Year A Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: 1 Kings 3:5.7-12; Ps 119:57.72.76-77.127-130; Rom 8:28-30; Matt 13:44-52

To this day, while less frequently than in the past, we still hear the phrase “the wisdom of Solomon.” As the young and newly consecrated king of God’s chosen people, Solomon implored God to give him a wise and understanding heart. Wisdom and understanding are, of course, gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Because they are gifts bestowed by and through the Holy Spirit, wisdom and understanding are “charisms.” Unlike the popular parody, a charismatic Christian is one possessed of wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord. These gifts, in turn, produce the fruits of the Spirit: charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, and chastity. Being fruitful for God’s Kingdom is the fundamental point of the torrent of parables we have heard the past several Sundays.

Wisdom and understanding are more than apprehending the truth. This is especially the case given that culturally and religiously we tend to think of truth in an abstract, static, disembodied, and atemporal way. In short, a person can apprehend the truth and still be a fool.

The word “philosophy” is a compound Greek word: philo, derived from philia, one of the four words the Greek language possesses for love, refers to the deep love of genuine friendship. Aristotle thought philia the highest form of human love. He defines philia thus: “wanting for someone what one thinks good, for his sake and not for one's own, and being inclined, so far as one can, to do such things for him.”¹ Let’s not forget that Jesus calls us not to be servants but his friends.²

“Sophy,” comes from sophia, the Greek word for wisdom. Love of wisdom should not be mistaken for possession of the same. After all, there are so-called “sophists.” A sophist is a person who convincingly plays the part of a wise person but who misleads either intentionally or unintentionally. Our world, especially in this age of mass communication, is full of sophists. Many are of the pseudo-Catholic variety. Wisdom requires discernment.

A wise heart is an understanding heart. An understanding heart is a listening heart. Wisdom, we might say, is understanding embodied or, better yet, personified. Wisdom is knowledge + understanding + simplicity x humility.

Wisdom can only grow in the soil of humility. Humility comes from the Latin word humus, which refers to rich soil. “Humility,” it has been observed, “is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.” A self-centered person cannot be a wise person.

Wisdom is simplicity itself. Simplicity is trusting God like a little child trusts her Mom. This is the point Saint Paul seeks to make in our second reading. All too often the phrase “all things work together for the good,” like many passages in Sacred Scripture, is ripped from its context and turned into a pious platitude, fitting for any occasion when the inevitable question, Why?, is asked in the face of suffering. Far from comforting, pious platitudes are hurtful, harmful, and often infuriating. As Rich Mullins sang concerning suffering: “… it would not hurt any less even if it could be explained.”³

Paul tempers the well-intended but misguided universality with which “all things work together for the good” is usually employed by adding “for those who love God” and “who are called according to his purpose.”⁴ In and of itself, suffering has no inherent meaning. Suffering needs to be redeemed and redemption, like childbirth, as Paul notes earlier in the same chapter from which our second reading is taken, is painful and life-giving.⁵

The suffering Jesus underwent during his Passion and Crucifixion was redemptive because he freely submitted himself when he prayed to the Father in the power of the Spirit: “if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet, not as I will, but as you will.”⁶ As Paul notes earlier in Romans: “We were indeed buried with [Christ] through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.”⁷ Baptism is your “not as I will, but as you will” offering to God. Paul, in our second reading, writes about being conformed to the image of the Son of God.⁸ The image of Jesus Christ is cruciform.

Let’s never forget that those who love God and seek to fulfill his purpose are those who not only love their neighbor but who also love their enemies. In the Sermon on the Mount, found earlier in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus asks: "For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same?"⁹

“The beginning of wisdom is fear of the Lord,” which is why through Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, in simplicity we need to ruthlessly place our trust in God.¹⁰ It is through this ruthless trust in God, who is love, that you realize “There is no fear in love.”¹¹ This is to experience through the circumstances of your own life the cosmos-shattering reality that Christ has conquered death. Christus resurrexit qui Deus caritas est!- Christ is risen because God is love!¹²

“The kingdom of heaven is like…” We should always pay attention when this phrase is invoked by Jesus in the Gospels. If you pay attention, you will quickly see that when compared to how the world works, the Kingdom of God is a bizarro world. When approaching the Gospel of Matthew, it is also useful to keep in mind that it was written for Jewish Christians, members of what we might call a Christian synagogue.

