Mt 13:24-43 Wheat and Weeds

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
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Jesus proposed another parable to the crowds, saying:  "The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a man who sowed good seed in his field.  While everyone was asleep his enemy came and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and then went off.

The sower of good seed is the Son of Man.  Every word that comes forth from the mouth of Christ is good seed, and what a blessing it must be for young souls to grew up with these seeds on their mind, on their lips and in their hearts.   O, to be educated in the ways of the Lord, and from an early age, must be a blessing!  If only it would happen more often!  This is the way to build up self-esteem and discover self-worth.  This is way to diminish fears and anxieties. 

What a pity it is that this good seed is constantly denied entry on grounds it is sectarian.  This is the work of the devil.

The sower of the evil seed is the devil.  This summer, I've been reading Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray."  What a masterpiece!  Talk about a book composed of good and bad seed! 

As I've been reading, I've been writing.  I wrote down the following quote a few days ago:  "The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.  Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself..." 

Sounds true, doesn't it?  But the brutal facts speak for themselves.  The soul doesn't grow sicker with longing.  It grows stronger.  And the best way to get rid of a temptation is not to yield to it, but to replace it.

But like most sayings that are pure evil, at first glance they appear to be logical and true; that is, natural and normal.  It's not always easy to distinguish a good word from a bad word, or a good seed from a bad seed.  That's where our elders can be useful to all.  They are ingenious early warning signals for young sprouts, the flares that shine in the middle of the dark night of a young soul.  Unfortunately, they are being choked out by the entertainment industry.  In just a few decades, they have done a remarkable job at crushing and ridiculing their knowledge and wisdom.

Sure, the soul grows sick with longing for things that are forbidden, but it grows even sicker when it gobbles them all up.  How many tears must be shed before lessons are learned?  How many teens must grow sick or die before values and morals (and some abnegation) are once again respected and taught?

The world is the ground.  Life is give and take.  Living is all about giving and receiving.  Our world is a world of give and take.  It's not ruled so much by competition as it is by cooperation.  It's more about synergy and community than elimination and the individual.

Similarly, human beings are expected to give fairly and take fairly.  But Christians, on the other hand, are expected to give more than they receive, for they have received the seed that when they give more they receive more.  This practice has been cultivated by many of our elders. 

The weeds and the wheat.    We live in a world where the good and the bad live side by side.  There is only Heaven, and Heaven is Hell for those who do not wish to be there. 

Our God allows the good to grow next to the bad.  Why?  Because there is a lot that can be learned from what surrounds us. 

There are two ways to learn something:  the easy way and the hard way.  We can learn from others or we can learn by ourselves.  We can listen to the people who love us the most or we can choose to ignore them.  Regardless of what we choose, what is good will always triumph over evil and shine brighter and stand taller, even if it smacks right in the face of modern "progress."

Like the Lord, we too grow side by side with one another, just like wheat and weeds, for the Father knows there are principally two ways for us to get back to where we belong: either by forgiving and giving or by contrition and forgiveness. 

Mt 12:14-21 Saying No To Bad Advice

Saturday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time
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The Pharisees went out and took counsel against Jesus to put him to death.

Taking advice from bad people.  Getting bad advice is one thing.  Taking it from bad people is the worst possible thing anyone could ever do to themselves.

It's one thing to be led astray.  It's another to be intentionally led astray.  Nothing good comes from those who wish to see a good person harmed.

Be careful of the people you hang out with.  Misery loves company.  If you find it easy to gossip with your friends, then be careful of your friends.  As the saying goes:  "Those who gossip with you will gossip about you." 

The Pharisees wanted Christ dead, even before there was ever talk of a trial.  So they went to evil people because they sought evil advice.  

What do I seek? Who do I ask?  

Taking advice from good people.  Do I seek God?  If so, then go to those who are religious, who seek God with a sincere heart.  Do not go to someone who mocks and ridicules our Lord and His believers.  You will not find God there.  Do I seek to understand the Catholic faith?  Then read Catholic authors.  No one in their right mind would go and read a book about Catholicism from a non-Catholic.   

And if your heart still makes you wonder what to believe in, then take the advice of the Lord.  Do what He would do.  Say what He would say.  Live like He Lives!

