You would expect a great theologian like St. Bonaventure (July 15) to tell you to hit the books if you would want to go to God. After all, his treatise we read on his feast is called “The Journey of the Mind to God.”

Instead he directs us to Christ and the Cross as our way to God.

” If you ask how such things can occur, seek the answer in God’s grace, not in doctrine; in the longing of the will, not in the understanding; in the sighs of prayer, not in research; seek the bridegroom not the teacher; God and not man; darkness not daylight; and look not to the light but rather to the raging fire that carries the soul to God with intense fervour and glowing love.”

A shelf of scripture commentaries and theology books wont bring us wisdom of themselves, St. Bonaventure says in his Breviloquium, otherwise only scholars would enter the kingdom of heaven. That’s not to say study isn’t important and scholars and scientists are not necessary. Bonaventure was a great theologian, but he knew we must be humble before God and the divine plan that’s beyond our grasp.

“The stream of holy Scripture flows not from human research but from revelation by God. It springs from the Father of lights, from whom all fatherhood in heaven and on earth takes its name. From him, through his Son Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit flows into us; and through the Holy Spirit, giving, at will, different gifts to different people, comes the gift of faith, and through faith Jesus Christ has his dwelling in our hearts. This is the knowledge of Jesus Christ which is the ultimate basis of the solidity and wisdom of the whole of holy Scripture…

If we are to follow the direct path of Scripture and come straight to the final destination, then right from the beginning – when simple faith starts to draw us towards the light of the Father – our hearts should kneel down and ask the Father to give us, through his Son and the Holy Spirit, true knowledge of Jesus and of his love. Once we know him and love him like this, we shall be made firm in faith and deeply rooted in love, and we can know the breadth, length, depth and height of holy Scripture.”

In both readings today in our liturgy, from Isaiah and Matthew, kingdoms, cities, towns are brought down. Though powerful, permanent and blessed by God  they fall into the dust. Isaiah describes the fall of Jerusalem. Matthew’s Gospel describes the fall of towns along the Sea of Galilee, like Capernaum and Corazin, where Jesus taught and worked wonders, yet they abandon  him.

Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.  Galilee, where Jesus lived most of his life and years of ministry,  became the center of Pharasaic Judaism; exiles from Judea displaced  Jewish Christians from the towns and synagogues of Galilee. Jesus was considered an enemy there. The towns where he taught and worked wonders no longer welcomed him. .

We look for lasting cities, but our readings today remind us earthly cities are not lasting, They change and sometimes disappear. “He came to his own and his own received him not”, St. John says.  Paul writes extensively in the 9th Chapter of Romans about the mystery of rejection Jesus faced from his own people. Look to the mercy of God, he says. 

We wonder about his rejection in our own towns and places.  We wonder about the future of Christianity in our part of the world. Will it disappear?

The psalms in the liturgy offer God’s message to our readings, as Psalm 48  does today: 

“God upholds his city forever. Great is the LORD and wholly to be praised
in the city of our God.
His holy mountain, fairest of heights, is the joy of all the earth.
Mount Zion…is the city of the great King.
God is with her castles; renowned is he as a stronghold.”

The times we live in have their storms like those that destroyed the ships of Tarshish, but time is like a woman in labor. Sometime new is being born and we don’t see it yet.  

Sometime ago I stumbled on a map of New York rivers and lakes.  Rivers and lakes were the roads and highways used by the native peoples and early settlers centuries ago. Even today, the New York Thruway follows the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers from New York City to Buffalo.

Just north of Albany near the town of Fonda are the ruins of the17th century Mohawk village of Caughnawaga, excavated in the 1950s by a Franciscan priest,  Thomas Grassmann. In the excavated village are traces of 12 long houses surrounded by a fortified stockade which was built in 1666 after a French army from Quebec destroyed an earlier Mohawk village at Osserneron (today, Auriesville) a few miles south.

The French army was punishing the Mohawks for their part in the Iroquois-Huron wars, when they plundered and destroyed villages along the St. Lawrence River belonging to the Hurons and Algonquins, Indian allies of the French. The Mohawks, members of the Iroquois confederation, wanted to gain control of the fur trade from their northern neighbors.

In destroying Ossernenon, the French army was also probably avenging the deaths of Fr. Isaac Jogues, SJ, and Rene Goupil and Gabriel Lalande, three French missionaries  killed in that village some years before:  honored  today by the Church as martyrs.