Again this week, we hear multiple parables; four to be exact. All of these make more sense when understood from a Jewish perspective. In the first short parable, according to Torah, once purchased, a property, both surface and subsurface, unlike ownership in our society, belongs entirely to the owner.¹³ Therefore, to sneak into the field and unearth a buried treasure, even one the owner does not know exists, is thievery. So great is the wisdom of God in Christ that it is worth all that is you own, no matter how rich you are.

Several ancient rabbinic sources link Torah study to the great value of pearls.¹⁴ The wisdom of God is indeed conveyed in the scriptures. Hence, we must not only read scripture but develop wisdom, understanding, and knowledge to read fruitfully and not to only confirm our lazy preconceptions, which are very often misconceptions. Reading the scriptures faithfully and fruitfully allows us to be both challenged and surprised.

The image of fishermen sorting fish is one readily recognizable to Jesus’s immediate listeners. Remember, according to the inspired author of Matthew, they remain gathered along the shore listening to this teacher from Nazareth as he sat in a fishing boat. Jewish fishermen on the Sea of Galilee would have had to sort kosher from non-kosher fish¹⁵. Jesus redefines kosher by insisting that it is what comes out of a person, not what goes in, that ultimately matters.¹⁶ According to Jesus, orthopraxis- doing right- trumps orthodoxy- believing rightly- every time.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus insists that he does not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it.¹⁷ This is likely what he refers to when he mentions bringing out the old with the new. For followers of Jesus, Torah teachings are still valid. Jesus's “new” teachings concerning them not only further reveal their meaning but clarify their purpose.¹⁸ In short, Jesus shows how the Torah provides the means for the end of loving God with your entire being by loving your neighbor (and your enemy) as you love yourself.

This kind of love, self-sacrificing love, in Greek agape, in Latin caritas, is the culmination of wisdom.

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1 Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1380c36-1381a2. ^↩
2 John 15:15.^↩
3 Rich Mullins, "Hard to Get," off The Jesus Record.^↩
4 Romans 8:28.^↩
5 Romans 8:22-23.^↩
6 Matthew 26:39.^↩
7 Romans 6:4..^↩
8 Romans 8:29.^↩
9 Matthew 5:46..^↩
10 Proverbs 9:10.^↩
11 1 John 4:8.16; 1 John 4:18.^↩
12 Pope Benedict XVI, Easter Urbi et Orbi address, 16 April 2006.^↩
13 Footnote to Matthew 13:44 in The Jewish Annotated New Testament, 2nd Edition, eds. Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler, 36-37.^↩
14 Footnote to Matthew 13:45 in Jewish Annotated New Testament, 37.^↩
15 Footnote to Matthew 13:48 in Jewish Annotated New Testament, 37.^↩
16 Matthew 15:11.^↩
17 Matthew 5:17.^↩
18 Footnote to Matthew 13:52 in Jewish Annotated New Testament, 37.^↩

Bearing fruit for God's Kingdom

Readings: Wis 12:13.16-19; Ps 86:5-6.9-10.15-16; Rom 8:26-27; Matt 13:24-43

Do you pray regularly? If you pray regularly, how often do you find it difficult to pray? I don't mind admitting that frequently I find intercessory prayer difficult. When someone is very ill or badly injured, at least as a first approach, I pray for healing. As the situation unfolds, perhaps taking some unexpected turns, do I stubbornly keep praying for the same outcome? Of course, the caveat for all prayers of petition and intercession is that God's will be done. It is rarely easy to know God's will. It becomes readily apparent that my will is not God's will.

Even when a situation has reached its conclusion, I can't always say that God's will was accomplished. No doubt, sometimes this is just denial but at other times it is not. I don't perceive God as a cosmic micromanager. Sometimes the answer to that most human of questions "Why?" is "I don't know." This is especially when true when the question "How could God let this happen?" is raised in the face of some undeniably evil or bad situation.

Silence is not only important but necessary when praying. Sometimes, all I can manage in prayer is a groan or a sigh. According to Saint Paul, this is just fine. Because we have been given the Spirit, it is the Spirit who searches to the very depths of our hearts and brings our prayers and longings that are too deep for words before God. In other words, sometimes what we might be tempted to view as our worst prayers become our most eloquent.

