17th Sunday of Ordinary Time - Year A

1 Kings 3:5.7-12; Romans 8:28-30; Matthew 13:44-52

How does a man or woman living in the midst of a modern, technological world with all its material attractions and preoccupations and pleasures come to believe in the existence of a soul? How does God communicate himself to them?

This is the third week in a row that Jesus offers the crowds a parable containing the image of a field.

1. First there was the field in which the seed of God's word was sown.
2. Then came the field into which the enemy sowed the darnel seeds.
3. This week we are presented with a field which contains a hidden treasure.

The treasure can be understood in different ways. We are told a number of things about it:

• It is hidden in the field, buried within it – they go together.
• We have to take possession of the field if we wish to own the treasure.
• The field will cost us everything we possess.
• This treasure for which we give everything is the ultimate riches.

Jesus' parable tells us the treasure is hidden in the field and that it can be found. This should give us hope. On one level the field can represent our body and then the treasure is our soul. Deeper still, the field can represent our soul, and the treasure is then the indwelling Trinity. However we take it the parable points us inward to that invisible, interior part of us which we all need to recognise if we are to become spiritual men and women.

To put the whole matter very plainly we can say that Jesus tells us in his parable that deep inside each of us there is a treasure and that it can be found. But how? To answer this question we will consider the way most of us, but not all, seem to find it.

Usually, our experience begins to tell us that the material world is not enough. This is often a slow, gradual discovery which dawns in our consciousness after many years of searching for happiness in all the places the world points out to us - possessions, pleasure, leisure time, power, prestige, financial independence personal freedom to do what we want when we want. The young are very much preoccupied with these things.

We have all heard of contented cows. You put them in a paddock with sufficient grass, you give them a tree to stand under and a water trough to drink from and you have contented cows. They want nothing more.

Humans are different. We are acquisitive by nature and we have the ability to reflect on our own behaviour. As the new house is built, as the perfect wife or husband is found, as the dream job comes along, as the children (usually no more than two of them) are born, as each one of our hopes and dreams comes to fruition, why is it that we find ourselves asking: Is this all there is? Is this as good as it gets?

We begin to realise that the noisy, modern, technological, material world we live in has made us a promise of happiness which it can't really deliver. We come to realise that the world has lied to us.

The voice which asks these questions speaks deep within us at first and it can, in fact, be overpowered by our hectic lifestyles or by the sin in our lives. Nevertheless, some people eventually have to admit, and sometimes they do it out loud: I’m looking for more, and I don't mean more of the same.

This 'there-must-be-more' moment is a wonderful intersection in life which is full of hope and profound possibility but it is not yet the discovery of the treasure; it is merely the discovery that the treasure is not ‘out there’ in the world.

At first this often only increases our dilemma. If we allow this inner voice to have its say in our lives we cross a painful threshold which puts all the familiar, practical, material things in our lives into a new perspective. Every spoonful of food we put into our mouths now speaks of a much deeper hunger within us, which cannot be satisfied by food. Every glass of water - or wine (even the most exquisite) - speaks to us of a thirst which lies deeper than water or wine can reach. The shiniest car, the ideal partner in life, the dreamiest home, the ultimate holiday - begin to carry within themselves a little sign saying .. 'I'm not enough for you because I won't last'.

As all that the world has to offer is found wanting we begin to ask - Where then is my happiness?

If we allow this inner voice to speak - if we allow the volume of this inner voice to increase in our lives - we find ourselves entering the world of the spiritual. We become spiritual people on a spiritual search. You might ask how the volume of this inner voice can be increased and I would reply that it is actually not so much a matter of turning up the volume as of decreasing the background noise - the silence of prayer and a gentle withdrawal from unhelpful preoccupations.

Having honestly and humbly entered the world of the spiritual, the world of the hidden treasure within us, we now begin to experience a strange new confidence. We begin to grow in confidence that the spiritual hope we have discovered within ourselves, our longing to love and be loved in a perfect manner, our longing to live forever, to experience perfect happiness and peace, joy and acceptance - we grow in confidence that all this longing and hope was placed in our hearts as the good gift of a good God and that he means one day to fulfil it. This is the beginning of religious faith.

We begin now to search for the name of this good God and will eventually come to the proposition that it is Father, Son and Holy Spirit who dwells within us. To accept this proposition in faith can be an arduous journey in itself. How can we know it is true?