In the war against their neighbors to the north, the Mohawks  took women and children captive.  At the time,  native tribes replenished  their own numbers–diminished by wars or disease– by kidnapping members from other tribes. One of the Christian Algonquin women captured in an earlier raid married a Mohawk brave from Ossernenon and they had a daughter,  Kateri Tekakwitha (1656-1680), whom the Catholic Church  honors as a saint.

An epidemic of smallpox ravaged Ossernenon when Kateri was four years old, killing   many children and adults. The young girl almost died of the disease that left her disfigured. Her early Jesuit biographer says, “ She almost lost her eyesight, and her eyes hurt so much from this illness that she covered herself with a blanket when out in strong light.” (The Life of the Good Catherine Tekakwitha, Claude Chauchetiere, SJ , 1695)

Both parents died when Kateri was a little girl and she was taken in by relatives in the new Mohawk village of Caughnawaga (Fonda), where she lived most of her life. Her mother was a devout Christian and must have told her about Christianity, but Kateri’s new family and  tribe strongly opposed the religion.

The French military, as one condition for not returning to the Mohawk villages, demanded that Jesuit missionaries be allowed to visit them and minister to captive Christians or others interested in their faith. Jesuit missionaries visited Caughnawaga for three days in 1667 and received hospitality in the long house where Kateri lived with her uncle, a Mohawk leader opposed to Christians.

According to witnesses, Kateri  was a normal Indian girl and young woman.  “She brought wood and tended the fire when her aunt ordered her, and got water when those in the long house needed it. When she had nothing to do she amused herself making small jewels and dressing as other girls of her age. She placed shell bead necklaces around her neck, shell bead bracelets on her arms, rings on her fingers and ornaments in her ears.” (The Life of the Good Catherine Tekakwitha, Claude Chauchetiere, SJ , 1695)

Though sickly, she was not lazy or proud. She never talked about others. Timid, she avoided dances and games. She didn’t like seeing captives harmed or people tortured, witnesses said.

In the spring of 1675  Jesuit Father Jacques de Lamberville visited Caughnawaga . Kateri was alone in her long house because a foot injury prevented her from working in the fields and the priest entered her lodge. She spoke to him of her desire to receive baptism and on Easter, 1676, the young Indian girl was baptized and took the name Kateri, after St. Catherine of Siena, the mystic and a favorite patron of Christian Indian women. She was 20 years old.

Her uncle and relatives in the long house opposed her conversion to Christianity and pressured her to marry and follow their ways, though against  her beliefs. The early Jesuits considered it a miracle for a Christian to resist family and tribal pressure such as Kateri experienced in Caughnawaga. Yet, her early biographer says “She practiced her faith without losing her original fervor and her extraordinary virtue was seen by all. The Christians saw her obeying their rules exactly, going to prayers every day in the morning and evening and Mass on Sunday. At the same time she avoided the dreams feasts and the dances,” practices endangering her belief.  (The Life of the Good Catherine Tekakwitha, Claude Chauchetiere, SJ , 1695)

Father de Lamberville finally recommended that Kateri escape to the newly-established  Indian Christian village in Kahnawake near Montreal, where she could live her faith more easily. In 1676, aided by other Christian Indians, she made the dangerous journey northward.  There she lived a fervent life of prayer and faith;  she died and was buried on April 17th, 1680.

She was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on October 21, 2012, Her feast day is July 14.

We are listening to Isaiah this week.

Isaiah was a priest in the temple of Jerusalem eighth centuries before Jesus came. Though he was engaged in the worship of the temple Isaiah was also deeply engaged in the politics of his day.  He was watching everything  going on, scolding, warning, encouraging the rulers of Judea. 

What kept Isaiah from being overwhelmed by the politics and the events of his time – and this may be important for us today– was his vision of God. He describes that vision in the 6th chapter of his writings. It was so strong that it put everything else in its place–  politics, everything else– was put into place.

Remember God’s presence in your world, Isaiah says. God is present, not far away, but near. See things the way God sees them.  God’s plans are greater than ours, and they will be fulfilled. 

Could we hear that message too?  Aren’t we today getting overwhelmed by the political fighting and the problems of our time? Shouldn’t we  remember God’s is with us today and God will be with us tomorrow? God has plans for us and our world.

I think most of Isaiah’s contemporaries thought his description of God’s plans were unreal, too good to be true, too big to be realized. All nations streaming towards God’s mountain, Jerusalem? They’re coming  to take instruction; they’re beating their swords into plowshares? There will be no more wars? The lost will be led home? All will feast  at a banquet?

Unreal?

