Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Tuesday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time

(Genesis 19:15-29; Matthew 8:23-27)

In one of her short stories, American Catholic novelist Flannery O’Connor shows a man taking his grandson on a day trip to Atlanta.   The two have such a harrowing time that the boy comes to see the city as so evil that he never wants to return.  In ways the Book of Genesis has a similar vision of cities.

Sodom is not only the city where God’s messengers are manhandled; it is corrupt to the core.  Like the city of Babel before it, Sodom cannot help from becoming wicked because sinful men and women come there in droves to conspire against God.  Rather than curtailing their sinful desires, they seek autonomy or self-rule, which is often no more than justifying one’s evil tendencies.  The results are calamitous as the calling down of fire on Sodom shows.

God has made clear how He wants us to live first by giving the Israelites the Law and then by sending His Son Jesus.  He perfects the Law with the grace of the Holy Spirit.  Now we can build societies based on eternal justice if we practice Jesus’ ways.

Homilette for Thursday, July 23, 2009

Thursday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time

(Ex 19:1-2, 9-11, 16-20b; Matthew 13:10-17)

Flannery O’Connor has been called the greatest American Catholic novelist. Yet her novels are seldom about Catholics. Rather they concern the working of grace in peculiar Southern country people. Once she was asked why she wrote about such strange characters. She answered that when people are near deaf, you have to shout at them.

Jesus responds similarly to the question, “Why do you speak to the crowd in parables?” We need such on-the-money stories to wake us up to God’s goodness. The parables tell us that God is so generous he will pay laborers who only work an hour a full day’s wage and that God’s kingdom is such a treasure that it is worth selling all we have to attain it. But in a world with so many diversions – from home entertainment systems to iPhones – Jesus’ message still does not always get through.

Some people see parables as make believe. Since they do not bring immediate gratification, they are not worth pondering, much less pursuing. These people might be right if the parables were not validated by Jesus’ life. He becomes the seed that dies in order to produce abundant life when he allows himself to be crucified. He is the shepherd who searches for lost sheep when he spends his time with sinners and the poor. Because of Jesus’ testimony the parables not only entertain, they move people to follow him.