The Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time [A]
Sirach 27:30—28:7  +  Romans 14:7-9  +  Matthew 18:21-35

Pride and anger have something in common.  Both can be either good or evil.

Take pride, for example.  A student ought to take pride in a report card with very good grades.  A sports team ought to take pride in winning a championship.  A farmer ought to take pride in completing the season’s harvest.  All of these forms of pride are morally good, and deserved, even though each demands qualification.  Each requires the exercise of the virtue of prudence.

After all, while the student can rightly take pride in his hard work and his intelligence, where did the capacity for hard work and intelligence come from?  He was given those gifts—not to mention the gift of life itself—from his parents in cooperation with God’s providence.  Furthermore, the student likely has other people as well, such as teachers, whom he needs to recognize as helping him if he’s going to take pride in his academic accomplishments.  That’s why every morally upright act of pride demands that it not be completely self-centered, but instead that it gives credit to others where credit is due.  Likewise for the athlete, the farmer, the businessman, the politician, the parent, the spouse, and so on.

Pride can be exercised in a morally upright way, but pride can also be a terrible sin and even a horrible vice when the human person is lacking in prudence and humility.  Something very similar is true of anger.  Anger can be exercised in a morally upright way.  But anger can also be a terrible sin, and even a horrible vice.  Today’s Scripture passages show us the dark underside of the sin and vice of anger.

However, before reflecting on today’s Scripture passages, we ought to consider a passage that shows us anger in a good light:  in the light of Jesus Christ.  All four of the Gospel accounts record Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple in Jerusalem.  He overturns the money changers’ tables.  He makes a whip of cords, and drives out both those selling animals, and the money changers.  And He declares:  “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.’”[1]

The fact that all four evangelists recorded this event in their Gospel accounts drives home an important truth:  that anger can be both morally good, and even holy.  However, like with pride, the virtue of prudence has to guide a person’s anger.  If prudence and humility do not guide a person’s anger, the anger becomes first sinful, and then a vice:  the type of anger we hear about in today’s Scripture passages.

“Wrath and anger are hateful things, yet the sinner hugs them tight.”  That opening sentence of today’s First Reading points to one of the paradoxes of the sin and vice of anger.  Wrath and sinful anger are so harmful to the person who holds them inside, and yet there can be a harmful compulsion to hold on to them:  or in the words of Sirach, to hug them tight.  But why would anyone hug tight, next to oneself, things that are hateful?  It makes no sense.

You might as well drive to the nearest pet store and purchase two porcupines.  Take them home.  Name one of the porcupines “Wrath”, and the other porcupine “Anger”.  Then every night before you go to sleep, take your porcupines in your arms and hug them tight.  Give them a great big hug.  That would make more sense than hugging tight the sin of anger and the vice of wrath.  It would make more sense because the porcupines would only harm your body, while the sin of anger and the vice of wrath harm your soul, and place your soul in jeopardy of eternal punishment.

So, if anger can be either righteous or sinful—virtuous or vicious—the question is:  what makes the difference?

The key difference is the object.  What is the object of one’s anger?  What are you angry at?  What are you angry about?

There are many people running around in the world who don’t know what they’re angry about, which results in them being angry at everything, and venting their anger at whatever or whoever happens to be in front of them.  But for anger ever to be righteous—for anger ever to be morally good—there has to be a clear object of one’s anger, and there has to be a just reason for focusing one’s anger at that object.  In the case of the Cleansing of the Temple, the object of Jesus’ anger was the money changers and those selling animals in the Temple.  He had a just reason for being angry at them because they were profaning God’s Temple, and He took action against those who were doing wrong.

Of course, there are times in this world here below when it’s impossible to direct one’s anger at the true and just object of one’s anger.  Imagine, for example, parents whose high school daughter is killed in a car accident by a drunk driver.  The tragic situation is made even more difficult because the drunk driver was also killed in the accident, meaning that the parents have no way of seeking justice in a courtroom against the man who killed their daughter.  The parents do not have their daughter.  They do not have the means to seek justice on this earth.  What can they do in the face of their anger?