If I were to propose to you that mankind came from a golden egg laid by a golden snake on the banks of a magic river you would probably find it easy enough to discount. All I can say is that the Christian proposition, we call it revelation, makes entire sense of my life, its hopes and its sufferings. It is not just that it makes better sense than the other propositions, it is that it makes perfect sense of human existence.

And so, further along this journey to faith we discover that the human face of the invisible God is Jesus. We discover the followers of Jesus, the Church, and its teachings. We discover the living truth of the word of God in the hierarchy of the Church and in the Sacred Scriptures. We discover the Sacraments of Jesus which give joy and strength and build divine life in our souls. In short, we have discovered the Kingdom of God and are now ready to give our all to embrace it.

16th Sunday of Ordinary Time - Year A

Wisdom 12:13.16-19; Romans 8:26-27; Matthew 13:24-43

The gospel tells us of a field. The field is the world. Jesus is the master of the field. Jesus sows seed - good seed, of course - the subjects of the kingdom. Hopefully that's us. The seed grows and matures until the harvest. At the end of time the angels will come and gather it into the kingdom - that is, into heaven.

That's a pretty good story, isn't it?

But there's more - there's a nasty surprise! Secretly, in the dark of night, Satan has come to the field and sown another crop among the good seed - darnel - a horrible weed which is useless to anyone.

Satan is the enemy of Jesus. He wants to spoil everything, not just the field but us as well. All those in whom this seed takes root become the subjects of the evil one. Hopefully that's not us. They will be gathered into bundles and burnt - or in other words, thrown into hell.

That, simply put, is the parable Jesus offers us today. It's really a great teaching parable and has echoes, which I'm sure you've noticed, of the account in Genesis of the creation of the world. God made the world and the first two people and saw that it was good. Then Satan came along behind God's back, so to speak, and succeeded in sowing his seeds of evil in God's good creation.

So what can we draw from this parable? Who is it for? Let's just name a few categories of people who might find this parable speaks strongly to them.

• Firstly, it is for that group of people who can't see their own goodness.

This group of people is so conscious of sin that they can no longer see goodness. They really need to pray for an experience of that love of God from which all self-love and a sense of self-worth comes. God loves the good in us much more than he hates evil and that's why he is willing to put up with it for so long - giving us lots of time ‘til we ripen and are ready for the harvest. At this point I can only affirm that God made us good, he loves us, and he patiently waits for us to respond to his love.

• This parable is also for those who can't see their own evil.

Another great tragedy! I've been called to anoint people who haven't been to Confession for 40 years and who confidently tell me they have no sin to confess. I always tell them they are very lucky people! But, really, it's a tragedy. If after all that time you have a good conscience, you probably have a short memory too.

Part of a healthy relationship with ourselves is to be able to recognise and admit to the darnel that is growing within us. Perhaps this is why Jesus said to the Pharisee: I have come for the sick, not for the healthy. Jesus came for sinners, and if we don’t recognise ourselves as sinners we won't see any need for Jesus.

• This parable is also meant for perfectionists.

Are you a perfectionist? Remember that Jesus told us to be perfect, not perfectionists.

A perfectionist is one who can't bear to live with imperfection, either within himself or in his immediate environment. These people drive themselves silly - and often a whole lot of other people as well because they are always trying to be who they are not.

It's not that we are supposed to ignore the darnel, of course we have to struggle for conversion, but in the meantime we have to accept the darnel is there and learn, somehow, to live with it, even as we stuggle against it, until the Lord removes it for us. The great temptation for perfectionists is to give up altogether. They say 'Well, if I can't be all good I'll be all bad'.

• This parable is also meant for those of us who make a habit of judging others.

I remember when I left the cathedral parish to take up a new appointment. There was a couple there who's baby I had baptised but who were not coming to Mass on Sundays and were not in any way involved. I don't mind admitting that I thought some unkind things about them. When I came back to that parish three years later as Administrator and was processing in for the first Mass I was met at the front door by that same couple who were now handing out the bulletins and welcoming people as they came in. What a lesson for me! Don't judge!

Don't pull up the darnel because you might be pulling up wheat. Don't say 'I want them punished and I want it NOW!' When we do this we are playing God and we forget that only the powerful can show mercy. Your sovereignty over all makes you lenient to all.

• Finally, this parable is meant for those who don't believe in hell.

Only a few weeks ago I was told of a priest who read the Gospel and just 'left out' the word hell. He just edited Jesus’ words. This is a crime! There is wheat and darnel and there is heaven and hell.

