Trinity Sunday 2021 - Mysterious Love

 

We have come again to the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity.  I don’t know who dreads this Sunday more, the priests who have to attempt to explain this most mysterious of all Catholic Dogmas in a short homily, or the people, who have to listen to it.  

I think many priests on Trinity Sunday, like Saint Patrick depicted in our stained glass window with the three-leaf clover, try to explain the nature of the Trinity with some analogy: the trinity is like three burning candles twisted together to have one flame, or like a three-stranded piece of rope.  Or the Trinity is like an egg, and the three persons are like the egg shell, an egg white and an egg yolk.  Some have said the Trinity is like Water which can come in three modes: ice, liquid, or steam, or a tree that has branches, leaves, and roots.

The problem with each of these analogies is that they are ultimately wrong, yes, even Saint Patrick’s use of the three-leaf clover.  To say that the Trinity is like some created thing will never fully explain the Trinity.  The three divine persons of the One Supreme Godhead –Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are not three modes of God, three parts, three divisions, or three different masks that God wears. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not three separate entities, like three separate Gods. In a sense, it’s easier to say what the Trinity is not, than what the Trinity is.

In the end, all analogies fail. God is greater than our human comprehension. And I think that’s one of the reasons we celebrate Trinity Sunday: to acknowledge that God is greater than my human comprehension, and I’m okay with it. 

Saint Augustine, who is one of the most profound reflectors on the Trinity said, “Si comprehendis, non est Deus” which means, “If you understand, it’s not God.”  The minute you say, yes, I got it now: that’s not God, says Augustine.  The Trinity is greater than human understanding. 

And that’s a wonderful thing. God is bigger than us. He’s greater than us. He resists being limited by our human categories and prejudices. 

We all know the famous story of the Israelites, after crossing the red sea, they come to mt. sinai. And they fashion for themselves an idol to worship. A hunk of metal. Though their action was way off the mark, and yet, it’s somewhat relatable. It’s a perennial temptation to fashion for ourselves gods which are less mysterious, less demanding, gods that we can see and touch and obtain. Why do people worship money and the accumulation of material things? Because they are right there! Why do people make idols out of athletes and politicians? Because they are right there. Listen to them talk—they’re so charming; they tell me what I want to hear. Watch them play—they’re so talented! It makes me happy.

But we are made for so much more than the happiness offered by the false idols of our own making. We're made for the eternal blessedness of communion with the One True God.

So on one hand, God is mysterious—beyond the comprehension of any created intellect. On the other hand, we were created in order to love God.  And an old proverb says, "You cannot love what you do not know."  God’s nature might be ultimately unknowable, but God has revealed something about Himself--He loves us. 

Catholics don’t believe in some generic faceless nameless divinity like the unitarians because God is not generic—He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Catholic don’t worship some uncaring divine force—but a communion of love whose goodness overflows for us. The Father has a plan for his creation, His Son is sent to enact that plan: to suffer and die for it, the Holy Spirit enflames our hearts and incorporates us into that plan.

While mysterious, the Holy Trinity desires that we seek to know Him, love Him, and serve Him in this life, that we may be happy with Him in the next. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, and all your strength, the Lord tells us. Okay. How?

Just as you get to know someone by spending time with them and doing work with them, so too, we come to know Father, Son, and Holy Spirit spending time with them in prayer, by reading what the Scriptures reveal about Them, what the great Church Fathers have written about them, and by spending time in their service.

Why do a growing number of people in this country claim to have no relationship with God? Because they do none of these things. Instead of prayer, they seek the superficial status of social media. Instead of reading the Scriptures, they turn their minds to the perverse entertainments of our day. Instead of engaging in the holy works of mercy, they seek to build up for themselves treasures on earth.

Many people today blame God for their troubles, instead of recognizing God’s desires to help them in their troubles. They say, there is evil in the world, there is evil in my life, therefore God does not exist. In this case, they’ve fashioned such a small, impotent God. Rather, Catholics know, that God is doing something about the evil in the world, he has done something about the evil in the world. The Father has sent the Son to conquer evil and sin and death. And he is victorious. And we can share in that victory by belief in Him, by handing our lives over to Him, by bearing our crosses in union with Him, with the sure and certain Hope, that discipleship leads to resurrection and eternal life.