Mt 12:1-8 Nitpicking

Friday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time
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Jesus was going through a field of grain on the Sabbath.  His disciples were hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat them.  When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, "See, your disciples are doing what is unlawful to do on the Sabbath."

A long time ago, a woman came up to me after Mass and complained about the way I celebrated Mass.  She told me I did not put my hands together at the proper moments.  I thanked her for her concern and told her to be careful not to nitpick. 

Nitpicking.  In the old days, nitpicking referred to "the act of removing nits (the eggs of lice, generally head lice) from the host's hair.  As the nits are cemented to individual hairs, they cannot be removed with most lice combs, and, before modern chemical methods were developed, the only options were to shave all the host's hair or to pick them free one by one. 

As nitpicking inherently requires fastidious, meticulous attention to detail, the term has become appropriated to describe the practice of meticulously searching for minor, even trivial errors in detail and then criticizing them" (Wikipedia).

The Pharisees were nitpicking.  Do you nitpick?

Someone once told me that if you look long and hard enough at someone - anyone - you will always find something to complain about.  Everyone has their defects, even the Lord.  Don't be scandalized, I said defects, not sins. 

I believe nitpicking is a consequence of jealousy and/or rushing to conclusions (judging things and others harshly).  The Pharisees were obviously jealous of Jesus.  After all, He packed the house, He impacted His audience, He changed the hearts and minds of thousands, He practiced what He preached, He sacrificed for others, He loved like no other.

The Pharisees had no other alternatives but to either humble themselves and join Him, or revert back to man's basic instinct and look for a flaw - any flaw - in his character.  They chose the road most traveled.

From today's Gospel passage, it's clear the Pharisees also suffered from the all too common tendency of harshly and rashly judging the Lord or the one and only one they were most jealous of.

Could they not see that the Lord's men were living in strict poverty?  Could they not understand all the good they were doing and how their actions had been blessed by God and collaborated by David and his men? 

For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.  Although He is God, the Lord is not above the Law.  On earth, Christ was totally and unconditionally obedient to His Father and to His Father's Laws.  The problem was:  He understood His Father and His Father's Laws better than the teachers of the Law.  He understood that "the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath" (Mk 2:27).  The significance of this statement is as enormous as the significance of the Copernican model of our solar system!  The Lord just moved Man back to the center of His Father's Attention.  He turned all His Laws upside down.  Man is the center of God's love.

Let's avoid being nitpicky by putting love of God and neighbor above ourselves, our jealousies and our harsh judgments. 

Mt 11:28-30 Planet of the...?

Thursday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time
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Jesus said:  "Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart."

Come to me.  I find it a bit scary how life can turn on you in a minute.  One minute you're happy, the next in tears.  It's frightening to think about the little power you have in your life.  Of course we'd all like to think we had more, but we don't.  We can barely control ourselves let alone others! 

There is so much that is out of our control that could make or break us.

Now if you think this is scary, then know it gets worse when you consider how flimsy our state and federal governments and institutions are.  They are always but a few weeks from utter collapse.  History has demonstrated that a simple riot can easily turn into a revolution that topples a government.  Computer models have predicted how genetically man-ipulated virus could easily wipe out half the population as well as all essential institutions in a flash.

Maybe the reason why I am being so negative today is because I went to see the Planet of the Apes last night! These types of movies are made believable because there is enough truth mixed in with fantasy to make them believable.

Come to me...This is music to my ears and it should be music to everyone's ears.  It's a sweet reminder that we don't have to reinvent the wheel or guess what is right or wrong.  We know it all because of Him.  It's all laid out there to take upon our shoulders.  We just need our come to Jesus moment.

Come to me, all you who labor for justice and for peace.  Believe in me, and know that my ways will work better than your tried and tested ways in creating a better world. 

Amen.

Mt 11:25-27 Expert of Humanity

Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time

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by BENEDICT AUGUSTINE

“I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things

from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike.”

“The more a man looks at a thing, the less he sees it, and the more a man learns from a thing, the less he knows,” declares G. K. Chesterton in his essay, “The Twelve Men.” Speaking of the twelve random people summoned for a jury, Chesterton remarks that their very lack of expertise qualifies them to judge the fate of a certain criminal’s case. Unlike the judge, or the police officer, or the attorney, non-experts have no knowledge or experience to prejudice their judgment. All they have, and all they need to have, fairly is their common humanity.

