The Lord’s Building Project, Third Wednesday (II), January 24, 2024

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
Wednesday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time, Year II
Memorial of St. Francis de Sales, Bishop and Doctor
January 24, 2024
2 Sam 7:4-17, Ps 89, Mk 4:1-20

To listen to an audio recording of today’s Mass please click here: 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

• Today in the first reading we encounter not only something important in the history of the people of Israel but also a spiritual truth with consequences for our prayer and entire life. Yesterday we saw David dancing before the Ark of the Covenant, a sign of God’s presence, as it was brought into Jerusalem. David wanted to build a worthy temple to house the ark, something far better that where David himself was dwelling. He asked Nathan’s opinion and Nathan basically replied “Go for it.” But later God came to Nathan and sent him back to David saying that he would not build a house for God, but that God wanted to build a house for him — something that would be fulfilled, obviously, in the Temple Jesus himself became, which according to his humanity descended from David’s “house” or line. God essentially wants to do the same thing for us. He wants to build a house for us, to make us a tabernacle for him to dwell within us and for us to abide in and with him, a building project that begins in baptism. This is a gratuitous gift of God’s part; our efforts are fundamentally receptive, an active passivity. This is the principle for our prayer and for our whole life. God wants to build in us and through us. The fundamental Christian response is co-operation.
• God continues that building project through the grace of his word. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that the one who hears his words and acts on them is like a wise man who built his house on rock. Three days after celebrating the Sunday of the Word of God, Jesus today teaches us about how his word is supposed to help us grow. Jesus describes himself as a sower who seeks to sow himself as the fruitful fallen grain of wheat (Jn 12:24) into the soil of our lives. The measure of our life is our fiat, our “let it be done.” God sows through his words, which are like the wood and the nails and the hammer of his construction project. He wants us to receive the seed of his word on good soil and bear great fruit. He describes four types of soil or receptivity to his building project.
• The first type of soil is the hardened soil by the way side. The seed of Jesus’ teaching can’t penetrate because one has a closed heart, either because one thinks he already has all the answers he needs, or because she’s too stubbornly set in her ways and refuses to put in the effort to change. We find this soil regularly with inveterate sinners who resist any call to conversion. But we also find it regularly in daily communicants who have heard the word of God so many times that they know the end of the story and cease to listen in a way so as to change. Sometimes we also find this soil in the elderly, those who say, “You can’t teach old dogs new tricks.” I always say that if this is the case, then we may end up finding a lot of old dogs in hell! Jesus is always calling us to change, to deepen, to follow him the Master more closely. He’s going to be teaching us and calling us to change for as long as we have life. And we have to be open to that process. Otherwise, we will bear no fruit from his teaching.
• The second type of soil is superficial or rocky soil. In many parts of the Holy Land, there is a thick layer of limestone three to five inches under the soil. That means that when a seed hits there, the roots can establish very quickly in the warm soil that retains all the water in five inches, but eventually when the hot Middle Eastern sun arises, it scorches because the roots aren’t deep, it can’t continue to get nourishment from the soil, and the water that would be safe several inches under the soil ends up evaporating. This image refers to people, Jesus tells us, who respond with joy to the word, who “like” it, but who don’t allow the world to drill deep down in their life to change them. There are many people who approach the word of God to be entertained rather than to be changed. They would much rather listen to a good storyteller who keeps them laughing and smiling than to someone who calls them to examine their consciences, their actions, aspirations and lives in the light of God’s word. This is the second type of soil. Jesus’ teaching bears no fruit in this type of student.
• The third type of soil he describes is thorny. The soil would otherwise be good but thorns choke the growth of the seed. Jesus defines the thorns “as worldly anxiety, the lure of riches, and the craving for other things.” We know this is true. If we come here to listen to Jesus with anxious hearts — for example, because a loved one is in the hospital with a terminal diagnosis, or because we don’t know how we’re going to pay this month’s rent — it’s going to be very hard to hear God’s word, even if it’s about trusting in God’s providential care. Likewise, if someone comes to Jesus’ class craving money and material possessions, or vanity, or power, or pleasure, or a big lunch, it’s going to choke their receptivity and responsiveness to his Word, because their hearts will be elsewhere. Our hearts are where our treasure is. This is something every student of Jesus needs to ponder deeply. One of the reasons why we don’t bear nearly as much fruit as we could is because our heart isn’t fully into bearing fruit for the Lord. Rather our hearts are set on earthly concerns. It’s kind of like a high school student whose biggest goal in life is becoming an NBA basketball player; this student in English and Physics class is thinking about basketball, and rather than studying as much as he should, he’s out practicing his free throws. We can do the same thing spiritually when we’re seeking an earthly hall of fame rather than heaven.
• The fourth type of soil, the one Jesus calls “good,” produces fruit thirty, sixty or one hundredfold. It produces not just a little fruit but abundant fruit. A good disciple of Jesus, hearing his word, is changed thirty, sixty or 100 ways or more. That’s the way we should ponder the word, to look not just for one application to our life, but one after another. That’s obviously the way Mary heard the word in her contemplative heart and sought to have her whole life develop in accordance with it. Jesus wants us to have this type of receptivity to his building project.
