A Diocesan Tribunal outside my Diocese granted permission for a conditional baptism for a new resident in their Diocese. There are more unusual circumstances that wouldn't be appropriate to mention on this blog, but I am grateful for the clearance from that Diocesan Tribunal and the local pastor.
“Wheat (Good) & Weeds (Evil) Co-Exist Until
Harvest (Judgment Day):
Spiritual Battles & Persecutions of the Church”
16th Sunday of Ordinary Time
July 19, 2020
The Church
seems to be entering into a more intensified phase of global persecution.The world, too, is living in a time of distress.At the beginning of 2020, we were threatened
with nuclear war in the Pacific and rumors of conventional war in the Middle East
in January.Following this, a plague
called COVID-19 struck humanity and hit close to home in February along with
panic-shoppers in March.Uncertainties
about the economy and employment for workers, businesses and families abound,
compounding poverty and home school education in April and May.Beginning In June, more social unrest and
racial injustice trouble the land.And to
top these all off throughout, human life remains disrespected affecting many
elderly in nursing homes who have died lonely.
In a sense,
the Church is in no better condition.The fact that we are out here instead of inside the church building is not
the norm.Other Christians have it worse
without the comfort of the Word of God & Sacraments where they are isolated
and persecuted.Churches [around] Europe
are being burned.Priests are not
respected, especially on social media, through vitriol and insults.Internally, we are still trying to reform and
clean our own house and purify the Church.
But even in
such a situation for both Church and state, we can’t help but wonder: What is a
Christian expected to believe about God with such evils?Evil seems to have the upper hand, and the
Church seems abandoned.One way to
prepare our hearts is to take courage from Jesus in today’s Gospel.In the Parable of the Sower [Wheat &
Weeds], Jesus reminds us how the Kingdom of Heaven works in the face of overwhelming
evil.
I.
In Matthew Ch.
13, Jesus taught that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a sower who planted wheat.In a way, it is a follow up to last week’s
Gospel on how a mustard seed bears fruit.But the focus today is not so much on the seed that bears good fruit but
rather on the bad weeds that choke the good fruit.“An enemy has done this,” the sower says.Here, we hear about the wheat of goodness and
the weeds of evil.
During our
temporary pilgrimage here on Earth, Jesus reminds us that good and evil co-exist.As much as we want to think well of humanity
and its redemption, the reality remains that even redeemed humanity still
experiences the consequences or concupiscence of the first Original Sin.From the time of Adam to the last sin at the
end of the world, evil and fallen spirits are part of our pilgrimage.We are in an invisible spiritual war.And note: We are not fighting against each
other so much, but we are fighting against the weeds of fallen spirits in their
rebellion against God.They recruit us
humans to be weeds.They want us so
badly to join them.[They want us to
hate each other.]They hate us more than
you can imagine, somewhat similar to how God loves us beyond comprehension.St. Augustine once said, “How blessed are
those Christians of the future latter days.We fight the devil [here in the 5th Century] while he is
chained, but those Christians of the future latter days will fight the devil
when he is unchained.”
II.
This point
about the great spiritual battle between good and evil, between wheat and
weeds, leads us to this next mind-boggling point from Jesus.Amazingly, the sower does not pull up the
weeds.When the servants of the sower
asked, “Do you want us to go and pull them up?” the sower replied, “No, if you
pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them.”Well, any good gardener knows that one should
pull out weeds.It is my own first
instinct when I see weeds.
One
interpretation [of not pulling up weeds] is that even the weeds, those in the
state of sin, need a chance to repent.God
gives us sinner time so that we are not weeds but are the good wheat instead.This makes sense if we see why the First
Reading from the Book of Wisdom is chosen for today.The last line says, “And you taught your
people, by these deeds, that those who are just must be kind; and you gave your
children good ground for hope that you would permit repentance for their sins.”And even today’s Responsorial Psalm focuses
on God’s forgiveness: Lord, you are good and forgiving, slow to anger,
abounding in kindness.God is slow
dealing with weeds.
III.
Now for this
last of three main points, let’s summarize the two points made so far:First, there is a great spiritual war between
good and evil, where wheat and weeds co-exist.Second, even the weeds are not plucked yet; evildoers are given time to
repent through God’s mercy and forgiveness.They are given chance after chance after chance.And for us who have family members or close
friends who are away from God, we don’t want to pluck them just yet.Don’t we want our loved ones, too, to have
chances to turn away from evil?So here’s
the last point: Good and evil may exist side by side, and evil has a chance to
change, but evil eventually ends.Evil
eventually ends.As Benedict XVI once
said, “In the end, God wins!”Or as Fr.
Frank Pavone once said, “We are not fighting FOR victory; we are fighting FROM
victory.”Victory over evil has already
been won.It’s been foretold.Evil was already defeated in the crucifixion,
death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.The sower said, “Let them grow together until
the harvest; then at harvest time I will say to the harvesters, ‘First collect
the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning; but gather the wheat into my
barn.”
May we
always be the repentant wheat destined for the Barn of Heaven!May we not be the unrepentant weeds that
refused God’s mercy in this life that are tied in bundles for burning are the
unrepented sinners.The choice has been
made at harvest.The harvest is Judgment
Day.No mas!That’s it after that.We have defined our souls for all eternity.
