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Scripture:

Jeremiah 13:1-11
Matthew 13:31-35

Reflection:

The kingdom of Heaven or the Reign of God is compared to many things.  In today’s Gospel the kingdom is compared to a mustard seed that, tiny in its form, blossoms into a larger plant with room enough for all the birds of the air to nest in. The kingdom is also likened to yeast that a woman took and mixed with wheat flour until the whole batch was leavened.  In the Preface for our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the universe, we pray may your kingdom come; a kingdom of truth and life, of holiness and grace, of justice, love and peace.  When we pray the Our Father, we pray that thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

How would you interpret the kingdom or reign of God?  For me, I believe the kingdom exists in the here and now as well as being a welcome state of eternal happiness upon resurrection.  We just finished a 4-day parish picnic/carnival at our parish.  Anyone who has ever been involved in even a small one-day event of this kind, knows full well the work involved and the sense of relief one feels when it is over.  This year our pastor challenged each of us to look for the face of Jesus in the many encounters we would have with the myriads of people present at the carnival.

Seeing the face of Jesus in this overwhelming group of humanity was a little like the kingdom of heaven.  There was true happiness and joy shared by so many people, the young and the not-so-young.  The delight of children enjoying the thrill of a roller coaster ride seated securely next to Mom or Dad or a sibling.  The screams of glee and anticipation heard throughout the carnival midway gave one a little sense of what heaven could be like.  After all, heaven to a 5-year old doesn’t get any better than enjoying a serving of cotton candy that is bigger than they are!

There was a spirit of camaraderie and goodwill among those who worked the picnic, played the wheels, enjoyed a beer, a game of showdown poker or a delicious lasagna or chicken dinner.  It seemed like the gates of heaven were open for all to come streaming through with a chance to enjoy the company of new and old friends and family.

It was a busy time for all who organized and worked the carnival days and at moments it may have seemed like too much chaos and not enough pleasure.  In the long run, though, the event presented a microcosm of what I believe the kingdom of heaven is all about, a kingdom of truth, life, peace, justice, love, holiness and grace.

 

Theresa Secord is a Pastoral Associate at St. Agnes Parish, Louisville, Kentucky.

Scripture:

Jeremiah 7:1-11
Matthew 13:24-30

Reflection:

A prophet’s words can still stir the soul.

Hear again from today’s scripture selection the Prophet Jeremiah sent by the Lord not only to the people of Judah in the 7^th century B.C., but to us today:

Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel:

Reform your ways and your deeds, so that I may remain with you in this place.
Put not your trust in the deceitful words: "This is the temple of the LORD!
Only if you thoroughly reform your ways and your deeds; if each of you deals justly with his neighbor; if you no longer oppress the resident alien, the orphan, and the widow; if you no longer shed innocent blood in this place, or follow strange gods to your own harm, will I remain with you in this place, in the land I gave your fathers long ago and forever.

How much more clearly can God speak to us?  In so many ways and so many places – and too often in God’s name – we have turned from God. Innocent lives are shot out of the sky, children flee for a safer place to call home, rockets fly indiscriminately across borders, gangs terrorize villages and city neighborhoods, and those who were once peaceful neighbors turn on each other because they differ in their worship or their ethnic roots.  God begs us to return to the way of peace and justice.

When I hear Passionists pray, "May the Passion of Jesus be always in our hearts," I believe they are asking me to hold in my own heart the sorrow that I feel when I look around and see the same kind of injustice and brokenness Jeremiah and Jesus both saw.  Before I can repent, reform and renew myself, I  certainly have to recognize the injustice and brokenness out there in the world, but also within my own life.

I don’t like it, but I need Jeremiah to speak the truth to me and to our world today.  I need to be riled up and made to feel uncomfortable hearing the prophet’s word.  It is only when I know something is terribly wrong can I begin to make it right.

 

Robert Hotz is a consultant with American City Bureau, Inc. and is the Director of The Passion of Christ: The Love That Compels Campaign for Holy Cross Province.

