A very important aspect of the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds, one that is easy to overlook, is the wisdom and maturity of the servants. If they had been immature or reckless servants, this parable might have ended in a different way, such as this:

And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, “Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?” He answered, “An enemy has done this.” The slaves said to him, “Then do you want us to go and gather them?” But then the owner replied, “No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them.” And one of the slaves answered, “Not me, Master! I know exactly the difference between wheat and weeds!!” And he went out and began to pull out the weeds but some of them turned out to be wheat, just as the Master had foretold.

I think too many Christians today are like such over-zealous servants who cannot tolerate the weeds. In their zeal to serve God, they go on a crusade against anyone they perceive as evil with the intention of cleaning up the church, the nation, or even the world. In the end, they often discover they have made a mistake.

Why then did the farm owner stop the servants from pulling out the weeds? We can think of two reasons.

First, the owner knew that the wheat would survive in spite of the presence of the weeds. The weeds might inconvenience the wheat temporarily but they would not choke them to death or take over the farm. Second, and this is crucial, he knew how difficult it is to distinguish between the wheat and the weeds.

They look so much alike. Only at harvest time could they be distinguished for sure by their fruits. If it were possible to distinguish with accuracy the weeds from the wheat he would probably not have prevented them. But he prevented them for this one reason, “lest in pulling up the weeds you dig up the wheat along with them.”

Jesus then went on to explain to his disciples that “the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom. The weeds are the children of the evil one. This makes it clear that one of the lessons of the parable is that Christians don’t have to worry about judging who they think are the “good” or “bad” people of the world. Judging is for later, and judging is for God.

Sometimes, we just must allow what we think as good and evil live side by side in the world until the day when they will be known for sure by their fruits. We may have to be content just let what we think are “good and bad” people live in the same house, the same apartment building, the same convent, the same neighbourhood, the same country and in the same world, for the simple reason that we cannot absolutely identify, without error, who is “good” and who “bad.” That is God’s job.

Of course we all have our ideas of who the good and the bad guys are but, like the servants, we could be wrong. Faithful servants of Jesus are those who recognize this possibility, that they could be wrong, and so are prepared to stop judging. Intolerance, the desire to get rid of who we think might be “bad” people, around us, breeds fanatics who ultimately, end up being unfaithful servants.

Sometimes we spend so much time trying to find and get rid of the weeds, that we lose sight of the wheat. Jesus tells us: don’t worry about judging the weeds and the wheat. God may be alive and working where you and I, today, just cannot see it. Jesus and his angels will separate weeds from wheat.

You and I must work on being, good wheat.

Matthew 13, 1-23



Seeds on a path, seeds on rocks, seeds in the midst of weeds, seeds in good soil.
Jesus told the crowds many things in parables, stories from life situations or nature. The parable then, would leave the listener with some questions about how you should understand and apply the story, hopefully motivating us into deeper thought and reflection. We need to allow a parable to sit in our minds and hearts and bring us the sense that there is more here than we first think!


For many of us, like me, the image of sowing seeds may be limited to planting a small home garden. Still, I don't think that its too hard to imagine a person planting seeds on the four different types of soil: seeds on a path, seeds on rocks, seeds in the midst of weeds, seeds in good soil.


What is clear in the gospel, but not really spelled out, is that we have a choice. Each one of us here has been singled out, blest, to hear the Christian message. But, how do you prepare your life, what are the choices you need to make to prepare for those seeds of faith to be planted? You see, the amazing thing about this gospel is that God's grace, God's love is everywhere and grows everywhere.


But, what is this gospel saying to us today? I guess, what Jesus is saying is that “we are dirt!" Aaaah, but what kind of dirt? and what do we do with this "dirt?" or maybe "soil" would be a more acceptable term!


Seeds on a path, seeds on rocks, seeds in the midst of weeds, seeds in good soil.


Is your life, like the kind of soil that makes up a path? Do you hear the Gospel without really understanding it? What do you do in your life to deepen your understanding of your faith? Do you take the time to pray? read the Scriptures? Study the Scriptures? Or do you show up here weekly and hope like heck that the birds won't eat the seeds of faith planted in you?


Is your life, like the kind of soil that is filled with rocks? Do you hear the message of the Gospel, come up here to church, get excited and then by the time you hit the gate to the monastery on the way home, the message is forgotten, or dead? What do you do to nurture the Word that we've received, the Bread that we have shared? Do you share the faith you have received? How little we love the gospel if we keep it to ourselves.
Is your life, like the kind of soil that is infested with weeds? Do you acknowledge sinfulness in your life and the need for forgiveness and renewal? Do you see those aspects of your life that prevent the message of Jesus from taking deep root? In your prayer, do you do some daily weeding so that the seeds of faith can really grow and take root?