The Holy Trinity is mysterious, but as we encounter Him in our liturgical worship in our daily prayer, and in our charitable service, we begin to know with our minds and fix in our hearts that the Lord is God. 

In the celebration of Mass, particularly, the Holy Trinity is acting now in history: Father, Son, and Spirit, breathing new life into the Church, nourishing us with the Eucharist, enkindling our hearts for the work of the Gospel. As we continue this sacred celebration and as you go forth from here into the world, let us open our minds, hearts, and souls to the goodness and providence of the Trinity. Let us trust Him, and seek to know Him ever more intimately, and serve Him always and everywhere for the Glory of God and salvation of souls.

Easter Octave 2021 - Wednesday - Emmaus Word and Sacrament

 

As I mentioned yesterday, in ancient days the newly initiated would attend daily mass throughout the easter octave. The homilies would have a catechetical tone to help the newly initiated understand the mysterious meaning of easter, the sacraments they received, and apply the scriptures to their new way of life.

And isn’t that exactly what the Lord does in the Gospel today: shrouded in mystery, he meets a small group of confused disciples, he breaks bread with them in which they recognize his real presence, and he explains the scriptures to them—how what occurred on Good Friday and Easter Sunday was in fulfillment of his Father’s plan of salvation foretold in the Old Testament.

The whole Christian life is like a journey beginning at baptism, in which we encounter the risen Lord, and then subsequently grow in our understanding of discipleship as we walk the Way of Life.

And then like the disciples—hearing the word and breaking the bread—every time we attend Mass, we are encountering the Risen Lord—in the liturgy of the word and the liturgy of the Eucharist. In the liturgy of the Word we encounter the Lord challenging us, inspiring us, enlightening us, correcting us, healing us, deepening our understanding, inviting us, equipping us, and sending us out into the world, like Peter in the first reading, to bring the Lord’s good news and spiritual healing to others. Some people zone out during the liturgy of the word, but this dimension of the mass is of vital importance, and we do well having come to mass already having read a bit and reflecting on the scriptures, so that when they are proclaimed during Mass, we are ready for and receptive to the Lord’s life giving word.

And then as the disciples recognized the Lord in the breaking of the bread, we recognize the real presence of the Lord in the Eucharist—bread and wine changed into his very body and blood. In all of the other sacraments Jesus gives us His grace, says St. Thomas Aquinas, while in the Eucharist, the “sacrament of sacraments,” He gives us His whole self, His divinity and His humanity.

Something happens within us when we encounter Christ in the Mass.  Our hearts do burn within us, as the Emmaus disciples—they are enflamed with love, enlightened with understanding, purified of selfishness, warmed and consoled, and tempered for the work of the Gospel for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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Filled with Paschal joy, let us turn earnestly to God, to graciously hear our prayers and supplications.

For the shepherds of our souls, that they may have the strength to govern wisely the flock entrusted to them by the Good Shepherd.

For the whole world, that it may truly know the peace of the Risen Christ. 

For our own community, that it may bear witness with great confidence to the Resurrection of Christ, and that the newly initiated hold fast to the faith they have received. 

For our brothers and sisters who suffer, that their sorrow may be turned to gladness through the Christian faith.

That all of our beloved dead and all the souls in purgatory may come to the glory of the Resurrection.

O God, you know that our life in this present age is subject to suffering and need, hear the desires of those who cry to you and receive the prayers of those who believe in you. Through Christ our lord.

2nd Week of OT 2020 - Monday - The Bridegroom's mysterious invitation

Although Jewish law required fasting only once a year, on the Day of atonement, the Pharisees practiced fasting twice a week. The disciples of John the Baptist apparently imitated John’s ascetic lifestyle as well, fasting often as a sign of devotion to God and as a sign of repentance for sins. In contrast, we read in this morning’s Gospel how Jesus and his disciples are not only practicing minimal fasting, they are seen feasting with sinners.

When questioned about his practice, the Lord answers in a way that becomes quite typical of his ministry, he answers with a rhetorical question inviting his critics to a deeper level of understanding, in this case, a deeper understanding of his identity.

