Friday, January 30, 2026

 

Friday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time

(II Samuel 11:1-4a.5-10a.13-17; Mark 4:26-34)

An important American theologian wrote that the “Kingdom of God” is a poetic way of saying “God.”  What is God like?  Jesus gives a partial answer to this perennial question with today’s parables. He is like a mysterious power that makes things happen for human benefit.

There is no patent on the beginning of life. No one knows how exactly life first came about.  In today’s gospel Jesus attributes its coming to be to God’s acting in the world.  “The Kingdom of God” typically acting quietly, he says, describes how biological life came about. 

More than this, Jesus explains life’s blessings with another parable of God’s Kingdom.  He states that God’s Kingdom has the power to turn a tiny mustard seed into a giant mustard plant.  The product provides nutrition and repose to a multitude of birds.  One might make her own parable here.  God’s kingdom is the dynamic force that turned a little Georgian restaurant into the ubiquitous luncheon enterprise known as “Chick Fil A.” Or, more in keeping with the Eucharist, the Kingdom of God is like a band of twelve men in Israel becoming an institution with over one billion members in almost every country in the world.

The parables of the Kingdom inspire us to consider God’s goodness.  More than that, they encourage us to act so that we might benefit from its prodigious bounty.

Sunday, June 13, 2021

 ELEVENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY

(Ezekiel 17:22-24; II Corinthians 5:6-10; Mark 4:26-34)

You cannot see the human embryo in its beginnings. This is because it’s microscopic. Even after a week it is only the size of a grain of sand. Only after four weeks has the embryo grown to the size of a grain of sand. At this stage you can notice different features of the body such as the head and the heart. It continues to grow and develop mysteriously throughout life. In the Gospel today Jesus says that the Kingdom of God is something like that.

Jesus helps people understand the Kingdom of God with parables. As we have just used comparisons like a grain of sand and a grain of rice to understand the smallness of the embryo, Jesus uses comparisons like a seed in the ground to understand the dynamics of the Kingdom of God. He always takes his comparisons from people's daily lives.

Jesus says that the Kingdom of God begins as something as something small like a mustard seed. The Kingdom is genuine love that seeks only the good of the other. Such love begins with friendly words to a person of another race or community. Soon we see the person as not very different from us.  He or she has likes and dislikes, values ​​and hopes more or less the same as our own. In time after conversations with several people of the same race or community we learn that we can trust some of their kind and cannot trust others. In short, people of other races or communities are more or less like people of our own race or community.

African Americans become irritated when whites judge them not as individuals but as other people of their race. Of course, they are not judged as the best of their race like Barack Obama or Oprah Winfrey but as the crudest. In other words, we have a sinful tendency to generalize about the vices of people of other races. In contrast, we view the worst of our own race as individuals. With virtues the dynamics is reversed. We see the good of other races as individuals while generalizing the virtues of people of our own race.

We are describing racism which is a serious sin. Racism is defined as holding some human beings as inherently superior and others as essentially inferior because of their race. Although not all or even most of us are guilty of this sin, it is difficult to free ourselves from its effect. We want to think well of ourselves, be it our nation, religion, or race. This is not bad as long as we do not think badly of other nations, religions, or races in the process. We must recognize that there are good and bad in all kinds of people, including our own.

Pope Francis made a parable to describe racism. He said it is like a virus that is always mutating. He added that it does never disappears but hides itself while waiting to attack again. As in the case of Covid, we have to be vaccinated against the racism virus. We can get the vaccine not only at a pharmacy but also at school, church, and other places. Like the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine, it must be received in two doses. The first dose consists of reaching out to a person of the other race with friendly words. The second dose is to include some of the other race among our trusted friends. In this way we will avoid the sin of racism. In this way we will also begin to experience the Kingdom of God.

Friday, January 29, 2021

 Friday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time

(Hebrews 10:32-39; Mark 4:26-34)

Every year for the last forty-seven years, thousands of demonstrators come to Washington for the March for Life.  The demonstration proposes “to end abortion by uniting, educating, and mobilizing pro-life people.”  The magnitude of the march has varied through the years, but the tendency is to have increasing numbers.  Demonstrators have a sense of joy and comradeship.  It exemplifies the kingdom of God which Jesus parabolizes in today’s gospel.

Jesus says that the kingdom begins as something small like a seed of grain.  Once planted, however, it grows giving sustenance like wheat or comfort like a mustard tree.  The kingdom is God’s presence that both touches and satisfies us.  Corporately, the kingdom brings peace and joy. Individually, it blossoms into eternal life.

