11th Sunday of Ordinary time B / June 16, 2024

11 th Sunday of Ordinary time B

June 16, 2024

 

This week we began the part of the liturgical year called Ordinary time. After the seasons of Lent, Easter and the Solemnities of The Holy Trinity and The Body and Blood of Christ we enter Ordinary time.  This time is called ordinary because there are no major feasts in these days. We will be in ordinary time until we begin the new liturgical year with the first Sunday of Advent.  These days are much like our lives, these are ordinary days. We get up, we go through our days, we look for the presence of God in our days. These days are ordinary that in these days our God acts in ordinary ways. In ordinary time we are like the farmer in today’s parable. We plant seeds that grow without our knowing how. We wake one day to discover a new harvest where barren soil was just a few days before.

This parable reminds me of the trees I purchased for my parent’s 25 th wedding anniversary in 1987. They were small trees today they provide much shade for the yard. They tower over the top of the house. How did this happen? It happened day after day, one day at a time.  Today my parents are not here to sit in the shade of these trees.   They have gone home.

Today in our third reading, St. Paul speaks about being home and away from home and the need for courage as we wait to go home. St. Paul reminds us that our home is not here on this earth, our home is with God. While we are away from home, “we walk by faith, not by sight”.  We are courageous while we are away. Often courage is about the willingness to live one day at a time. We wait and hope. We place our faith in what we have heard from our Lord. We have faith in what we have not seen yet. “We walk by faith, not by sight.”

We walk by faith, but our God offers us glimpses of what is to come. My friends in the Cursillio movement speak of “close moments” those times and occasions where God feels close or present.  Close moments are not always found in the walls of a church. A close moment may take place in a family gathering, on a hillside, in a garden, in a card or phone call.  We may not see fully, but we are given glimpses of our true home.

I am reminded of a meditation by the late Cardinal Bernardin.

Benadin wrote in his book The Gift of Peace;

“Many people have asked me to tell them about heaven and the afterlife. I sometimes smile at the request because I do not know any more than they do. Yet, when one young man asked if I looked forward to being united with God and all those who have gone before me, I made a connection to something I said earlier in this book. The first time I traveled with my mother and sister to my parents’ homeland in Tonadico di Primiero, in northern Italy, I felt as if I had been there before. After years of looking through my mother’s photo albums, I knew the mountains, the land, the houses, the people. As soon as we entered the valley, I said, “My God. I know this place. I am home.” Somehow, I think crossing from this life into life eternal will be similar.”

Last week St. Paul reminded us that in this life we dwell in a tent, that is temporary. We wait and with faith we wait for our eternal home in heaven. In this life we walk “By faith, not sight.” Someday we will see the fullness of our home in heaven. In the meantime, we look for glimpses of the world to come. Like a farmer, we watch day by day and in time we see the fullness of our home to come.

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

By Rev. Christopher Welch • July 31, 2026
The gospel begins with the words: When Jesus heard of the death of John the Baptist.... John is Jesus’ cousin; John is the one who leaped in his mother's womb when he met Jesus in his mother’s womb. John is the one who baptized Jesus and now Jesus hears that John is dead by being beheaded. Jesus is in grief and wants to be alone. We are told that in his grief, Jesus went off to be alone. Word gets out where Jesus is and all the people show up looking for him to heal and feed them. We are told that Jesus’ heart is full of compassion for the people. Rather than telling them to go away, to let him be, he heals them. This is the life of a disciple – people are not in need on my schedule. When people show up, I need to attend to them. We can never do ministry with our eye on the clock. Although he was tired and in grief, Jesus cared for the people. He knew he could not be there always and his disciples would need to help out. When the disciples tell Jesus the people are hungry, the disciples were the hungry ones. Jesus tells them to give them something yourselves. This is Jesus’ way of calling them to act as disciples. I have fed them with my words; if they need food for their bodies, give it to them yourselves. The disciples find five loaves and two fish. Jesus offers a prayer. Jesus gives thanks for what has been provided, an action of gratitude. He then gives them to the disciples to distribute. Jesus is asking them to continue his ministry by feeding the people. What is left over fills 12 baskets; the number 12 reminds us of the 12 tribes. Jesus has come to feed the whole world. Jesus provides the feast and we as disciples share what we have been given with others. The five loaves and two fish are enough to feed the crowd and provide many leftovers. Our God is a God of abundance. What God has provided is not wasted and what God has provided is given to us by disciples who participate in God’s work. If we are to be disciples, we need to learn how to feed others. Like Jesus, we may find that being a disciple interrupts our life. When someone is in need we attend, we put aside our own agenda for a time and attend to the person in need. Our grief may come later after we care for the person in need. Those who were fed echo the words of Isaiah in the first reading. They come and are fed body and soul. The feeding of the soul are the words of Jesus and the feeding of the body comes from the hands of the disciples.