“In the year King Uzziah died,
I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne,
with the train of his garment filling the temple.
Seraphim were stationed above; each of them had six wings:
with two they veiled their faces,
with two they veiled their feet,
and with two they hovered aloft.They cried one to the other,
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts!
All the earth is filled with his glory!”
At the sound of that cry, the frame of the door shook
and the house was filled with smoke.Then I said, “Woe is me, I am doomed!
For I am a man of unclean lips,
living among a people of unclean lips;
yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”
Then one of the seraphim flew to me,
holding an ember that he had taken with tongs from the altar.He touched my mouth with it and said,
“See, now that this has touched your lips,
your wickedness is removed, your sin purged.”Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying,
“Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?”
“Here I am,” I said; “send me!””    (Isaiah 6:1-8) 

This week we’re reading in our lectionary key passages from the Prophet Isaiah, the most frequently referenced Old Testament source in the New Testament, after the psalms. Our readings are from Isaiah, chapters 1-38, generally considered from the prophet himself. They reflect the political situation in 8th century Judea. (742-701)

Isaiah’s vision of God (Saturday, 14th week)  dominates his spirituality. The vision of the Lord enthroned in glory made him aware of the power of God and the pettiness of human politics and sinfulness that marked Judea as it became enmeshed in power politics of the great powers around it. The prophet responded to God’s call to speak to this world: “Here am I, send me.”  

Our world, so fixed on politics, needs to listen to Isaiah.

 Chapters 40-55 (Second Isaiah, or Deutero-Isaiah) will be read in the liturgy especially during Advent, Lent and Easter. They are generally attributed to an anonymous poet who prophesied toward the end of the Babylonian exile and contain the great oracles known as the Servant Songs, which reflect the New Testament understanding of the passion and glorification of Christ. 

Chapters 55-66 (Third Isaiah, or Trito-Isaiah) contain oracles from the post-exilic period and were composed by writers who shared imbued in the spirit of Isaiah.

We are also reading from Chapter 11-12 of Matthew’s gospel. which describe a growing opposition to Jesus after his initial ministry in Galilee. “Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword,” Jesus says to his disciples.

We remember Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, the first canonized saint from the American native peoples, July 14. Holiness can be found in all people.

St. Bonaventure who brought his considerable intellectual gifts to the early Franciscan movement is remembered July 15.The saints often bring new dimensions to their religious community.

Mary, the Mother of Jesus, enriches the charism of so many great religious traditions in the church by her presence. Our Lady of Mount Carmel (July 16) enriched the Carmelite tradition.

For this week’s homily please watch the video below.

A rather unusual sower goes out to sow, but does not care where the seed falls. He throws the seeds even where it is unlikely they will bear fruit: on the path, on the rocks, among the thorns. This attitude surprises the listener and induces him to ask: how come?

We are used to calculating things – and at times it is necessary – but this does not apply in love! The way in which this “wasteful” sower throws the seed is an image of the way God loves us. Indeed, it is true that the destiny of the seed depends also on the way in which the earth welcomes it and the situation in which it finds itself, but first and foremost in this parable Jesus tells us that God throws the seed of his Word on all kinds of soil, that is, in any situation of ours: at times we are more superficial and distracted, at times we let ourselves get carried away by enthusiasm, sometimes we are burdened by life’s worries, but there are also times when we are willing and welcoming. God is confident and hopes that sooner or later the seed will blossom. This is how he loves us: he does not wait for us to become the best soil, but he always generously gives us his word. Perhaps by seeing that he trusts us, the desire to be better soil will be kindled in us. This is hope, founded on the rock of God’s generosity and mercy. (Pope Leo XVI, General Audience, 21 May 2025)

St. Benedict, brother of St. Scolastica, was born into a wealthy family in Nursia, Italy, in 480. He went to Rome to be educated at a time when invading barbarian tribes were creating panic in the city. Leaving Rome he withdrew to the village of Enfide in search of another way of learning,

About the year 500, Benedict went to the remote area of Subiaco, south of Rome, where he came under the influence of a monk named Romanus. Benedict became a monk himself and spent the next three years in a cave, living a life of prayer and solitude.

Others wished to join him and by 525 Benedict had established a number of monastic communities. In 529, Benedict, along with some followers went to Monte Cassino about 80 miles south of Rome and founded the great monastery that became a center of western monasticism. 

A wise spiritual leader and worker of miracles, Benedict is considered a key figure in the rise of European civilization because of his rule and the monastic foundations he inspired. As “schools of the Lord’s service,” his monastic communities became centers of learning and spirituality throughout Europe, and later in the Americas.

