Ordinary Time

17th Week in Ordinary Time, Tuesday

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In order to understand the parable being explained in today’s Gospel (the parable is presented in Matthew 13:24–30, just after the parable of the sower), of weeds being sown by an enemy among someone’s wheat crop, it’s important to understand that a certain kind of weed, the bearded darnel, looked very similar to the wheat sown in the time of Our Lord in Palestine and could be mistaken for wheat. Therefore the man in the parable decides to wait until harvest time to separate them when it’s more easy to distinguish them.

With the parable of the sower that we considered a few days ago we saw some potential obstacles to God’s word bearing fruit in our lives. If we let his word take root in us, we become those wheat stalks in today’s parable that grow and bear fruit. Sadly the Devil, the fallen angels who rebelled with him, and sinful people tempt and corrupt others, and those who succumb to it are like the weeds explained in today’s parable: they grow by feeding off of others and choking those trying to grow around them, and, in the end, their lives are fruitless. Perhaps some of them don’t even realize until the end that they’ve lived their lives as weeds, not as wheat, and some evils can appear to be good. Our Lord teaches us today that evil is present and active in the world, sometimes not easily detected, and it will not be definitively overcome until he returns in glory. In the meanwhile, we must persevere in hope and virtue and not become discouraged when it seems evil is widespread and winning.

Let’s pray today for the conversion of all those “weeds” in the world today, for the courage to persevere in the face of evil, and for the wisdom to tell between the weeds and the wheat in our world.

Readings: Exodus 33:7–11, 34:5b–9, 28; Psalm 103:6–13; Matthew 13:36–43.

17th Week in Ordinary Time, Monday

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In today’s Gospel one of the images Our Lord uses to describe the Kingdom of heaven is a women mixing yeast with flower to make sure the whole batch is  leavened. As bakers know, if there’s not yeast, the bread does not rise. In some recipes when the yeast is not mixed well with the flour the result is something tough and chewy. Wherever Christianity is found we know the Kingdom of God is very active, provided those believers are living their faith. Christianity has spread throughout history and had a great influence on Western and Eastern culture, independently of the spiritual benefits it has brought. It may not be always identified with society, but it elevates society and culture, much like that leaven helps the bread to rise, but also needs to spread out in order to be effective. God-willing it will help society and culture to “rise”all the way to the Resurrection.

The benefits of the Kingdom of God go beyond benefiting believers spiritually even today: good things happen as a result of good spiritual things happening, even among non-believers. When secularizing trends attempt to relegate Christianity to individuals almost in the privacy of their own home, that leaven is staying clumped together and not really helping society to its full potential. As Christians we are called to go everywhere and proclaim the Gospel; by doing so we are spreading the “leaven” throughout society that helps all of society to “rise,” spiritually and culturally.

Let’s ask Our Lord today to show us how to be better leaven in our social and cultural circles, and ask him to help us have to courage to take the Gospel out into the streets and into the world in which we live.

Readings: Exodus 32:15–24, 30–34; Psalm 106:19–23; Matthew 13:31–35. See also 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B.

17th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

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In today’s readings Our Lord reminds us that disciples know they always have something to learn and to pass along the people that they help. Christians never stop being disciples; Our Lord always has something to teach us. In the First Reading Elisha (who was the disciple of the prophet Elijah) learned from his master in the miracle of the multiplication: Elijah once asked a widow for the last bread she had to feed herself and her son (1 Kings 17:8–16), and when she explained her situation Elijah told her the Lord had promised to provide for them all, and so it came to be. Elisha in today’s Gospel was doing something similar, but because the Lord promised to help him, just as the Lord had helped Elijah and the widow, he knew to encourage his servant to begin handing out the bread, and the miracle happened.

The disciples in today’s Gospel are a little more proactive: they know from Our Lord’s question that he wants to feed the people who came to see him and it seems he’s asking them to make it happen. Phillip sees it as impossible even if they had enough money to feed them, due to the size of the crowd. Andrew at least starts asking around, but the resources come up short. They lost sight of the fact that Jesus said “we”: when we feel Our Lord is asking something difficult or impossible, we have to remember that, like in today’s Gospel, he will be with us and help us. We just have to take it one step at a time, even when sometimes it seems difficult or impossible. In the end, through taking things step by step, they helped Our Lord to make the miracle happen.

