Fr. Roger J. Landry
Holy Family Parish, Manhattan
Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
July 19, 2020
Wis 12:13.16-19, Ps 86, Rom 8:26-27, Mt 13:24-43
To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
The following text guided today’s homily:
- Last week, Jesus gave us the parable of the Sower, Seed and Soil, to indicate to us how he wants us to receive his Word and his work within us. We know from our basic knowledge of farming what normally occurs once a seed has been implanted in good soil. It starts to grow and eventually produces fruit and those fruit likewise contain within many seeds that can then be planted elsewhere. Spiritually the same thing is supposed to happen. With a hat trick of different images in this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus describes that transition from a fertile disciple to a fruitful apostle in which we begin to share what we ourselves have received. His words contain three very important lessons about how the kingdom of God grows. Insofar as each of us has been called and chosen by God through the Church to enter into and expand his kingdom, these three parables are deeply relevant to who we are and what God calls us to do. In one parable, Jesus tells us first that the Church, like a mustard seed, starts small but will grow to be huge. In a second, he adds that the members of the Church are meant to function in the world like yeast does in bread; we’re supposed to make everything rise. In the third, he states that the Church’s growth doesn’t happen in a vacuum: there is also “an enemy” in the field, sowing weeds, to try to wreck God’s harvest — in other words to destroy you, me and those we know and love. The three go together and are meant to guide us at every moment of the Church’s life. Let’s look at them together.
- The first parable is that the Church begins like a tiny mustard seed. From the small seed of Christ implanted by God in Mary’s womb, to the calling of just a few disciples and apostles filled with the Holy Spirit, the Church was born and grew, grew into the largest of shrubs, in which countless people throughout the ages, including whole nations, have been able to come and find shelter in her branches. That tree continues to live we’re branches on Jesus the vine (Jn 15:5). The branches of the Church extend in areas of great sunshine and of great darkness, with all of us taking our roots in that one event, that one piece of soil on Calvary, that one seed of Jesus who fell to the ground three times and died, but rose again, like a plant in springtime, giving life to all of us throughout time. This lesson of the mustard seed recurs throughout Church history. So many religious orders and apostolates that the Lord has raised up to help the Church began small, often with one saint, but over the course of sufferings and patience, they grew to be enormous. So many parishes began with just a handful of poor, committed families, but over the course of years and decades, with sacrifices, time and the help the Lord, grew to be quite large.
- Sometimes we can ask ourselves, though, whether what Jesus said about the mustard seed has an expiration date. It seems that many religious orders, many parishes, even whole dioceses, are experiencing not continued growth but shrinkage. The Archdiocese of New York is closing Churches and schools rather than building new ones. Does this parable still have meaning? Of course it does! If we’ve gotten smaller, the Lord has permitted it so that we can all experience anew the full meaning of this parable, through beginning again, beginning smaller, like the new mustard seed planted from the tall tree. The truth is that when the Church has become as big as a Middle Eastern mustard tree, we can forget many of the lessons that God teaches us in this lesson of the mustard seed. When the Church is a tree, an enormous institution, many people can stay on the peripheries and neither share in nor contribute to the growth God wants to bring about, convincing themselves that “others” will do the maintenance, pay the bills, welcome newcomers, spread the faith, and they can just reap the fruits. But when we become closer to the size of a mustard seed, we can’t pass the spiritual buck in the same way. We need to step to the plate. This is a grace. It’s a challenge. It’s also a promise and image of hope. The Lord Jesus wants us to become the living 21stcentury illustration of this parable. He wants us to have a chance to experience the exhilarating growth of the mustard seed. As we root ourselves in him, we have every hope that, just like thousands of times before us in the history of the Church, we’ll get bigger again and many others will be able to nest in the branches that will come from this union. We just need to trust in him like the first Christians. We need to trust in him like the founders of religious orders. We need to trust in him like the pioneer generations of lay faithful in parishes who sacrificed so much to build Churches on firm foundations.
- The second image Jesus gives us today to describe the growth of his kingdom in the Church is that of yeast in bread. The bread is the whole world and we Christians are called to be the leaven. One Christian in a neighborhood, or one truly Catholic family on a street, one faithful Catholic in a workplace or school should be enough over time to transform that neighborhood, street or school or workplace. The true Christian is the opposite of a “bad apple.” We know that one bad apple can quickly corrode a whole bushel. Christians are supposed to be the good apples. We are supposed to be the yeast that can make the whole world rise to God. The Lord wants us to be the yeast of this entire city. A saint always is. Just think about how many people Mother Teresa lifted up, or St. John Paul, or Dorothy Day, or Frances Xavier Cabrini? God can give us the same grace to have that impact in the circles we inhabit.
- But we need to grasp that this growth doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Jesus’ third parable concerns the fact that while the Lord wants this growth to be occurring, there is an enemy trying to sabotage his plans. Jesus identifies the enemy as the devil. At the same time that the Lord is trying to sow good seed — who are “children of the kingdom,” namely us — the devil is sowing those who are beholden to him and to his lies, “the children of the evil one … who cause others to sin and do evil.” They are the anti-yeast, who rather than lifting everyone up toward God, bring people down, to behave without faith or supernatural vision, to behave more like proud devils, to behave morally sometimes like animals. Does anyone deny that these weeds exist in our world and that the field of our culture is becoming more populated with them, from those pushing the destruction of human life or of marriage or the family, to those getting states to sell pot, to television channels and websites pushing pornography, to politicians seeking to eliminate religious freedom, to celebrities exhibiting irresponsible, materialistic and hedonistic lifestyles? Some of these weeds are even in the Church, Catholics who are more attuned to the spirit of the age than to the Holy Spirit, who seek to live as everyone else does rather than as Christ and the saints.
