20th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

Is 56:1, 6-7; Rom 11:13-15, 29-32; Mt 15:21-28

The belief that God’s love is confined to certain people, tribe, or culture has been with us for quite a long time. The idea was ingrained deeply in the hearts of many in Jesus’ time and culture. When Jesus said in the gospel “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”, he was expressing a widely held view.

Every people and culture has some kind of prejudices: The Jews believed that only they are the chosen people of God; Nazi Germany imposed their racial superiority; and before Vatican II, Catholics taught that outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation.

An old priest shared to me something interesting that happened during his high school years. His dorm mate, who happened to be a protestant, approached him one day and said, “Does it bother you that our church believes that you Catholics cannot be saved?” “Not at all,” my friend said in reply, “For actually, we, Catholics, also teach that you cannot be saved.”

Though many people today have become more open and broadminded, others still keep some prejudices in their hearts.  Some still hold that men are superior to women; that Western civilization is better than Eastern society; that whites are wiser than others, etc. Today’s gospel challenges us to expose such myths and correct such mistaken beliefs.

The Canaanite woman of the gospel should inspire us. Being a foreigner and a woman, it took her extraordinary courage to approach the company of Jesus. Canaanites were considered by Israel as pagans and as enemies doomed to be expelled from the land promised by God. Furthermore, we know that during Jesus’ time, women were not allowed to approach a rabbi or a teacher in public. No wonder the disciples of Jesus wanted to get rid of the Canaanite woman from their sight.

The Canaanite woman did not believe that God’s blessings are only for Israel. Jesus tried to challenge her faith: first, by ignoring her; second, by insisting that his mission is only for Israel; and third, by referring to her as one of the “dogs” or gentiles. The woman stood her ground and in the end Jesus praised her: “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” Jesus confirmed the woman’s faith that God is all embracing: He does not discriminate anybody.

In the first reading, the prophet Isaiah announces: “Do not let the foreigner say, ‘The Lord will surely separate me from his people,’ for thus says the Lord, ‘I will bring faithful foreigners to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer, their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted in my altar, for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples’” (56:1, 6-7). The same message is preached by Saint Paul in the second reading: The salvation of the gentiles is guaranteed because God is kind to all those who follow his commands (Rom. 11:13-15, 29-32).

If God embraces every person as a son or daughter, are we not supposed to treat one another as brothers and sisters? Should we not get rid of our biases toward those who don’t think, act and behave like us? Can we not give equal respect to those people who do not share faith with us or to those whose color is different from us?

During his student days, Mahatma Gandhi read the Gospels and saw in the teachings of Jesus the answer to the major problem facing the people of India, the caste system. Seriously considering embracing the Christian faith, Gandhi attended church one Sunday morning intending to talk to the minister about the idea. On entering the Church, the usher refused to give him a seat and told him to go and worship with his own people. Gandhi left the church and never returned. “If Christians have caste differences also,” he said, “I might as well remain a Hindu.”

(The story is by Ernest Munachi Ezeogu)

17th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

1 Kgs 3:5, 7-12; Rom 8:28-30; Mt 13:44-52

The gospel today gives us two short parables about the kingdom of heaven. The first one is about a person who, after finding a treasure buried in a field, sold everything he had in order to buy the field and take possession of the treasure. The second is about a merchant who, after finding a pearl of great price, sold everything he had in order to buy the precious pearl.

“Parables are earthly stories with heavenly meanings.” What are the lessons that we should learn from the parables we just read?

First of all, we should not think that the parables are asking us to buy the kingdom of heaven with our money. The kingdom of God is priceless and is given free to all those who will be found worthy. An evil person cannot enter heaven even if he has all the money in the world. To get into heaven, a person needs only the riches of his heart – like gentleness, generosity, compassion, and mercy.

The most important lesson of the parables is this: the kingdom of God must be first in all our priorities. The person who wishes to be in heaven or to enjoy life with God must be ready to lose everything for it. If we choose God in our life, we must be willing to let go of other treasures that we enjoy possessing. “God may well be taken as a substitute for everything; but nothing can be taken as a substitute for God.” The kingdom is more valuable than all the riches in the world: “For what does it profit to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” Such is an important reminder for all because many of us have misguided priorities in life.

