Fr. Roger J. Landry
\nSt. Anthony of Padua Parish, New Bedford, MA
\nSixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
\nJuly 17, 2005
\nWis 12:13,16-19; Rom 8:26-27; Mt 13:24-43<\/p>\n
1) With a hat-trick of different images in today\u2019s Gospel, Jesus teaches us three very important realities about the Church he had come from heaven to found. The Church is his instrument to bring about the Kingdom of God. Insofar as he has called us from all eternity into his Church to carry out the mission of building that kingdom, these three parables are deeply relevant to who we are and what God calls us to do. <\/p>\n
a. Jesus tells us first that the Church, like a mustard seed, starts small but will grow to be huge.
\nb. Secondly, he says that the members of the Church are meant to function in the world like yeast does in bread. We\u2019re supposed to make everything rise.
\nc. Finally, he states that the Church\u2019s growth doesn\u2019t happen in a vacuum. There is also \u201can enemy\u201d in the field, sowing weeds, to try to wreck God\u2019s harvest \u2014 in other words to destroy you, me and those we know and love. <\/p>\n
All three images are meant to guide us at every moment of the Church\u2019s life. Therefore, let\u2019s look at each of them in greater depth. <\/p>\n
2) The first parable is that the Church begins like a mustard seed. What is that seed? Or better, who is it? It is Jesus Christ, the seed who fell to the ground and died (Jn 12:24), but when he rose, his Church began to grow and to extend throughout time to all the places of the world. From the seed of Christ, dead and risen for our salvation, from this one person in Palestine, the God-man, the Church was born and grew, grew into the largest of shrubs, in which countless people throughout the ages, including whole nations, were able to come and find shelter in her branches. That tree continues to live today, right here and how, and we\u2019re in it. But we\u2019re not only IN it, we\u2019re part of it, along with all Christians throughout the ages past and to come. Together with Christ, as branches on Jesus the vine (Jn 15:5), we are the Church. The branches of the Church extend throughout the whole world, 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 that feel to the ground three times and died, but rose again, like a plant in springtime, giving life to all of us throughout time.<\/p>\n
3) Throughout the history of the Church, many movements have followed this same pattern of starting as a mustard seed and growing to be enormous. 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, like our own, began with just a handful of poor, committed families, but over the course of time, 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 with religious orders, with parishes, even with whole dioceses, the tree seems to be shrinking and dying. We\u2019re closing several Churches in the Archdiocese of Boston and here in the Diocese of Fall River, we\u2019re going to start to do the same, probably within a year. Does this parable still have meaning? Yes! The Lord gives this parable for every age. If we\u2019ve gotten smaller, the Lord has allowed it, so that we can experience anew the full meaning of this parable, by beginning again, beginning smaller, like the new mustard seed planted from the tall tree. He wants us to experience for ourselves the exhilarating growth of the mustard seed. He wants us to root ourselves ever more in him and experience growth with him. As we do, we\u2019ll get bigger again and many others will be able to nest in the branches that will come from this union in future generations. We just need to trust in him like the first Christians trusted in him. If the Lord could take his mother, a few women and twelve relative nobodies \u2014 eleven of whom cowardly abandoned him in his moment of great need \u2014 and transform the entire world, then he can clearly do the same with us here in New Bedford, if we but have similar faith. The Lord Jesus wants us to be the living 21st century illustration of this parable. <\/p>\n
4) The second image is of the yeast in bread. The bread is the whole world and Christians are called to be the leaven. One Christian in a neighborhood, or one truly Catholic family on a street, should be enough over time to transform that neighborhood and that street if the Christians don\u2019t hide the light of their faith under a bushel basket (Mt 5:15). Similarly one true Christian \u2014 or a few of them \u2014 in a school or in an office complex should be enough over time to impact all the rest. During my studies in Rome, I used to love to compare stories and strategies for preaching the Gospel with future priests from around the world. I remember once we were talking about evangelization and an African told me that, unlike in many parts of Europe and North America, when they want to spread the faith they don\u2019t concern themselves with producing slick fliers and books for people to read. Rather they just ask for a family to volunteer to move into another village and just live the faith with joy, spreading it as good news through friendship, or, on occasion, being willing to spread it through becoming a martyr for it. And in these parts of Africa, the faith is growing by leaps and bounds. The Lord wants us at St. Anthony of Padua to be the yeast of this entire city. He wants us to take the Gospel out, to live in a way that, like yeast in