We might see Jesus himself as the kingdom.  He offers his friendship to us through the sacraments.  He makes our life easier because he helps us to do what is right.  He makes death a joy, once we get beyond the dying.  Then he will welcome us into eternal life.

Friday, February 1, 2019

Friday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time

(Hebrews 10:32-39; Mark 4:26-34)

There is a touching scene in Frederico Fellini’s movie Amarcord.  The people of a small town by the sea go out to greet an ocean liner.  The local blind man follows the crowd.  As the ship comes into view, shouts go up from the crowd.  With all the excitement the blind man exclaims, “I can see it. I can see it.”  Perhaps the people hearing Jesus in today’s gospel have a similar sensation.

Jesus is describing the indescribable.  The “Kingdom of God,” after all, is not a locality that we can find on a map.  Nor is it form of government – democratic capitalism, authoritarian communism, or enlightened socialism.  Rather, as St. Paul says in Romans, “…the kingdom of God is… righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”  It is a community where people care for one another in response to God’s goodness. Jesus then makes two parables that characterize the kingdom.  First, it comes about gradually like a corn plant produces stalk and ear before the fruit appears.  Second, the kingdom gives comfort to many like a mustard tree shelters many birds.

The passage ends with Jesus tutoring his disciples. There is plenty of evidence in this Gospel of Mark that they are slow learners.  Maybe they like many generations afterwards need an explanation regarding why the kingdom is often aborted.  Why do so many communities lack righteousness, peace and joy?  Jesus will tell them that it is not God’s fault but ours.  God gives us the grace to experience His kingdom.  We have to say “yes” to His initiative.  We have to trust that when we sacrifice ourselves in love as Jesus did, God’s kingdom is ours.

Friday, January 27, 2017

Friday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time

(Hebrews 10:32-39; Mark 4:26-34)

Peter Maurin co-founded the Catholic Worker newspaper along with Dorothy Day.  He had a genius for reducing the formal language of Catholic social doctrine into pithy statements exuding common sense.  He called these reductions “easy essays” which readers of the newspaper cherished.  A typical essay reads,

The world would be better off

if people tried to become better.

And people would become better

if they stopped trying to become better off.

Maurin’s Easy Essays are much like Jesus’ parables in today’s gospel.  Mark the Evangelist tells us that Jesus uses parables so that ordinary people might grasp his teaching.  For example, Jesus describes God’s kingdom as seeds growing in a field and a mustard seed – common realities in the Palestinian countryside.  To be sure, the dynamic of God’s kingdom is more complicated so Jesus gives a fuller explanation to his disciples in private.

We have a problem in appreciating Jesus’ parables because we do not live in first-century Palestine.  But we have an advantage over the people who heard Jesus preach.  We have been taught to see Jesus himself as a kind of parable.  We recognize him as a man who reveals to us all the love of a transcendent God.

Friday, January 27, 2012

Friday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time

(II Samuel 11:1-4a.5-10a.13-17; Mark 4:26-34)

The words, “I am pregnant,” can bring joy or misery depending on their context. When a young husband hears them, his heart leaps with hope. But if they are spoken to a lecher like King David, they are wrought with desperation. In order to hide his guilt, David has his paramour’s husband killed. Today it is easier to go after the defenseless child.

Behind the emotions lies the truth about sexual intercourse. As the Church has consistently taught, intercourse contributes significantly to human welfare when performed between loving spouses. Offspring ensure the evolving future, both of the earth and of the Church. They give parents reason for living righteously, to say nothing of the joy the subjects themselves will realize for being alive. Carried out licentiously, on the other hand, intercourse may be initially gratifying but ultimately disturbs the natural order scarring the perpetrators and jeopardizing the welfare of the progeny.

Surmounting the challenge posed by illicit sexual desires requires great fortitude. As we know from the tragedies of kings as majestic as David and of philosophers as wise as Aristotle, it is not readily achieved. But our remedy comes from the gospel. Planted deep within our souls, the word of God spreads to all parts of our being. It makes us as gracious as the mustard tree giving refuge to the birds. It strengthens us like wheat growing tall in the field to resist pestilent desires.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Memorial of Saints Timothy and Titus, bishops

(II Timothy 1:1-8; Mark 4:26-34)

Joe Paterno will be remembered as one of the greatest college football coaches. Although his records will be surpassed in time, his standing as a man will likely live on in eternity. Football was not his whole life. He was a humanist, remarkably conversant in Latin poetry; a philanthropist, who donated millions of dollars to charity; and evidently a faithful Catholic, who took Jesus’ command to love seriously. Much about him seems to have been done in an air of humility that characterizes Jesus in the gospel of Mark.