Fasting would be fine, if he were just another itinerant preacher. Fasting would be fitting, if he was simply a devout Jew seeking to imitate the currently popular religious faction, the Pharisees. But the Lord answers the question about his fasting with another question: “can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?”

Jesus’ ministry is different than anything that had come before. And so he and his disciples will appear to act differently, especially in regard to popular conceptions of holiness.

So too, Christians, our behavior will likely appear strange to non-believers. Our values are different from the world. The topics of our conversations are different. We pour over ancient texts and the wisdom of saints who have been dead for hundreds of years. We pause from the daily grind of pursuing wealth and power, to pray, to meditate, to contemplate the presence of God. And we leave the comfort of our safe routines to serve others, to feed the hungry and clothe the naked.

And through prayer, repentance, and works of mercy, our lives begin to take on the characteristics of that original group of disciples: joy, generosity, courage, self-sacrifice, even the occasional miracle or two. Our strange way of life, though, contains an invitation to others to seek faith and intimacy with the Lord Jesus, that they too may have life.

We honor today, St. Sebastian, a soldier in the Roman army who was arrested for his kindness to imprisoned Christians who awaited their martyrdom during the Roman persecution. Artistic depictions often show Sebastian standing by a Roman column with arrows sticking out of him, having miraculously survived his execution.

This strange scene is not unlike our Gospel: God mysteriously breaking into the world, confounding popular expectations, but with a sense of invitation: those who belong to the world of death and violence and unbelief, are invited into this mysterious company of the disciples of Jesus Christ, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
 
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To God the Father Almighty we direct the prayers of our heart for the needs and salvation of humanity and the good of His faithful ones.

For the holy Church of God, that the Lord may graciously watch over her and care for her.

For all who are oppressed by any kind of need, that the Lord may grant them relief and move Christians to come to the aid of the suffering.

For the safety of all those traveling to the March for Life this week in Washington D.C., and that the witness to the dignity of human life may bring about greater protection for the unborn and conversion to the Gospel of Life.

For our beloved dead, for the poor souls in purgatory, and for X, 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 devotion, and grant, we pray, that what we ask in faith we may truly obtain. Through Christ our Lord.

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.

Holy Trinity 2018 - To KNOW the One True God

I’ve found that today’s Feast, the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, is one of the most difficult to preach on. The Trinity is the supreme mystery of the faith, and how do you put mystery into words. The Trinity is the most sublime and exalted of our Christian doctrines, how do you distill that down into something manageable?

I think there is the temptation for the preacher to turn this homily into a Catechism lesson. I could summarize what the Catechism says about the three divine persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Catechism after all spends about 800 paragraphs on the Trinity, which itself is a distillation of what the Scriptures, Church fathers, Church councils, Popes, and saints have said about the subject for the last 2000 years. And again, I think there is a temptation to make this homily, and our entire treatment of the Trinity, about head knowledge. But our faith is about much more than head-knowledge.
Many languages have two words for knowledge, they differentiate between head-knowledge and heart-knowledge. In German, for instance, the two words are wissen and kennen. Wissen is the head-knowledge, the facts that you get from reading a textbook. Kennen is the heart-knowledge gained from intimate, personal experience.

In espanol, as well: saber is to know the facts about something. Conocer is your relational, experiential knowledge. In italiano, we find the same thing, sapere and conoscere.  Sapere la risposta giusta. - To  know the right answer. But, conoscere un amico nuovo…to know a new friend…by having  spent time with them.

So, this Trinity Sunday, we are challenged to grow in our knowledge of the Trinity. But not just head-knowledge; heart-knowledge too. To grow in head knowledge, we turn to the Scriptures, to the Theologians, to our Catechism. Two books every Catholic should have on their night stand: the Holy Bible and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

For some head-knowledge of the Trinity you can start with Catechism number 234 which says: “The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of the Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in himself .It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the “hierarchy of the truths of faith.” The whole history of salvation is identical with the history of the way and the means by which the one true God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, reveals himself to men “and reconciles and unites with himself those who turn away from sin.”