If we are given the choice, what do we prefer: gold, glory or God? It is easy for us to say that we prefer “God” in our lives, but sadly enough, this is not what we see in people’s priorities today. Often, the desire for wealth and honor would push people to spend all their precious time for work and business. The prevailing culture suggest that to be happy, one must have more and achieve more, and people would tend to believe it. Hence, many are willing to sacrifice their time for the family in order to earn more money. Many also are ready to surrender their Christian principles and values just to keep their fame and glory.

The story of Solomon should inspire us all. In a dream, God offered to give him the one thing that he wanted. Being young, Solomon could have asked for wealth or glory or long life. But realizing the great task ahead of him, Solomon decided that what he really needed was the wisdom to rule his people well in the ways of God. Wisdom or God’s inspiration is what Solomon asked. And God was so pleased with Solomon and He promised him more than the gift of wisdom, including riches, glory and long life. The song we always love to sing is right: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all good things shall be added unto you.”

Mother Teresa of Calcutta and John Paul II both died leaving no property, for they had not accumulated treasures on earth. They found their treasure in a life given totally to the service of God and of the Church. The parables are true: Those who discover the treasure of the kingdom will be happy to let go of everything to follow and be close to Jesus.

16th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

Wisdom 12:13, 16-19; Rom 8:26-27; Mt 13:24-43

A man said to his wife: “You are beautiful but stupid at the same time.” The wife responded: “You are correct. God made me beautiful, and for this you got attracted to me. God made me stupid, and for this I got attracted to you.”

(The story is told by Fr. Jerry Orbos)

The parable of the weeds among the wheat provides an interesting description of our earthly condition: There is in every person the presence of the good (the wheat) and the bad (the weeds). Beauty and stupidity exist together in us. Even the most beautiful person has a dark spot or a negative side. Because we wish to be pleasing in the eyes of people and of God, our human frailties sometimes make us down and discourage.

The parable inspires us to be patient with ourselves, to trust that God is not finished with us yet. If God is patient with us, why couldn’t we be patient with ourselves? If God forgives us, why couldn’t we forgive ourselves, too? The infinite mercy of God should make us humble and open, ever willing to learn from our mistakes. Paradoxically, our failures could be the first step of the road to holiness. Christian maturity begins when we realize that we are helpless in the midst of our own weakness and sinfulness. It is important to recognize our great need of God as we traverse the path of righteousness.

Good and evil exist not only in us but also among us. There are good and bad citizens, hardworking and lazy workers, sensible and foolish teenagers, responsible and neglectful parents, honest and corrupt politicians, etc. If this is the situation, what are we supposed to do? Canonize the good ones and annihilate the bad ones? Why not bring all bad people to the lethal chamber? This is the suggestion of the servant in the parable: Let us get rid of the weeds by pulling them out! This, however, is not the way of God. He remains patient and hopeful even in the most desperate situations.

Some people today think that by killing people they can change the world and that by sowing terror there will be peace. But we know that these people are misled. We cannot deliver peace by terrorism and we cannot bring progress by killing people. Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Theresa and John Paul II – made a difference in the world by their discipline, self-sacrifice, hard work, and personal convictions . . . but never with violence. The path of terror is a misguided attempt to get a quick-fix solution to world’s problems. King, Gandhi, Theresa, and the great pope followed the way of God in their compassionate waiting, secured with the knowledge that the great harvest will come at the prescribed time. In God’s time, goodness will triumph over evil: the good will be gathered in the house of God and evil will be thrown into fire.

Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul (A)

A priest suggested that as we honor these two great men of the Church, the word to remember is “grace.” Peter and Paul were masterpieces of God’s grace. They were each changed radically by grace and they persevered for the faith until death by grace. The Catechism teaches us that grace is “the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adopted sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life.” The grace of God works in humanity’s weakness, brokenness and sin. As a Jewish rabbi said, “We meet God where human self-sufficiency ends.” This, indeed, was the experience of both Peter and Paul.

Peter’s most glaring failure was his triple denial of Jesus when the Lord was arrested. The gospels tell us how he swore and cursed the woman who accused him of being a company of the Lord. Peter said, “I do not even know the man.” The night before that, he promised the Lord that he will never leave him. But when the moment of test came, he failed.