This focus on prayer seems to segue nicely into today's Gospel. Weeds do not only grow alongside wheat in the Church but in our hearts. Whenever issues of judgment arise in Jesus's teaching it becomes clear that judgment is reserved to God alone. You and I are in no position to judge. The answer to Pope Francis's rhetorical question "Who am I to judge?" is because I am not God, I am in no position to judge another.

Illustration of wheat and tare, which is which?

Jesus's moral teachings are most fruitfully taken in the first person singular. In fact, it is a mistake to take them any other way. Whose sins do you confess? Your own and nobody else's. Some of the most deeply rooted weeds that tend to grow in our hearts are religious in nature. For this, too, we need the Holy Spirit to search our hearts, shining light into the dark places, bringing what is found there into the light.

What is the yeast to which Jesus refers except the Spirit lovingly poured into our hearts? What is the mustard seed but the seed of faith planted by the Holy Spirit?

Once harvested, wheat becomes flour. Flour in turn is often made into bread. This allows us to give thanks saying, "Blessed are you Lord God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received this the bread we offer you: fruit of the earth and work of human hands, it will become for us the bread of life." Along with the divine word, the bread becomes the seed of faith. We must not be content to just "nurture" the seed. We have to let it grow. Plants can die from too much care and cultivation. When planted, sown, and properly nurtured, this seed of grace must become not just a large plant but also a fruitful one.

Many Western Christians read the writings of Saint Paul in a very attenuated manner, that is, in an antinomian way. In other words, Paul is read in such a way that it lets the Christian reader off-the-hook. While it may be true that we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, we have to be clear that faith without works is dead. To wit: dead faith is no faith. If faith without works is no faith then it has no power to save. Our often peculiar reading of Paul, rooted in a history of bad translation and even worse exegesis, must be overcome. This bad reading of Paul's letters is tantamount to sowing weeds in the wheat field.

It is important to note that Paul does not teach a different Gospel than Jesus taught. The inescapable core of the one and only Gospel is salvation through good works. A fruit-bearing plant can look healthy and yet be fruitless (ever tried growing tomatoes in an unsuitable spot?). A Christian can look pious and yet lack works of charity, failing to give alms, which means failing to help those in need. Just like the fruitful plant needs rain and sunlight, we need God's grace to be fruitful.

The teachings of Jesus Christ are more than a challenge. When understood properly, these teachings serve as a provocation. Being a Christian means letting yourself be provoked. By attending to the Spirit and letting the Spirit attend to you your concrete, that is, corporal works become works of the Spirit.

Year A Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Isa 5:10-11; Ps 65:10-14; Rom 8:18.23; Matt 13:1-23

Receiving communion is our response to God’s Word. Receiving Christ is akin to God planting a seed of grace in us. This seed is planted to bear fruit for God’s Kingdom. This insight is revealed when, at the end of Mass, you are dismissed with words like “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord.”¹ Being sent in this way is what makes the Church truly apostolic. In Greek, “apostle” simply means one who is sent. Apostolicity is much more than a controversial and likely dubious historical claim.

Mass is the privileged place for reading, hearing, discussing, and responding to God’s word. It is how Christ continues Christ to sow the word of the Kingdom. Perhaps we can think of the Liturgy of the Word, which immediately precedes the Liturgy of the Eucharist, as the way we prepare the soil of our hearts to fruitfully receive communion. Of course, Jesus is really and truly present in the proclamation of word as he is the consecrated bread and wine. This means the readings we hear are in no way extraneous but are essential to the Eucharist. Preaching, when done well, aids our comprehension and appropriation of the divine word.

Our reading from Isaiah tells us God’s word does not return empty but accomplishes what God desires.² Elsewhere in scripture we learn God desires “everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth.”³ As those who profess not only to believe in God but to follow his Son, each of us should ask ourselves, “What do I desire?” We then need to examine your honest answer in light of God’s desire, asking, "Is my desire God's desire?"

It is worth noting that in today’s Gospel Jesus addresses a large crowd. It was so large that to effectively teach them, Jesus had to abandon the beach for a boat, which could be pushed away from the shore, creating a kind of amphitheater allowing him to address the entire crowd. These were people eager to hear this man from Nazareth.

When reading the scriptures we often miss details that are both obvious and important. What is easy to miss in today’s Gospel is how provocative Jesus’s message is in its given context. Perhaps more provocative is the Lord's reply to the question posed by his disciples concerning his reason for teaching in parables.