Pope Gregory the Great (540-612), in the turbulent years of the barbarian invasions of the Roman Empire, recognized the monastic ideal himself and saw monasticism as a way to spread the gospel and influence society. He saw Benedict as a new evangelist and monastic settlements new bridgeheads for evangelizing the world. In our own time Pope Paul VI named Benedict the patron of Europe. 

Benedict died at Monte Cassino March 21, 547.

“Whatever work you begin to do, ask God in earnest prayer to make it perfect…We are going to establish a school for the Lord’s service. Nothing harsh or burdensome will enter there, we hope… as we go forward in faith our hearts will expand, and we will run in the way of God’s commands with unspeakable joy.”  (Rule of St. Benedict) 

Monasticism, solitary or in community, is still a powerful force in the church. It began in Egypt and Syria among Christians discontented with a society that rejected their values. It continued through the centuries in various forms. We should study it today for the possibilities it offers for communities for today.

Our lectionary honors saints like Anthony of Egypt, Basil the Great, Martin of Tours, Boniface and Bernard who were engaged in the monastic life through the centuries. As we celebrate their feasts through the year they not only impart lessons from the past but also prospects for the church now.

Jesus said to his Apostles:
“Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves;
so be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves.
But beware of men, 
for they will hand you over to courts
and scourge you in their synagogues,
and you will be led before governors and kings for my sake
as a witness before them and the pagans.
When they hand you over,
do not worry about how you are to speak
or what you are to say.
You will be given at that moment what you are to say.
For it will not be you who speak
but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.
Brother will hand over brother to death,
and the father his child;
children will rise up against parents and have them put to death.
You will be hated by all because of my name,
but whoever endures to the end will be saved.
When they persecute you in one town, flee to another.
Amen, I say to you, you will not finish the towns of Israel
before the Son of Man comes.”

A writer in the NYT  wrote a column awhile ago describing  her efforts towards daily mindfulness.  She ends the day asking if she said the right thing or did anything to advance her life; how did she manage this situation, how could she have done it better? It’s not an examination of conscience she engages in but a search for a more successful self. It’s all up to you.

Jesus describes life so differently in today’s gospel. You’re like sheep sent out among wolves, he says, and you’re not safe even in your own home. You’re ok, though. You’re not on a journey alone. “ Don’t worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say. You will be given at that moment what you are to say. For it will not be you who speak but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.” 

How different that is from trying to do it all yourself.

That’s not telling us to forget what we say or do or think. We shouldn’t live unexamined lives. Mindfulness is all right, as far as it goes. We’re also told to be as shrewd as serpents and as simple as doves. Yet, at the same time we’re sheep among wolves, we’re branches on the vine. We’re promised a wisdom and a voice stronger than our own.

We don’t have to do it all by ourselves. At the end of the day we’re not alone.

A global church celebrates saints from everywhere, and that’s why saints from Africa and Asia have been added to our church calendar after the Second Vatican Council. In them we see fulfilled the command of Jesus to his disciples to go “to all nations.” We are a Catholic Church.

On July 9th, we remember Saint Augustine Zhao Rong, Priest, and Companions, Martyrs from the church in China, who were canonized in October 2000. On November 24th we remember Saint Andrew Dung– Lac and 117 other Vietnamese martyrs killed in the 18th century in a cruel persecution of Christians They were canonized by Pope John Paul II in  June 1988.  On September 20th, we remember the martyrs of Korea. Saints Andrew Kim Tae-gŏn, Priest, and Paul Chŏng Ha-sang, and Companions, Martyrs. All together, 103 martyrs were canonized by Pope John Paul II on 6 May 1984 in Seoul, Korea. 

These churches have remarkable histories. Take a look at the history of the church in China. 

The recent feasts of Asian churches celebrate, not only individual missionaries from elsewhere who brought the faith to these lands, but natives who accepted the gospel and died for their belief in it. The feasts recall centuries of missionary work that sowed the seeds of faith in these countries and the strong faith that blesses these churches now.

 As numbers decline in places like Europe and North America we should recognize the growth of our church elsewhere. “The harvest is great, “ Jesus told his first disciples. He tells us that today.  

In our cemetery here in Jamaica, New York, we have a monument to a young Chinese priest, Fr. John Nien, who died in the Communist persecution of the church in the 1950s and graves of Passionist missionaries who served in Hunan China during that time.  I put Fr. Nien’s monument at the beginning of this entry because he belongs among the martyrs of China. I put the graves and monuments to the Passionist missionaries below because they worked for a harvest that is now here and still to come.

God’s plan is mysterious, but the church will be blessed by the church in China.