Mother Church invites us to celebrate Sunday, July 19, 2020, as the 16th Sunday of ordinary time, year A. In the entrance antiphon we pray: “God himself is my help. The Lord upholds my life. I will offer you a willing sacrifice; I will praise your name, O Lord, for its goodness. Amen”
In the first reading from the book of Wisdom, the wise man tries to answer the question why God allows the bad to flourish. Why is God so patient with Israel’s enemies? He argues that God’s moderation is not a result of weakness. It is because he is a God of compassion and mercy to all. The scandal of God’s goodness and kindness towards wrongdoers appears again in Saint Matthew’s gospel of this day. In parables, Christ reveals God to his listeners as one who is good, patient, slow to anger but quick to forgive and to forget. Even though good and evil co-exist, not only in the world as a whole, but also in our hearts, God remains patient and all-forgiving. He is always ready to give us a second chance to repent. Saint Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans, in the second reading, that in our weakness, God comes to our rescue. The intercession of the Holy Spirit on our behalf enhances the intensity and efficacy of our prayer. Let us pray during this Eucharist for the grace to forgive others their trespasses as God forgives us, who are sinners, and invites us to repentance.
First Reading: Wisdom 12:13. 16-19.
There is no god beside you, whose care is for all men, to whom you should prove that you have not judged unjustly; for your strength is the source of righteousness, and your sovereignty over all causes you to spare all. For you show your strength when men doubt the completeness of your power, and rebuke any insolence among those who know it. You who are sovereign in strength judge with mildness, and with great forbearance you govern us; for you have power to act whenever you choose. Through such works you have taught your people that the righteous man must be kind, and you have filled your sons with good hope, because you give repentance for sins.
V/ The word of the Lord.
R/ Thanks be to God.
Comment
Church historians tell us that the Book of Wisdom was probably written in the Egyptian city of Alexandria barely half a century before Christ, thus making it the last of the Old Testament books to have been written. The author wrote it to warn the Jews, particularly those in exile, against the intense influence of Greek thought and culture that was threatening to eliminate Jewish traditions. He warned that since Jewish thought and culture were so intimately tied to their religion, there was a danger that the new Greek culture could lead the Jews to desert the worship of the God of Israel, or to combine their religion with undesirable elements of non-Jewish worship to form a kind of syncretism.
The section of the book from where the meditation of this day is taken deals with God’s protection of his people. God is shown to be so kind that he even extends his patience and kindness to the people of Canaan who had been guilty of the abominable crime of witchcraft and the worship of false gods, of cannibalism and of the murder of their own children as sacrifices to their gods. These are the people God, in his imponderable wisdom, has allowed to repent and turn to him. The wise man cannot understand how God can be so just in his sovereign strength that even people who brutalize his people are treated with leniency.
The lesson to learn from this reading is that the God of Israel is a true, just and compassionate God, who takes care of everyone. The wise man’s warning to the Jews not to allow the Greek culture to influence and corrupt their culture also has relevance for us in Africa today. In a somewhat similar way, through colonial rule, most African people have been exposed to, and have been influenced by European cultures. Unfortunately, this has often been at the expense of many positive African values, both cultural and religious.
From the Book of Wisdom, we can draw the lesson that even though European and African cultures have met, and inevitably influenced each other, we should not allow our positive African traditional values to be destroyed. Only in this way can Christianity truly take root on the African soil. This is the whole purpose of the inculturation movement, which the Catholic Church has been encouraging since the Second Vatican Council. Many Africans are still tempted to look for security in the useless practice of divination and witchcraft. The Book of Wisdom still serves as a salutary reminder that real security can only be found in God, who is understanding, compassionate and forgiving.
Let us pray with the Psalmist (Ps 86) for the courage to always turn to him whenever the difficulties of life threaten to overcome us. “You, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in kindness to all who call upon you. Hearken, O Lord, to my prayer and attend to the sound of my pleading. You, O Lord are God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in kindness and fidelity. Turn toward me, and have pity on me. I make this supplication through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
Second Reading: Romans 8: 26-27.
Brethren: The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
V/ The word of the Lord.
R/ Thanks be to God.
Comment
Like our Lord himself, Saint Paul has left us many examples of his own prayer, and has exhorted us to pray continuously. In this letter, he explains that the Spirit of Christ dwells in us Christians. The Holy Spirit has a special part to play in our prayers. He is the force and the person that dwells within the one who is in Christ. His presence within us gives our prayer those qualities which direct it towards the salvation he has prepared for us. Through this Spirit, the power of sin and death can be confronted and overcome. There is a bridge to be made in our efforts to resemble Christ before his Father. The Holy Spirit makes this bridge and his inspiration makes our attempts effective. This should cause no surprise since we can only be friends of God through the Holy Spirit.
