Homily for the Week of July 27, 2008

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Homily for the Week of July 20, 2008

HOMILY:
Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, 2008
Wisdom 12:13, 16-19
Psalm 86:5-6, 9-10, 15-16
Romans 8:26-27
Matthew 13:24-43 or 13:24-30

For the second weekend in a row we hear Jesus telling stories involving farming. They are intended to help us to see our own growth in the Lord. He uses what are called parables. Parables are stories that help us to understand our religion. Parables are short stories about good and bad, about how we are to change our life. There about 40 parables in the Bible. Most of these stories, like the three of the gospel which I just read, are based on farming, growing crops and cooking. But as we listen to these stories, try to imagine that at the time of Jesus there was an in-group and an out-group. With these stories Jesus is trying to tell us that there is only one group: the group that believes in God and is trying to do what God wants them to do. In the end it is God who will sort us out and welcome us into heaven.

Instead of teaching us how to plant a garden or bake bread, the parables show us how to be better Catholics and better persons. In the first parable the farmer sows good seed in the field, and after a time weeds sprout as well. So, why not get rid of the weeds? That is probably what most farmers and gardeners would do. But Jesus says: Let them grow together. God is the one who will make the necessary separation at the harvest time. Can't we see ourselves in that story. How often have you said to yourself: It is not what I want to do that I do, but it is what I do not want to do that I do? How can it be that when I want to be good I get temped to do something bad.

Could it be that at times we do not know which are the weeds and which are the wheat in our life? Certainly there are times when we do know the difference. But it is so easy to give in to a temptation.

In the story about the mustard seed we realize that great things can come from the smallest. Jesus makes a comparison between the size of the seed and the plant that can grow to be 10 feet tall. This is how God works in our life. At first we may not notice God. We become impatient. But if we keep on praying, God will come into our life. He will change it. He will bring us happiness, because it is only our faith in God and Jesus that can bring us true happiness. Jesus is telling us that we cannot judge the value of someone simply from what we see; their greatness is in who they are. We are all mustard seeds waiting to grow.

The story of the yeast reminds us again that things are not always as they appear. The tiny grains of yeast make the dough ferment, producing thousands of bubbles and making the bread light and airy. Yeast by itself seems insignificant, but by using it we experience its capacity to raise the bread. Like yeast, God will raise us up one day. As insignificant as we may think we are, we will be raised up to the glory of God.

How often do you read some serious articles on your faith or spirituality? A person would never get through school without reading, thinking about what they read and talking about it with friends or writing about it on tests. I am sure that a person who wants to be a qualified technician of any kind needs to be updated as technology changes. So too it should be with our faith and religion. We can not expect to grow spiritually by just standing still. It is then that the weeds will smother us, or the yeast will not find the proper flour for bread making.
Some may see this as hard work: the groaning that Paul talks about in our second reading. To be looking for spiritual answers; to know that we are not yet what we hope to be; to keep stretching beyond where we are; all of this may be called groaning.

Within ourselves too, as God's Spirit works, its positive influence mingles with many negative aspects of our own personalities. The good and the bad must stay alongside each other--just like the wheat and the weeds. One must tolerate the other, but the activity of the Spirit will encourage a good and fruitful harvest in the end.

Jesus is also telling us today that even in the beautiful side of life, where we are in harmony with God, there is always the possibility of evil-- like fraud, blowing away a good name, oppression of the poor by a greedy government and many others weeds that somehow get in with the wheat.
Furthermore, evil cannot be eliminated by destroying everything that appears evil. Rather, we have to work through a life that is not perfect, knowing that the evil that lurks in the weeds is a constant reminder of our fallen condition and that only Jesus can guide us to be on the right road.
All of these stories point us to our need to prepare ourselves every day as to be ready to enter the kingdom of heaven when we die. It is the same kingdom which we pray for when we pray the Lord’s Prayer: who art in heaven...thy kingdom come..on earth as it is in heaven. Yes, the future begins today; the heaven to which we hope to go some day begins today. Jesus, through three little stories, is trying to teach us that heaven must truly begin here in this life; here on earth. Jesus is also teaching us of God's forgiveness. He is telling us not to be less merciful and patient than God as we notice family members, friends, strangers and Catholics who don't always practice what they preach. Most of us can spot a hypocrite when we see one --unless it is ourself. How many of us have wondered why God couldn't have created everyone to be as wise and generous and perfect as we are? Wouldn't that be splendid?

Just as trees or any plant grows gradually day to day without noise and even notice, so too do the three stories about how goodness and spirituality grows in us. It is not the size that is important but the desire to change. But these stories also teach us that God's church has plenty of room for everyone. Jesus has opened his father's house to everyone including the indifferent and the imperfect.