Remember that when Jesus was asked by a Pharisee which commandment is the greatest, Jesus named two commandments, which sum up His entire Gospel:  love God with your whole heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.[2]  Whenever you’re at a moral or spiritual impasse, that reminds you how to proceed.

For example, in the case of the parents whose daughter was killed, although they are unable to seek justice in the courtroom, they can love their neighbor by becoming advocates for those suffering as they have, or for those at risk by advocating in a preventive manner.  In these sorts of ways, their anger can become productive and life-giving.

Yet in addition to loving their neighbors, the grieving parents need even more to love God, asking for a share in His strength and wisdom.  When someone with a just reason for being angry has no way of seeking justice, it’s important for that person to ask God in prayer for guidance about the best way to direct one’s anger.

Of course, even when someone with just anger does have the means to address directly the object of his anger, it’s important to take one’s anger to God in prayer.  Through prayer and the grace of the sacraments, God can increase within the justly angry person the virtues of prudence and humility, so that he can address the object of his anger in the most holy way possible.

However, today’s Gospel passage suggests that God might direct the angry person in a different direction:  namely, to the exercise of mercy.  The king in today’s parable clearly symbolizes God the Father, who mercifully forgives sins.  It’s because the king had forgiven the servant who owed him a huge amount that the king expected that servant to “pay it forward”, to use a modern expression.  When the servant does the opposite, the king justly grows angry, and “in anger… handed him over to the torturers until he should pay back the whole debt.”  Then, Jesus, to drive home the symbolism of the parable, explains:  “So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart.”

So at the beginning of the parable, the king shows mercy, but at the end, he acts out of a just anger towards the servant who refused to show mercy to a fellow servant.  Jesus does not explain the punishment of the servant who refused to imitate his king:  does this punishment symbolize the eternal pains of Hell, or the temporal punishment of Purgatory, or maybe simply earthly punishment that has to be suffered in order to come to one’s senses?  Jesus does not tell us.

But the point of the parable is clear.  The point of the parable mirrors one of the lines of the only spoken prayer that Jesus taught.  Often we pray the Our Father too rapidly, and don’t think about the meaning of each phrase.  Each time we pray the Our Father, we need to be conscious of what we’re saying when we speak these words:  “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us”.  That tiny word “as” in the middle of the sentence is incredibly important, because we’re asking God the Father to forgive us “as” we forgive those who sin against us.  In other words, if we do not forgive our neighbor, then we’re telling God the Father not to forgive us, and if God the Father does not forgive us, then our punishment will certainly be without end.

In this world here below, there are times when we’re justifiably angry, and justified in seeking justice.  If we never sought justice in this world, this world would be filled with chaos.  But if we never extended mercy, this world would be filled with persons who never become like God the Father.  Justice can bring us a measure of peace on earth.  But only Divine Mercy can bring us to eternal peace in Heaven.  If you’ve never prayed the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, take the time to learn about it, and to begin praying it.  While sinful anger and wrath are hateful things, Divine Mercy is a godly thing.  The sinner hugs anger and wrath tight to himself.  Through Divine Mercy, God hugs the sinner tight to Himself.

[1]  Luke 19:46; cf. Isaiah 56:7 and Jeremiah 7:11.

[2] Matthew 22:35-40.

Click HERE to learn how to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet.

The Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time [A]
I Kings 3:5,7-12  +  Romans 8:28-30  +  Matthew 13:44-52

Saints are an important part of our lives as Catholics.  We pray to a patron saint for a particular need.  We name our children after saints.  We celebrate, throughout the year, the feasts of saints who inspire us by their struggles as much as by their accomplishments.

If you were to look online at what’s called the “General Roman Calendar”, you’d see the list of saints whose feasts are celebrated at Holy Mass throughout the world.  However, the list of saints on the General Roman Calendar is very selective.  There are thousands and thousands of canonized saints, but only 365 days in the average year.  So most of the Church’s canonized saints do not have their feasts celebrated at Holy Mass.

Fortunately, there is a resource that gives us the names, feast days, and brief biographies of the vast majority of the Church’s official saints.  It’s called the Roman Martyrology, and although a printed copy is very expensive, it costs nothing at all to look through it online.