What lesson can we take home from this reading? We learn that the Holy Spirit is alive and active in the world and in our lives everyday. Saint Paul tells us that when our words fail, Christ’s Spirit pleads for us. The breath of the Spirit moves the Church to pray, and to make the lives of her members harmonize with their prayer. As Saint Pope Paul VI once said: “The Church needs to feel flowing through all her human faculties a wave of love, that love which is called forth and poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. This is what the Church needs; she needs the Holy Spirit! The Holy Spirit in us, in each of us, and in all of us together, in us who are the Church.”
Let us pray for the Holy Spirit to visit and strengthen our faith in the Risen Lord this day. “Holy Spirit of truth, Sovereign Lord of the universe, guide and protect your people, present everywhere, overflowing all that exists: come and dwell in us, cleanse us from all sin, pour out your blessings on us, give us fresh life, and in your gracious love bring us to salvation. We make our prayer through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
Gospel: Matthew 13: 24-43.
At that time, Jesus put another parable before the crowds, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. “And the servants of the householder came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then has it weeds?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he said, ‘No; lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, ‘Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into the barn.” Another parable he put before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make their nests in its branches.” He told them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till it was all leavened.” All this Jesus said to the crowds in parables. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet: “I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the world.” Then he left the crowds and went into the house; and his disciples came to him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.” He answered, “He who sows the good seed is the Son of man; the field is the world, and the good seed means the sons of the kingdom; the weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the close of the age, and the reapers are the angels. Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the close of the age. The Son of man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.”
V/ The Gospel of the Lord.
R/ Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ.
Comment
Christ continues to teach his disciples in three more parables from Matthew’s Gospel. With these parables, he paints a picture of the paradoxical nature of God’s kingdom. The whole world is like a field where God is continually sowing the seed of his grace; this divine seed takes root in the soul and produces fruits of holiness. He prepares good soil – our souls – on which he plants good seeds but then the evil one comes at night and plants weeds among them.
This first parable of the wheat and the darnel illustrates how the kingdom in its earthly state contains the good and the bad alike. Despite the temptation to retaliation and revenge, God-the-farmer exhibits patience and tolerance until the harvest. “Let them grow together until the harvest.” God acts the same way with good and bad people. But, we, humans, see things very differently. We would wish that all kinds of evil things should befall people we don’t like.
But this day’s gospel message teaches us that if the Church must grow in numbers and in holiness, Christians must learn from God’s patience how to tolerate and accept those we judge as bad people. We must imitate Christ and open up, as he did, to all sorts of people (sinners, prostitutes, tax collectors, politicians). These are the people he came to save because they are the sick in need of the doctor of souls (Mt 9: 12).
Christ’s patience and tolerance is a scandal, not only to the Scribes and Pharisees, but to us as well. Don’t we sometimes wonder what such and such a person is also doing in Church, simply because we believe we are holier than them? In our Christian groups, we sometimes organize witch hunts to get rid of certain members we believe are not worthy of being among us. But do we have the right to judge others? Where Christ allows the righteous and the sinner to thrive side by side, we quickly pass judgment on our brothers and sisters. We are not better than the Pharisees of Christ’s day. We can make ours Saint Paul’s advice to his Christians: “Pass no judgment before the appointed time. Leave that until the Lord comes” (1 Cor 4:5).
Again, in the parable of the mustard seed, the seed is so small that it gives no promise of amounting to much. Impatience with the size of the seed gives it no hope. But if we are patient with it, it will grow and extend its branches to all the birds of the sky. Patience opens us up to unlimited possibilities. The parable of the mustard seed reminds us of the slow and inevitable growth and expansion of God’s reign on earth. Christians must therefore exercise patience with those of their brothers and sisters whose faith has weakened and they have either fallen off by the wayside, or are showing signs of doing so.
It should be noted that the mustard seed, even as small as it is, persevered to become the biggest of shrubs. To persevere is to accept that there are no leaps, only one small step at a time. Perseverance in a Christian sense requires discipline and vision. It demands of a Christian the discipline of constant prayer with a view to changing the bad person into a good one. We should now ask ourselves in our prayer: what can I do – in my family, at work, in school, in the societies or sports clubs which I belong to – to make Christ really present with his grace and his teaching?
This also calls for patience and tolerance, which require that we accommodate the bad person with the hope that we can influence them through our prayers and ways to change. If our political leaders had been people of patience and tolerance, our country would not be embroiled in wars in the northwest and southwest regions of our country as it is the case today. Let us put our leaders in our prayers, that the Holy Spirit may arouse in them the virtues of patience, understanding and tolerance so they can put a stop to this senseless war that is causing so much havoc to our people. Saint Paul urges us to send our “petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving to God for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness” (1 Tim 2: 1-2). Lord, hear our prayer. Amen.
Comments