It seems that the concern of Jesus’s disciples about him teaching in parables is that people might fail to understand the message he intends to convey. Not only that but, as subsequent Christian history amply demonstrates, parables can be misunderstood and misapplied. Beyond this concern, there is another question that arises from what might be described as our meta-perspective. If it is God’s desire that “everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth,” does Jesus really want to hide the truth from some people?

At least from a Christian perspective, this is something of rhetorical question the answer to which is “No.” Jesus wants those who hear the word of the Kingdom, especially those who listen grudgingly and whose hearts have grown crass, to hear with new ears and understand with their hearts. In other words, he desires that upon hearing the word of the Kingdom they will repent and turn back to God and by doing so be healed.

The Sower at Sunset, by Vincent Van Gogh, 1888

Just prior to receiving communion, we humbly acknowledge our unworthiness and profess that if the Lord will but say the word we will be healed.⁴ Jesus speaks the word of healing as often as we ask. But to receive it we must listen. Otherwise, you are just taking it for granted, being presumptuous.

Sadly, we often hear without listening. Listening requires attention and intention. To really listen to someone takes a lot of energy. Again, given our meta-perspective, which, in this instance, we gain by “hearing” Jesus unpack the parable for his disciples, think about how it might seem if all you heard was the parable without the explanation. Holding the answer card makes Alex Trebek seem like a Jeopardy master. Without what you heard you likely would not know what the parable is about. What is the seed? To what does the soil correspond? Through the scripture Jesus pulls you close, revealing to you the mysteries of the Kingdom.

This meta-perspective is another way of referring to what Jesus indicates when he says to his disciples “many prophets and upright men yearned to see the things you see… and to hear the things you hear…”⁵ By your hearing today, you are privileged in that you are one of the disciples for whom Jesus breaks this parable down. This privilege contains the same call to discipleship, the call to yield fruit for God’s Kingdom. So, you are without excuse except to say, "I wasn't listening."

How is the soil of your heart cultivated? At least in part and only in part, the answer consists of one-word: suffering. Christians can endure suffering because we have hope. It often bears noting that hope lies beyond optimism. According to Saint Paul, hope is gained by the conviction that our present sufferings cannot hold a candle to “the coming glory that will be revealed to us.”⁶ The sufferings to which the apostle refers include even those that arise from our failures.

That the suffering to which Paul refers is all-inclusive is indicated by his insistence that “creation was made subordinate to pointlessness” by the Creator.⁷ God subjected creation to futility so he could liberate it from death and sin. Fundamentally, this is why hope lies beyond optimism. Without hope existence is absurdity. The difference between optimism and hope is the difference between seeking to realize your own desires and bearing fruit for God's Kingdom. As Americans, we've grown far too lazy in seeing what I want as God's will for my life.

At the great Easter Vigil, in the ancient hymn known as the Exsultet, sung at the beginning of this most important of all liturgies, the Church proclaims: “O truly necessary sin of Adam... O happy fault that earned so great, so glorious a redeemer!”⁸

While it is assured, our redemption is still a work in progress as is creation itself. The “turn” about which Jesus speaks is often a slow one, one that includes turning back like “'The dog returns to a dog to its own vomit' and 'The bathed sow returns to wallowing in the mire,'” to cite scripture.⁹ Keeping in mind we’re often our own worst enemy, let us not forget what Paul wrote later in the same chapter from which our second reading is taken: “If God is for us, who can be against us?”¹⁰

God is for us! This is the Good News, my friends. Let us receive it today anew so that by grace we reflect the Father’s love given in and through his Son, which reflection is the work of the Holy Spirit. To this end and confident in God’s promise that his word will not return empty, let’s continue to cultivate the soil of our hearts by listening to, reading, praying with, and responding to God’s word, listening with our hearts, humbly letting ourselves be provoked, challenged, changed, converted. This is how you bear fruit for God’s Kingdom.