 

Scripture:

1 Kings 3:5, 7-12
Romans 8:28-30
Matthew 13:44-52

 

 

 

Reflection:

Anything Goes

In 1934, American composer and lyricist Cole Porter penned these words:

In olden days a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking,
But now, God knows,
Anything Goes.
Good authors too who once knew better words,
Now only use four letter words
Writing prose, Anything Goes.
The world has gone mad today
And good’s bad today,
And black’s white today,
And day’s night today.

These days, I suppose it’s easy to get disillusioned and cynical by an "anything goes" attitude. We become anesthetized by infidelity, tragedy and terror. Another high school shooting, another downed passenger jet. For some it is a question of survival; we’d be paralyzed if we immersed ourselves in these heartbreaking realities; for the grief is overwhelming.

I reverence the words of Mohandas Ghandi: "When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall — think of it, ALWAYS."

Today’s readings remind us of the primacy of HOPE. Like faith and love, hope is a theological virtue, a supernatural reality. Hope is not wishful thinking; that’s optimism, and that (optimism) is blind to the jagged edges of time, and blind to the healing power of our pain. That’s "pie-in-the-sky" or what some call "low-level religion." In contrast, hope is grounded in reality, in wrestling with God, in the messiness of falling in love. It is why Pope Francis compares the Church to a field hospital.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus says that the Kingdom of God must be the priority for all his followers. The word "priority" means first, or superior. And philosophically, logically, practically…. You cannot have more than one priority, …or it’s not a priority. It may be important, it may be significant, even indispensable or essential, but not the priority. Jesus is uncompromising in these parables of a pearl or a treasure buried in a field.

But every choice is a renunciation. St. Thomas Aquinas said that and it helps explain why we struggle so painfully to make clear choices. We want the right things, but we want other things too. Every choice is a series of renunciations: If I marry one person, I cannot marry anyone else; if I live in one place, I cannot live anywhere else; if I choose a certain career, that excludes many other careers; if I have this, then I cannot have that. The list could go on indefinitely. To choose one thing is to renounce others. That’s the nature of choice. That’s the nature of a priority…no matter what our culture tries to tell you.

The world of advertising and entertainment and corporate finance tries to convince us that we can multi-task and have a series of "priorities."  But life and love, beyond the abstract and beyond the grandiosity of our own daydreams, involve hard, painful renunciation. But it is precisely that very renunciation that helps us grow up and makes our lives real in a way that our daydreams don’t. And maybe "anything goes" doesn’t work so well after all.

 

Fr. Jack Conley, C.P. is the director of the Office of Mission Effectiveness.  He is a member of the Passionist formation community at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.

Scripture:

Jeremiah 1:1, 4-10
Matthew 13:1-9

Reflection:

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus tells the parable of the sower and the seed. For me, of the seeds which are kept from producing fruit, the ones which are most applicable to my life and my experience with others are the seeds sown on rocky soil, and the seeds sown among thorns.

I have seen people who have been thrown for a loop by some great tragedy or difficulty, and have lost hope and lost their faith. Some of them come back to their faith, realizing that God has neither punished nor forgotten them. But others do not. In my own life, I have seen where anxiety has kept me from sharing the Good News as much as I could have. So, there are obstacles to producing good fruit, but the Sower of the seed has given us grace and the Holy Spirit, and we are still able to bear fruit "a hundred or sixty or thirty-fold."

What might producing good fruit look like? I think it involves sewing some seeds ourselves. The seeds we have do not come from us, but we are called to spread them around as much as we can. These are the seeds of God’s love and mercy in Jesus Christ. They are the seeds of compassion and understanding. They are the seeds of encouragement and joy. They are the seeds of peace and justice. These are the seeds which the world needs sown now more than ever, and just as Jesus has sown good seeds in us, may we not only bear good fruit, but pass the seeds along so that others can join us, so that the fruit we have in Jesus may be multiplied over and over again!

