17th Week in Ordinary Time 2025 - Monday - Growth of the Kingdom of Heaven

 In the course of his public ministry, the Lord employed parables to teach about discipleship, faithfulness, and charity.

Today’s Gospel contained two short parables to describe growth—growth in the kingdom of heaven.

Before we consider the parables, what does the Lord mean when he uses that phrase, “the kingdom of heaven”. The kingdom of heaven is a constant topic in the Lord’s teaching. The phrase is used over 30 times in the Gospel of Matthew. A number of the parables describe what the “kingdom of heaven” is like. So, it’s a multi-faceted idea. Sometimes the kingdom of heaven seems to be describing the body of believers, sometimes the dominion of God, sometimes the presence of God in the individual soul, sometimes all these things at once.

Today’s parables speak of the kingdom of God as a reality that experiences growth. It starts off small, even barely visible, even undetectable to physical sight, but it can grow, and grow even beyond our human expectations.

The small seed growing into a large bush big enough for all of the birds of the sky to dwell in its branches makes us think of the Church. The Lord’s mission in establishing the kingdom of heaven began with very small beginnings but encompasses all nations, all people, and all time.

So too with the life of charity in the individual soul. It often starts off small, the small seed planted at baptism, the first hearing and reception of the Gospel. And then it has the potential to bloom into a magnificent sight, as seen in the lives of the saints. We must certainly do all that we can to cultivate the life of the kingdom of heaven in our hearts. 

But also, this Gospel certainly challenges us to never underestimate the power and importance of small acts of charity and sharing the Gospel with single individuals. This is how the kingdom of heaven grows. Again look at the saints. Most of these people started off as uneducated unremarkable people, and became bright, shining, majestic souls because someone, often a parent, or an ordinary Catholic like you and me, took the time, took the risk, to share the Word of God with them.

I remember, Pope Benedict warning Catholics to resist what he calls “the temptation of impatience”, that is the temptation to insist on “immediately finding great success” in “large numbers”.  “For the Kingdom of God and for evangelization, the parable of the grain of mustard seed is always valid.”  This new modern phase of the Church’s evangelization mission is likely not one of immediately attracting the large masses from the secular world or people who have distanced themselves from the Church” to begin attending mass. 

Rather, start with your neighbor, the individual looking for God, looking for fulfillment in something more than the culture has to offer. Believe in the power of God to transform the mustard seed, and act accordingly, to build up the kingdom of heaven, for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

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Trusting in the power of God’s grace, let us bring our petitions to the Lord:

For the Church throughout the world: That she may remain faithful in planting the seeds of the Kingdom through word, sacrament, and service.

For all Christians engaged in the work of evangelization: That they may resist the temptation of impatience and find renewed hope in the slow but steady growth of God’s grace in the hearts of others.

For those who have strayed from the faith or feel distant from the Church: That through the witness of faithful individuals and small acts of love, they may rediscover the beauty and truth of the Gospel.

For those who suffer in body or spirit, especially the lonely and forgotten: That they may find shelter and hope in the branches of God’s mercy and the compassion of His people.

For the faithful departed: That the seed of faith planted in their lives may now blossom into the fullness of eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven. 

God of mercy and love, hear our prayers and give us the grace to cooperate in Your work of salvation, trusting always in Your power to transform our efforts, through Christ our Lord.

11th Sunday of Ordinary Time 2024 - Parables of Growth

 One of the hallmarks of the Lord’s preaching and teaching is his use of parables. Through parables, the Lord drew upon images, ideas, and customs from the everyday life of 1st century Israel—like farming and family. 

Farming images--Seeds, plants, and trees feature significantly in our scripture readings this weekend—fittingly—as Ordinary Time is aimed at being a season of growth for us. The color green worn by the priest during Ordinary Time reminds us of the spiritual growth that each of us has the responsibility of cultivating within ourselves during this liturgical season. 

In the first reading, Ezekiel’s prophecy contains a very surprising image of growth—a majestic sprawling tree. And I say it was a surprising image because Ezekiel was prophesying during the time in the history of Israel when the tree of King David’s royal dynasty appeared to be dying. Half the tree, half the kingdom, had already been decimated—Northern Israel had been conquered by Assyria, and the southern region was also in serious trouble, Babylon had exiled many and demolished the royal city of Jerusalem.

The tree of David looked like it had just about had it. But in the midst of this quite depressing time, Ezekiel is tasked by God to gives a prophecy of new life: God will preserve the dynasty of David and it will grow once more. 

Now many must have scoffed at Ezekiel’s prophecy. For the ancient Near East had seen many nations annihilated and many royal dynasties exterminated and forgotten by history. And never had it been known for a royal house to be dethroned, exiled—and then established, let alone flourish to become tree that would encompass all the nations of the world. So, Ezekiel’s prophecy was a promise that was going to do something amazing.