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1 Roman Missal, The Order of Mass, The Concluding Rites, sec. 144.^↩
2 Isaiah 55:11 in Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary, Prophets, 808.^↩
3 1 Timothy 2:4.^↩
4 Roman Missal, The Order of Mass, The Communion Rite, sec. 132.^↩
5 Matthew 13:17 in David Bentley Hart The New Testament: A Translation, 25.^↩
6 Romans 8:18 in The New Testament, 303.^↩
7 Romans 8:20 in The New Testament, 303.^↩
8 Roman Missal, The Easter Vigil, sec. 29.^↩
9 2 Peter 2:22.^↩
10 Romans 8:31.^↩

Body, flesh, Spirit

Readings: Zech 9:9-10; Ps 145:1-2.8-11.13-14; Rom 8:9.11-13; Matt 11:25-30

Given that is Independence Day weekend, for those of us in the United States today's Gospel reading is appropriate insofar as it pertains to being liberated from heavy burdens. But political liberation, whatever that might mean, is far from sufficient for our humanity in terms of being truly free. Life can be and often is very burdensome. If this life is all there is you are faced with two choices: carrying the heavy load or just dropping it and walking away. While choosing the latter may lighten your burden for a while, the freedom doesn't last. As a result, can't satisfy our longing. The idea of just carrying a load to the end turns such an end into a bitter one.

Properly considered, freedom is positive (i.e., freedom for) and not negative (freedom from). Sure, there are things from which one must be freed from before freedom can be positively exercised. Just as sea-going vessels inevitably accumulate barnacles, we acquire burdens sailing the sea of life. It doesn't take much wisdom to figure out that repeatedly dropping everything and moving on is not the road to happiness, fulfillment, or satisfaction.

Saint Paul, in the passage that serves as our second reading, taken from his Letter to the Romans, gives some insight into what we might call "the spiritual dynamics of human liberation." Once again, I think looking at a couple of terms from the original language in which the apostle wrote (Koine Greek) is useful. To really grasp what Paul was saying and to avoid a common mistake concerning what he was not saying isn't easy when reading an English translation. The reason for this is that there are two nouns that Paul uses to refer to distinct phenomena that are often mistaken as having the same referent, namely the body. In Greek, the term for "body" is soma and the word for "flesh" is sarx. The mixture of soma, sarx, and pneuma in several Pauline passages has proven to be a accelerator for a peculiar form of Christian gnosticism.

Like "flesh" in English, sarx can refer to the soft tissue, infused with blood, attached to the bones of living bodies. But Saint Paul typically used sarx to refer to another of its meanings: our sensuous nature that causes us to sin. Soma, by contrast, is the word the apostle uses to refer to the human body. This distinction is important because in nowise can Christianity, a religion rooted in the Incarnation of the Son of God, reject the human body.

According to any genuinely Christian anthropology, bodies are good. So good, in fact, yours will be resurrected. Stated simply, you are your body! Of course, the Greek word pneuma refers to spirit or, in this passage, the Spirit. According to Paul, it is the Spirit's power that empowers you to overcome "the flesh," in the sense he used it in this passage, through your body. This a very complicated way of saying that whether you live according to the flesh or the Spirit is about how you live your life, particularly how you think about, approach, engage, and relate to others. By "others," I mean "the other," the person who is not like you. The one who is the Jew to your Samaritan or vice-versa.

To live according to the flesh is something akin to living unreflectively and without intention. Following Jesus requires you to constantly examine your assumptions in the light of his teachings and example. He loves you too much to allow you to revel in smug assertions because to live that way is to close yourself to the beauty of the mystery you inhabit.

Losing your sense of wonder is to cease being one of the "little ones" to whom the Father unveils, by means of the Spirit, "hidden things." Therefore, the Gospel bids you to challenge yourself, to become aware of, engage, and with the help of the Spirit, overcome your hidden biases and your smug assertions. Being human means being a debtor to the flesh.

Because it is universal, Christianity must not be conceived of as tribal. You are not Christian because you come from a certain ethnic or national background. To be a "Catholic" or "catholic" Christian is to definitively reject all forms of sectarianism. Being Christian means rejecting tribalism, rejecting your all too natural tendency to strongly identify with your "in-group" to the exclusion of all "out-groups." Failure to do that is to remain in the flesh.

When read from a Christian perspective, the reading from the prophet Zechariah is a prophecy about Jesus. What it says is that God's reign, initiated and sustained by the Spirit, is not established by force or violence. It through meekness that Jesus conquers the world by first conquering our hearts. This is the Father whom reveals. 

Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul

Readings: Acts 12:1-11; Ps 34:2-9; 2 Tim 4:6-8.17-18; Matt 16:13-19

In light of yesterday’s Gospel, in which Jesus tells anyone who follows him that they must love him more than they love anyone else and take up their cross, on today’s solemnity we can safely say that both Peter and Paul adhered to the conditions of discipleship set forth by the Lord.