• Why does Jesus teach us this truth in a parable? Why does he often teach us in this way? St. Mark tells us, “Jesus began to teach by the sea … a very large crowd … and he taught them at length in parables.” St. Matthew would tell us, “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].’” Why in parables? There are a couple of obvious reasons why Jesus teaches in parables. First is that any teacher begins from what people know to take them to what they don’t know and so Jesus used various images from daily life to teach about the spiritual life. They can make what might seem abstract concrete. Second, stories, images and other illustrations can help listeners both understand and retain the meaning, especially when someone is teaching at length. All that is true, but the reason Jesus gives for using parables is something totally else and quite challenging. Quoting Isaiah, he says that the reason he teaches in this way is that “they may look and see but not perceive, and hear and listen but not understand, in order that they may not be converted and be forgiven.” It almost seems as if he uses parables deliberately to confuse rather than to clarify, to prevent conversion rather than to facilitate it. But that’s clearly not why he’s doing it. Rather, it’s to engage the freedom of the hearer, to test the listener’s willingness to hear the word and ponder it, to examine his or her hunger for the truth and desire to know the deepest meanings of what God is teaching. If someone hears a parable with no desire to meditate on what is being indicated, it shows how hard-hearted someone is. But if someone desires the truth, the parable can provide a prism for the examination of one’s life. Parables can get through to people who would not be able to be reached with direct speech. We see that in the parable that the prophet Nathan gave to David later in 2 Samuel — which we’ll hear on Saturday — about the evil of stealing and slaughtering a neighbor’s single beloved ewe lamb for a feast when someone has a hold flock; that’s what allowed David to see how evil was his decision to take Bathsheba adulterously and have Uriah her husband killed. For people who might not initially be open to conversion, parables often will prove to be the most effective way to convict them. That’s Jesus’ style. Is it enough to move us today?
• Today we celebrate a saint whose whole life was a commentary on today’s readings, who received God’s graces on abundantly fruitful soil and allowed the Lord to have a free hand in building him to be more and more like the Lord. St. Francis de Sales came from a noble family in southeastern France. His father had given him a tremendous education and he graduated with his doctorate in law at the age of 20. By the time he returned home his father had already arranged for him to marry an heiress and become a senator. When Francis told him he had made a promise of chastity and wanted to become a priest, the Father was outraged thinking his son had lost his mind. A difficult struggle ensued, with Francis trusting in God to find a solution. Eventually the Bishop of Geneva, at the intercession of one of Francis’ maternal uncles who was a priest, obtained for Francis upon ordination the appointment as second-in-charge (vicar general) of the Diocese of Geneva, which placated Francis’ father’s sense of pride. Francis was ordained a priest and took up his duties. In addition to the administrative tasks for which he was responsible, he quickly became a much sought confessor and friend of the poor. The diocese of Geneva, however, was in shambles. Decades of scandals among the clergy had made it very easy for Calvinism to spread throughout the region of the Chablais. The people were so poorly catechized that they were not able to respond to Calvinist arguments. They were, moreover, so angry at the hypocrisy of their local churchmen that they were easily incited to turn on the Catholic faith, run their priests out of town and take up a form of Christianity that at least seemed to be moral. The bishop of Geneva even had to flee the see city and take up residence in Annecy. Some reports said that there were only about 20 Catholics left in the vast region. Nine months after Francis’ ordination, the bishop held a meeting with all his priests, seeking volunteers to send to the region to try to win the people back. He didn’t hide the dangers or the difficulties. The people were not only ill-disposed but hostile: the first priest who had been sent had been attacked and driven from the region. None of the clergy at the meeting stepped forward for what minimally was a tough assignment, but could be a fatal one. Finally, Francis stood up and said, “If you think I am capable of undertaking the mission, tell me to go. I am ready to obey and should be happy to be chosen.” The bishop accepted the proposal, over the fierce objections of Francis’ father, who thought his son was signing up for a suicide assignment — and according to worldly logic, his father was right. At 27 years old, Francis, traveling by foot, set out to try to win back the vast geographic area. The work was rough and dangerous. For his protection, he was ordered to sleep at night in a military garrison. On two occasions, assassins ambushed him along the way, but both times, seemingly miraculously, he survived. On another occasion, he was attacked by wolves and had to spend a glacial night in a tree. But he labored on, despite having little to show for all his effort. He wrote in a letter to a friend, “We are but making a beginning. I shall go on in good courage, and I hope in God against all human hope.” Through meekness, forgiveness and the publication of many tracts, he patiently set forth Catholic teaching, charitably explaining the errors of Calvinism, and tackling head on controversial issues. To those who still harbored anger toward the clerics who committed “spiritual murder” through scandalous behavior, Francis plainly acknowledged the evil and harm done, but warned his readers not to commit “spiritual suicide,” by using those scandals as a means to cut themselves off from the sacraments and the Church. Within the span of five years, the holy “Apostle of the Chablais” had reconciled and evangelized almost the entire region. He helped them all to return from soil hardened by Calvinist rigidity to the rich soil that bears fruit. Calvinism was particularly opposed to what the Lord is teaching today. Because of a mistaken understanding of God’s eternal omniscience, they thought it was incompatible with human freedom: if God knows what we’ll do in the future, then somehow he must control it, they thought. That means those who are saved or condemned were ultimately predetermined or predestined by God. Today’s focus on human soil reveals to us the importance of our free response to what God wants to build in everyone, not just in some. St. Francis de Sales, with the honey of meekness and attractive holiness rather than the vinegar of condemnation, brought helped many to be able to see this and come back to the fullness of the faith. We ask him to intercede for us that we might respond as fruitfully to God’s action in our life as he did. The secret to spiritual fruitfulness is here, as branches we enter into a life-changing holy communion with the Vine.

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download