Have you felt in your heart that Our Lord has been asking you to try to do something difficult or impossible? Don’t think of the end game; ask him to teach you what first step he wants you to take, and then keep taking things one step at a time. You’ll be surprised how much you accomplish working with him.

Readings: 2 Kings 4:42–44; Psalm 145:10–11, 15–18; Ephesians 4:1–6; John 6:1–15.

 

16th Week in Ordinary Time, Friday

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In today’s Gospel Our Lord he tells us about the obstacles that can keep us from having his Word bear fruit in our lives. As we can see, there is a lost of “noise” that can try to drown out his Word, and not all of it is self-generated. As he taught us yesterday, if we don’t understand what he is telling us, his Word stays on the surface and doesn’t penetrate our hearts, and the Evil One can easily sweep it away before it has any effect. We live in a culture today that can be shallow, superficial, and base: all of those things can form a sort of screen on our hearts that prevents God’s word from getting in. It’s also true that there is an active Evil presence out there that would like us to remain shallow and superficial and someday lose eternity with God forever, which is why we always need to watch and pray in moments of temptation and seek to understand God’s Word with profundity.

There’s a moment where an insight into his Word causes sensible consolations and warm feelings, but sentiments are often skin deep and change direction like the wind. If we only listen to feel good, when we start feeling bad we’ll stop listening–enthusiasm only lasts so long. God’s Word wants to be with us and help us in our ups and downs; he always has something to say, so whether we’re exultant about something or despondent, we need to keep listening, harder if needed. Lastly, there can also be a moment where we let our anxiety about something separate us from his Word: we become more concerning with the passing things of this world and not about the Kingdom: we worry about money, power, or pleasure. If we become attached to those things they won’t just drown out God’s Word, but they’ll make us deaf to many other things as well. A bad environment can choke out his Word in our lives, so we need to always consider whether there are certain places we should no longer go, certain people we should no longer see (if we’re too weak to change and to help them), certain things we should no longer do.

Let’s ask Our Lord to help us examine our “soil” today and let the seed of his Word fall on the rich spots, far away from thorns or rocky ground, in order to bear all the fruit we can.

Readings: Exodus 20:1–17; Psalm 19:8–11; Matthew 13:18–23.

16th Week in Ordinary Time, Thursday

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There’s probably been a moment in all of our lives when we wished the Lord would get his message across loud and clear, backed up by all the pyrotechnics we see in today’s First Reading. The Old Testament is full of these moments, and as believers we know that God has spoken to us and the people of Israel in this way throughout history. With the coming of Jesus the moment came to pass from one stage of learning about God and fathoming his almost unfathomable mystery to another: God in the Son took up human nature and revealed himself to us in a human way. Why did he do this, and why does he continue to do so today?

Pyrotechnics and great wonders and signs can attract attention, but for many, they don’t help grow in a robust faith. If the Israelites had grown in faith and an understanding of God we would not have inherited an Old Testament full of cases of infidelity and disbelief, sometimes right after enormous signs of God’s power and presence. Sometimes those signs didn’t go beyond provoking a servile fear, and the minute the signs were absent, people started going back to their own way of thinking and acting. In today’s Gospel Our Lord tells us to see the difference between hearing something and listening, between looking at something and seeing it. The parables present something from daily life, but are also doorways to other spiritual and divine insights about God, the “knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom of heaven.” It’s not enough to look at the door: it has to be opened to discover what lies beyond. When we see parables in this way, when we see the Word of God in this way, we see something from which we can draw profound truths regarding ourselves, our world, and Our Lord, not just once, but constantly. But that requires we make an effort in faith to listen and see, an effort to open our hearts and open that door into the greater world Our Lord wants to reveal to us.

Let’s ask Our Lord today to help us open that door: to open our eyes that we may see, our ears that we may hear, and our hearts that we may understand His Word.

Readings: Exodus 19:1–2, 9–11, 16–20b; Daniel 3:52–56; Matthew 13:10–17.