Rather than white, the usual liturgical color for solemnities, today’s color is red because both Apostles met martyr’s deaths in Rome. Peter, tradition tells, literally took up his cross and was crucified. As it is handed on, he demanded to be crucified upside down because he did not feel he was worthy to die in the exact same manner as his Lord.

Being a Roman citizen, Paul was spared the ignominy of crucifixion and was beheaded after losing his appeal, which he began when he was brought before King Agrippa.¹

“Martyr” is the Greek word for witness. In a real sense, every Christian is called to be a martyr, that is, bear witness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. The content of Christian faith can be extracted from this densely compacted statement: “Jesus is Lord.”

During Jesus’s passion and again after Pentecost, Peter experienced first-hand what following Jesus meant. His miraculous rescue from Herod’s prison enabled Peter not only to continue but really begin apostolic ministry. Eventually, he made his way to Antioch and then on to Rome. Tradition tells us that the Gospel According to Saint Mark is made up of Peter’s preaching in Rome.

Paul, who did not know the Lord during Jesus’s mortal life, first came on the scene instigating his fellow Jews to stone the deacon Stephen to death. As he was going to Damascus to continue persecuting Jesus’s followers, he had a life-changing encounter with the risen Christ. Eventually, Paul the strictest of the Pharisees, somewhat ironically, became the apostle to the Gentiles.

Saints Peter & Paul, by El Greco, 1587-1592

Without Paul’s letters, our Christian scriptures would differ “little from the [Jewish] apocalyptic literature of the day.”² It has been argued, not without controversy, that without Paul “Christianity would have most likely remained one of many sects within Judaism.”³

“Apostle” refers to one who is sent. When, in the creed, we confess that the Church is “apostolic,” we not only refer to apostolic succession but to the fact that the Church, the people of God, is sent. We are sent to proclaim in word and deed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Or more succinctly: Jesus is Lord.

While Paul and Peter famously disagreed and even denigrated each other publicly, one thing they had in common is that they did not play it safe.⁴ Following Jesus is not the easy path. Being Christ’s disciple is to enter through narrow gate.⁵

There is a tradition that has Peter leaving Rome just as Nero’s persecution was beginning. As he was fleeing the burning city along the Appian Way, it is told that he encountered the risen Lord but Jesus was going in the opposite direction, toward the city. Upon encountering Christ, Peter asked him: Domine, quo vadis? (“Lord, where are you going?”) Following Christ, Peter turned around and went back. It is reckoned that he was crucified on Vatican Hill on 29 June 67.

Even after being taken captive to Rome and remaining in the city under house arrest for some time, Paul continued to share the Gospel. It seems Paul believed that he would win his appeal. Therefore, he planned to take the Gospel farther West toward Spain.

It seems pretty clear that over the centuries many Christians, especially those who live comfortably in affluent societies, have learned to play it safe. Pope Francis, who presides over the see of Saints Peter and Paul, thus giving him a universal and evangelical ministry, is urging and showing the Church how important it is to take risks for the Gospel, what it means to live lives that demonstrate Jesus is Lord.

We proclaim Jesus is Lord, not primarily by our moral rectitude but by taking the side of poor, the disenfranchised, the marginalized, those deemed expendable by the world. As benevolent as it sounds, when done persistently, this usually proves unpopular and annoying. The most false of all Gospels is to stand pat on what you have and be unconcerned with those who have not. As the late Brazilian archbishop Hélder Câmara, whose cause for sainthood is finally underway, once quipped: “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist.”

When Jesus bids someone “Come follow me,” he leads them to the cross. As Peter, Paul, and a great cloud of witnesses down through ages show us, the only way beyond the cross is through it. Today on this solemnity each one of us should ask Domine, quo vadis? and follow where he leads

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1 See Acts 26.^↩
2 Tomáš Halik, Patience With God: The Story of Zacchaeus Continuing in Us, 122.^↩
3 Ibid.^↩
4 See Galatians 2:11-13 and 2 Peter 3:14-16.^↩
5 Matthew 7:13-14.^↩

Year A Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: 2 Kings 4:8-11.14-16a; Ps 89:2-3.16-19; Rom 6:3-4.8-11; Matt 10:37-42

Commenting on his teaching that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven, which is basically to assert that it is impossible, Jesus offers hope with these words: “…for God all things are possible.”¹ Something similar is in play in our readings for today.