dough, lifts everyone else up to God. Through our joy, through our conversation, through our Christ-like self-sacrificial love, through our modesty and morality, the Lord wants to use us to transform all of society from within. One person can do so much. Just think about what Blessed Mother Teresa did in Calcutta. One small Albanian nun in a city sprawling with millions. She just started caring for people left to die in sewer drains. Soon others joined her. And she and they have had a dramatic impact nut just in Calcutta but throughout the whole world, including here in New Bedford, where her sisters continue to be missionaries of charity in the south end of the city. Just think about what Pope John Paul II, one man, did, in responding to the Lord\u2019s call. He inspired tens of thousands of men to follow Christ as priests, myself included. He played a crucial role in the fall of communism. Whenever I celebrate Mass here, I think about how much one man, Monsignor Levesque, did to restore this beautiful masterpiece to God. If one person, working hard out of love for God and others can do so much, imagine what the Lord would be able to do if all of us started to practice our faith with the same dedication! The Lord wants to use us \u2014 you and me, none of us excepted \u2014 as his yeast to make the whole world rise to him. But to carry out this mission, we need to be willing to take the Gospel into unleavened areas and live our faith with joy to the full. This is, of course, how the mustard tree continues to grow. <\/p>\n
5) The 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 straight out as the devil. At the same time that the Lord is trying to sow good seed \u2014 who are \u201cchildren of the kingdom,\u201d you and I if we\u2019re truly in his kingdom giving the King the homage he is due \u2014 the devil is sowing those who are beholden to him and to his lies. They are the anti-yeast, who rather than lifting everyone up toward God, bring people below, to behave more like animals, to behave more like proud devils. Jesus says that the weeds are \u201cchildren of the evil one\u2026 who cause others to sin and do evil.\u201d Does anyone deny that these weeds exist in our world and that the field of our nation is becoming more populated with them? We\u2019ve got employers who threaten to fire their employees if they don\u2019t work on Sunday. We\u2019ve got whole industries in Hollywood, Nevada and 40% of the internet who try to cause others to sin and bring them down through the slavery of lust. We\u2019ve got the whole pro-abortion movement that tries to make mothers look at their own children in the womb as burdens rather than blessings and to do what is most unspeakable to them. We\u2019ve got legislators up on Beacon Hill right now who are trying to force all doctors and nurses in emergency rooms to dispense abortion-causing morning after pills against their own conscience or lose their jobs. These weeds, and many others, are choking people\u2019s spiritual growth. The Lord tells us that they will get their just due at the end of time, but he tells us that they\u2019re present now so that we will now that so much hangs on whether we unite ourselves and grow with Christ, the mustard seed, on whether we become the leaven he\u2019s calling us to be. Edmund Burke once wrote, \u201call that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.\u201d We can either do nothing and let the evil grow, poisoning our culture and the hearts, souls and lives of those we know and love, or we can rise up, as yeast, as salt of the earth and light of the world (Mt 5:13-16), and do something about it for Christ. The Lord Jesus gives us that opportunity and choice again today. <\/p>\n
6) At this Mass, the Lord wants to strengthen us to carry out this crucial mission of the salvation of the world and the spreading of his kingdom. He does so not just through planting the seed of his word through our ears into our hearts, but by planting himself, the mustard seed, into our mouths and digestive tracks through Holy Communion. From within, he wants to grow, so that others, in seeing us, may see more and more of Him. He wants us to root ourselves ever more in his passion and death, an experience the mustard seed\u2019s growth within so that we might take it out. He wants us to become his yeast, leavening all around us. And he wants us to realize that unless we work with him for the salvation of others, many will be lost. Jesus wouldn\u2019t be calling us to this mission unless he were prepared to give us everything we need to fulfill it. He starts with this Mass, where he tells us again, \u201cWhoever has ears to hear ought to hear!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Anthony of Padua Parish, New Bedford, MA Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A July 17, 2005 Wis 12:13,16-19; Rom 8:26-27; Mt 13:24-43 1) With a hat-trick of different images in today\u2019s Gospel, Jesus teaches us three very important realities about the Church he had come from heaven to found. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[831,3,6],"tags":[202,8710,206,205,902,98,540],"class_list":["post-873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2005-year-a","category-homily","category-year-a","tag-16th-sunday-in-ordinary-time","tag-2005-year-a","tag-mt-1324-43","tag-rom-826-27","tag-st-anthony-of-padua-parish","tag-sunday","tag-wis-1213-16-19"],"yoast_head":"\n