The Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time [A]
Isaiah 55:10-11  +  Romans 8:18-23  +  Matthew 13:1-23

If there’s one part of Sunday Mass that gets overlooked, it is the Gospel Acclamation.  This sentence or two that’s sung before the Gospel Reading, in between the Alleluia being sung, is very brief.  Because it occurs when people are still standing up and finding their place in the missalette, its words often escape our notice.  But as a way to start reflecting upon today’s Gospel Reading, consider what today’s Gospel Acclamation declares.

“The seed is the word of God, Christ is the sower.”

That certainly helps us understand the parable that Jesus preaches in today’s Gospel passage.  Jesus, through this parable, is describing Himself and His mission on earth.  But at the same time, this Gospel Acclamation raises a question.

Since Jesus is God, and since God is all-powerful and all-knowing, why is Jesus such a bad farmer?  According to the parable, on this occasion, his batting average was only .250.  Jesus sowed seed on a path and it was eaten by birds, He sowed seed on rocky ground where the soil had no depth, and He sowed seed where there were thorns that choked what actually did grow.  Only the last section grew to abundance.

So is Jesus a bad farmer?  Our instincts, of course, tell us that the answer is “No.  Jesus is not a bad farmer.”  But if that’s the case, how do we explain the fact that Jesus’ labor as a sower failed three times more often than it succeeded?

The short answer is that this parable is not chiefly about the sower.  The chief focus of this parable is the variety among the sections of soil where the seed is sown.  This focus is apparent in the explanation that Jesus gives at the end of today’s Gospel passage.  In the last five verses of the passage, Jesus does not spend any time describing either the sower or the seed.  Instead, He explains what was wrong with those first three sections of soil, in contrast to the fourth.

So while it’s helpful to learn from the Gospel Acclamation that the “seed is the word of God,” and that “Christ is the sower”, we have to give our chief focus to what Jesus tells us about these four sections of soil.

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If we wanted to complete today’s Gospel Acclamation by identifying what exactly soil symbolizes in this parable, then we would acclaim:  “The seed is the word of God, Christ is the sower, and the soil is the human heart.”

The soil is the human heart.  Jesus alludes to this in His explanation of the first bad section of soil:  “The seed sown on the path is the one who hears the word of the kingdom without understanding it, and the evil one comes and steals away what was sown in his heart.”  That explanation builds upon what Jesus had said just a few moments earlier, when answering His disciples’ question about why Jesus spoke in parables.  Jesus quoted the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, who lamented:  “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 hearts and be converted, and I heal them” [see Isaiah 6:10].

This is the center of today’s Gospel passage:  not its center in the sense of its midpoint, but in the sense of being the essence of what Jesus wants you to take away from today’s Gospel Reading.  Jesus’ quotation of Isaiah answers not only the question of why Jesus preaches in parables.  Jesus’ quotation of Isaiah also answers the question of whether Jesus is a bad farmer.

Why does Jesus sow seed on the impenetrable path, on rocky ground, and on ground covered with thorns?  One way to reach the answer is to be clear about the difference between the human heart and physical soil.  If physical soil is covered with thorns, studded with rocks, or hardened into a path, the physical soil cannot change the situation.  But the human heart, into which Jesus sows the seed of God’s Word, is different.

Jesus sows the seed of God’s Word into human hearts that are inhospitable because the human persons who bear those hearts have made their hearts like that.  But those same human persons, with the help of God’s grace, can clear away the thorns, dig up and haul off the rocks, and plow under the path so that their hearts will be capable of bearing abundant harvests.

To put it another way, Jesus sows seed on the impenetrable path, on rocky ground, and on ground covered with thorns because He loves each of us more than we love ourselves.  We choose to be those persons described by the prophet Isaiah.  We choose to be those persons who stop their ears, close their eyes, and refuse to understand with their hearts.  But Jesus wants us to see, to hear, to understand, to be converted, and to be healed.

To put it yet another way, Jesus sows prodigally because He loves each of us more than we love ourselves.  Jesus speaks to this point in His Sermon on the Mount:

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.  For if you love those who love you, what reward have you?  Do not even the tax collectors do the same?  …  You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” [Matthew 5:44-46,48].

As God makes the sun to rise on the evil and the good; as He sends rain upon the just and the unjust; so also He sows seed into hospitable and inhospitable hearts, hoping that the inhospitable will co-operate with His grace.

Without God’s grace, our hearts are the impenetrable path, the rocky soil, and the soil covered with thorns because we do not love as God loves.  But strengthened by His grace, we can love as He loves.  God gives us that grace through all of the sacraments, but especially through the Sacrament of Confession.

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Unfortunately, the Sacrament of Confession is often not appreciated fully.  We know that through Confession, God forgives our sins.  But it’s often overlooked that Confession confers other graces in addition to the grace of forgiveness.

