear fruit when we carry out the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy in our parish and diocese.  During His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches us about the necessity for us to hear Him, understand Him, and to bear fruit:  “You will know them by their fruits.  …  So, every sound tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears evil fruit.  A sound tree cannot bear evil fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.  Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.  Thus you will know them by their fruits.” [Mt 7:16,17-20]

In the Eucharist, the Word of God becomes flesh.  The Word becomes Flesh and dwells among us on the altar, but He also invites us to receive Him in order for us to be strengthened.  The strength of the Eucharist makes it possible for the Word of God to become flesh within us and to bear abundant fruit.