Homily for the Week of July 13, 2008

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time A 2008
Isaiah 55:10-11
Psalm 65:10, 11, 12-13, 14
Romans 8:18-23
Matthew 13:1-23 or 13:1-9

This week I came across a book entitled Shopping Malls and Other Sacred Spaces. The book offers a staggering statistic, which could motivate our desire to ''go green.'' The writer speaks of the value of a single tree. Based on our current value of the American dollar, every year each mature tree produces $73 worth of air conditioning, $75 worth of erosion control, $75 in wildlife shelter, and $50 in air pollution control. Doing a little mathematics means that a single tree living an average of 50 years has had a value of $57,000! Imagine. A single seed over 50 years will have the equivalent value of $57,000. A single seed can be very precious.

At this time of the year many of you enjoy showing off your gardens or your outdoor flowers. Those of you who grow things, whether in a window box, a garden, or farm, know that you need to feed the soil so the plants will flourish. You dose the small potted plant with liquid feed, you replace the soil in the window box, you heap compost onto the garden, and you fertilize the corn fields. We just can't keep taking things out of the soil without replacing it. However good the quality or abundant the quality of the seed, a rich harvest can't be achieved without good soil in which to grow it.

At the time of Jesus, because of the condition of the soil in Israel it was difficult to get seeds to grow. Weeds, most commonly a kind of thorn, were plowed into the ground. Often, farmers did not plow the land before seeding but just scattered the seeds everywhere. Some fell on the paths and some on the edges and some on the rich soil where it should be falling Many of the seeds were eaten up by the birds. But the limestone rock was right near the surface so there was hardly any topsoil.

Today the Bible gives us an image of Jesus the farmer or the gardener. He gives us one of his best known stories or parables: the story of the sower. As a good teacher he was illustrating his teaching through ordinary examples of work, weather, and nature. While he was talking mainly to fishermen, they could instantly recognized the scene of the story he was telling them: Imagine a farmer going out to sow, he says.

But Jesus is not telling us the story of the seed in order to have a greener America. For Jesus as for Isaiah the seed refers to speaking, not planting. It refers to the word of God given to us in the Bible. And so Jesus tells of all the possibilities of how the seed could fall, and grow or not grow. Jesus tells us he is willing to teach us, but people will only learn from him if they make an effort -- and he is saddened by the fact that many do not. He quotes Isaiah: You will indeed hear, but not understand, and you shall indeed look, but never see. For Jesus the seed is the word of God and the different kinds of ground on which the seed falls are the different kinds of listeners or Catholics who hear his word.

As I mentioned last week 40% of Americans will say that they are Catholic. But many of these practice their Catholic religion in different ways, or they understand it differently. That can include some of us here today. Each one of us here at this Mass may fit into one of the four types of ground that Jesus mentions. That means that we may hear the same words or Catholic teachings, but we apply them differently to ourselves according to our situation. DVD's, Facebook, Myspace, Halo 3, cell phones are the constant companions of young adults today. We have different ground on which the word of God falls. Let me give you examples.

PATH PEOPLE: are those who may use religion for special occasions in their lives such as for the Baptism of a baby or First Communion or Confirmation or Marriage.

ROCKY GROUND PEOPLE: are those who may come to church after a crisis in their lives, or important event like a wedding. There is Catholic faith in their life, but it is not strong enough to make it a weekly practice.

THORNS PEOPLE: are those who will come to church regularly until something happens in their life such as a divorce, or leaving home for college, Often their daily lives are so busy that they can't take time out of their busy schedule for an hour of church a week.

THE RICH SOIL PEOPLE: are those, while very human and even sinful, hear the truth of Jesus and faith and genuinely try to put the wisdom of that truth into practice. They may have, and even now, may have rocky ground and thorns, but they have come to realize that nothing else satisfies except the daily practice of religion and prayer.

We are all sowers of seed. By our attitudes, our beliefs, our actions we sow seeds of encouragement, joy and reconciliation -- but some of the seeds we sow contribute to cycles of discouragement, anger, violence, abuse, enslavement and injustice. The call to discipleship, however, calls us to be careful and deliberate “sowers” of a harvest far greater and lasting than our own interests and profit. Christ calls us to be sowers of his Word in every situation and relationship, especially when such “sowing” results yields a harvest that benefits others far more than benefits us.