We might be inclined to think that the Church’s official saints lived only during the two thousand years of the Church’s history-to-date, from Pentecost onwards.  Of course, we would have to admit that there are several saints mentioned in the New Testament who died before Jesus’ death, such as St. Joseph, St. John the Baptist, and Sts. Simeon and Anna.  But what about holy men and women who died before the birth of Jesus Christ?

Within the pages of the Roman Martyrology are found the feast days of thirty-three saints from the pages of the Old Testament.  These saints’ feasts are not celebrated at Holy Mass, but their feasts are commemorated during the Divine Office.[1]  Many of them are the prophets after whom the prophetic books of the Old Testament are named:  for example, the feast day of Saint Isaiah is May 9^th, and the feast day of St. Ezekiel is July 23^rd.  Other saints of the Old Testament are key figures from the Pentateuch—the first five books of the Bible—such as St. Moses, whose feast day is September 4^th, and St. Abraham, whose feast day is October 9^th.

However, there’s one group of Old Testament figures that’s not highly represented among the Old Testament saints, and that’s the Kings of Israel.  Among the thirty-three Old Testament saints, the only king is Saint David, whose feast day is December 29^th.  We might speculate about why only one Old Testament king is a saint, and if we were to speculate about this question, we might do so by looking at the example of Saint David’s successor, his son Solomon, who is at the center of this Sunday’s First Reading.

+     +     +

We hear about the life of Solomon in the First Book of Kings.[2]  In the first two chapters, King David dies, and his son Solomon becomes King of Israel.  This Sunday’s First Reading is taken from Chapter 3, and the newly crowned King Solomon is unsure about how to rule his kingdom.  But God decides to help him out by appearing to him in a dream.

Solomon had inherited great wealth and power from his father.  But he was smart enough to know that there’s a big difference between what you inherit and what you earn by your own effort.  Solomon had to be humble to speak to the Lord as he did.  The Lord had plainly stated:  “Whatever you ask I shall give you.”  Not only had David given Solomon his wealth, his power, and his crown.  Now the Lord God Himself offered Solomon a blank check:  “Whatever you ask I shall give you.”

Solomon must have been humble to respond as he did.  Solomon admitted, “I am a mere youth, not knowing at all how to act. … Give your servant, therefore, an understanding heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong.”

“The Lord was pleased that Solomon made this request.  So God said to him:  ‘Because you have asked for this—not for a long life for yourself, nor for riches, nor for the life of your enemies, but for understanding so that you may know what is right—I do as you requested.  I give you a heart so wise and understanding that there has never been anyone like you up to now, and after you there will come no one to equal you.’”

From this exchange between the Lord and Solomon, there are several points we might reflect upon.  For example, we might reflect upon the things that Solomon chose not to ask for—such as a long life, riches, or victory over enemies—because he recognized their relative unimportance.

Instead, we might reflect upon the generosity of the Lord:  that is, how after Solomon asked for understanding, the Lord gave him not only understanding, but wisdom as well.  These two gifts are not the same thing.  Understanding and wisdom are two separate Gifts of the Holy Spirit.[3]  The Lord’s response to Solomon’s request shows us how generous God is when we approach Him with humility.

However, while you might want later on to reflect upon the gifts that Solomon did not request, and upon the gift God gave which Solomon had not requested, consider right now a different point of reflection.  Consider why King Solomon is not a saint, as his father King David is.

+     +     +

The most obvious explanation of why King Solomon is not a saint is found in Scripture.  God had bestowed great wisdom upon Solomon.  His wisdom was so great, in fact, that four books of the Old Testament bear the name of Solomon as author:  Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, and the Book of Wisdom.  Yet Solomon was more than a man of words.  He stands in Jewish history as the builder of the first Jewish Temple.

However, in spite of God’s gifts to him, in the end, Solomon gave himself over to gross idolatry, among other sins against the Commandments.  In Chapter 11 of the First Book of Kings, we hear not only of Solomon’s sins, but also of the Lord’s punishment of him:  the Lord broke the Kingdom of Israel in two, and after Solomon, the Kingdom was never united again.