 

Fr. Phil Paxton, C.P. is on staff at St. Paul of the Cross Retreat and Conference Center, Detroit, Michigan. 

 

Memorial of Saint Mary Magdalene

Scripture:

Micah 7:14-15, 18-20
John 20:1-2, 11-18

Reflection:

Today marks the 51st anniversary for five of my classmates and I professing our vows to live religious life through the charism of St. Paul of the Cross. On one level these actions taken by the six of us at the ages of 19 and 20, in 1963, appear to be minuscule in the economy of life’s realities. Upon which of the world’s theaters of violence and the loss of life must we ponder today? But who are we to say which actions are minuscule or insignificant? Is there or is there not, a new creation in our midst, "see, everything has become new!" (2 Cor. 5:17)

The Word has Mary Magdalene standing outside the opened tomb of God’s dead body, only to weep the more in utter confusion "not knowing where they had laid him." The Word from the Song of Songs has us harken back to the bride "seeking whom her soul loves." She cannot find him…"I sought him, but found him not ; I called him, but he gave no answer." the bride searches, "I will seek him whom my soul loves." If the Lover is for real, that Person will find us.

Speaking only for myself, I have found that the Passionist way of life, with the determinants of the four vows,(chastity, poverty, obedience, and, to promote devotion to the Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ) has lead me in countless ways and in countless times through situations of apparent loss, whether it has been a talent which just didn’t come forth at the right time, a situation that has presented no immediate solutions or quick fixes, or a reality to be faced that will take more time and patience than I believe I have. These are all situations beyond my grasp.  And yet, Jesus says directly to Mary, "do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father." But he does not hold her back from going and declaring to the fearful disciples that she had seen Him alive.

So, too, we must not hold back from continuing to announce life and hope in the very situations where there is "apparently" none. Our daily actions of mercy, sacrifice, and other-centered ness reveal the new creation that is revealed in its own time and manner through the Plans which the Father and Son reveal. It is up to me to pursue the situations in my own reality with hope, and allowing God to continue to speak to us each in our own intimate way.

 

Fr. Alex Steinmiller, C.P. is president of Holy Family Cristo Rey Catholic High School, Birmingham, Alabama.

Scripture:

Jeremiah 14:17-22
Matthew 13:36-43

Reflection:

Sunflowers and Swords

Sunflowers are dazzling displays when they bloom in country fields against a blue sky.  Sunday’s paper had two pictures of blooming sunflowers.  One picture was in the Ukraine, the other near the Gaza strip.  However the beautiful, blooming sunflowers were nestled in fields along with the swords of violence. 

The Ukraine field was next to a row of bodies from an airliner of innocents downed by a missile, a deadly sword of violence.  The Gaza field was inhabited with soldiers, bullets and rocks flying through the air; violence amid the beauty of the sunflowers.  The words of today’s reading from Jeremiah seem to apply amidst these signs of our times.

"Let my eyes stream with tears day and night, without rest.  Over the great destruction which overwhelms the virgin daughter of my people.  If I walk out into the field, look, those slain by the sword."

Good Seeds and Bad Seeds

In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus explains the parable of the weeds in the field.  The good seeds and the bad seeds germinate and grow next to each other, just as the sunflowers and violence bloom together in the fields of Gaza and the Ukraine.  At the "end of the age" the products of the good and bad seeds are separated into piles; one for burning and one for the Kingdom of God.  Small seeds grow together into beautiful plants or into unspeakable evil.

The Kingdom of God and Me

I don’t control the world.  If I did, I would choose to eliminate the swords of violence in favor of the beautiful sunflowers.  However I do control my choices everyday in building the Kingdom of God.  Every act of compassion nurtures a growing sunflower in the Kingdom.  Every moment of forgiveness supplies light to the world.  Every move toward unity and away from divisiveness promotes a good harvest in the Kingdom.  Today I humbly pray for the strength to sew good seeds.