Homily for the Week of July 6, 2008

FOURTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME: 2008
Readings: Zechariah 9:9-10; Romans 8:9,11-13, Matthew 11:25-30

Today Jesus uses an example which was very common to the Jewish people in order to explain how important it is to stay connected to him and to God in our lives. He talks about a yoke. A yoke could be a wooden bar or frame by which two oxen are joined at the heads or necks for working together. Or a yoke would be a pole across a person's shoulders to help to carry buckets of water. Yoke-making would have been a daily job for Jesus and those to whom he was talking. But Jesus invites us to be yoke-taking. We must let ourselves be shaped by him. Jesus invites us to pushed ourselves to the limit in doing something because we believe in it.

We have many examples of how persons push themselves to the limit such as a jogger getting ready for the Beijing Olympics. He decides to go on two more miles before quitting for the day. His friends wonder "Why beat yourself that way? Why absorb so much pain?" But his joggers high keeps him humming and floating along the track. This person wants to win. The yoke is easy and the burden is light.

Take the example of a researcher having visions of the Nobel prize in medicine as she works on a cure for cancer or alzheimer. Hardly any social life, living day and night with her white lab coat. Her relatives complain that they never see her. Why burden yourself that way? But then she gets a small breakthrough that makes the burden light and the yoke easy."

Take the example of young men and women who sense a desire to leave home, to deny postpone marriage and family in order to find out whether or not God calls them to prepared themselves to serve the spiritual needs of his people whether in schools, nursing homes, parishes, whether at home or in war and poverty torn countries of the world.

The words of Jesus of today's gospel are the most quoted in all of the Bible. COME TO ME, ALL OF YOU WHO ARE WEARY AND FIND LIFE BURDENSOME, AND I WILL GIVE YOU REST. TAKE MY YOKE UPON YOU AND LEARN FROM ME, FOR I AM MEEK AND GENTLE OF HEART; AND YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOURSELVES, FOR MY YOKE IS EASY AND MY BURDEN IS LIGHT.

''Rest'' as Jesus offers it is not a good night's sleep nor a vacation from work. It is a rest that heals. It is a rest that lets us recover from what we have experienced so that we can begin something new. Spiritual rest is what we need to give to our spiritual tired souls.

His words refer to the jogger, to the cancer researcher, to the priest or sister as well as to any of us who find daily life a big struggle. The heaviest burden for us is to carry the guilt of sins, failures and disappointments. Jesus tells us that we are forgiven. In helping others to find peace we find purpose in our lives.

We all have our yokes and burdens. We all have days that we would just as soon forget. None of us is without stress or pain. We all get weary at times because that is part of being human.
Jesus does not say that he will remove the burden or the yoke. He just says that he can make it feel lighter and easier to bear. He can put peace in our souls. He can refresh us. But he does not compel any of us to feel better. He leaves us free.

For many Catholics the burden or the yoke that they feel they carry is the burden of practicing their Catholic faith. Two months ago a report called the US Religious Landscape reported that more than 25% of American adults have left the faith in which they were raised for another religion -- or no religion at all. The survey reported that almost 40% of Americans were raised as Catholics, but today fewer than 25% describe themselves as Catholic. For many today religion is like any commodity for which we go shopping.

It was to people under these burdens that Jesus said his burden would be light. But these burdens would be light only if we were connected to him, if we are YOKED to him. This does not mean that we are tied to him like two oxen are tied together by a yoke. It means, however, Jesus will walk with us side by side, helping us as needed to carry our burdens and sharing our work and our problems. But only if we invite him to walk with us.

The truth is that we were yoked with Jesus at our Baptism. But at Baptism we were also yoked to one another. That is why we so often start a bible reading with Brothers and sisters. Too often we may not notice this because so many of us may see religion and faith from a personal and individualistic point of view. If we focus too much on 'ME AND JESUS we lose track of what happens when at Baptism we were truly YOKED to one another. And the food that keeps us strong in faith is the wonderful Holy Eucharist that we eat at the holy table of the Lord. When we are dismissed at the end of this Mass, we leave this church, not to be scattered without help, but with the support of one another.

On the other hand take the example of a little child. A child does not have worry about making a living, preparing meals, washing cloths, paying bills, cleaning the house, or of shopping. So in comparison to an adult a child has no worries because the child trusts his or her needs will be taken care of by parents. As a result a child finds everything new; life is exciting, it is fresh even with the same toys or same people.

Jesus is not telling us to be childish, but to be child like , and if we are then we let go of the burdens of life, or we believe and trust that God can help us with them. We pray today: YES LORD COME AND MAKE OUR BURDENS EASIER. MAKE OUR YOKE LIGHTER. REST OUR SOULS.