And we know, that  prophecy has been fulfilled in Christ Son of David. And the new Israel, the Church. is that tree that encompasses and embraces the nations of the world. And yet, Ezekiel’s promise is new life is also relevant to our individual spiritual life.

We are never too old, or too sinful, that God cannot bring about new growth in us—new life in us. There is no one out there that is so lost, so severed from God, that they cannot repent and come to life.

The communion of saints is full of men and women whose early lives were so full of sin that you never would have expected their conversion. But through the prayers of the Church, the wisdom and holy example of Christians, and the grace of God, they came to faith and the flourishing of great sanctity.

If you simply looked to the early life of St. Augustine, St. Mary Magdalene, St. Francis of Assisi—if you met them as teenagers, you’d think, these people are doomed. St. Olga of Kiev was a cruel, ruthless, murderous ruler before her conversion. Blessed Bartolo Longo was an ordained “satanic priest” before returning to the Catholic Faith and eventually becoming a third order Dominican. They are living without God. And they aren’t just not going to church on the weekends. In the Communion of Saints there are former murderers, thieves, and literal devil worshippers.

Just as God brought new life to the seemingly dying dynasty of David, he offers life to all people, including those people whose lives look like a rotting tree. He converts atheists all the time, and so he can certainly bring about new life in our neighborhood and in our souls.

In the Gospel, Jesus uses the image of the growth of a seed to explain what he calls “the kingdom of God” –--God’s reign as king both in our individual souls and in the Church. And he explains that at times the growth of that seed is imperceptible, it seems like it is dormant, and nothing is happening. And then sometimes that small seed flourishes to an amazing degree. 

God is at work in the heart of every person on this planet to bring them to faith. It may look like the seed is dormant, that God isn’t evident in their lives. He is working in their relationships, and every time they glimpse up at the tower of St. Ignatius, and see our garden club hard at work or our parishioners feeding the hungry at the food pantry. 

Truly, when non-believers can see the difference our faith makes, they are being drawn to Christ. When they see patience, joy, peace, kindness, gentleness and self-control in us, they are being drawn to life.

Now the second reading didn’t explicitly use the image of a plant or tree, but St. Paul makes clear that the point of this earthly life is to grow into the people God made us to be so that we can enjoy eternal life in heaven. We have a longing for heaven, and to get there, we must cultivate faith, hope, and love. God is the farmer, and we are seeds, planted in the earth that we may grow to heavenly life until the time of the harvesting. God is planter and harvester. As the Lord says in the Gospel,  “And when the grain is ripe, he wields the sickle at once, for the harvest has come.” 

Each of us will face the sickle, the end of our earthly life. As St. Paul teaches, “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense, according to what he did in the body, whether good or evil” so we should get busy cultivating the life of holiness taught and modeled by Christ.

Notice, too, the warning implicit in Paul’s words, “we walk by faith, not by sight”. In this earthly life, there are plenty of people who look to be happy, who seem to prosper. But Hollywood celebrities and professional athletes end up in the gutter all the time. Wealth, status, prestige, and privilege do not bring authentic fulfillment. The rich and powerful often lead empty, corrupt, perverted lives because they are not rooted in Christ. The scientific wonders of our technological age can never replace the need for God, the need to pursue heaven by cultivating divine life through prayer, right belief, the sacraments of the Church, and the acts of charity. 

As we make our way through this liturgical season of Ordinary Time, a season full of opportunities for spiritual and moral growth, may each of us consider: “where is the Lord calling me to grow this season”, “what spiritual fruits are absent in my life”, “what saint should I seek to emulate this summer”, “how is the Lord challenging me to grow in my prayer life, my moral life, my engagement in the works of charity, in working together with fellow Christians”, “who are the souls whom I should pray for more intentionally for their spiritual well-being or their return to the sacraments”?

May we be courageous in pursuing the life of the soul God wants to grow in us, for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. 

17th Week in OT 2020 - Monday - The rotten loincloth and the Mustard Seed

It usually isn’t too difficult to find a connection between the first reading and the Gospel. Today, though…well, let’s see.

First we heard of the rotten loincloth of Jeremiah. A strange image, but, thankfully it’s explained for us. Israel, which was supposed to have a very close, intimate relationship with God, had been soiled by the pagan influences of Babylon. And over time, those pagan influences had caused Israel to rot.
In the Gospel, we hear parables, not of rot, but growth, tremendous growth.

So, the connection between the two readings is not too difficult to grasp after all. When we allow ourselves to be corrupted by the wicked ways of the world, there will be negative consequences, but when we cooperate with the grace of God, there will be flourishing, and that’s true whether we are speaking about personal spiritual growth, or the growth of the Church.