The expert, on the other hand, has many prejudices that he has cultivated through experience. In many ways, this is natural and quite necessary to accomplish his job efficiently and effectively. He should know what to expect, what certain patterns suggest, what courses of actions are available, what normally works and what normally fails. An expert on sickness, the doctor’s knowledge and experience will guide him as he diagnoses and prescribes. An expert on building, the engineer knows quickly which plans and materials will accomplish the job, and which will not. Equipped with an extensive knowledge of the law, the lawyer knows what cases he can make for his clients and their likelihood of success. Without question, many people will prefer to consult with an expert, and they will pay a good amount of money to do it. Hence, most people often strive to become experts in something to maximize their value in society and then convert that value into wealth.

However, expertise comes at a cost. As he gains experience, an expert will often lose sight on the meaning and inherent beauty of his work. As he relates his experience of learning to navigate a steamboat, Mark Twain laments the loss of feeling he used to have for his surroundings. Speaking about the Mississippi River which delighted him in the past, he remarks, “No, the romance and beauty were all gone from the river. All the value any feature of it had for me now was the amount of usefulness it could furnish toward compassing the safe piloting of a steamboat.”Expertise brought him mastery, but it took away his wonder. Most jobs will have this effect on people. They learn of a thing’s utility, but lose sight of its meaning.

Experts also have a bad habit of abstracting everything, extracting a particular idea from the whole reality. They see everything in terms of their job.Doctors do not see a person; they see a patient. An accountant does not people’s actions; he sees their data. Speaking for myself, as a teacher, I will frequently neglect the human side of my job because of abstraction. I see my students as readers and writers, whose value I pin to their latest essay score and grade point average; only occasionally will I remember that they have lives outside my class. Even with myself, I frequently see myself as a paper grader and writing coach, not a human being who loves literature and the English language. Although thinking this way may make me better at my job, it also makes me much more narrow-minded as a human being.  I will figure out ways to maximize a student’s AP testscore, but outside their reading and writing ability, I will know next to nothing about who my students actually are. Because this condition worsens over the course of the year, at least for me, the summer offers a chance to restore my humanity, so I can start the next year with a relatively fresh perspective.

In general, the matters of the greatest concern like the life of a person, the greatness of God, virtue, or leadership cannot be solved by experts. When society tries rely on experts for these matters, problemsinevitably occur. Ethicists often have the worst ethics of anyone (like Harvard’s Peter Singer). Scientists, men who study God’s creation, and not a few Biblical scholars, men who study God’s word, often have the least idea about God and His Will. Far from being philosopher kings, the most credentialed professionals from the most prestigious universities all too often make the worst leaders—consider, out all the American presidents, Woodrow Wilson and Barack Obama have the most formal education.

In those matters of greatest importance, one must seek out non-experts, people who have little experience with the matter at hand. In picking His twelve apostles, Jesus picked out non-experts, men who had more experience with fish, collecting taxes, and making tents than they did with theology and philosophy. Fortunately, what they lacked in expertise, they made up in humanity. They had the vision that the expert rabbis and scribes lacked. They had open hearts that could receive Christ’s words, not the stony hearts of the Pharisees. Like children, they did not have the same prejudices as the experts, and like children, they were humble enough not to test Jesus. They did not want Jesus to prove Himself to them; like children, they wanted to prove themselves to Him. For this reason, God reveals His truth to them.

And why would God reveal His truth to Jesus and His “childlike” disciples? Because Jesus Himself was the supreme non-expert. Unspecialized and lacking any credential yet open and obedient, He was the most childlike of all men. Jesus Himself teaches what it means to be a true child of God. If one could call Him an expert at anything, he should call Jesus an expert of humanity. Therefore, should one seek advice on how to find meaning in humanity, that person can look at the life of Jesus and find his answer.

Mt 11:20-24 The City of God?

Tuesday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time
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Jesus began to reproach the towns where most of his mighty deeds had been done, since they had not repented.