Jesus never shines a light on himself. He never says, “I am the Son of God; listen to me.” Rather he becomes the Son of God for others, a light revealing divine goodness and love. He preaches, heals, and provides people food to eat. In today’s passage he tells his followers that his genuineness should be self-evident: “’Anyone who has ears ought to hear.’” In other words, if you cannot tell that Jesus has a transcendent quality like God, you have defective hearing and sight.

At his best Joe Paterno showed his family, players, and country a little of what Jesus is like. We strive to do the same. There is really no need of broadcasting that we believe in Jesus among friends. However, we want to show everyone that we follow Jesus by unpretentiously imitating his ways.

Friday, January 28, 2011

Memorial of Saint Thomas Aquinas, priest

(Hebrews 10:32-39; Mark 4:26-34)

Robert Frost writes in his poem “For Once, Then, Something”:

“Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb,
I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture,
Through the picture, a something white, uncertain,
Something more of the depths—and then I lost it.”

He might be describing Jesus’ use of parables in the gospel today. As insightful as Frost or even Shakespeare, Jesus mentions a peasant scattering seeds or a mustard seed to give us a glimpse of God’s Kingdom. However, when we attempt to dwell on the image asking questions like, “Is the Kingdom the land or the harvest?” we are likely to let go of the revelation just as Frost loses sight of the thing he sees at the bottom of the well.

Something similar may be said of St. Thomas Aquinas whom we celebrate today. The theologian gave us a view of God more complete than and almost as perceptive as anyone’s in history. In his Summa Theologiae Scripture and philosophy hung together for a moment dissolving doubt in awe. However, its fullness disappeared in time fractured by the incessant queries of modernity. Yet it remains worthwhile to attempt revisioning what Aquinas wrote that we might once again glimpse God in glorious splendor.

Homilette for Friday, January 30, 2009

Friday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time

(Hebrews 10:32-39; Mark 4:26-34)

Peter Maurin co-founded the Catholic Worker movement along with Dorothy Day. He was born in France and came first to Canada and then to New York after living as a Christian Brother. Maurin popularized Catholic Social Teaching with what he called Easy Essays. A typical essay reads,

The world would be better off
if people tried to become better.
And people would become better
if they stopped trying to become better off.

Maurin’s Easy Essays are much like Jesus’ use of parables in today’s gospel. Mark the Evangelist tells us at the end of the passage that Jesus speaks to the people in parables or images so that they might grasp his teaching. For example, Jesus describes God’s kingdom as seeds growing in a field and a mustard seed – common realities in the Palestinian countryside. To be sure, the dynamic of God’s kingdom is more complicated so Jesus has to explain it to his disciples in private.

Mark’s purpose is not strictly the same as Jesus’, however. He means to tell us, his readers, that Jesus is someone completely different from all our expectations. He is not like mere humans because from him -- like from a few seeds sown in a field or like a tiny mustard seed -- immense results come forth.

Homilette for February 1, 2008

Friday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time

(Mark 4:26-34)

In “Jacobellis vs. Ohio,” 1964, the Supreme Court wrestled with the contentious issue of state censorship of pornographic material. Some justices thought that the state has no business trying to regulate what adults can see. Others thought that a state has a legitimate interest in restricting pornography. Justice Potter Stewart rendered his opinion which would permit all forms of obscenity except “hard-core pornography.” Commenting on what he meant by the latter, Justice Stewart wrote that he could not define the term. “But,” he said, “I know it when I see it.”

Although it has a diametrically opposite character, many of us have a similar difficulty explaining the Kingdom of God as Justice Stewart had defining pornography. Like him we might resign ourselves to say, “I know it when I see it.” In the gospel parables today Jesus provides us with some signs to look for. He says that the Kingdom starts as a seed planted by a sower whom, from a previous parable, we know to be a preacher of the word of God. Then, Jesus continues, the Kingdom grows slowly like a plant, produces good fruit, and becomes a great source of comfort for many.

We find examples of the Kingdom of God in the many movements within the Church like Marriage Encounter and Teens Encounter Christ. We might locate the Kingdom developing in our own lives as we slowly mature to give greater glory to God. Multiplied by millions of individuals, the Kingdom becomes a global reality exhibiting peace, justice, and compassion.