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16th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Originally delivered on July 22, 1990
Readings: Wisdom 12:13, 16-19; Romans 8:26-27; Matthew 13:24-43 or 13:24-30
We must resist the temptation to solve complex problems with quick and dramatic solutions. We, as God’s children, must learn to live in the midst of perceived evils because uprooting the bad is always at the risk of destroying what God alone knows to be good. Therefore, we must accept what we perceive as evil because we might be wrong. We must nurture, encourage, and courageously sacrificing and allow God to sort things out later. What we must do then is to call ourselves and others to do good. Through careful, loving cultivation of each individual, can we deal appropriately with the presence of evil? Jesus spoke in parables for us to come to a deeper, fuller understanding of the truth. We must trust in God.
15th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Originally delivered on July 15, 1990
Readings: Isaiah 55: 10-11; Romans 8: 18-23; Matthew 13: 1-23
In today’s Gospel, Jesus reminds us that those that are really listening, will truly hear God and see God’s hands at work in our lives. From Isaiah, God is likened to a gentle rain. And yet, we also know that God also speaks to us as thunder and lightning. In fact, God is always speaking, but are we always listening? In trying to discern the events of our day, we must know is that God is Love. As Paul spoke to the Romans in today’s second reading, we too are reminded “Creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but by him who once subjected it; yet not without hope, because the world itself will be freed from its slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.”
15th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Originally delivered on July 11, 1993
Readings: Isaiah 55: 10-11; Romans 8: 18-23; Matthew 13: 1-23
What should we feel in the face of tragedies, such as diseases or natural disasters, in light of the first reading where Isaiah eloquently says that God’s words and actions come down to enrich our lives? Jesus asks us in this day’s Gospel to let God’s words live within us to be the best people that we can be, bringing triumph out of tragedy by being one with our sisters and brothers in their need. We can never understand or control nature, but we can be in harmony with it through our unique giftedness.
14th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Originally delivered on July 4, 1993
Readings: Zechariah 9:9-10; Romans 8:9, 11-13; Matthew 11:25-30
What does it mean to be a citizen of God’s Kingdom? From the fist reading of Zechariah, we hear that God would put an end to war, jealousy, and human competition. In the second reading, Paul reminds the Romans and us today, that we must walk in the spirit. In the Gospel, Jesus tells us to learn from Him just as children learn. That is, we are to be gentle and humble of heart. We are challenged to reflect on how capital punishment fits with our being citizens of God’s Kingdom. If we really believe in the unconditional, all-embracing forgiveness of Jesus, we cannot harbor vindictive, hostile dispositions toward anyone. Let us all learn from Jesus and forgive others. Only in this way, will be truly free, in the way that Jesus talks about freedom, and find rest in our hearts.
13th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Originally delivered on July 1, 1990
Readings: Kings 4:8-11, 14-16; Romans 6:3-4, 8-11; Matthew 1-:37-42
Prophets will always be like us, frail sinners. today’s first and third readings, we hear about welcoming prophets. Indeed, in Matthew’s Gospel, we hear that “he who welcomes a holy man because he is known as holy receives a holy man’s reward. And I promise you that whoever gives a cup of cold water to one of these lowly ones because he is a disciple will not want for his reward.” But what about when God sends a prophet that challenges us? Will we welcome that prophet in our midst? We are always in a struggle to understand what God is telling us through these prophets. But, finally, we must remember that we are each, in all of our human weakness, called to be prophets.
6th Sunday of Easter
5th Sunday of Easter
Originally delivered on May 9, 1993
Readings: Acts 6:1-7; Peter 2: 4-9; John 14:1-12
