For this week’s homily please watch the video below.
by Orlando Hernandez
In this Thursday’s Gospel (Mt 13: 10-17) our Lord is asked by His disciples why He speaks to the crowds in parables. I used to think that in this passage Jesus sounds almost disdainful as He talks of those who “look, but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand.” They do not seem to deserve the healing that in Isaiah’s prophesy God refuses to give them. I think of the harsh sermons that I remember hearing fearfully when I was a child and went to church. We are so undeserving.
However, our Lord is all goodness and mercy. He cannot have bad feelings toward anyone. This is a vital “knowledge of the Kingdom of Heaven” that I feel He has granted me! I truly believe that He loved those “crowds” who mostly rejected what He taught. But, He could not help but point out that, for the most part, “Gross is the heart of this people” and they were unable to “understand within their hearts” that the Creator of the universe was giving them the very gift of Himself
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My wife Berta always tells me that the Passion of our Lord was taking place within Him throughout all His ministry. Jesus must have felt great sorrow as He went about trying to reach the people. They seem to want the miracle and the spectacle, but the message of Salvation and eternal life was beyond them. The Sermon on the Mount was too much for them to understand or accept. Things have not changed. In our modern world what can we followers of Christ tell others that will open their eyes, their understanding, their hearts? Look at Jesus’ frustration in the Gospel. Can we do any better?
I used to think that in Thursday’s Gospel Jesus is saying that He talks to the unbelievers through parables in order to confuse, insult, and reject them. I can’t believe that anymore. In his book “Jesus, a Pilgrimage,” Fr. James Martin says that parables were ways to reach the people through the things they understood: farm life, fishing, home-building, the nature surrounding them, human relations. Jesus must have known that so much of His teaching was beyond their understanding. Perhaps the stories and similes were meant to catch their attention and stimulate their imaginations, like seeds planted hopefully in the soil of their hearts, whether rocky, compacted, weed-ridden, obstinate, or uninterested.
Were the chosen disciples so much better off than these crowds? Yes, Jesus gave them a good amount of healing and knowledge. For His own divine reasons He had also put into their hearts the supernatural gift of faith. But did they really comprehend the vast mystery of God’s Glory and Love? They certainly had a long painful road ahead in order to achieve enough joy and understanding of who Jesus really was in order to become truly committed to the demands of discipleship.
When I sit at Mass I feel like a member of both the undeserving crowd and the circle of disciples. When I hear the modern parables of the priests’ homilies, do I have ears to listen to what God is telling me? When I look around, do I have the eyes to see the presence of the living God in the people that surround me? When the broken, wounded Host is raised before me (“Behold the Lamb of God, Behold Him…”) is my heart pure enough that I might truly see Him, the Eternal God?
Lord, You are such a mystery to me. Sometimes my link to You seems so tenuous. And yet Your gift of faith has been planted in my heart. I do not want to let You go. Please don’t let me go. But, most importantly, I beg You, have mercy on those unbelieving “crowds.” Touch their hearts, show them who You are!
Orlando Hernández
Throughout the Catholic world novenas honoring St. Ann begin July 17.
You won’t find the names of Ann and Joachim in the bible, but they’re mentioned in one of the apocryphal books, the Protoevangelium of James, written shortly after our New Testament writings.
Interest in Jesus’ family came about because of claims that he was “Son of David,” the Messiah expected to come from David’s line. Against those who said Jesus was only a carpenter from Nazareth, the infancy narratives in Matthew and Luke assert that Jesus is the Messiah, descended from David.
The Protoevangelium of James also sees Joachim and Ann in David’s line, and therefore Mary was too. It says they lived in Jerusalem. Did they accompany Mary to Nazareth after her marriage to Joseph? If so, Jesus had grandparents taking care of him for a time.
If that’s true, it means Ann and Joachim gave Jesus something more besides proof of his bloodline. Along with Mary and Joseph, they brought him up. As a young child he learned from them, the simplest and the most sublime things. Knowledge came to him, as it comes to us–through the senses, through mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers.
St. Ann is often pictured with her daughter Mary holding a small book in her hands. Written on the book in the statue here in this church are the words, “If today you hear God’s voice, harden not your heart,” a verse from the psalms.
Other statues of her have different words in the book. “I,2,3,4; A,B,C,D.” The basics of life. Or notice Giotto’s picture of the presentation of Mary in the temple. (above) Ann pushes her little daughter into the temple. Just like pushing kids to church today?
Parents and grandparents play a powerful role in the lives of their children and grandchildren. They teach kids their abc’s and the sublime mysteries of faith. Maybe that’s why so many of them make this novena. They know that’s true.