The Catechism lists all the graces that God gives to the penitent in Confession.  Yet maybe the most important among them is “an increase of spiritual strength for the Christian battle” [CCC 1496].  This grace especially is why we ought to make a sacramental confession at least once a month, even if we don’t have any mortal sins to confess, but only venial sins.

So the Catechism explains that one of the graces that God gives in Confession is “an increase of spiritual strength for the Christian battle”.  But what is one of hardest parts of “the Christian battle” if not forgiving those who have hurt you?  One of the graces that we receive through Confession strengthens us to forgive in a Christ-like manner those who have wronged us.

The person who devoutly receives the Sacrament of Confession receives along with absolution the grace that strengthens one to forgive others in the same way that Jesus forgave on the Cross.  Too often, when we’re faced with the need to forgive someone, we choose to forgive, but only half-heartedly.  But God wants us to forgive those who have wronged us not half-heartedly, but whole-heartedly:  in fact, with the sort of love that Jesus gave from His Sacred Heart to those who crucified Him.  The Sacrament of Confession strengthens us with that kind of love, so that we can show that kind of love to others.  When we do this, our hearts become like the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and are ready to bear God’s harvest one hundred-fold.

The Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time [A]
Zechariah 9:9-10  +  Romans 8:9,11-13  +  Matthew 11:25-30

“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.”

There are three ways in which the Lord Jesus wants to give us rest.  Each of these three types of rest corresponds to a certain type of labor and burden.

First off, there are those who labor and are burdened like Martha in the famous Gospel passage about Jesus visiting the home of the sisters Martha and Mary.  Do you remember this story?  When Jesus arrives, Mary sits at the feet of Jesus, listening attentively to His every word.

When Martha sees this, she complains, since Martha is tending to the practical matters of hospitality.  We might have sympathy for Martha and her complaints, because—as we all know—practical matters have to be tended to.  The dining room table does not set itself.  After all, it’s not like Martha was off watching cat videos on YouTube while Jesus spoke to Mary.

Nonetheless, Jesus does criticize Martha, and at the same time commends Mary for choosing what He calls “the better part”.  As is often the case with Sacred Scripture, we have to engage in some measure of speculation.  If we’re tempted to feel sympathy for Martha when Jesus criticizes Martha, we need to remember that on this occasion, as in all things, Jesus knows more about the situation than we do.

We might imagine, for example, that perhaps the sisters Martha and Mary had decided to split the preparations for Jesus’ visit 50/50.  But Mary did her share of the preparations in the morning, while Martha misspent her time that morning (sort of like the parable of the ten virgins waiting for the bridegroom:  only five kept their lamps lit).  So Mary was ready to receive Jesus when He arrived.  But at that point, Martha’s preparations had to be done while ignoring the presence of Jesus in her home.

Every one of us has labors in this world, but we don’t always tend to them in a prudent manner.  Sometimes we even take unnecessary labors upon our shoulders.  Those unnecessary labors, as well as the necessary labors that we don’t tend to prudently, make us like Martha:  we are not ready to receive the Lord when He wants to enter under our roof to give us a measure of rest.

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The second type of labor, and the second type of rest, are very different from the first.  The first type of labor and rest has to do with stopping our worldly activity in order to enter into the presence of the Lord in prayer.  However, once we do enter into prayer, there’s a different challenge that we face.

You know, that famous Gospel passage about Jesus visiting the home of Martha and Mary:  it ends with Jesus’ criticism of Martha, and His commendation of Mary for choosing “the better part”.  The passage does not continue.  We never learn how Martha responded to Jesus’ criticism.  Did she complain to Jesus that His criticism was unfair?  Or did she humbly accept Jesus’ criticism and join Mary, sitting at the Lord’s feet?  We’re not told.

However, imagine what that would have looked like as Martha and Mary sat at the feet of Jesus.  It’s easy to imagine that Martha, sitting at the feet of Jesus, would have continually interrupted Jesus.  “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they….”  “Jesus, would you send your grace upon my nephew?  He’s having trouble finding work.”  “Why yes, Martha, I’d be happy to bless your nephew.  Blessed are the pure of heart, for they….”  “Oh, Jesus, would you send some grace upon my left knee?  It’s been acting up again.”  “Certainly, Martha, I’d be happy to bless your left knee.  Blessed are the silent, for they shall hear the Word of God.”

The point is that being in the presence of Jesus is not enough.  We also have to be present to Jesus:  that is, listening for Him to speak to us.  It’s not enough to rest from worldly labors to sit at His feet.  We also have to rest from talking at Jesus, and instead listen for Him to speak.