Is your life, like the kind of soil that is good, rich, dark and fertile? You see, the gospel today is not one that consoles us, makes us feel good, it challenges us. The life of God is always in us, either growing, or dying. There is no holding pattern. And eventually, we become what we choose.


The Eucharist reminds us that God's life will grow in our lives if we give it time and space. We gather here not as disciples who "have it made,” but as women and men and children open to God's action in our lives and ready to make whatever changes may be needed. God will support us. Far from forcing us to do something we do not want to do, God's grace enhances our freedom and enables us to accomplish our deepest desire: to bring forth "a yield of a hundred- or sixty- or thirty-fold."


Seeds on a path, seeds on rocks, seeds in the midst of weeds, seed in good soil. The choice is ours. The seed of faith is in you. Will you allow it to grow?

Matthew 11,25-30


As we now go back to the gospel readings from “ordinary time,” we’re about half-way through Matthew’s gospel with this Sunday’s reading. Jesus seems to be looking back over his activities and what his life and preaching had accomplished thus far. He considers what he has achieved, his successes, his failures, and he comes to this unmistakable conclusion: His message had practically no effect on the wealthy, the learned, and the powerful of ancient Jewish society.

The ones who seem to really hear his message and accept it with joy, are only a small group of disciples who come from the poorest and most humble parts of society. In fact, most often the people who accepted his preaching, were rejected, scorned, judged sinners, unworthy and outcasts, people no one else in “proper” society wanted anything to do with!

Now, you would think that if you really wanted to change the world, you’d have to start with the leaders, those with the most power and influence...Presidents, Church leaders, heads of commerce and business, and yet in Jesus’ time, these were the very folks that just seemed unable to hear and accept the Good News. But instead of being disappointed, the gospel of today begins with one of the very few prayers of Jesus: I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and of earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children.

These words do not mean that God purposely annoys the learned or the important people, or that He doesn’t like them. He is simply acknowledging a fact: the poor, the humble and the mostly lowly have been the first to accept and welcome Jesus’ words of freedom and liberation: liberation from hatred, fear, shame, and from sin.

We know that God is a friend of the just, that he favors those who behave well, while the gospel keeps repeating that Jesus’ preference is for the despised, those that nobody respects or wants: the blind, the lame, lepers, the deaf, public sinners, prostitutes. But why is this so?

Ah...because they are those who need his love the most, and know it. The wise, the wealthy, those who have knowledge and possessions often feel that they are “independent” or “self-sufficient” and of course, by very definition believe they don’t really need God in their lives, or just on Sundays.

And so each of us is challenged to place ourselves within this Gospel. Where do I fall? How much do I really admit I need the Lord in my life? Or do I kind of forget about God, until some crisis in my life or think that my religious vows, or just coming to mass each week is enough?

You see, what Jesus reminds us today is that ALL are welcome in this chapel, ALL are welcome to hear, accept and live the gospel. But, Jesus can only enter your heart, and soul and life, if you invite him. And you can only truly invite him, when you admit you need him. All are welcome and Jesus says to each one:

Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.

This is an invitation from Jesus to you, an invitation calling for a response. What will you say?

Ok, we’ve celebrated the Church’s beginnings with Pentecost, and the gift of the Spirit. We celebrated the Trinity, and the gift of relationships. And the feast today, is about the gift of food--the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ. Like the other feasts, this day tells us a lot about God, but also a lot about ourselves, who we are as Church, and how we continue to live as the Body and Blood of Christ in a world that is so very hungry.


Our God is a God who feeds. Over and over again the scriptures are filled with stories of food and feeding. Our God likes the gift of food.


And if we are a people who believe in, and make ourselves obedient to God, and a people who pray daily for the will of God to be done, then we might be ready for a big question at judgment: “Did you eat this Bread? Did you share it with others?”


The second reading, from Corinthians, reiterates our theology of Eucharist. There is no profound, complicated theology here. We share in this ONE loaf to become the ONE Body of Christ to a hungry world.


Jesus wants his followers to feed others. Eucharist can only be fully understood in terms of community and service.


For us as Catholic Christians, the bread and wine offered become truly the body and blood of the Lord. Many people today do not understand that enormously large word: transubstantiation. It is not a word that we would use in ordinary, daily life. All it means—and this is a lot of meaning—is that the bread and wine, which were truly bread and wine, are now truly the Body and Blood of the Lord. This is not only a memory of Jesus, but a making present here and today, the saving actions and of His very person.


Today's great feast is about our need to be fed, and the need to feed others! It is about the personal relationship that we each must have with Jesus, and, with each other. The feast today is about our capacity to give ourselves to others and for others, just as Jesus has given himself to us and for us. We, who receive today the Body of Christ, are joined with Christ, and, with every other person who comes to this table. Take a look around this morning as you come forward. Our “communion” (or common union) is not only with the Lord, but with each other as well. We receive the Body of Christ, and then together…we become the Body of Christ to our waiting world.