I couldn't believe it.  I was getting a "call" on FaceTime from a family that is dear to me and is currently vacationing in a tropical paradise.  I answered the call and was greeted by smiles I could see and laughter that I could hear.  They were having the time of their lives.  Once everyone settled down, I asked them to show me around their exotic place.  They reversed their camera and I saw a beautiful blue ocean, an amazing blue sky, a gentle breeze, and a room full of windows and sunlight.  When they asked me where I was and what I was doing, I said to them, "Here, let me show you around."  I reversed my camera and showed them the four walls surrounding my tiny office, the color of the walls being an uninspiring industrial yellow.  Next I showed them my tiny window high above my wall.  I pointed my phone upward for them to see the source of my light - a light bulb - and the cause of the breeze that was my fan.  While I was doing all these things, I went on Google, found a fish and showed them my background. 

We all had a good laugh.

Woe to you!  In today's Gospel passage, the Lord speaks of cities that refused to repent after mighty deeds had been done.   He says to them, "Woe to you, Chorazin!  Woe to you, Bethsaida!  Woe to you, Capernaum!"  These were not some remote or distant towns or cities.  These were places just around the block.

Cities can be wonderful places of grace and culture.  But they can also be horrible places where vice and sin prevail.  Sin City.   

Cities are places were people can lose their roots, culture and identity, and easily get lost in the dark alleys and be forgotten. 

This morning I read an article about a rookie cop, Melvin Santiago, who was gunned down in an ambush in the streets of Jersey City.  The rookie was shot once in the head at point blank range.  The suspect, Lawrence Campbell, was killed in a gun fight with police.  Soon after, neighbors left written messages and candles at a makeshift memorial near the scene of the crime.  But instead of honoring the rookie, the memorial was for his killer.

I couldn't believe what I was reading.  And as shocking as this was, what followed next just blew my mind:   

The suspect's widow, Angelique Campbell, told News 12 New Jersey on Sunday that she was sorry for Santiago’s family but that her husband should have killed more officers if they were planning to kill him. She later apologized for the comments.

City life can turn us into thugs.  We can lose our minds and hearts when so much of humanity is crammed into artificially made tiny spaces.  What's holy can appear to be silly, while broken institutions simply exacerbate the damage done to a young soul.  We all need to be aware of this. 

Life, as well as faith, can easily be turned upside down in the city.  There are countless bloggers who blog from the city and criticize everything that is Christian.  Do they not realize that Christian bloggers could do the same, and criticize everything that is not Christian, especially the senseless violence and the broken secular institutions?

The prophet Isaiah wrote:  "Unless your faith is firm you shall not be firm."  Lots of people living in the city are on shaky ground.

Isaiah spent his entire life trying to get back what was lost.  He is not alone, and the battle continues.   

Mt 10:34-11:1 All In The Family

Monday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time
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Jesus said to his Apostles:  "Do not think I have come to bring peace upon the earth.  I have come to bring not peace but the sword.  For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one's enemies will be those of his household."

Date: July 11, 2014
Location: Nkozi, Uganda (Uganda Martyrs University)

"But Haley, if there is a God, how can He allow evil to exist? And if He doesn't allow evil to exist, but cannot do anything to stop bad things from happening, then how can He be considered an all-powerful God?"

If I had a dollar for every time I've been asked this question, I'm pretty sure I'd be able to single-handedly save the entire continent of Africa.

A number of my close family members and friends are atheists (they deny the existence of God). Now, in my opinion, there's really nothing wrong with that because I love them just the same (if not even more, since they don't know the love of God), but it is always very interesting to converse with them about the reasons for their disbelief.

"It just doesn't make sense to me," they say. "How can evil and God exist simultaneously? If God actually exists, there wouldn't be evil in this world."

They began constantly questioning me in this manner around the time I was in 6th or 7th grade. At that time in my life, I'd usually respond like this...
"Well, daddy, this is the way I see it. Earth is not a perfect place. Heaven is a perfect place; perfection is meant for Heaven. If earth was in fact perfect, then we would have no need for Heaven. Evil exists on Earth so that we have a choice between good and bad, life and death, a God-filled life and a Godless life. Whichever we choose will determine if we spend the rest of our lives in Heaven with Jesus or the rest of our lives without Him. But why doesn't God choose to stop bad things from happening to good people, you ask? Well, imagine a world where God constantly forced us to act in a certain way, as if we were His little puppets. That wouldn't be much of a life at all. Instead, God loves us so much that He gave us free will. You see, He knew we would abuse this free will and fall into sin everyday, but because He loves us, He lets us live our lives in whatever way we choose."

