Seventeenth Sunday - 2020

A woman purchased the 11.5-inch-long (29 centimetres) "lunar sample return bag" for $995 in February 2015, at an auction held on behalf of the U.S. Marshals Service in Texas. Turns out it was actually the very bag Neil Armstrong used to bring back moon rocks from the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing.  The bag had been on loan to a museum whose curator ended up in count and the bag grouped in with other items was ordered to be put up for auction. Realizing its authenticity, NASA went to court to try to get it back but were unsuccessful. The woman eventually auctioned it off through Sotheby’s for $1,812,500 million dollars. A few years ago, a valuable painting by the Canadian folk artist, Maud Lewis, discovered at the New Hamburg Thrift Centre, run by the Mennonite Central Committee of Ontario. It was sold at auction for $45,000.00. Here you have a couple of examples of “Pearls of Great Price” being discovered and making someone very rich. (Before the Covid-19 restrictions) it was quite common for people to head out on a Saturday or Sunday morning to go hunting through garage sales and flee markets, looking for one of those “pearls of great price”.  And some of those folks may have walk right past a church, with its doors wide open in welcome, not realizing that inside that church there is a “True Pearl of Great Price” – the one Jesus is referring to in today’s gospel, the Pearl that can be had at no cost and who's value cannot be calculated. Churches are once again opening their doors. Yet, the fact remains that the numbers are few who value the great treasure they hold – that it is there at the Eucharistic table one encounters Jesus, who invites those seeking true treasures to find a personnel relationship with Him, as He gives Himself in this sacrament; bringing the gift of Salvation and Eternal Life. But this “Pearl of Great Price” must be carefully guarded, for we must never forget that there is a Thief on the prowl, everywhere today, seeking to steal away our Precious Gift – and many today have lost their “Pearl of Great Price” to Satan’s thievery and deceit. That safe place, where we keep our gift secure, is to be found in the practice of daily, personal prayer, together with a strong bond of ecclesial union within parish life. Alone, we are no match for the master Thief. When garage sales finally begin to appear again you may get an invitation from a friend, some Sunday, to join them on a garage sale/flee market hunt. And you may like to join them. But you, in turn, might also invite them to join you on your Sunday visit with Jesus, in his House of Treasures, where they too might find the Pearl of Great Price.

Sixteenth Sunday - 2020

Links to two posts on this passage: 1. Trouble With Weeds One 2. Trouble With Weeds Two

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Fifteenth Sunday - 2020

Once again the gospel text presents us with the Parable of Sower. Today we have Matthew's Account – Mark and Luke also include this teaching. Jesus presents the Word of God as the "Good Seed" the sower sows, and describes the different soil conditions the seed lands upon. Is there a way we could re-imagine this scene Jesus uses so as to see it in the context of our religious experience today? For instance, how might we interpret, in practical terms, the different soils, different religious conditions, into which the seed falls? And what identity might we give to the good seed that is sown? We could interpret the seed as the grace-to-believe placed in one’s soul at baptism, and the different soil conditions as the different religious environments that a newly baptized encounters today. So the soil is us, us Catholics, our Christian families, our parishes, our diocese, all of us Catholics that make up the Church today, we are that soil. Here it is necessary to recall Pope John Paul II’s teaching in his papal document on Catechesis - #19, where he points out that a newly baptized is given this grace, this seed of faith, potentially. [the capacity to believe placed within them by Baptism and the presence of the Holy Spirit] Now the recipient must grow and develop and become an informed, committed follower of Jesus – the question then is how will the faith of this newly baptized do. So let’s look at the four soil conditions as four different religious environments a newly baptized child faces. First condition is the Harden Path; o   For all practical purposes, religious practice by those who surround the newly baptized is dead – no one goes to church. In this case, baptism itself may not even happen. If does it, there is no hope of it ever to growing. The seed of faith lies dormant. Second condition is the Shallow Soil; o   There is some religious practice to which the newly baptized is exposed – Christmas and Easter Mass – maybe first communion, maybe even confirmation but little more. Whatever little faith that one may have begun with, withers and fades away from lack of support Third condition is the Choking Weeds; o   The newly baptized may have the early start of family support but as that one moves on to begin their own life, they find themselves surrounded by a world of strong and conflicting values; where religious practice is viewed as worthless. They are surrounded by constant negative experiences toward religion – no friends with whom to share faith – immersed in a secular culture that has no room for believers. Fourth condition is the Good Soil; o   A newly baptized, born into a family of strong, active faith, exposed to a healthy parish experience, guided by mature religious instruction and advice – this seed of faith comes alive and takes on a strong faith life of its own. It survives to become a strong, practicing Catholic. So what does this mean for the Church today and in the future?  I came across a study showing a survey of active church attendance among Catholics from 1965 to 2016. 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2016 55% 48% 42% 41% 41% 39% 35% 22% 23% 24% 22% So what will become of church in the years to come. In her book, Forming Intentional Disciples, Sherry Weddell offered these statistics of Mass attendance in the U.S. as of 2007. Using fours age grouping by generations she offers these stats; The Builders Ages 65+ 45% The Boomers Ages 47-64 20% Gen X Ages 26-46 13% Millennials Ages 18-25 10% +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ In these days a new and unimaginable reality has descended upon us - literally locking the doors of every church, not by some evil oppressors of the faith but by the very stewards of the churches themselves. To the believer the secular landscape appears arid and lifeless but the sowing must continue. Perhaps the Lord is working on that arid soil, convincing it of its inability to be fruitful without His hand tilling and clearing the weeds.

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Fourteenth Sunday - 2020

There are many in the world today who believe in God – Jews and Muslims for instance. So how are we to understand Jesus teaching in today’s gospel which seems to suggest only Christians can know God? The answer is found in two key words that Jesus uses – “knows” and “Father”.  To know someone implies person-to-person encounter. The word here is “gnosis”. I know for a fact that Justin Trudeau is the prime minister of Canada. I have been given a lot of information about him through other’s reports, but I cannot claim to really “know” him until I meet him, interact with him, spend time with him, experience him personally. The second key word Jesus uses is “Father”. To know God as your Father is profoundly more significant than knowing there is a God. Imagine someone who grew up never knowing their father – separated for some reason – then one day it happens, a man comes and stands in front of him as another says, “James, here is your father that you do not know.” James may know a lot about what fathers are to other people, but now he knows his father, and begins a whole new life with his father. When Jesus says these words: “No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him." This is what he means by "knows" – real, encounter, person-to-person, filial, tender, intimate, loving. The Hebrew word for Father is “Abba”. One of my scripture teachers told a story of how this word Abba, hit home for him. He was visiting the Holy Land, and was in a busy marketplace. A little child was there with his father, shopping. Then the little boy lost sight of his father, and began to call out, “Abba, Abba, Abba, Abba, Abba”, (father, father, father,) – “here my son, here I am”, the father replied. It was then that the teacher appreciated in an intimate, personal way what Jesus meant by “… knowing the Father.” We are like lost children who don’t know our true Father, our tender, loving and protecting Father, until that graced encounter, when Jesus says to us, “come now, look and see, here is Abba, your Father”.  Do you know your Father, your heavenly Father? Is He your Abba, your loving, protecting, life-giving Father? If not, then ask Jesus to help you to know the Father as he knows him.

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