But how could someone who started off so promising, with so many gifts given to him both by God and man, end up like this?  The answer is not in the Old Testament, but in the New.  St. Paul, in his First Letter to the Corinthians, explains the spiritual principle at stake when he writes:

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing” [1 Corinthians 13:1-3].

This is the difference between a gifted man and a saint.  In the spiritual life, humility is the start.  The virtue of faith, which Old Testament saints like King David nurtured, opens the door of the soul to God’s graces.  Gifts such as understanding and wisdom then strengthen us.  But the love of God is what makes the difference in the end.[4]  Only the love of God can change a person into a saint.  This is the love that we speak of in the ancient prayer:  “Teach me to love, Lord, that I may love.  Show me your love, Lord, that I may love.  Love me, Lord, that I may love.”

_____________________________________

[1] Before the Second Vatican Council, and even today where the 1962 liturgical books are used as authorized by Summorum Pontificum, the Roman Martyrology is read at the canonical Hour of Prime.  If it is read in the post-Vatican II form, this is usually done after the concluding prayer of Lauds [Morning Prayer].

The entry for each date in the Roman Martyrology is read on the previous day.  While reading it in choir is recommended, it may be done outside the Divine Office.  For example, in seminaries, it’s traditional to read it after the main meal of the day.

[2] Also in the First Book of Chronicles, and briefly in the Second Book of Samuel.

[3] Cf. Isaiah 11:1–3; CCC 1830-1831; and St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae IaIIae, Q. 68.

[4] In addition to idolatry, another of Solomon’s sins against the Covenant with the Lord was his many marriages to women of alien religions.  In fact, it was these marriages that led to his idolatry:  “Now King Solomon loved many foreign women: the daughter of Pharaoh, and Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, from the nations concerning which the LORD had said to the people of Israel, ‘You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods’; Solomon clung to these in love.  He had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart” [I Kings 11:1-3].  Because of Solomon’s disordered heart, he could not finally bear the love of God needed to be a saint.

Dream of Solomon by Luca Giordano (1634–1705)

The Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time [A]
Wisdom 12:13,16-19  +  Romans 8:26-27  +  Matthew 13:24-43

Very likely, at some point you’ve asked a priest to pray for you or one of your intentions.  Whenever a priest is asked this, as he often is, he generally fulfills that request in one of a few ways.

The most powerful prayer that a priest can offer, of course, is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.  Because Holy Mass is central to our lives as Catholics, there’s a formal schedule for Mass intentions that’s organized in the parish office weeks ahead of time.

However, if there’s a more immediate need for prayer, the priest might pray for the requested intention in one of three other ways.

The first is that the priest might, just as you might if someone asked you to pray for them, take up his rosary beads and offer that day’s rosary for the requested intention.

The second is that the priest might, just as you might, pray for the intention during a Holy Hour before the Blessed Sacrament.  Though Eucharistic Adoration is not as central to our lives as the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, Adoration flows directly from Holy Mass.  Adoration is one of the fruits of Holy Mass.

The third way that the priest might pray for a requested intention is during one of the hours of the Divine Office, otherwise known as the breviary.  Though the Divine Office is not as well-known as the Rosary, the Divine Office is a more important obligation in a priest’s life than the Rosary, because both at his ordination as a deacon, and then again at his ordination to the Priesthood, the man being ordained promises before the bishop to pray the Divine Office each day for the People of God.

+     +     +

This past Tuesday morning, I was praying the Divine Office, and one of the Scripture passages in that particular hour of the breviary was taken from Chapter 26 of the Old Testament prophet Isaiah.  The prophet proclaims:  “Trust in the Lord forever!  For the Lord is an eternal Rock” [Isaiah 26:4].  Reflecting on this verse can help us appreciate Jesus’ parable about the weeds and the wheat.

“For the Lord is an eternal Rock.”  Is this statement from the Bible meant to be taken literally?  Most of us, it’s fair to say, would not understand that statement from Isaiah literally, but instead as a metaphor.  But if we don’t take this statement literally, what else in the Bible do we not have to take literally?  Are the first two chapters of Genesis meant to be taken literally?  Is Jesus’ discourse about the Bread of Life in John 6 to be taken literally?  Is the Gospel account of Jesus’ Resurrection to be taken literally?