That’s not to say that there’s no place in prayer for speaking to Jesus.  That’s why we teach our children and grandchildren the Church’s treasury of prayers, beginning with the Sign of the Cross, the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Glory Be.  The older that our children and grandchildren get, the more prayers we teach them, so that they have committed to memory a wealth of prayers to call on.  This type of prayer, along with prayers that we voice to God spontaneously from our heart in our own words, is called “vocal prayer”.  In the life of every Christian, these vocal prayers are the start of prayer.  But they’re not the end goal.

There’s a second stage to prayer, which follows and builds upon vocal prayer.  It’s simply called meditation.  Meditation consists of using one’s imagination and reason to reflect upon the Mysteries of our Faith, such as are stated in the Creed that we profess each Sunday.  For example, in the prayer of meditation, a Christian might picture the scene of the Agony in the Garden.  Or the Christian might ponder what it means for Jesus Christ to be both, at the same time, fully God and fully man.

This second stage of prayer—the prayer of meditation—is important for the Christian to cultivate.  So is the first stage of vocal prayer.  However, the first stage and the second stage are designed to lead to the third stage of prayer:  the best part of prayer, where instead of speaking to God, one listens for God, resting in His Presence.

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So the first type of labor is our labor in the world.  Jesus calls us on occasion from this labor to rest in His Presence in prayer.  But part of prayer is itself a labor:  the work of vocal prayer and meditation.  After the labor of talking to Jesus in prayer, we need to rest more deeply in His Presence by listening for Him to speak.

Even deeper is the third type of rest to which Jesus calls us:  that is, eternal rest.  Life on earth, as we hear in the Book of Ecclesiastes, is full of toil and labor.  We don’t know how many days we will have on this earth to labor for the Lord.

Fr. Reinhard Eck, the long-time pastor of St. Joseph’s in Andale, fostered a beautiful custom at parish funerals.  Following the funeral Mass, a procession would make its way to the cemetery.  While the procession continued towards the gravesite, Father Eck would offer many prayers.  One of these prayers he would preface by saying, “For the person among us who will be the next to die.  Hail Mary, full of grace….”

You could always tell who were visitors to the parish, because the look on their faces told you that they were taken aback by these words.  They thought that the funeral services were all about the death of the dearly departed, not about their own death.

But living out our Catholic Faith on this earth is all about preparing for the hour of our death.  Whether we lived the Faith while on earth has everything to do with whether we will—on the other side of the doorway of death—experience eternal rest:  the end goal of Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel passage.  That’s why at the end of the graveside service, the Church prays three times for this lasting rest:

“Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord.”

“And let perpetual light shine upon her.”

“May she rest in peace.”

“May her soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.  Amen.”

Many Catholics are not aware that the Church considers certain persons from the pages of the Old Testament to be saints.  Each of these saints has a feast day, although sadly, these feast days for some reason are not celebrated at Holy Mass.

Nonetheless, these saints and their feast days are included in one of the Church’s liturgical books, titled the Roman Martyrology.  In the pages of this book, we read that the feast of Saint Jeremiah is May 1^st.  His entry in the Roman Martyrology reads as follows:

Commemoration of Saint Jeremiah, prophet, who, in the time of Joiakim and Zedekiah, kings of Judah, foretelling the destruction of the Holy City and the deportation of the people, suffered many persecutions; for this reason the Church saw in him the figure of the suffering Christ.  He also foretold the fulfilment of the new and everlasting Covenant in Jesus Christ, by which the almighty Father would write his law in the depths of the hearts of the children of Israel, so that he would be their God and they would be his people.

The conclusion of this entry is an allusion to a verse from one of the two Old Testament books that St. Jeremiah wrote.  We hear in the Book of Jeremiah, Chapter 31, Verse 33:  “… this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord:  I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

That covenant that Jeremiah prophesied about was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost, when Christ’s Church was born.  That’s the Church which, in a few minutes, Jeremiah will enter through the Sacrament of Baptism.

Every member of Christ’s Church bears a share in the Church’s three-fold mission, continuing Christ’s work on earth.  Every member of the Church is responsible for carrying out, in his or her day and age, the mission of the priest, the mission of the prophet, and the mission of the shepherd king.

Today, the newly baptized Jeremiah will take upon himself the mission of being a priest, who like Jesus and through the grace of Jesus, offers self-sacrifice each day.  Today Jeremiah will take on the mission of being a prophet—like his patron saint—who in charity speaks the truth in season and out of season, when convenient and when inconvenient.  And today Jeremiah will take on the mission of the shepherd king, growing each day—we pray—in wisdom and grace3 like the Christ Child, becoming ready for a life of service through whichever vocation God chooses for him upon this earth.

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Tuesday of the 7th Week in Ordinary Time
Mark 9:30-37

For they had been discussing among themselves on the way who was the greatest.