 

Terry McDevitt, Ph.D. is a member of our Passionist Family who volunteers at the Passionist Assisted Living Community in Louisville, Kentucky.

 

 

Scripture:

Jeremiah 2:1-3, 7-8, 12-13
Matthew 13:10-17

 

 

Reflection:

Two Great Evils

The prophet Jeremiah in today’s first reading utters some of the most intense words of Scripture!  ""Be appalled (šāmēm), O heavens, at this, And shudder (śāʿar)", i.e.bristle with terror".    Jeremiah calls the whole cosmos to be stunned and horrified at two evils in his world.  The first one is that the people have forsaken (ʿāzab) God.   We live in a country that has allowed our laws and media to abandoned God as in Jeremiah’s day.  But we have gone further by legally discarding Him from schools, public speech, and even largely from political life.  

A beautiful and inspirational example was given with the Passionist Saint Inocencio and  eight Christian Brothers.   During the Spanish Civil War on October 9,1934, they were taken to a cemetery near their Catholic school and shot to death before their open graves.  They refused to take down crucifixes and stop teaching religion.  These wonderful men paid a terrible price for the importance of God in education of the young!  Jeremiah, I am sure, was proud of them.

For many have not only jilted God but even have been convinced that He is not important in modern life.   Jeremiah some twenty five hundred years ago saw this as an absolute stunning and shuttering disaster.   In the last 50 years we have experienced enormous cultural change.    Much of this change has been nothing less than wonderful.   One thing that has not been changed is our desperate need for God!

Jeremiah forcefully reminds us that even with all the astonishing improvements in modern times our life will turn into a catastrophe without an intimacy with God.  So he tells us the second evil. We will be like "broken cisterns that can’t hold water".   It seems to me the perennial challenge of life is to thoroughly live and take advantage of the present world without losing God.   Paul reminds us that Christ "is everything in everyone" (panta in pasin) Col 3;11   Our life will forever be broken without Him   "He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent." Colossians 1:18

 

Fr. Bob Weiss, C.P. preaches Parish Missions and is a member of the Passionist Community in Louisville, Kentucky.

Scripture:

Jeremiah 18: 1-6
Matthew 13: 47-53

Reflection:

Since the beginning of time, it seems that people have been looking for hidden treasure.  Today, people are still looking for treasure… they look for it in the Lottery, or in the Casinos of Las Vegas, in the Stock Market, or maybe using On-Line Gambling…If only they could hit that "big jackpot", they believe that their life would be better.

In one way or another, all of us are TREASURE HUNTERS…we’re all seekers.  Each of us is looking for that certain something that will make our lives happy and complete…and that’s a good thing.   

In today’s Gospel, Jesus compares the KINGDOM OF HEAVEN to a fishing net that collects all kinds of fish without regard for their value.

This is a story about the FINAL JUDGEMENT…and it is also a story about our God who patiently waits for us to have a change of heart…..to turn our lives around and come back to Him.

When the net is finally pulled in, the work isn’t done.  The sorting will begin; the good will be kept and the bad will be discarded.  So, while the "Gospel" net is cast out for everyone, not everyone will find themselves in the container marked… "Going to Heaven !"

As seekers on a spiritual journey, we can pray for an understanding mind and the ability to know that the KINGDOM OF HEAVEN…is Jesus Christ living within us…Right here…Right now.

And in the end…THAT is the container with the good fish…fish that got their value from the One who was willing to pay dearly for them by shedding His own blood on the cross for each of us.

When we respond to God’s call to be in a personal relationship with Him, then the realities of the rest of our life…the blessings and the challenges….are the steps along the path that will continue to lead us to that "big jackpot"…THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. 

Today’s Gospel, indeed, calls you and I to think and to pray… and may He give us the grace and the willingness to change.

 

Deacon Brian Clements is a retired member of the retreat team at Mater Dolorosa Retreat Center in Sierra Madre, California.