Jesus says the darnel will be burned. At other times he is more explicit, like last week in the weekday Mass, he said, You will be cast down to hell.

Hell is also the solid de fide teaching of the Church. This means that to be truly a Catholic we must believe in and fully accept this teaching, even though we may not understand it. A mature Christian humbly accepts the full package otherwise what happens is that we reduce the Gospel to the level of our understanding. This would be fatal and soon there would be no Gospel left.

Faith is a wonderful thing when it is complete. Then it sets us free and promises life. We will all struggle with parts of our faith from time to time but let us then ask for light and understanding and believe that it will be given.

15th Sunday of Ordinary Time - Year A

Isaiah 55:10-11; Romans 8:18-23; Matthew 13:1-23

Imagine a sower going out to sow. Go on, use your imagination. Can you see him?

There he goes, stepping it out, up and down, backwards and forwards, tirelessly doing his work, casting the seed to left and right. He looks familiar, doesn’t he? Who is this sower? He looks like Jesus - in fact, it is Jesus. It is the Lord himself, hard at work.

Imagine the seed. Like rain falling to the earth, or maybe like snow, it covers the soil, seeking a crack to fall into so that it might take root and grow and become what it is meant to become. He scatters it generously over the entire field. He doesn’t seem to be looking where he is throwing it. It falls everywhere – beside the path, on the rocks, among the thorns. How strange! The seed is so precious but he doesn’t seem to care. He is sowing it in all the corners of this field – not a single square centimetre misses out. What is this seed? It is the Word of God. Jesus is busy sowing the Word of God.

Imagine the field. Let’s follow the sower as he walks the pathways through his field. It’s a narrow path, just wide enough for him to walk the length of his field, up and down. We see clumps of thorn bushes here and there and watch the seeds disappear into the tangle of their branches. Patches of rock litter the field and we notice the seeds lying exposed on their hard surface. And then there is the soil, wonderful, rich and fertile, greedily swallowing up the seed and its promise of a harvest.

Where is this field? Have you ever wondered? Don’t be shocked when I tell you it’s not far away – it’s in your heart. Yes, it’s in your heart - in actual fact it is your heart.

Now close your eyes and hold one hand over your heart. Imagine that field there where your heart is, and imagine the sower walking there, in your heart, sowing the seed. It’s Jesus himself and he is sowing the Word of God deep within you, right now.

All this makes Jesus’ parable rather personal, doesn’t it? It’s about you, and not only that, it’s about the most personal part of you, your secret inner self, the part no one else can see. What Jesus does by telling this parable is to make the invisible, hidden part of you suddenly all too visible.

The parable is not about four different groups of people - edge-of-the-path people, rocky people, thorny people, and good-soil people. No! The parable shows us four different parts of ourselves and then asks us to take a good, hard look.

There are two extremes indicated: those parts where the seeds never even get to germinate because they fall in poor soil on the edge of the path, and those parts where the seeds yield a harvest because they are received in rich soil.

So we can see – it’s all a matter of soil quality. It’s not the quality of the seed that's being questioned - it’s the quality of the soil, the soil of our hearts. The compacted, often trodden on soil beside the path give no shelter to the seed and it is eaten by the birds; the cultivated rich soil of the field accepts the seed and yields a harvest.

So now we need to clarify what makes for good soil and what makes for poor soil? It’s all too simple. Jesus tells us very clearly. The poor soil is the man who hears but doesn’t understand; the rich soil is the man who hears and does understand. How simple is that?

The word of God comes to us in countless ways. Jesus liked to express it in parables. A parable encapsulates the truth much like a macadamia nut or an almond or a walnut encapsulate the seed. They require effort to break into. Parables require effort too – they require goodwill. 

Some people are all too ready to say: Oh, it’s too hard! I just don’t understand! OK, that’s fair enough, so what can they do about that? They have to spend time, make an effort, study and pray. In this sense every parable is like a walnut. It’s a test of how much we want to get to the seed, a test of how much we want to understand.

As I said, it’s not the seed that’s on trial here - it’s us – it’s our desire to understand that’s being tested.

I see my sister knitting from a magazine. The instructions are complex and I don’t understand them – but she does. How come? Because she’s willing to make the effort and I’m not. And that goes for so many things in life we don’t really want to understand, including God’s Word. We say: It’s too hard! when actually what we mean is: I’m not really interested!