Jesus came to meet Peter right down in his weakness. After the resurrection, the Lord asked him, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” A commentator suggested that the Lord had to ask Peter the same question three times in order to give him the chance to redeem himself. This was for Peter his most humbling, yet reconciling moment. “Lord, you know that I love you,” three times he painfully responded. Whether Peter was this time honest or not was clearly decided when he himself later died for the faith.

Paul’s serious fault was his blatant persecution of the followers of Jesus. He was one of those zealous and rigid Pharisees. When Stephen, the first Christian martyr, was stoned to death, Paul was present and the Scripture gave witness saying, “The cloaks piled up at the feet of Saul (the old name of Paul) who approved of the stoning.”

Paul was an arrogant and self-righteous religious fanatic until a blinding light struck him down from his horse while he was on his way to Damascus to round up more Christians. He was blinded and was laid flat on his back when he heard the voice that says, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” After that, Paul became disoriented – physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. In that weakened state, he was led to a Christian household in Damascus to be prayed over, healed, and baptized. In his weakness, Paul met Jesus and from then on, he offered his whole life for the service of the Church.

Grace helped Peter recognize Jesus as the Messiah, Son of the living God. Grace transformed Peter from a weak, impulsive individual into a strong rock, confident head of the Church. It was also grace that changed Paul from a hateful persecutor into a dedicated apostle, a great messenger of the Lord to the gentiles. Grace allowed him to finish the race and to keep the faith.

The feast of Saints Peter and Paul should inspire us to find strength in God and to recognize that our gifts are all God’s grace. Like Paul, we always say, “In God we live and move and have our being.”

11th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

Ex 19:2-6a; Rom 5:6-11; Mt 9:36-10:8

Does God really care for His people? Does He love us personally, individually? Today’s readings reassure us that God indeed is the Compassionate One.

In the first reading, God reminds the people of Israel how He delivered them from the bondage of their oppressors. He carried them “up on eagle’s wings” because they were weak and defenseless. The Israelites represent today’s poor, the vulnerable, and all victims of injustice. These people are God’s “special possession”, very dear to His heart.

St. Paul, in the second reading, proclaims the magnitude of God’s compassion by underlining the supreme value of the sacrifice of Christ: Only in extraordinary circumstances is a person willing to die for someone else. Parents, for example, would protect their child from serious danger at the expense of their own life, but they would not do the same sacrifice for a stranger, much less for an enemy. It is precisely in this that God proves His love for humanity: His Son died for us while we were still sinners, while we were still enemies because of sin.

In the gospel, Jesus looks upon the troubled and abandoned crowd and is “moved with pity”. In the original Greek, the word used to describe Jesus’ sentiment is splagchnizomai, noun for the vital inner organs of a person – the stomach, heart, lungs, spleen, liver, and kidneys. In Biblical understanding, the entrails are the source of deep human emotions. Henceforth, the Lord’s feeling for the people is no ordinary pity. A more exact translation is that “Jesus had deep compassion”.

The crowds are “like sheep without a shepherd” – unattended, vulnerable and directionless. This difficult situation moves Jesus to send out laborers, the twelve apostles who will do the work that He performs. These ordinary individuals are empowered to do extraordinary works: To preach the Good News of salvation, to liberate people from the bondage of evil and sin, to heal the sick, and to bring the dead back to life. Normally, God would make use of human hands to provide relief to those who suffer.

God shares the work of shepherding, first and foremost, to priests and religious. In a special way, they are called and chosen to lead the people of God by serving bigheartedly and freely. Priests and religious must remind themselves regularly that their vocation exists for the world, for people, above all, for the poor, the sick and the unwanted. They received their callings without cost; they also are to serve without counting the cost.

The Lord’s ministry of compassion, however, is not confined to priests and religious; it belongs to all baptized Christians. All of us, no matter what our status in life is, are called to become shepherds of one another, responsible to one another’s happiness, well-being or salvation.

In the gospel, Jesus invites us to “ask the Master of the harvest to send out laborers for His harvest”. And so, let us continue to pray for more laborers, people who will give their lives for the service of God and the Church. May God make our hearts like the heart of Christ, one that feels deeply with the troubled and the abandoned!