In many places, we’ve seen a shrinking of the Church, our neighborhood—our country. There was a lot of worldliness that crept into the life of the Church the last 50 years: forsaking of time-honored devotions, attempts to change or water-down very clear moral teachings, and let’s not even speak about what happened to the liturgy—a liturgy that facilitated tremendous spiritual growth, was made almost unrecognizable from the liturgy of the ages.

And some folks—bishops and laity alike, believe that we didn’t go far enough, if we just make the church look even more like the world, then we’ll attract young people and non-believers. But that’s never worked, and it seems to contradict the wisdom of scripture.

Spiritual growth will come when we hold fast to that which is good, and preach the Gospel as it was given to the Apostles by our blessed Lord. Pope Benedict, speaking about this current phase of the Church’s evangelization mission to the secular world. He said, it’s not about “immediately attracting the large masses that have distanced themselves from the Church”, rather, we need “to dare, once again and with the humility of the mustard seed, to leave up to God the when and how it will grow”. 

Humility is required for growth, humility which acknowledges that we may have made some mistakes the last 50 years. We may have made a few too many compromises with the secular culture. We may have failed to teach with conviction and clarity the standards of the moral life, and made the liturgy a little too much about man, and not enough about God.

May we exercise the humility needs in order to be that people the Lord made us to be, that we may be a people which spread his renown, his praise, his beauty, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
 
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For the humility to repent of our sins, learn from our mistakes and failures, and commit wholeheartedly to the work of the Gospel.

That leaders of nations may find guidance in the Word of God for proper governance and the pursuit of justice for all.

That Christian families may be places where the Christian faith is studied, understood, observed, and cherished.

For all those who suffer illness, those in hospitals, nursing homes and hospice care, and all those who despair of the love of God.

For the repose of the souls of our beloved dead, the deceased members of our families friends and parishes, for those who fought and died for our freedom, and N. for whom this Mass is offered.

O God, our refuge and our strength, hear the prayers of your Church, for you yourself are the source of all goodness, and grant, we pray, that what we ask in faith we may truly obtain

3rd Week in OT 2019 - Friday - God causes the growth

On Wednesday we heard from Mark’s Gospel the great parable of the sower: a parable to explain Jesus’ earthly ministry and the different responses he encountered. Through his preaching of the Gospel, the Lord was scattering seed, preaching to all who would hear him. Some would ignore his teaching, some would initially accept it, even enthusiastically, but would abandon it because of their rocky hearts; some would accept it, but the thorns of their worldly and sinful attachments would cause the gospel message to be choked in their hearts. Some would rightly cultivate their minds and hearts, to make their souls rich soil for the reception of the Gospel, and these ones would bear fruit for the kingdom of God.

Today’s reading contains two parables. The first speaks not so much about our individual responsibility in cultivating the soil of our souls, not so much the work that we must do, and the efforts that we must make. Today’s first parable deals with God’s work, what God does in the soul. In this parable of the seed sprout and growing in a way that is mysterious even to the farmer, Our Lord teaches us that our growth in holiness and the growth of the Church is ultimately God’s work.

St. Paul alluded to this parable when he said, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth. Therefore, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who causes growth.” Christian humility acknowledges that God is the one who brings about growth and blessings and holiness.

But this parable also serves as an encouragement for those who think their efforts are fruitless. When we don’t see a parish growing as we would like, when we don’t see a lapsed catholics return to the church as we’d like, when we don’t see ourselves excelling in a particular virtue as we’d like, we are encouraged by this parable to keep the faith, and allow God to work according to God’s timeline.

We must do our part: preaching, teaching, engaging in works of charity, examining our consciences and repenting of our sins. And we must not allow our egos or personal preferences to get in the way of the work God wants to do. For true renewal, true spiritual growth involves allowing God to be God, to lead us out of our selfishness, to surprise us in our preconceptions, to bring us out of comfort zones, to transform us into saintly witnesses of his goodness, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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That every member of the Church may cultivate minds, hearts, and souls to receive the Word of God more deeply and fruitfully.

That leaders of nations may find guidance in the Word of God for proper governance and the pursuit of justice for all.

That Christian families may be places where the Word of God is studied, understood, obeyed, and cherished.

During this Catholic Schools Week, for the students, teachers, staff, and alumni of St. Ignatius School and all of our Catholic Schools.

That the word of God may bring consolation to all those who suffer: for the sick, those affected by inclement weather or political turmoil, the indigent, those who will die today, and those who grieve.

For the deceased members of our families and parishes, for all of the poor souls in purgatory, and for N., for whom this Mass is offered.

O God, our refuge and our strength, hear the prayers of your Church, for you yourself are the source of all goodness, and grant, we pray, that what we ask in faith we may truly obtain.