I don’t know about you, but I frequently shrink from carrying the cross. Many days I am more intent on finding my life than I am losing it for the sake of Christ in the service of God’s kingdom. Left to my own devices, this is what I instinctively do. In light of this, it’s easy to grow discouraged. But understanding that you cannot save yourself is foundational to being a Christian. I believe we call Jesus “Savior” for a reason. We can find encouragement today in both our first and our second readings.

Because the wealthy woman in our first reading showed such great kindness and generosity to the prophet Elisha, this childless woman was promised and, in due course, gave birth to a child, a healthy son.² In her act of kindness towards Elisha, she was not thinking of herself. She did not seek to enter into a quid pro quo either directly with God or through the prophet along the lines of “I’ll do something nice for your itinerant servant if you give me a child.”

The woman's unbidden and gratuitous generosity not only shows how a wealthy person might enter but can actually make present God’s kingdom. We see the grace of God at work whenever one person is moved by the plight of another and endeavors to be a neighbor to the one in need.

Okay, you might say, that’s great but how do I overcome myself? If you’re anything like me, this is a perennially relevant question. I have to get through a lot of self before I worry about the devil. But there is good news.

Our response to the good news who is Jesus Christ is faith. Faith is a gift from God. Faith prompts baptism. According to Saint Paul, our rebirth through baptism follows the pattern of Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection. Paul’s point is eternal life begins now, not after you physically die. The "newness of life" in which the apostle bids the Roman Christians to live is nothing other than life eternal.³

This brings me to the second piece of encouragement: Christ “died to sin once for all.”⁴ It is because Christ conquered death and sin that by virtue of our baptism we can “think of [ourselves] as [being] dead to sin.”⁵ Thinking of yourself in this way is how you live “for God in Christ Jesus.”⁶ The good news in this is that because Christ’s victory is our victory our frequent failure to love is already overcome, not by force but by self-sacrificing love.

Because of what God has done for us in and through Christ, discouragement has no place in the life of a Christian. As we sometimes sing in the memorial acclamation:

Save us, Savior of the world,
for by your cross and resurrection
you have set us free⁷

Because it liberates us from death, the freedom enjoyed by those who are in Christ should be positively construed as freedom for. Jesus has freed us from what constrains us: death and the sin that results from it. In essence, sin shows that we still have what Catholic novelist Walker Percy identified in the title of one of his novels: The Thanatos Syndrome. Thanatos is the Greek word for death. Rather than an exhibition of freedom, as many suppose, sin is a sign that I am not yet free and so not living in newness of life. Again, don’t be discouraged, liberation is usually a slow process of conversion.

True freedom not only empowers you to do good but impels you to love. In a variation on the theme of our second reading, in his second letter to the Christians of ancient Corinth, asserted:

For the love of Christ impels us, once we have come to the conviction that one died for all; therefore, all have died. He indeed died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised⁸

During the pandemic, the issue of freedom has become an urgent one. Those who insist that freedom lies in doing what you want with little or no regard for the common good misconstrue freedom by putting themselves first. Christ sets you free to love God with your whole being by being a neighbor to others. The sacrifice freedom requires consists of placing the good of the other before your own. This is how you heed Jesus’s summons to take up your cross and “follow after me.”⁹ Following Christ means grasping paradox: you add by subtracting, you win by losing, you live by dying.

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1 Matthew 19:23-26.^↩
2 2 Kings 4:17.^↩
3 Romans 6:4.^↩
4 Romans 6:10.^↩
5 Romans 6:11.^↩
6 Romans 6:11.^↩
7 Roman Missal, Appendix to the Order of Mass, Eucharistic Prayer for Reconciliation, sec. 6.^↩
8 2 Corinthians 5:14-15.^↩
9 Matthew 10:38.^↩

Year II Twelfth Monday in Ordinary Time

Readings: 2 Kings 17:5-8.13-15a.18; Ps 60:3-5.12-13; Matthew 7:1-5

If you’ve ever wondered how the Samaritans came to be different from the Jews, today’s first reading gives a reasonably accurate account of it. As a helpful reminder, Samaria is located between Galilee and Judea. In addition to deporting Israelites from Samaria, the Assyrians also sent non-Israelites to inhabit the region This is how Samaritans became a distinct people who worshiped differently from the Israelites. The most notable feature of Samaritan religion is that rather than the Temple in Jerusalem, their holy place is Mount Gerizim.

