Thursday, July 23, 2020

Thursday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time

(Jeremiah 2:1-3.7-8.12-13; Matthew 13:10-17)

We think of Jesus’ parables as charming stories that help people understand God’s working in the world.  For this reason Jesus surprises us in today’s gospel by saying he uses parables to confound his listeners.  Furthermore, Jesus’ citing the prophet Isaiah sounds mean-spirited.  Does he really mean to disassociate from his listeners because they have shown hardness of heart?

Examining the context of Jesus’ remarks should enable us to understand what is taking place.  Jesus has taught brilliantly to both the learned and the unschooled.  He has also worked many mighty deeds – cures and even raising the dead.   The people should have realized that he is no ordinary teacher, no regular healer.  They should have recognized him as God’s chosen messenger announcing a new age.  They should have repented of all their pride, greed, and lust.  They should have committed themselves to doing God’s will.  But they haven’t, and Jesus has stopped trying to break through their self-serving souls.

Hopefully, Jesus counts us among his disciples with blessed eyes and ears.  Hopefully, we respond to God’s love for us with gratitude and willingness to serve.  Should we, like Jesus apparently does in today’s gospel, write off those who don’t respond?  No, that would mean not doing God’s will.  The people Jesus encountered actually saw the living God.  Today people get only a poor image.  We must improve that image by better caring for others as best we can in Jesus’ name.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Thursday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time

(Ex 19:1-2. 9-11.16-20b; Matthew 13:10-17)

Flannery O’Connor is a peculiar Catholic American novelist. She is Catholic because she understands the working of grace according to Thomistic theology. She is peculiar because her characters are typically the most strident of her southern, Protestant neighbors. They are ardently evangelical and, sometimes, grotesquely two-faced. When 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?” He says, in effect, they paint big, beautiful pictures so common people may appreciate God’s call to reform. On the other hand, they will challenge the sophisticated who find his stories simplistic and his teaching unappreciative of their learning.

In our day the sophisticated tote I-phones and I-pads and have busy schedules that seem to make it difficult to pray regularly and to attend to the needy. They may be like us. We should realize what the parables make obvious: God is our Father who lovingly calls us back to Him through His Son, Jesus the Christ.

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 Monday, July 28, 2008

Monday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

(Matthew 13:31-35)

The parable section in Matthew’s gospel challenges astute readers. In it Jesus says that the comparisons or parables he uses are intended to confuse listeners. Yet we hear the parables as expressive images invoking wonder for God’s Kingdom. The paradox may be explained by observing that believers take the parables as true revelation of God’s love while skeptics only find them indicative of Jesus as a creative preacher.

Still we must struggle at times to understand the parables which are by nature open to different interpretations. The parable of the yeast, for example, may be heard as an indication of how a small infusion of grace can reap great blessing or as a mode of expressing God’s ability to transfer a defect into an instrument of His glory. An example of the latter interpretation is a priest who confesses that he spent much of his youth in egotistic pursuits. Then he converted his ways and felt God’s call. Now as pastor of a small church, he specializes in youth ministry.

Jesus’ parables do reveal him as a mesmerizing preacher. But this is only one aspect of his multiform identity. He is also recognized as a prodigious healer. We can easily expound on the list of characteristics. Most significantly, Jesus is the God who humbled himself to become our brother and savior.

Homilette for Thursday, July 24, 2008

Thursday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time

(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 often very peculiar country Protestants. 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. But Jesus’ parables have been validated by Jesus’ own experience. He became the seed that dies in order to produce abundant life when he gave himself on the cross. He became the man who searches for the lost sheep when he ate with sinners and succored the poor. Because of Jesus’ life witness the parables not only entertain us, they also move us to follow him.

Homilette for Thursday, October 18, 2007

Thursday, the Feast of St. Luke, evangelist

(Luke 10:1-9)

In New Mexico we find in pottery shops a stylized statuette called “The Story-teller.” It shows a woman with a pot on her head and one in her hands. Her mouth is wide open, obviously telling stories. Hanging onto the woman and all about her, children play animated by her words. In a way the woman represents St. Luke the Evangelist. More than any other evangelist, Luke features Jesus telling beautiful stories known as parables.

Most people are aware that the parables of the “Prodigal Son,” or as preachers prefer to say nowadays the “Prodigal Father,” and of the “Good Samaritan” are found only in Luke. Also, only Luke writes of Jesus telling the memorable stories of the “Rich Fool” and of “Lazarus and the Rich Man.” If Luke is exclusive in that he has unique parables to tell, we may point out that he is inclusive in a significant way as well. Luke frequently has a story featuring a woman juxtaposed with a story featuring a man. For example, after Jesus tells the parable of the shepherd searching for the lost sheep, Luke shows him speaking of the woman sweeping her home to find a lost coin.

But we must not think that Luke’s intention was only or mainly to portray Jesus as a story-teller. Like the other three evangelists Luke’s purpose is to show how Jesus is the son of God who has taken on human nature to save us from sin and death. The gospel passage today ends with Jesus instructing his disciples to tell the people, “The Kingdom of God is at hand.” In time that message will change. After Jesus rises from the dead, the apostles will preach Jesus as the incarnation of the Kingdom. As Peter tells the people of Jerusalem, “God raised up his servant and sent him to bless you by turning each of you from your evil ways.”

Homilette for Thursday, July 26, 2007

Thursday, XVI Week of Ordinary Time

(Matthew 13)

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 often very 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 gives himself on the cross. He becomes the man who searches for the lost sheep when he spends his time with sinners and the poor. Because of Jesus’ testimony the parables not only entertain us, they move us to follow him.