IV.
So, dear
brothers and sisters, [during out time when anxiety, depression and mental
health issues are on the rise], don’t get discouraged when evil has the upper
hand in the world or seems to have the upper hand in the Church or even in our
personal lives.Yes, fight evil with all
your might.Yet remember, the spiritual
battle cannot be won on our own.That’s
why in the Second Reading, St. Paul wrote to the Romans, “The Spirit comes to
the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought.”Here, the Apostle reminds us that the Holy
Spirit helps us.Let us trust the graces
that we received in the Sacrament of Confirmation to always be the good wheat.
In summary, first,
let the wheat and weeds grow together in this spiritual struggle; second, don’t
uproot the weeds just yet and give those doing evil a chance to change; and
third, goodness wins in the end.
The kingdom
of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field.
Entrust Ourselves to Hearts of Christ & His Mother During Social Unrest (Homily #181)
by Deacon Dennis Purificacion
14th Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 5, 2020 (Mt. 11)
“We all
bleed the same. / If we’re gonna shout, let love be the cry. / Let’s stay
united.”
This song by
the Christian singer Mandisa, with Kirk Franklin & TobyMac, reminds us
about the dignity of every human person.On the outside, our differences like skin color, hair and physical
appearances, etc. may be different.But
on the inside, the hearts of every human person on the planet bleed the same
color red.
Mandisa said
she wrote the song because of the current social instability, because in her
words “hate cannot chase out hate, only love can do that.”She wrote. “If we’re gonna shout, let love be
the cry.”
Additionally,
this song by Mandisa reminds us of a certain Augustus Tolton.Augustus Tolton was a black slave born in
Missouri in the 1850s.After escaping to
Chicago with his family, Augustus still grew up in a culture of discrimination
and racism.Fortunately, the local white
parish priest helped Augustus overcome his experience of the color of his skin,
by even members of his own parish and diocese.Augustus continued to serve his parish through many racial injustices.
The point
here is that Augustus did not return the spirit of violence of his time with
more violence.Just like the song “We
All Bleed the Same,” Augustus did not reply to hate with more hate.He didn’t return evil for evil or call for more
violent anarchy overthrow of government.He replied with peaceful means
for systemic change.
Rather,
Augustus took what was evil and replied with goodness.He was meek.He took the negative energy, so to speak, and redirected it by becoming
eventually, the first known black Catholic priest in the U.S.He became an agent of healing.
Being meek like
Augustus means returning good for evil.Turning
the other cheek does not mean letting people walk all over you.Meekness means returning hatred in our hearts
with love and righteousness or justice.
While most
of us cannot become priests, we can still do what Augustus did.He fought evil with goodness and meekness.He replied to any forms of discrimination in
the system with his very life.Like the
song, “If we’re gonna shout, let love be the cry.”Father Augustus is now a candidate for
sainthood.
In today’s
Gospel, Jesus said, “Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.”The meekness of Christ is our model of all
the saints and martyrs throughout time.It is not sufficient to say, “Well, the Gospel of humility and meekness does
not apply during times of lawlessness, or COVID-19, or economic uncertainty.”If anything, the Gospel all the more applies
to us in our social anxieties and uncertainty.
Why?Because of the sacred heart of Christ!Let this meek heart be our refuge!In today’s First Reading, it is written in
the Book of the Prophet Zachariah, “Shout for joy, O daughter Zion!See your king shall come to you; a just
savior is he, meek, and riding on an ass, on a colt, the foal of an ass.”Jesus does not ride the powerful horses and mighty
elephants of pride and hatred, but he rides on the lowly donkey of nonviolence
and childlikeness.
We don’t
know how long we will social distance like this. But what we do know is that we
must keep the Faith alive in our homes.Even without the Mass, we can still practice popular devotions.And the great devotion from today’s Gospel is
love from the Heart of Jesus.
When Jesus
appeared to St. Margaret Mary and showed her His Sacred Heart, he gave a dozen
promises to those who would love His Heart in return.Here are some examples:
“I will establish
peace in their homes.”
“I will give them
all the graces necessary in their state in life.”
“I will be their secure
refuge during life and above all in death.”
“I will bless every place in which
an image of My Heart is exposed and honored.”
“Sinners will find in My Heart an
infinite ocean of mercy.”
And finally,
“I promise to those who receive Holy Communion on the First Fridays of 9
consecutive months the grace of final perseverance…they shall not die without
the Sacraments; I will be their refuge.”
And when we
turn to the Heart of Christ, we also remember the Heart of His Mother.As the old popular song by Diana Ross and Lionel
Richie “Endless Love” says, “Two hearts, two hearts that beat as one.Our lives have just begun.”During this unprecedented time in the world
and in the Church, I once again call for us to entrust, to give ourselves, to
consecrate ourselves, our families & world, especially Russia, to the
Hearts of Jesus and Mary!
In closing,
yes, we all bleed the same.And yes our
shout is love.We all bleed the same because
of Him whose meek and humble heart was pieced, because of Him who was crucified
and rose from the dead to win our hearts, because of Him whose sacred heart
first bled for us.
Jesus, meek
and humble of heart, make our hearts like unto Thine.Amen.