But, we can only feed, if we are fed. And we are fed by the presence of our Lord in the communion that we share. Knowing how Jesus gives Himself to us and for us, we must be formed by the Holy Spirit to live in that same way: we must give ourselves to and for others…all others, no exceptions


We cannot truly call ourselves Christians if we are only aware of Jesus’ presence for myself alone, and ignore others. If we treat today's solemnity as simply a mystery for myself and not a mystery about my relationships to Jesus AND the others in my family or in my community, then we fail to understand Eucharist.


Today, we are invited to see in this sacrament the deepest mystery of giving of self. Though there are many of us, we form a single body because you have a share in this one loaf.


Are you part of this ONE?

Ok, the second week of feasts and the second gift. Remember last week was the Gift of the Spirit. Today is the Gift of Relationship.


Many years ago, well, many, many years ago, my homiletics instructor in the seminary said, “Gentlemen, more heresy is preached on Trinity Sunday than any other day of the year—so keep your homily short!” Now, I think that this happens because it’s really difficult to use words to attempt to describe God without restricting God by misleading and insufficient descriptions of God. I think our task today is not so much to explain or try to understand the Trinity, but to open our lives to further experience the truth that Trinity brings to us.


The doctrine of the Trinity says that we believe in God as completely one, and yet we know we experience God as Father, Son, and Spirit: Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier.


You see, the Holy Trinity is more about experience, and less about just “understanding.” Trinity is about what happens to us, not only what we think about. It is about what we know from experience, not only what we learn from textbooks or courses. It seems to me that this day is more about a quiet waiting and watching that prepares us and opens the way to a union, a deeper relationship with God.

The experience of God is an experience of relationship, not an experience of ideas. Any way you look at it, as a disciple of Jesus Christ, as a theologian or as a philosopher, thinking about the Trinity leads to reflections about relationships, what brings us together and binds us to one another, and to God.

I avoid the word: "Mystery." “Mystery” leads us to suspect that we cannot understand, and then we excuse ourselves from the wonder and awe Trinity can stir in us.

The experience of the Trinity is the ultimate acknowledgement of God's Loving presence. The three most essential questions that lurk in the depth of the human soul are stilled by the experience we call Trinity. Do you love me? How much do you love me? Will you be here tomorrow?

In the reality of the Trinity, God speaks to us and quiets the fear and anxiety that these questions can bring. "Do you love me?" "As much as I love myself", says God the Creator in whose image we are made. "How much do you love me?" "Enough to send my only Son to be with you in your darkest hours." "Will you be here tomorrow?" "My Spirit will be with you everywhere and forever." You see, there is no “mystery” here except the mystery of unconditional love.

This day calls us to wonder and stand in awe before God. This day calls us to raise our hands again, more confident than ever, as we sign ourselves in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit: a people embraced in love.


Our life in the Trinity expresses our own identity and our mission in these days following Pentecost. We are sent now, just as Jesus, to reveal this God we have come to know and to let others see what we have seen, that they too may become children of God: relationship.


On Trinity Sunday, we are presented with the gift of Relationship: the passionate, loving relationship of Father, Son and Spirit, and our call, to join that relationship.

In the next three Sundays, we will celebrate three gifts: The Gift of the Spirit, The Gift of Relationship, and The Gift of Food. The Church calls these: Pentecost, Holy Trinity, and Corpus Christi (or the Body and Blood of Christ.)



St. Paul in the letter to the Corinthians makes the gift this Sunday most obvious. He insists that the Spirit is given to each member of the community not just a few gifted leaders or apostles.


Yet somehow in our competitive world, it is always the gift of someone else that get our attention either by way of admiration or of envy. But ignoring our own gifts because we have our eye on the gifts of others is not just foolish. It is wrong. It robs us of life, and it diminishes the glory and generosity of God to each of us.


Pentecost is about gifts, our gifts, and not just those seven gifts we memorized at the time of our Confirmation (wisdom, understanding, counsel, courage, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord). It is about the gifts and talents we often take for granted, or wrongly assume are just for ourselves.
 
But, it is easy to get caught up in the excitement of these readings today.

The images are powerful and vivid: not just tongues of fire and a mighty wind, but also these disciples who are so transformed by their experience in that room: from fear to courage, from locked doors to wide open windows, from the shame of their betrayal to the pride of their calling, from the silence of whispered wishes to the bold proclamation.

Even an unbeliever would have to be impressed and filled with awe.
A transformation of such significance can only be the work of God.

It’s easy to hear these verses from Acts of the Apostles and wonder "How did they do that? How did they speak in all those tongues?” But, all the while ignoring what they said! You see what’s important is not how they spoke in all those tongues, but what they had to say, and the fact that some actually LISTENED!

I would like to put it another way, and give you something to take home today.