Christians do need to have some head-knowledge about God. We should be able to answer some basic questions about God: what does it mean that God is Father and Creator. What does it mean that the Son is consubstantial with the Father. What does it mean that the Holy Spirit is the Lord the Giver of Life. We seek to grow in our ability to explain our faith to non-believers, to seekers, questioners, and doubters. Parents, of course, have the great responsibility of teaching the faith to their children, helping them to understandit and articulate it. And that certainly comes partially from that head-knowledge.

But our faith also requires us to grow in our heart-knowledge of God. “This is why you must now know, AND fix in your heart, that the LORD is God” we heard in our first reading. Jesus at the Last Supper even taught that “Eternal Life consists of knowing the only true God”, and that word ‘knowing’, is the Greek word GiNOsoke, it’s that heart-knowledge, the intimate knowledge two lovers have of each other.

And I believe sharing our heart-knowledge about God is very attractive to non-believers; our ability to speak from the heart about God draws them in. To share with others how we have encountered Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is part of the mission of going and making disciples, we heard about in our Gospel.

Our heart-knowledge about God the Father, comes from encountering God as a loving Father of mercy who accepts us back with open arms when we’ve strayed from his household. It comes from learning to trust in the providential care of the Heavenly Father instead of worrying all the time. It comes from learning to see the Father’s hand guiding the events and relationships of our life. People long to hear about our heart-knowledge of the Father, who provides, guides, forgives, and gathers.

What about our heart-knowledge of the second person of the Trinity, the Son? How is your life different because of Jesus Christ? Heart-knowledge of Jesus comes from listening to his voice, looking into his eyes, encountering the warmth of his heart in daily prayer. It comes from being challenged by Him to repent. It comes from encountering his love-outpoured on the cross, his love-outpoured in the Eucharist. People long to hear about our personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

And finally, our heart knowledge of the Holy Spirit. Yes, we are to share the head-knowledge THAT the Holy Spirit was sent upon the Church at Pentecost 2000 years ago, as we celebrated last Sunday. But people long to hear how the Holy Spirit animates the Church now in 2018. They long to hear how you have experienced the Holy Spirit’s healing presence, his enlightening presence. When have you heard His consoling whisper in a time of grief, or his mighty light at a time of confusion?
The Holy Trinity is mysterious, but as we encounter Him in our liturgical worship in our daily prayer, and in our charitable service, we begin to know with our minds and fix in our hearts that the Lord is God.

The celebration of Mass is the Holy Trinity acting now in history. Breathing new life into the Church, nourishing us with the Eucharist, enkindling our hearts for the work of the Gospel. As we continue this sacred celebration and as you go forth from here into the world, Let God the Father teach you how much he loves you. Let God the Son teach you about how much he loves you. Let God the Holy Spirit teach you about how much he loves you for the Glory of God and salvation of souls.

28th Sunday in OT 2017 - Mystical Marriage and the Wedding Feast

On Tuesday evenings, we’ve been offering the video series titled “The Pivotal Players”. The series beautifully presents the lives of men and women who deeply impacted Church history. We’ve studied St. Francis of Assisi who brought important reform to the Church of the Middle Ages by calling men and women back to Gospel simplicity in a time when Christians were beginning to become enamored with the luxuries of their day.

We learned from St. Thomas Aquinas, the priest, scholar, and theologian whose writings and systematic thinking about God and the Church continue to be of inestimable value.

Last week, we studied the life and impact of different sort of theologian, the mystic St. Catherine of Siena who is pivotal in helping the Church to contemplate the mystery of God’s love. Listen to her words: “You are a mystery as deep as the sea;” she says, “the more I search, the more I find, and the more I find, the more I search for you.  But I can never be satisfied; what I receive will ever leave me desiring more.  When you fill my soul, I have an even greater hunger, and I grow more famished for your light.”

Catherine’s deep yearning for God was also accompanied by extraordinary mystical phenomena such as visions and revelations, raptures, the stigmata. Catherine, lived many years eating nothing except the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist.  And often, her prayer was so intense, she would begin to levitate.

Catherine was named by Pope Paul VI as a Doctor of the Church, which is surprising because she was illiterate. As a Doctor of the Church Catherine teaches the Church of all ages essential lessons about the Christian Life. And Catherine is very clear that the purpose of the Christian life is to grow in union with God through prayer, fervent meditation on the suffering of Christ, fasting, cultivation of the virtues, purification from sin, reliance on the Sacraments of the Church, and total abandonment to the Holy Will of God.


