Author: admin

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Gospel: Matthew 13: 44-52

Jesus said to his disciples:
“The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field,
which a person finds and hides again,
and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. 
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant
searching for fine pearls. 
When he finds a pearl of great price,
he goes and sells all that he has and buys it. 
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea,
which collects fish of every kind. 
When it is full they haul it ashore
and sit down to put what is good into buckets. 
What is bad they throw away. 
Thus it will be at the end of the age. 
The angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous
and throw them into the fiery furnace,
where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.

“Do you understand all these things?” 
They answered, “Yes.” 
And he replied,
“Then every scribe who has been instructed in the kingdom of heaven
is like the head of a household
who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old.” 

The Gospel of the Lord.

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I’m a convert to the Catholic faith.

Some of my family members, friends, even people I barely know have wondered why. 

They see the flaws in the Church and often are quick to share their doubts about God, their anger with the Church over the scandals, or their opposition to some of the Church’s teachings.

While some of their criticism may be fair – certainly the inexcusability of Church scandals – I often say to them, “This is still the place where Jesus has called me to be. It’s the Church he founded. It’s the kingdom of God made present here on earth.”

Both today’s Gospel passage, as well as last week’s passage on the weeds and wheat, make this point – while here on earth, the kingdom of God is filled with weeds and wheat, sinners and saints, a few rotten fish, and an abundance of grace.

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“The kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea,” Jesus says, “which collects fish of every kind. When it is full they haul it ashore and sit down to put what is good into buckets. What is bad they throw away.”

Just as a farmer waits until the harvest to separate the weeds from the wheat, so the fisherman waits until he returns ashore before sifting through his nets, separating the good fish from the rotten ones. 

Consider the Church’s first catch – the Twelve Apostles. Eleven of them were turned into disciples. Judas, the twelfth, turned into a scoundrel, betraying Jesus, handing him over for thirty lousy pieces of silver before hanging himself.

That’s the foundation the Church is built upon while here on earth – a combination of weeds and wheat, sinners and saints, one rotten fish and eleven swimming in grace.

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It’s not an easy pill to swallow. 

But our Lord gives us these parables to caution and to comfort us. Like every other person, place, and institution here on earth, the Church is imperfect for one reason: it’s populated by human beings.

This is why you have to dig and sell all that you have in order to discover its treasure, the pearl of great price.

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“The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field,” Jesus says, “which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”

They buy that field because they’ve found Jesus. In the words of Saint Peter, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of everlasting life.”

It takes wisdom – divine wisdom like that given to Solomon in our first reading – to accept that the Church – this Church – is in fact, God’s kingdom made present here on earth. 

The Church has the power to bless; to heal; to forgive; and to transform lives. It’s transformed my life – it’s why I’m both a convert and a Catholic priest.

Here we receive the Holy Spirit in baptism. Here our sins are forgiven in the Sacrament of Penance. Here we receive Jesus himself in the Eucharist. Here we are healed.

We are all part of a bigger plan – God’s plan – that started with those eleven fish, the Apostles, who once swam in the same fountain of grace.

Yes, the weeds mingle with the wheat; rotten fish swim next to healthy ones. But God, our fisherman, is making his way ashore; the time is coming when, “the angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous,” Jesus says.

Until then, there’s no place I’d rather be than right here, caught in the net of the Lord’s mercy.

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What has been my experience of the Church? Have there been moments when I’ve felt closer to God because of the Sacraments? 

And, sadly, have there been moments when I wanted to swim away? 

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Sometimes the imperfections in our Church can cause us to focus on who is next to us in the net – perhaps a rotten fish – as opposed to our own need for continual conversion and spiritual growth.

The Lord will send his angels to separate those who belong from those who don’t in time.

But our focus should be this: digging deeper and deeper until we discover the pearl of great price – Jesus Christ – fully present in this Eucharist, and therefore fully present in you, in me, and thus, his Church.