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

By Rev. Christopher Welch • July 26, 2026
For many old movie buffs, the movie King Solomon's Mines is a classic. Our first reading tells the story of King Solomon and his prayer for wisdom. “For the treasures of his heart, not his mines, Solomon is rightly remembered.” The parables speak of searching for treasure; for us the treasure is our relationship with God. The one who found the treasure in the field sells all he has to buy the field. The merchant searching for pearls sells all when he finds one that is perfect. Today we are asked to consider: What is my treasure? What is my pearl of great price? What is so important I would sell all I have to possess it? In the parables Jesus is speaking about the kingdom of God. What is more important to us than the kingdom of God? What would I sell to possess the kingdom of God? I am reminded of a story by Fr. Anthony DeMello, a priest from India: When a holy man reached the outskirts of the village and settled under a tree for the night, a villager came running up to him and said, “The stone! The stone! Give me the precious stone!” “What stone?” asked the holy man. “Last night Lord Shiva told me in a dream that if I went to the outskirts of the village at dusk, a holy man would give me a stone that would make me rich forever.” The holy man rummaged in his sack and, pulling out a stone, he said, “He probably meant this one. I found it in the forest yesterday. Here, it’s yours if you want it.” The man gazed at the stone in wonder. It was the largest diamond in the world – the size of a man’s head. All night he tossed about in bed. At break of day he woke the holy man and said, “Give me the wealth that makes it possible for you to give this stone away.” The kingdom of God is not something we possess, but something we seek for and when we find it, we share it with others.

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

By Deacon Paul Cerosaletti • July 19, 2026
There is a 16-acre field that stretches up behind my house on what used to be my father’s farm. This spring, the farmer that rents that field planted a “new seeding” of alfalfa haycrop, rotating it out of corn production from the previous year. He tilled the soil, carefully incorporating the remains of the previous corn crop, making the ground level. He then rolled it with a large smooth roller to smooth the ground, push down the stones and make a firm seedbed. He seeded the alfalfa, and then rolled the ground again, making sure there was good seed-soil contact, to ensure the alfalfa, which too is the smallest of seeds, would germinate. Then he left the field. And waited. And hoped. And trusted. For the planting of seed is an act of faith.  That field of newly seeded alfalfa behind my house sprang up with great vigor in May and early June. It looked wonderful — a solid stand. The rain in the third week of June benefited the crop as it was getting dry, but brought with it as well a flush of an unwanted crop — weeds! This farming reality mirrors Jesus’s reminder in the parable that with the good seed of God sown and growing, there will always be weeds of the world — be they people, places, or things — that will compete with the growth of God’s Kingdom. In perhaps a surprising twist in the parable, the farmer instructs the laborers not to pull the weeds, lest they uproot the good crop as well. This is an exhortation to trust and patience in the action of God. While weeds can be devastating to a crop, in the Kingdom of God, it's important to remember that these weeds were once sown as good seed. St. Isadore of Pelusium, a fifth-century Desert Father of the Church, taught that God, the Master of the Harvest, is patient , and the weeds are not to be immediately pulled and burned, in order to give time for us to repent and mend our ways, that we might become good grain again. What? Weeds turned into good grain? Impossible, we think? But St. Isadore reminds us, lest we forget, of the striking examples of St. Peter and St. Paul, who strayed in sin, and yet with God’s grace and repentance went on to yield good and abundant fruit. Indeed, this is the story of so many of the saints! Thanks be to God for a merciful Father who “[gives] his children good ground for hope that [he] would permit repentance for [our] sins” (Wis 12:19b) — giving us a chance to become good grain again! One more thing about that field of newly-seeded alfalfa that became full of weeds. It was what we would term a “clear seeding”, which is a seeding solely of the intended principal crop (alfalfa in this case). There is another strategy that farmers employ to manage weeds in a new seeding, which is to plant them with another intended crop, usually a small grain like oats or barley. We call this other crop a companion crop . The companion springs up early and outcompetes the weeds, holding them at bay. Yet, due to its narrow but tall stature, it allows light down into the canopy to nurture the alfalfa. The result is two intended crops that thrive, helping each other yield a valuable and bountiful harvest. This agricultural practice reminds us that we are never Christians in isolation, but are indeed Christians in communion — companions that help each other on the journey towards the eternal harvest. That journey is the journey of holiness. The Church teaches that we are all called to holiness. That is our ultimate state of being for which we each are created. God sows us as companion crops for each other that we might help each other to grow in holiness, helping each other along the way by example and by deeds of love, kindness, and mercy, which sometimes include fraternal correction. Deeds which sometimes are the smallest of seeds, but grow to have the greatest of effect on each other. When we help each other grow in holiness, we fill the world with companion crops, keeping the weeds of the world at bay.