Union with God was a theme of her writings and reflections. At the age of 19, having already attained tremendous sanctity, St. Catherine had a vision, in which Jesus gave her a wedding ring, symbolic of her union with Christ the Bridegroom of the Church. Theologians call this the Mystical Marriage, a foreshadowing of the eternal union the blessed obtain in heaven. This is the point of the Christian life, to grow in this union here on earth, that we may share in this union in heaven.

This image of mystical marriage with God isn’t just the fanciful imagining of medieval mystics. Jesus himself uses this image in the Gospel parable we heard today: A king had thrown a wedding feast for his son and sent out servants to invite the guests.  Some guests ignored the invitation.  Others abducted the king’s servants, mistreated them, and killed them. One guest was found unworthy or at least unprepared for the feast.

Who is the king in this parable? Who is the son? Who is his unnamed Bride? Who are the servants? Who are the guests?

Well, of course, the King is God the Father, who celebrates the Marriage of Christ, His Son to  the Church. The Marriage was accomplished on the cross. Jesus himself announces this on the cross, when he says, “Consummatum est”—it is consummated. The servants are the apostles and all those God has sent out into the world to invite sinners to repent and become members of the Church. The guests are those who are given a choice: will you join the wedding feast or not?

At the end of the parable, there is a guest who is thrown out because he is not wearing the wedding garment. Perhaps, this is a Christians, who had lost his wedding garment through sin. Perhaps here is a Christian-in-name-only who went through life simply going through the motions, but never actually sought the intimate union that God wants to establish with us.

In baptism we do receive a wedding garment. But it is up to us to keep that wedding garment unstained and intact. And if it becomes stained or tattered or lost by sin, it must be cleansed and repaired through the Sacraments, particularly the Sacrament of Confession.

The wedding feast of the parable is certainly an allegory for heaven. And yet, we cannot help but see a parallel to what we are doing here, right now.

Since the earliest days of the Church, the Mass, celebrated each Sunday and every day for almost two thousand years, has been called “the Wedding Feast of the Lamb.” Here at Holy Mass, we are the wedding guests who have responded to the invitation of the King. Here at Holy Mass, those who are prepared through Sacramental Confession, are able to feed on the richest food and choicest wine of all, the Body and Blood of Jesus. Here we are able to receive a foretaste of the Communion the blessed enjoy at the eternal wedding feast of heaven.

Over the last few decades, millions of Catholics have fallen away from the Catholic Church.  BUT, the number one reason why Catholics return to the Church is because of their hunger for the Eucharist.  People return to the Church, because here and only here does Christ give us his true flesh and blood.

Many Catholics come to Mass every day because of this deep hunger for Him. To paraphrase Catherine of Siena, the more we eat, the more we hunger. The desire to know God, to be with God, to be close to God is very good, it’s our deepest longing. But it’s up to us to pursue it, to pursue the God who wants to see us flourish in holiness, who wants to see us become saints.

As I mentioned St. Catherine subsisted for years only on the Eucharist. This was possible because the Eucharist is the supersubstantial food of heaven, it is the very life and presence of God. St. Catherine would often see blazing fire in the consecrated host, for rightly so, the Eucharist is the ardent fire of God’s love for us. The Eucharist is the source and summit of the Church’s life, for from it we receive the grace to live out our union with Christ in the world.

May each of us like Saint Catherine be set aflame with divine love, be united to the Lord in his sufferings, and be devoted to the building up and serving of his Holy Church for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

25th Sunday in OT 2017 - The Mysterious Ways of God

For several weeks, our Gospels have contained some pretty challenging lessons. Where we find forgiving people difficult, Jesus teaches us that God forgives and we ought to forgive without limit. When most people were exalting the flashy faith of the Pharisees, Jesus extols the humble hidden faith of the poor widow, the repentant prostitute, blind beggar. Where most of us run away from crosses, Jesus teaches that his disciples must each take up their own cross.

The New Testament parables challenge us to grow in the practice of our faith, they shake us out of our complacency, and they often show us that God operates in ways quite different from the ways of man. Yes, challenging lessons as of late, yet, today’s parable of the Generous Landowner, is seriously puzzling, if not unnerving and somewhat vexing.