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Image credits: (1) Bob Yandian Ministries, The Pearl of Great Price (2) Fishing, The Guardian (3) Universal Life Church

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Gospel: Matthew 13: 10-17

The disciples approached Jesus and said,
“Why do you speak to the crowd in parables?”
He said to them in reply,
“Because knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom of heaven
has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted.
To anyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich;
from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away.
This is why I speak to them in parables, because
they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand.
Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled in them, which says:

You shall indeed hear but not understand,
you shall indeed look but never see.
Gross is the heart of this people,
they will hardly hear with their ears,
they have closed their eyes,
lest they see with their eyes
and hear with their ears
and understand with their hearts and be converted
and I heal them.

“But blessed are your eyes, because they see,
and your ears, because they hear.
Amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people
longed to see what you see but did not see it,
and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.”

The Gospel of the Lord.

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Pope Benedict once said that, “Christianity is like a stained-glass window.”

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From the outside, stained-glass windows look dark and dusty. They’re impossible to understand.

You must enter inside, where the light shines through the windows, in order to see their beauty.

In churches, stained glass windows often tell a story – something that happened in the bible like the birth of Jesus or the resurrection.

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Christianity can be understood in a similar way; it’s like a stained-glass window. To outsiders, different truths of our faith don’t seem to make sense.

How could Jesus suffer, die, and rise from the dead? How can the Eucharist be the Promised Presence of Christ? How can God be One in Three Persons? 

But once we enter into the faith, we begin to understand.

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This is essentially what Jesus is saying in today’s Gospel. He refers to different tenets of our faith as “mysteries.”

We have to believe all things are possible before our eyes are opened, allowing us to understand them.

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I’m sure many of us still have questions. Why did this happen? Or how could that happen?

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The best way to understand, Jesus says, is to treat your question like a stained-glass window. If you stand outside skeptically, then you’ll never understand.

But if you enter into the wisdom of the Church, read what the Saints have written about it, spend time in prayer, and open your heart to receive the Truth.

Then the light of understanding will come.

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Image credits: (1) Chartres Cathedral (2) Dreamstime.com (3) Sainte-Chapelle, Paris

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Gospel: Matthew 13: 1-9

On that day, Jesus went out of the house and sat down by the sea.
Such large crowds gathered around him
that he got into a boat and sat down,
and the whole crowd stood along the shore.
And he spoke to them at length in parables, saying:
“A sower went out to sow.
And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path,
and birds came and ate it up.
Some fell on rocky ground, where it had little soil.
It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep,
and when the sun rose it was scorched,
and it withered for lack of roots.
Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it.
But some seed fell on rich soil, and produced fruit,
a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.
Whoever has ears ought to hear.”

The Gospel of the Lord.

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I received my first bible when I was thirteen.

“You’re a teenager now,” my grandmother said to me. “Half-way to being all grown up! It’s time for you to start reading the bible. Start with the Gospels: there’s Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.”

It seemed like such a simple fact: there are four Gospels. My grandmother knew each of them by name. Back then, I doubt I could’ve even named one.

Three years went by, then I finally cracked that book open. A year later, I had read the bible from cover to cover…and it changed my life. 

In the words of the prophet Jeremiah, “When I found your words, I devoured them. They became my happiness and the joy of my heart.”

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Today we celebrate the feast of Saints Anne and Joachim, the grandparents of Jesus.

Just as my grandmother planted a seed of faith in my heart that later changed my life, I wonder what difference Jesus’ grandparents made on him.

What seeds of wisdom did they plant? What difference did they make in his childhood? What memories of them did he carry throughout his life?

We don’t know. 

But we do know this: God wanted the experience of having grandparents. 

It’s part of the strange, mysterious truth of the Incarnation – our belief that, in Jesus, God became flesh and lived among us.

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Today, on this feast of Saints Anne and Joachim, we pray for all grandparents, both living and deceased.

May their good works go with them, and may the seeds of faith they have planted – like my grandmother gifting me with a bible – bear fruit in the lives of future generations.

Saints Anne and Joachim, pray for us!

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Image credits: (1) Pintrest (2) Jesus’s Grandparents, Illustrated Prayer (3) Semi-Delicate Balance