- There are two lessons in this third parable. The first is that the good seed and bad seed exist together and grow up together. The weeds and the wheat Jesus refers to in the Middle East are indistinguishable during the early phases of growth. Not even expert farmers can tell the difference between them. When they grow enough to distinguish between them, their roots are so intertwined that you can’t separate them without ripping out the wheat by the roots as well. So one needs to let them grow, take them all out and then separate them on sifting tables, lest the good wheat be contaminated by the toxic fruit of the weeds. By this parable Jesus is saying that the same patience and prudence have to be exercised with the proclamation of the kingdom. We really can’t tell the difference between them, especially early in life. We can’t judge by present appearances. We need to wait until the end when Jesus himself will judge. Jesus is telling us that we shouldn’t be surprised or overly discouraged when we find “bad seed” in the Church, those who, for example, live contrary to the Gospel. But the second lesson Jesus teaches is that while such weeds can provide frustration for the farmer or for the Christian, they ultimately can’t stop the growth of the good seed! He tells us that we need to keep focused on growing until harvest time, to keep living our faith with zeal until the end, asking him to help us bring about much more good seed, rather than complaining about the weeds.
- At this Mass, through these inspiring parables, the Lord wants to strengthen us to carry out this crucial mission of the spreading of his kingdom and the salvation of the world. As St. Paul tells us today in the second reading, we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Holy Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness, interceding for us, so that we may receive on good soil what God wants to give us and helping us to become living illustrations of what Jesus is teaching us. Today Jesus plants both the seed of his word as well as the Word made flesh into so that we might become the children of the kingdom he can plant within the world. He helps us to become his yeast, leavening all around us, both inside and outside our parish. He wants his life to grow within us so that through us faith can grow in the world. Jesus wouldn’t be calling us to this mission to be good seed, mustard trees and leaven unless he were prepared to give us everything we need to fulfill it. He gives us that “miracle gro” fertilizer here at Mass, where he tells us anew, “Whoever has ears to hear ought to hear!”
The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1 WIS 12:13, 16-19
There is no god besides you who have the care of all,
that you need show you have not unjustly condemned.
For your might is the source of justice;
your mastery over all things makes you lenient to all.
For you show your might when the perfection of your power is disbelieved;
and in those who know you, you rebuke temerity.
But though you are master of might, you judge with clemency,
and with much lenience you govern us;
for power, whenever you will, attends you.
And you taught your people, by these deeds,
that those who are just must be kind;
and you gave your children good ground for hope
that you would permit repentance for their sins.
Responsorial Psalm PS 86:5-6, 9-10, 15-16
R. (5a) Lord, you are good and forgiving.
You, O LORD, are good and forgiving,
abounding in kindness to all who call upon you.
Hearken, O LORD, to my prayer
and attend to the sound of my pleading.
R. Lord, you are good and forgiving.
All the nations you have made shall come
and worship you, O LORD,
and glorify your name.
For you are great, and you do wondrous deeds;
you alone are God.
R. Lord, you are good and forgiving.
You, O LORD, are a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in kindness and fidelity.
Turn toward me, and have pity on me;
give your strength to your servant.
R. Lord, you are good and forgiving.
Reading 2 ROM 8:26-27
Brothers and sisters:
The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness;
for we do not know how to pray as we ought,
but the Spirit himself intercedes with inexpressible groanings.
And the one who searches hearts
knows what is the intention of the Spirit,
because he intercedes for the holy ones
according to God’s will.
Alleluia CF. MT 11:25
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Blessed are you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth;
you have revealed to little ones the mysteries of the kingdom.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel MT 13:24-43
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.
When the crop grew and bore fruit, the weeds appeared as well.
The slaves of the householder came to him and said,
‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field?
Where have the weeds come from?’
He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’
His slaves said to him,
‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
He replied, ‘No, if you pull up the weeds
you might uproot the wheat along with them.
Let them grow together until harvest;
then at harvest time I will say to the harvesters,
“First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning;
but gather the wheat into my barn.”‘”
He proposed another parable to them.
“The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed
that a person took and sowed in a field.
It is the smallest of all the seeds,
yet when full-grown it is the largest of plants.
It becomes a large bush,
and the ‘birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches.’”
He spoke to them another parable.
“The kingdom of heaven is like yeast
that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour
until the whole batch was leavened.”
All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables.
He spoke to them only in parables,
to fulfill what had been said through the prophet:
I will open my mouth in parables,
I will announce what has lain hidden from the foundation
of the world.
Then, dismissing the crowds, he went into the house.
His disciples approached him and said,
“Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.”
He said in reply, “He who sows good seed is the Son of Man,
the field is the world, the good seed the children of the kingdom.
The weeds are the children of the evil one,
and the enemy who sows them is the devil.
The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.
Just as weeds are collected and burned up with fire,
so will it be at the end of the age.
The Son of Man will send his angels,
and they will collect out of his kingdom
all who cause others to sin and all evildoers.
They will throw them into the fiery furnace,
where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.
Then the righteous will shine like the sun
in the kingdom of their Father.
Whoever has ears ought to hear.”
Or MT 13:24-30
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.
When the crop grew and bore fruit, the weeds appeared as well.
The slaves of the householder came to him and said,
‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field?
Where have the weeds come from?’
He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’
His slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
He replied, ‘No, if you pull up the weeds
you might uproot the wheat along with them.
Let them grow together until harvest;
then at harvest time I will say to the harvesters,
“First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning;
but gather the wheat into my barn.”‘”
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