Why were the Samaritans exiled? According to the inspired author of 2 Kings, it was because they worshiped idols instead of the one God, living and true. The deportation described occurred in BC 722, nearly 800 years before Jesus’s time.

In light of today’s Gospel, what becomes clear is that judgment is reserved to God alone. What is often considered divine judgment is really just the natural consequences of deeply ingrained “bad” behavior. The statutes and decrees of the Law that were being violated were things like failing to care for the widow and orphan, treating non-Israelites unjustly, the wealthy taking advantage of the poor, etc.

Who might some of the prophets this passage refers to be? None other than several of the twelve so-called “Minor Prophets.” Perhaps foremost among these are Hosea and Amos, both of whom prophesied before the Assyrian invasion of the Northern Kingdom.

Speaking specifically to the elite women of the Northern Kingdom, Amos said:

Hear this word, you cows of Bashan, who live on the mount of Samaria:
Who oppress the destitute and abuse the needy;
Who say to your husbands, “Bring us a drink!”
The Lord GOD has sworn by his holiness:
Truly days are coming upon you when they shall drag you away with ropes, your children with fishhooks;
You shall go out through the breached walls one in front of the other, And you shall be exiled to Harmon¹

Hosea was told by God to marry the prostitute Gomer. Each time Gomer was unfaithful to him, God told Hosea to remain faithful to her. The prophet’s relationship with his wayward wife serves as a symbol of God’s relationship with Israel.² Today, we can understand it in reference to Christ’s relationship to his Bride, the Church, which the great Church Father, Ambrose, referred to as the casta meretrix (i.e., chaste whore).

The message conveyed by both Amos and Hosea is that God is faithful and merciful. God keeps his promises even when we fail to keep ours. God is not vengeful. God is kind and merciful. Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promises and proof positive that God is mercy.

For us mere mortals, Eve’s poor banished children, God’s wayward daughters and sons, we can only judge ourselves. When I take the time to judge myself by regularly examining my conscience and confessing my sins, I acknowledge God’s mercy, thus enabling me to receive forgiveness and, in turn, to extend it to others.

Nonetheless, there is a sense in which our impulse to judge is automatic. In-depth studies empirically demonstrate that our judgments are often rooted in biases of which we are unaware.³ This makes doing the work necessary of becoming aware of our biases and then striving to overcome them spiritual work. This is how repentance looks. Repentance requires the help of others and the aid of God’s grace.

Because it is necessary to love our neighbors, recognizing and working to eliminate our prejudicial biases is spiritual work. It is important to grasp the plight of those in our society who suffer the effects of our unexamined and implicit prejudices and preferences. Otherwise, we are liable to the same natural consequences and societal dissolution as ancient Israel.

To avoid judgments like the one Amos made against the elite women of the Northern Kingdom, who preferred maintaining their status and privilege to taking care of the least among them, the work identified is necessary. Because they hated “everyone who challenged injustice,” their sacrifices and offerings were unacceptable to God.⁴ This is why we need to heed Pope Francis’s call to create a culture of encounter.⁵ It is in the face of the other that we most immediately encounter Christ.

Judging myself and confessing my sins is not an admission of failure. It is how I seize hold of Christ’s victory. Because Christ’s Easter victory is our Easter victory, confession is where I go to claim Christ’s victory over death and sin. Therefore, never approach confession wondering whether God will forgive you. In and through Christ, you are always already forgiven. Going to confession makes this an experience, an encounter, something that really happens, and not just a pious thought.

Nevertheless, even Saint Paul wrote, “I do not pass even pass judgment on myself.”⁶ The apostle goes on to state, “the one who judges me is the Lord.”⁷ Typically, I am far harsher with myself than God is with me. This is why it is so vital for me to experience God’s tenderness.

Remembering Jesus’s words that you will be judged with the same judgment with which you judge endeavor to “be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ.”⁸

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1 Amos 4:1-3.^↩
2 See New American Bible Revised Edition: Introduction to The Book of Hosea.^↩
3 See the book Blind Spot: Hidden Biases of Good People, Mahzarin R, Banali & Anthony G. Greenwald.^↩
4 Amos 5:10.21-24.^↩
5 Pope Francis, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, On the Proclamation of the Gospel in Today's World, sec. 220.^↩
6 1 Corinthians 4:3.^↩
7 1 Corinthians 4:4.^↩
8 Ephesians 4:32.^↩