Talking is not nearly as important as listening. It is the listening that makes a difference. Pay attention to the story of this day. The first important verse here for us is: "each one heard them speaking in his own language." Something happened that day because the crowd stopped to listen.

That had to happen first. What good would the gifts of the apostles had been if no one had been willing to listen? We are reminded today more about listening than about talking. If the apostles had not listened to Jesus, they would have had nothing to say. If the people in the streets had not listened to the apostles, nothing would have happened that would have made any difference. The listening changed everything, not just the talking. What good can it do to say "I'm sorry" or “I love you” if no one listens to the words?

I need to remind myself every day, about the need to listen.


It seems to me that one of the gifts of the Spirit is the gift of listening—a little more involved, a little more important than "hearing,” listening is part of the gift of Understanding and Wisdom. The image of the tongue, the tongue of fire, which artists have so quickly captured, should perhaps someday be an image of an ear of fire.

You see, the miracle of the tongues takes us nowhere without the miracle of the ears. They are both essential to make the Pentecost experience complete. 

We are never going to have the peace that Jesus promises until we learn to listen: listen to the cry of the poor, listen to the anger of the oppressed, listen to the pain of the sick and those living with AIDS, listen to the silence of those treated unjustly, listen to hearts of the lonely, listen to the whispers of the old and abandoned, the joy of the youth.


The gift of Peace that Jesus wishes for us will only find a home in the hearts of those whose lives, open to the Spirit, talk less, and listen more.

The Woman At The Well

Gospel: John 4:5-42

A story of a meeting, perhaps chance, a story of a conversation, a story of vulnerability, maybe fear, ultimately, a story of conversion, a Journey of Faith: who and what is God, who am I? The gospel of the “Woman at the Well” may become so familiar, that we fail to see its significance in our own lives, we fail to see and understand all of the rich images. Thirst is pretty powerful. In fact, when we are really thirsty, we usually are unable to focus on anything else. But, what is it that this Samaritan Woman ‘thirsts’ for? When Jesus asks for a drink, what does he ‘thirst’ for? What does he want from this woman? What does Jesus want from you?

Our gospel begins with Jesus taking a mid day break from a journey. He sits down, and a woman comes to draw water. Now something’s not right from the beginning: no one gets water at the heat of the day, unless of course you want to avoid others. Tired of the vicious comments, gossip and innuendos of the other women of the village, she goes to the well, when it is least likely to meet anyone else. And the last one she wanted to encounter was a Jewish man, and probably even one of those holy preachers. But the inevitable conversation begins.

At first she tries to avoid Jesus, reminding him of the proper social customs of appropriate conversation. That doesn’t seem to work, so she reminds him of practical concerns: you want a drink? Bring a bucket! But she somehow listens to Him and eventually wants to know about the Water that he is talking about. Now the conversation moves in…she senses that this strange man knows far more about her…He gets too close, and again, she tries to push him away with religious flattery: you must be a prophet! That doesn’t work, and she tries to engage him in a complicated theological discussion about worship and liturgy. But little by little, Jesus takes the time to listen to her. He talked, she listened…and gradually she overcame her own fears, her shame and she comes to recognise the presence of God.

Lent is a time of reflection, examining our own lives, and either continuing or starting anew a conversation with the Lord. You see, each of us is that woman. We, are invited and to each of us Jesus says, “come closer, stay awhile, let’s talk.”

And note that Jesus says not one word of condemnation to this woman. Oh yes, he clearly states the facts, but he never says to her, “why don’t you come back when you straighten your life out!” And you see, it’s this religious outsider, this woman of questionable morals, who is the first in John’s gospel that Jesus reveals himself and says, “I am the Messiah.”

Perhaps like this woman, you too, this Lent, are thirsty. She tried to fill the emptiness in her life with 5 husbands. Didn’t work. Rarely works to fill the emptiness inside with “things,” even though most of us try. She was living in shame and fear, and she tries desperately to get away from this preacher. But Jesus does not let her walk away so easily. Somehow he manages to convince her that, whatever her past history was, God still loves her and forgives her. Perhaps, she hadn’t believed that for years. And because he was able to convince her, she began to let down her defenses and tell him the story of her life. And that was the beginning of her conversion.

The gospel today is filled with these images of water: water from wells and Living Waters; the waters of baptism that give us new life, and new way of living. But really, what do you thirst for? How do you try to quench that thirst?

Ultimately, the key to the Gospel today is in Jesus first words, “Give me a drink.” Because you see Jesus too is thirsty, but he is thirsty, for you. And so no matter how you have tried to fill your own thirsts in the past, Jesus says to each of you, “I forgive you, I love you, come closer, stay awhile.”

You see brothers and sisters, we too must go to the well. The woman at the well in the gospel eventually said “yes” to Jesus‘ call What will you say?