-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00 Sat. and 9:30 and 12:30 on Sunday.
Mixing It Up!
Jesus, for the second Sunday in a row, is preaching from the 13th chapter of Matthews Gospel and he is commenting on the use of the "parable". Last Sunday I introduced this situation as concluding that there are two types of people that Jesus is ministering to - those who "get it" and those "who don't". Those who "get it" are the ones with faith. They hear and see Jesus as he is - the Son of God, the messiah and Christ. Those "who don't" are those without faith who need to receive the Good News in parables - a preaching that subverts their closed eyes, clogged ears, hard heads and hardened hearts.
Jesus again refers to the need to use parable in some cases. The parable of the weeds in the wheat is a story about this very reality: In the world some people use their freedom to choose God while others use that same freedom and cling to the evil one. What is startling is that those people of two very different stripes, like the weeds and the wheat, can at one time occupy the same space, they can appear very similar in their behavior, while all the time being very opposed to one another in intention.
It takes a graceful and discerning heart to see "whose who" and to put some distance between the weeds and the wheat in life.
How firmly are you set in the ways of the Gospel (wheat)? How discerning is your eye to recognize those among you who are not for you (weeds)? How confident are you in separating yourself from the broken and often sinister(selfish) intentions and pathways of many people around you (media, workplace, social life, family)?