JULY 18 Mon Weekday [USA: St Camillus, Priest] Mi 6:1-4, 6-8/Mt 12:38-42
19 Tue Weekday Mi 7:14-15, 18-20/Mt 12:46-50 (396)
20 Wed Weekday [St Apollinaris, Bishop and Martyr] Jer 1:1, 4-10/Mt 13:1-9
21 Thu Weekday [St Lawrence of Brindisi, Priest and Doctor of the Church]
Jer 2:1-3, 7-8, 12-13/Mt 13:10-17
22 Fri St Mary Magdalene Feast Sg 3:1-4b or 2 Cor 5:14-17/Jn 20:1-2, 11-18
23 Sat Weekday [St Bridget, Religious] Jer 7:1-11/Mt 13:24-30 )
24 SUN 17th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Gn 18:20-32/Col 2:12-14/Lk 11:1-13
Chapters 12-13 of Mathew’s gospel continue to describe the opposition Jesus faces after he was welcomed at the beginning of his ministry.
We’re reading from the Prophet Micah this week, who championed the cause of immigrants. Immigration is a hot topic today. Let’s listen to this prophet.
For the next week or so, we’ll be reading the Prophet Jeremiah in our lectionary. Born about 650 BC, Jeremiah spoke to the Kingdom of Judah during its final tumultuous days before the Babylonians captured Jerusalem in 598 BC and took away its leading citizens into exile in Babylon.
He wasn’t accepted during his lifetime; his influence grew only after his death as Jewish exiles reflected on his words and actions. He’s seen as a figure of Jesus.
Mary Magdalen is the major saint we celebrate this week. Her feast was raised in importance by Pope Francis his year. She’s an “apostle to the apostles.”
For this week’s homily please watch the video below.
I’m sitting this morning in my sister’s backyard, shaded by a big Chinese maple and a big holly tree. She has a small shrine to Mary there and a statue of Joseph holding a broken child Jesus, which she salvaged from someone else’s backyard.
A young robin and a young cowbird are nearby searching for food, a little perturbed, I think, to find me occupying part of the territory that’s usually theirs.
We usually think we own the world. What rights do robins and cowbirds have to this backyard I’m enjoying now?
We didn’t make the trees, the ground we’re on, the air we breathe. They’re gifts to us and make us who we are. NASA released on Tuesday images and data from the new James Webb Space Telescope that offered a spectacular view of our universe. We know only a small part of the cosmos we live in.
Neither do I know a part of the small garden I’m sharing with the robins and cowbirds this morning.
There are treasures in life, but you don’t get ahold of them easily. You need to discover them and then give all you have to get them. That’s what Jesus teaches in the parables we’re reading recently.
Treasures in the parables are hidden in the ground and in the deep waters of the sea, so you can’t expect to see them right away. You have to dig for them and cast your net out for them.
The times you live in may not make finding treasure easy either. The times in which Jesus lived were hardly ideal, as we see in chapters from the Gospel of Matthew which immediately precede the parables.
Yet, instead of closing your eyes and ears and hanging on tight, Jesus tells his disciples to open their eyes and their ears, because treasures are there. “Blessed are your eyes, because they see and your ears because they hear. Many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it and hear what you hear and did not hear it.” (Matthew 13,16-17)
Bad times can be the best times to find treasure. That’s another lesson Jesus teaches in Matthew’s series of parables. Some of the best things we discover in life, some of the best things we have, some of our most creative moments come in bad times.
God doesn’t stop sowing seed in bad times. Even then, treasures, pearls of great price are there to be discovered. That’s the message found in the parables. It’s the message found in the mystery of his Cross..
From time to time I like browsing through the large collection of books we have downstairs. Libraries, bookstores, now the internet, are treasuries and junkyards all at once. You never know when you’re going to stumble upon something that sparks questions or open your mind.
Awhile ago, I stumbled on a book called Pride of Place: The Role of Bishops in the Development of Catechesis in the United States, by Sr. Mary Charles Bryce. It’s a study of catechisms and catechesis in our country from the time of Bishop John Carroll, way back in the 18th century, to the 1980’s. How are we going to teach and form our people in faith? That’s the question they were asking then. It’s a question we face now.
Catechesis is on my mind lately. We’ve had a big development in theology and scripture and liturgy since the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, but has that reached the ordinary people of the church, young or old? I think we need a better way to make the riches of our faith available to them. Catechesis is one of our prime needs as Catholic schools decline and dioceses, parishes, religious orders and their resources diminish.
“Pride of Place” Sister Bryce called her book, a title from an old pastoral letter of the American bishops on catechesis. Not a bad priority for the church today. How are we going to pass on the faith we have received in our time. What are the words and ways we’re going to use? Pope Francis in his recent letter Desiderio Desideravi calls us to see the liturgy as a catechetical school.