Today’s Gospel passage points our attention back to one of the first lessons of the liturgical year.  This lesson is expressed in the saying, “The wood of the crib is the wood of the cross.”  Another way of expressing the same truth is to say that “the only reason Jesus was born into this world was to die to this world”, or perhaps rather, “for this world”.  We might be tempted at Christmastime to think only of the innocence of the infant Christ, without connecting this innocence to the purity of the Lamb who was slain on Calvary.

It might seem strange for today’s Gospel passage to meander from Jesus’ prediction of His Passion and Death at the passage’s beginning to His holding up a child for emulation at its end.  But this beginning and end are connected by Jesus Himself.

It is because Jesus, as a divine person, is completely innocent (indeed more so than any child) that He becomes a fitting sacrifice on Calvary.  We may think of innocence as a goal of our spiritual life because it prepares us to be fit for Heaven.  Perhaps greater spiritual growth might come from seeing innocence as preparing us for a share in Jesus’ Passion during our earthly life.

Tuesday of the Seventh Week in Ordinary Time
Mark 9:30-37

For they had been discussing among themselves on the way who was the greatest.

Today’s Gospel passage points our attention back to one of the first lessons of the liturgical year.  This lesson is expressed in the saying, “The wood of the crib is the wood of the cross.”  Another way of expressing the same truth is to say that “the only reason Jesus was born into this world was to die to this world”, or perhaps rather, “for this world”.  We might be tempted at Christmastime to think only of the innocence of the infant Christ, without connecting this innocence to the purity of the Lamb who was slain on Calvary.

It might seem strange for today’s Gospel passage to meander from Jesus’ prediction of His Passion and Death at the passage’s beginning to His holding up a child for emulation at its end.  But this beginning and end are connected by Jesus Himself.

It is because Jesus, as a divine person, is completely innocent (indeed more so than any child) that He becomes a fitting sacrifice on Calvary.  We may think of innocence as a goal of our spiritual life because it prepares us to be fit for Heaven.  Perhaps greater spiritual growth might come from seeing innocence as preparing us for a share in Jesus’ Passion during our earthly life.

Monday of the 7th Week in Ordinary Time
Mark 9:14-29

… they saw a large crowd around them and scribes arguing with them.

Today’s Gospel scene takes place immediately after the Transfiguration.  There on Mount Tabor Peter had wanted to stay, saying, “Master, it is good for us to be here.  Let us make three booths….”  But Jesus teaches Peter that it was not for transfiguration that He came into this world.  In today’s Gospel passage Jesus descends the mountain and enters into conflict between His disciples and the scribes, resuming the ministry for which He became Flesh and dwelt among us.

To His disciples, who were unable to drive out the mute spirit, He expresses disappointment at their lack of faith and rhetorically asks, “How long will I be with you?  How long will I endure you?”  But Jesus’ criticism on this occasion is not limited to His own disciples.  When the father of the possessed son says to Jesus, “If you can do anything… help us.”  To this, the Lord cries out, “If you can!”

Then Jesus speaks to the heart of the matter:  the lack of faith.  He had moments before described His disciples as a “faithless generation”.  Now He says to the father, “Everything is possible to one who has faith.”  But to this, the father offers an intriguing rejoinder:  “I do believe, help my unbelief.”  Jesus must have thought him sincere since He did help him.  But perhaps today we could pray over this father’s words, make them our own in prayer, and root all of the petitions that we make today in these words.  This father recognizes that in this fallen world, faith is always needed.  One cannot outgrow the need for faith.

Monday of the Seventh Week in Ordinary Time
Mark 9:14-29

… they saw a large crowd around them and scribes arguing with them.

Today’s Gospel scene takes place immediately after the Transfiguration.  There on Mount Tabor Peter had wanted to stay, saying, “Master, it is good for us to be here.  Let us make three booths….”  But Jesus teaches Peter that it was not for transfiguration that He came into this world.  In today’s Gospel passage Jesus descends the mountain and enters into conflict between His disciples and the scribes, resuming the ministry for which He became Flesh and dwelt among us.

To His disciples, who were unable to drive out the mute spirit, He expresses disappointment at their lack of faith and rhetorically asks, “How long will I be with you?  How long will I endure you?”  But Jesus’ criticism on this occasion is not limited to His own disciples.  When the father of the possessed son says to Jesus, “If you can do anything… help us.”  To this, the Lord cries out, “If you can!”

Then Jesus speaks to the heart of the matter:  the lack of faith.  He had moments before described His disciples as a “faithless generation”.  Now He says to the father, “Everything is possible to one who has faith.”  But to this, the father offers an intriguing rejoinder:  “I do believe, help my unbelief.”  Jesus must have thought him sincere since He did help him.  But perhaps today we could pray over this father’s words, make them our own in prayer, and root all of the petitions that we make today in these words.  This father recognizes that in this fallen world, faith is always needed.  One cannot outgrow the need for faith.