Interpreting Sacred Scripture individually results in a mass (and a mess) of contradictory interpretations.  That’s one reason why Jesus founded a Church that has within it a teaching authority:  that is, with the right and the responsibility to interpret Scripture definitively when a given passage touches upon a key teaching of the Catholic Faith.

One of the Church’s most important teachings about interpreting Sacred Scripture is that a passage of Scripture can have several different meanings at the same time.  When a given passage has multiple meanings, they enrich our understanding and our love for God.

The Parable of the Weeds and the Wheat in this Sunday’s Gospel Reading offers us an example of a Scripture passage with several different meanings.

The literal meaning of the Parable of the Weeds and the Wheat is explained by Jesus Himself at the end of this Sunday’s Gospel Reading.  Explaining the first part of the parable, He sets the stage and describes the main characters:  “‘He who sows good seed is the Son of Man, the field is the world, the good seed the children of the kingdom.  The weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil.’”

Jesus’ descriptions of this stage and these main characters in the first part of the parable are just as applicable to the Holy Land in the first century as they are to the United States in the twenty-first century.  This first part of the parable is playing out today as it did all around Jesus:  there are weeds and wheat; sinners and saints all mingling upon the same stage.

But the last part of the parable shifts our focus far into the future.  “‘The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.  Just as weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. … Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.’”

In this last part of the parable, Jesus is describing the Final Judgement at the end of time.  Many Scripture passages focus upon what the Church calls the “Last Things”:  Heaven and hell, death and judgement.[1]  This last part of the parable reminds us that our actions upon the stage of this world have not only worldly consequences, but also eternal consequences.

So the literal meaning of the Parable of the Weeds and the Wheat, explained by Jesus at the end of the Gospel Reading, has a two-fold focus.  It focuses first on the present, when the weeds and the wheat grow together in the world.  It focuses second on the end of time, when Christ will separate the wheat from the weeds in the Final Judgement.

However, in addition to this two-fold literal meaning of the parable, there’s also an interpretation of this parable that bears another meaning.  This other meaning flows from what the Church’s Tradition calls the “moral sense of Scripture”.

The literal meaning of the parable that Jesus explains clearly connects to a sense of morality.  But while the literal sense of this parable distinguishes between “the children of the kingdom” and “the children of the evil one”, the other meaning of the parable looks into the soul of an individual Christian, and the moral life of that Christian.

This other meaning of the parable looks more closely at the moral life of an individual, and considers that within that Christian’s soul, there are both weeds and wheat.  In other words, “the children of the kingdom” are not without weeds in their souls (excepting Our Blessed Mother).  At the same time, it’s entirely possible that one of “the children of the evil one” could bear the wheat of good works in his soul, at least on the natural level.

Each Christian is responsible for the world of his soul.  While on the literal level of the parable “the end of the age” is the end of time, when the Last Judgment will take place, on the moral level “the end of the age” is the moment of death.  God enacts a particular judgement of the individual at the moment of that person’s death, sending that person’s soul either to everlasting punishment, or towards everlasting salvation.  Until the moment of that person’s death, throughout the course of that person’s earthly days, God shows the patience of the householder in the parable, allowing the free will of the individual to reign.  During the course of that person’s earthly days, it is that person who bears responsibility for tending to the field of the soul.  Building upon the graces of one’s Baptism into Christ, Jesus in the Sacrament of Confession helps us tend to the field of our soul so that, at the hour of our death, He will call us to join “the righteous” who “will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”

__________________________________

[1] This perspective in which a Scripture passage focuses upon the Last Things is technically called the “anagogical sense of Scripture”.  See the Catechism of the Catholic Church 115-117.

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.

+     +     +

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.

+     +     +

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.

+     +     +

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.

+     +     +

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.

Click one of the following for a specific menu:

ADVENT

CHRISTMASTIDE

LENT

EASTERTIDE

SOLEMNITIES & FEASTS

OUR LADY

ORDINARY TIME

OTHER CELEBRATIONS

Tuesday of the 7th Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Sirach 2:1-11  +  Mark 9:30-37
February 21, 2023

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.