That 6th grade response was never enough for any of them. The conversation usually resulted in more questions, some verbal attacks, and a few tears on my part, of course. Typical sensitive Haley. Thankfully, today I don't shed any tears during those conversations, and my answer has in fact improved (slightly) since 6th grade. Yet above all what I realized in those hard conversations was that the most beautiful thing about our faith is the fact that some questions will never be answered. As much as we think we know Jesus, we don't. He is beyond our understanding. No amount of pondering and reflection and research will ever allow us to understand fully the beauty of His ways. "'For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,' declares the Lord" (Isaiah 55:8). We will never fully comprehend Him, yet what we do know is this: "the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength" (1 Corinthians 1:25). This we know to be true, that God is wiser and stronger and higher and more powerful than we will ever be able to understand.

So for once, let's stop asking questions. Let's remain silent, with our eyes fully open and our hearts prepared to trust in His presence and receive His love each and every day of our lives. Because no matter how hard we try, even if we spend our entire lives searching and searching for answers, we will never be able to wrap around our brains around the greatness of God. He is too wonderful, too powerful, too awesome to ever be understood by such imperfect human minds as ours.

Still, I must admit that it is very fascinating to hear other peoples' opinions about this topic as I continue to refine my 6th grade response. The other day, I asked my Ugandan roommate, Agatha (Aggie), what she thinks about it all. Aggie is a Christian like me, yet she has been through more suffering in her 22-year-old life than I may ever experience in all of mine. She grew up Mbale, Uganda, and attended primary and secondary school (the equivalent of American middle and high school) in Jinja and later Entebbe, Uganda. Today, she is approaching her third and final year at Uganda Martyrs University (UMU) where she studies statistics and economics. She comes from a humble background of a loving, wonderful family of 10 (5 girls, 3 boys, and her parents) whom I had the privilege of meeting about a month ago, and she has dreams of becoming an economics lecturer in the future. This summer, Aggie and I are research partners at UMU, working together to design and implement the next phase of the Savings and Internal Lending Communities created by Catholic Relief Services (CRS) in the 12 villages of Nnindye Parish right outside of Nkozi, Uganda. Now that you have some background information about this wonderful human being I call my best friend and future bridesmaid (she has already promised to come to America for my future wedding between me and my currently very nonexistent boyfriend), read her thoughts about God and how an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good Creator could possibly allow evil to exist and possibly allow bad things to happen to good people...

"If everyone were rich, there would be no way to tell who is compassionate and who really cares about God's people. If every student in the class knew all the answers and was perfect in every subject, there would be no need for teachers. Yes evil exists, but evil exists so we can have the chance to show our love for God. So God exists. The benefits of knowing the love of God will always outweigh the cost of evil existing in the world. God can never give you something you can't handle. Yes there is evil in the world and God has put you in the world to deal with this evil, but He has put all the power you need in your hands. It is entirely up to you how you want to use that power (of free will). We are free to decide anything we want to. That is a gift God has given us: freedom. Freedom to choose the right way or the wrong way. It's all about obedience."

And get this: later when I mentioned the word "atheist" to her and told her that many of my closest family members and friends are atheists, she responded, "All the 'atheists,' or however you call them, try so hard to ignore God, but they each end up back in the same place, the Church, realizing that God is in fact real. If you doubt this just give God a try and see how your life will change. Anyone who says they are atheist hasn't actually given God a try and if they have, they have turned away because they fell into the trap of believing that God is just a happy feeling and if you don't feel that happiness 24/7 then He's not real. That's not true. God is not a feeling. Faith, like love, is a decision. Remember, it's all about obedience. The more you choose to follow Him, the more you will experience His love."

The more you choose to follow Him, the more you will experience His love.

Today, soak up His love. Today, be comfortable with not knowing all the answers to the world's many questions about Jesus. Yes, do your best to defend your faith and develop your own answers to these questions, but find REST in the fact that no matter how hard you try, you will never be able to comprehend how awesome and mighty and powerful and beautiful His love really is.

"I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen" (Ephesians 3:16-21).

As always, I love love love you for reading,
Haley

Haley is a student at the University of Notre Dame.  This meditation was reprinted with permission (a virtual handshake and a hug).