The Eternal Word needs to become incarnate from age to age:
“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.” (T.S. Eliot)
We need to renew our liturgical life. We need good catechetical sites online and there’s still something to be said for the books in our library downstairs. They were gathered by people before me, who were wondering about things as I am now. Someone recognized Sister Bryce’s book was a good book to hold on to.
Thanks.
The 11th and 12th chapters of Matthew’s gospel which we’re reading this week describes a growing opposition to Jesus after he begins his ministry in Galilee. It’s a dark section of the gospel.
The Pharisees now take “counsel against him to put him to death” and begin to oppose him. (Matthew 12.14) They’re not satisfied with his teachings and miracles and demand a sign. They’re joined by the Herodians, followers of Herod Antipas who ruled in Galilee. The political establishment joins the opposition.
Jesus is also opposed by “this generation” of Israelites, the towns “where most of his mighty deeds had been done,” Corazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum. (Matthew 11,16-19) The towns that enthusiastically first welcomed him seem to dismiss him.
At the end of this section of Matthew another group, who may surprise us, appear to oppose him – his family from Nazareth. (Matthew 12,47-50)
All together, this opposition must have affected Jesus, as he faced the fickleness of humanity. But it also must have affected his disciples as well, who joined him expecting to see God’s kingdom come.
I think they’re among those whom Jesus prays for in today’s gospel.
“I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
for although you have hidden these things
from the wise and the learned
you have revealed them to the childlike.
Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will.
All things have been handed over to me by my Father.
No one knows the Son except the Father,
and no one knows the Father except the Son
and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.”
From what we know of them, the first disciples of Jesus were not wise and learned, they were more like children excited by what they saw Jesus do and say. They had no deep theories or plans to draw upon; they had no experience to go by when they faced failure and rejection. They only heard the simple wisdom Jesus offered as he spoke to them in parables.
And that was enough.
Are we like them, and is our time now like theirs? In a time like ours this gospel reminds us God reveals his wisdom to the childlike. His Son still reveals himself to us. We praise God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. The childlike will be taken care of.
Pope Francis in his recent letter Desiderio Desideravi gives a lot of attention to the Eucharist, but he also points out that we encounter Jesus Christ in the sacraments and in the church year. The liturgy of the church is our common prayer where, when we gather in his name, two or three of more, Jesus is in our midst.
Two tendencies endanger common prayer today, the pope says. One he calls neo-Gnosticism, the other neo-Pelagianism.
“The first, neo-Gnosticism, shrinks Christian faith into a subjectivism that ‘ultimately keeps us imprisoned in our own thoughts and feelings.’” (EG 94) We might say neo-Gnosticism shrinks the world into what I happen to be interested in now, what I’m doing, what’s going on in my life, what I think is good for me. Everything else doesn’t matter, or is too much to think about. The early gnostics dismissed much of the world as evil, and consequentially made the world too small.
Neo-Pelagianism cancels out the role of grace, the pope says. It leads us to believe we can do anything if we set my minds to it. I don’t need anything beyond what I can do with my own hands and my own mind. So why do I need God?
These two tendencies today endanger in a particular way our encounter with Christ in the Eucharist and the liturgy and our common prayer. In his letter later on, the pope recommends we study the liturgy and celebrate it the right way, but he stresses the importance of examining ourselves on those two tendencies.
The liturgy “frees us from the prison of a self-referencing nourished by our own reasoning and our own feeling” the pope say. It frees us from small-mindedness. “it does not leave us alone to search out the mystery of God. Rather, it takes us by the hand, together, as an assembly, to lead us deep within the mystery that the Word and the sacramental signs reveal to us. And it does this, consistent with God’s action, following the way of the Incarnation…” (18)
The liturgy follows the way of the Incarnation. How does it do that? One way is that it recognizes we human beings learn day by day. The liturgy is a daily school; it takes us by the hand day by day into a world of simple signs. It’s the most important school we go to.
We’re reading from chapters 11-12 of Matthew’s gospel this week which describes the growing opposition to Jesus after his initial ministry in Galilee. How can we face opposition in our own world if we don’t recognize Jesus faced opposition in the world he lived in?
This week we’re reading key passages from the Prophet Isaiah at Mass, the most frequently referenced Old Testament source in the New Testament, after the psalms.
There are some interesting saints this week. Today we celebrate St. Benedict, a founder of western monasticism, who brought a new way of Christian life into the church. Can he help us envision new forms of life in our church today”
We celebrate St. Bonaventure this week. He brought a new dimension to the early Franciscan movement. Are there new dimensions taking place in church communities today?
The liturgy leads us by the hand into the mystery of Christ. It’s a daily school for us and our community. That why we begin our prayers with prayers like this:“O God,come to my assistance. O Lord, make haste to help me.” Take me from my small world, into your great world. Take us from our small world, into your great world.
“Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning is now and will be forever. Amen.”
A world much bigger than what we see now.
The Victor's Place 