There are two other areas in the field of our hearts that prevent the seed from bearing a harvest even when we are of some goodwill. The first is the rock and the second is the thorns – the hard, unyielding, stubborn, proud, unwilling-to-change parts of our hearts and the deadly, immoderate passions which effectively smother the seed.

I’m not going to make a lengthy description of the thorns and the rocks in our hearts, that’s up to each one of us to do. Each one of us has to identify those things which prevent the word of the Kingdom from bearing a harvest in our life. This will take time and effort, prayer and study, patience and faithfulness but, of course, we’ll do it if we're really interested.

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year A

Zechariah 9:9-10; Romans 8:9.11-13; Matthew 11:25-30

The readings from today's Gospel remind me of a certain Marist Brother I taught with who had a special way of attracting the attention of a class of rowdy boys. He would walk to the front of the class and simply begin speaking in a low voice about anything at all that came to mind and when there was a slight gap in the noise he would quietly say: ... and you'll all get one free.

There's a very similar line in today’s Gospel: … and I will give you rest.

This line always seems to get our attention. Who is there among us who does not, in some way or another, long for rest? It may be physical rest from hard work, family life, or even illness; rest from the worries and the fears we all have from time to time; or rest simply from the burden of being who we are, with all our faults and failings and shortcomings - the burden of being ourselves.

So these words of Jesus really seem to be meant for us. We qualify both because we long for rest and because we feel overburdened. Perhaps, therefore, we would do well to have a closer look at these words and try to understand them a little better.

COME to me …

Much of the burden of our lives is that so often we don't seem to be going anywhere. There is no task more difficult to do than the one which seems to have no point; no suffering more difficult to bear than the one which has no meaning; no life more difficult to live than one which has no direction. When Jesus asks us to come to him he offers us the ultimate meaning for our lives and at once so much of the pain disappears and we find already a certain peace.

We notice also that Jesus does not say: Look at me, think about me, talk about me, fantasize or read about me but - COME to me … .

We must do as Abraham did, leaving behind all the things which prevent us from moving and submitting our whole lives to him - following him into a land that he will show us. At the moment we decide to come to Jesus we see exactly how far we are from him. We experience the joy of making progress - and the pain of still not having arrived. That is always part of the human condition but he gives us strength to commit ourselves to the journey.

Jesus says: Come to ME …

Coming to Jesus is coming to a Person. It is not primarily coming to faith in a body of Church doctrine, nor is it a whole network of religious practices such as the Pharisees engaged in. We must be sure that it is to the person of Jesus that we are coming because nothing else can give us the rest for which we long.

Come to me all you who labour and are OVERBURDENED …

Jesus had told the Apostle Paul that his grace would be enough for him and yet here he seems to be implying that there are indeed some of us who are OVER-burdened. How did we get that way?

Could it be that we have chosen to burden ourselves with cares and worries we are not really meant to carry? When we load our own backs with burdens we tend to overload ourselves, and because they are not Christ's burdens we are unable to find rest. Each one of us must honestly examine his life and ask which of the burdens he is carrying is in reality of his own choosing. Jesus is saying to us: ... Yes, MY yoke is easy and MY burden light.

Then Jesus says: SHOULDER my yoke ….

Not only must we carry only the burden Jesus asks us to carry, we must learn from him how to carry it. SHOULDER my yoke ... . A burden half-heartedly carried is very difficult to bear. How often do we not just push it along or drag it behind us?

I am reminded of a visit to my brother-in-law's sheep property during the mouse plague. My little nephews insisted on taking me up on the hill paddock to show me all the mouse warrens and, as it happened, we took the two dogs with us. I noticed that we had to stop every ten feet or so to pull thistles out of the dogs' paws because they were limping so badly. The next day, however, when we ran a mob of sheep through the same paddock, the thistles didn't seem to bother the dogs at all. They were too busy, wholeheartedly doing the task they were supposed to do!

We all have burdens but the yoke of Jesus is the only one worth carrying. Jesus suffered the loneliness, the rejection and the persecution of living his human life in faithfulness to the will of his Father. This is the yoke we are called to share with him - the burden he asks us and helps us to carry.

Shoulder my yoke AND LEARN FROM ME …

Today we have come to the school where Jesus teaches us what it means to carry his yoke; to forgive those who accuse us, to love those who hate us, to be patient with those who annoy us, to go to the assistance of those who need us, to give our very lives for love of others. Jesus shows us how to do this by showing us how he did it. He takes bread and wine and says: This is my Body and Blood - this is me - given for you. Take ...