A Landowner goes out to hire workers for his field—a common practice in Jesus’ time, as it is still today. He hires workers in the morning, he hires workers at midday, and then in the evening, he calls more and more people to work in his field. Then the work day ends and he calls the workers together to receive their wages, but strangely those who have been working the least amount of time, he pays first. And he pays these people, who only worked a half-hour, 45 minutes, a full day’s wage. The workers who were there from the beginning of the day are a little upset when they receive the same daily wage.

Most of us hearing this parable would be quite upset if the same thing happened to us. It’s unfair. It seems unjust.

How does the landowner explain this apparent injustice? He says, “Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what is yours and go. What if I wish to give this last one the same as you? Or am I not free to do as I wish with my own money? Are you envious because I am generous?'
If you were one of the workers, would you be satisfied with that answer? Who in Jesus’ time or in our time would say, “Oh yeah, that makes sense.” No, there is still something unresolved. One person worked nine hours, the other worked nine minutes. Like a little kid who gets the smaller piece of dessert than his sibling: “Not Fair!” It doesn’t compute, it doesn’t make sense.

And that’s one of the points of the parables: to find that place that doesn’t quite make sense. To help us understand things not from an earthly point of view, but from a heavenly point of view. What did we hear in the first reading from the Prophet Isaiah? “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.”

Is God’s Wisdom, similar to human wisdom or different? Simply judging by the number of people who do not learn from their mistakes, God’s wisdom is far greater. Is God’s love, similar to human ways of showing affection or is it on a whole different level? The cross shows us, God’s love is greater.

The ways of God are often mysterious for the same reason the ways of parents seem so strange and unfair to their children. The parents sees so much more, they see how the piece of candy will spoil the child’s dinner, they see how a late bedtime will make the child cranky the next morning, they see how failing to discipline the toddler will lead to a spoiled teenager. The child sees from a very narrow point of view and often sees their parents actions as unjust, unfair.

 Analogously, we see from a very narrow perspective, a small point in time. So it is possible that things we see as unjust, aren’t from God’s perspective, who sees the whole of space and the whole of time, who sees all that is, and all that can possible be.

Just in the last month, we live in the wake of multiple hurricanes, earth quakes, floods, innocent people dying at the hands of terrorists. We see the wicked prospering, as the poor grow hungrier.
Today’s parable, challenges us to see even these tragedies from the divine perspective. Why does God allow these things to happen? God’s ways are not our ways. Perhaps all these events are opportunities for faith. Perhaps they are opportunities for the Church to reach out to the hungry with the food they need, to comfort the suffering with Gospel charity.

We may be quick to question the motive and wisdom of the Landowner, but likely knew some things that the indignant workers did not. What if he saw in his compassion that those who waited all day needed to feed their families; as they stood in the hot sun, anxiously, worrying about paying their bills, their debts, they began to be overwhelmed by a sense of failure. Yes they only worked for a half-hour, but doesn’t the landowner, God, see the suffering of the whole day. Who are we to be passing judgment on the mysterious ways of God.

I think that’s one of the problems of our age: it’s very judgmental toward God. Many, who claim to be unjudgmental, are actually quite judgmental toward the rules of the church, the commandments of the bible. They judge the moral teachings of the Church to be wrong, outdated, antiquated or backward. But making such judgments doesn’t make them so.

Our faith is mysterious. As Pope Benedict said, you can only see the beauty of the stained glass, from the inside.

Though his ways are difficult to understand. God promises understanding to those who seek it. He promises peace to those who pursue it, in Him.

When we come to Mass, we open our hearts to listen to God’s word speaking to us in the confusing events of our life. We hear him inviting us to trust in him, to unite our sufferings to him. Whether good or bad things happen around us, we are called to trust, whether certain commandments are easy or hard, whether we understand them or not, we are called to be faithful. Whether we are blessed with abundance, or receive much less than we think we deserve, we are called to give thanks.
Let us resound with the words of the Psalm: The LORD is just in all his ways and holy in all his works. The LORD is near to all who call upon him, to all who call upon him in truth”  for the glory of God and salvation of souls.