One day as he began his daily prayer, a holy hermit saw passing by, a cripple, a mother begging for food for her pathetically malnourished child, and the victim of what must have been a very severe beating.

Seeing them, the holy man turned to God and said, “Great God! How is it that such a loving Creator can see so much suffering, and yet do nothing about it?

And deep within his heart he heard God reply, “I have done something about it. I made you.”

(The story is told by Jack McArdle in 150 More Stories for Preachers and Teachers)

10th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

Hos 6:3-6; Rom 4:18-25; Mt 9:9-13

There is an old Jewish legend about Moses walking through the desert and meeting a shepherd. He spent the day with him. In the evening after he had milked his sheep, the shepherd filled a big bowl with milk and carried it off into the distance and left it there. When Moses asked what that was all about, he answered, “I always offer God my best milk.”

Moses then told him, “But God is a spirit; He doesn’t drink milk.”

But the man refused to change his mind. And so Moses told him to pay attention to what happened to that milk on the next night. After he had seen what happened, the shepherd admitted, “You’re right. God does not need any milk. An animal has emptied the milk bowl. But now you have taken away from me the only means I had of showing my love for God.”

(The story is told by Friedrich Dietz in The Next 500 Stories by Frank Mihalic, SVD)

Hosea reminds us that it is love that God desires, not sacrifice. Matthew quotes Hosea but uses the word “mercy”, instead of “love”. Bible commentators are quick in pointing out that here God is not discounting the value of sacrificial offerings. What God denounces is the practice of sacrifice unaccompanied by obedience. Bringing material goods to the Church or doing a penitential act is worthless if the person doing it is not loving or merciful.

To offer a sacrifice is one form of worship. When we give to the Church a part of the fruits of our labor, we are acknowledging the fact that God is the source of all goodness and blessings. We know that apart from God we can do nothing. Giving material or monetary donation is our expression of gratitude to God for making us productive or successful. Moreover, when we deny ourselves of something good (food, drink, recreation, etc.), we are reminding ourselves of our fragility and total dependence in God. The sacrificial act becomes a discipline that would bring us closer to our Lord and Maker.

No matter how important sacrificial offerings are, they can be done inappropriately, or for misguided motivations. A person, for example, may donate a huge amount of money to the Church in order to get the admiration of others. Another person might do some sacrificing to secure the favor of God, as if God needs sacrifices for His survival. Still, one might think that by offering sacrifices he makes God indebted. The person expects God to answer his prayer-requests because he believes he has sacrificed enough.

We know, however, that God doesn’t need our sacrificial offerings for His happiness or sustenance. We are encouraged to make sacrificial offerings not for God’s sake but for ours. When we make genuine sacrifices, we become more and more generous and loving, and by becoming so, we glorify God.

The Pharisees were faithful observers of the Law. They fasted and gave tithes to the temple on a regular basis. Yet, these sacrificial practices did not make them compassionate and understanding with one another. Instead they became self-righteous, arrogant and condemning to sinners. What went wrong to the spirituality of the Pharisees? The gospel seems to question the purity of the Pharisees’ intentions of their spiritual exercises. Jesus called them “hypocrites” and “whitewashed tombs” for they worshipped only with their lips, not with their behaviors or actions.

Today’s liturgy should inspire us to continue offering genuine sacrifices inside and outside the Church. May our donations and sacrificial actions be shared with pure intentions so that people will experience the love and mercy of God through us!

Mother Teresa of India once told the following story.

Two young people came to our house and gave me quite a sum of money to feed the poor. In Calcutta we cook for 9,000 people every day. The two of them wished their money to be used to feed these hungry people. I then asked them, “Where did you get that much money?”

And they answered, “Two days ago we were married. Before our wedding we decided that we would not spend any money on special wedding clothes, nor would we have a wedding banquet. We wanted the money we would spend on these things to go to the poor.”

For high caste Hindus to act like this was a scandal. Their friends and relatives found it unthinkable that a couple from such outstanding families should get married without bridal gowns and a proper wedding feast.

So Mother Teresa asked them, “Why did you give me all this money?”

And they gave her this surprising answer, “We love one another so much that we wanted to make a special sacrifice for each other at the very start of our married life.”

(The story is told by Willi Hoffsuemmer in The Next 500 Stories by Frank Mihalic, SVD)