Can you hear me now?: The 15th Sunday of Ordinary Time

                                                  Can you hear me now?:

The 15th Sunday of Ordinary Time

July 16, 2023

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Isaiah 55:10-11; Psalm 65; Romans 8:18-23; Matthew 13:1-23

 

In the very center of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus presents this parable of the Sower and the seed, and for us today the message sounds straight-forward. As followers of Jesus, we are to be open to his word no matter the conditions in which we find ourselves. As much as possible, we are to move to fertile ground so that his words can have its greatest effect upon us and thereby upon the larger society around us. The parable is all about our capacity to hear the words of God. Let’s assess our situations. How well do we listen to one another? How well do we hear? Our capacity to hear God’s word is at the same level of our ability to hear one another. How are we doing?

 

Most people will self-assess themselves as fairly skilled listeners. Let’s challenge that. I was with a long-time married couple the other day when the wife remarked, “My husband has selected hearing. He only pays attention at certain times.” He later pulled me aside to whisper, “She does the same to me.” Each experiences a disconnect as one is trying to reveal one’s thought to the other. The point is that we may hear the words and not hear the deeper meaning. As Jesus is teaching us, the spoken words have a complexity we do not appreciate. 

 

          We experience a loneliness when we do not fully apprehend what a person is saying. As with the married couple I just mentioned, each is saying that one feels dismissed and devalued at times in the relationship. We have to see beyond the words to really engage and relate well. When someone says, “I feel misunderstood,” often the person needs helps processing one’s experience and articulating what one is feeling. Then, there is the statement that really tugs at the heart of caregivers who sees a loved one suffering in a hospital near the end of one’s life. The person repeats, “I want to go home,” and while that may be true, the home may not be the physical building where that person lived, but the home that is referenced is that person’s restoration to good health when the person feels at one’s most like oneself. What is beyond those words? Home is within ourselves, that quiet, comfortable place where one is in the most right relations with self, God, and others. Home is the place where the person is fully restored, a time before one’s illness or hospitalization. That is what the person yearns for.

 

          Have a little fun this week and listen to the ways people talk and respond. It is a lot of fun to sit back and to evaluate the directions and turns of conversations. We find that people talk far more than they listen, and they want to add their experiences to the conversation without understanding how one really gets heard. There are often misalignments and mis-firings that create disconnects. People suffer when they are not heard and then they try many ways to get themselves heard – or seen or known! Their loneliness comes out sideways. The perceptions and misperceptions that we carry with us cause greater suffering, and it is often because people are feeling devalued because they are not heard. We can ease suffering by learning to listen, to be open to what another person experiences, even if it goes against our own values and worldviews.

 

          Jesus emphasizes that we must be able to hear – at different levels and layers – to fully grasp his messages about the reign of God. Hearing is one level; listening is deeper; appropriating the message is still far deeper. To hear Jesus effectively, we must first hear one another better. This is a truly useful skill to acquire. It means that we are open to the experiences of another, and we have to likewise be open to God’s word if we are to follow Jesus. The mysteries of God’s reign will open to us when we give time and space to truly capture the essence of God’s word through improving our capacity to hear well.

 

Scripture for Daily Mass

Monday: (Exodus 1) A new king, who knew nothing of Joseph, came to power in Egypt. He said to his subjects, "Look how numerous and powerful the people of the children of Israel are growing, more so than we ourselves! Come, let us deal shrewdly with them to stop their increase.

 

Tuesday: (Exodus 2) A certain man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman,
who conceived and bore a son. Seeing that he was a goodly child, she hid him for three months. When she could hide him no longer, she took a papyrus basket, daubed it with bitumen and pitch, and putting the child in it, placed it among the reeds on the river bank.

 

Wednesday: (Exodus 3) Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. Leading the flock across the desert, he came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There an angel of the LORD appeared to him in fire flaming out of a bush. As he looked on, he was surprised to see that the bush, though on fire, was not consumed.

 

Thursday: (Exodus 3) Moses, hearing the voice of the LORD from the burning bush, said to him, "When I go to the children of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' if they ask me, 'What is his name?' what am I to tell them?"
God replied, "I am who am."

 

Friday (Exodus 11) Although Moses and Aaron performed various wonders in Pharaoh's presence, the LORD made Pharaoh obstinate, and he would not let the children of Israel leave his land.

 

Saturday (Song of Songs 3) On my bed at night I sought him whom my heart loves–
I sought him but I did not find him. I will rise then and go about the city; in the streets and crossings I will seek Him whom my heart loves. I sought him but I did not find him.

 

Gospel: 

Monday: (Matthew 10) Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

 

Tuesday: (Matthew 11) "Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented in sackcloth and ashes.

 

Wednesday (Matthew 11) "I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike. Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will.

 

Thursday (Matthew 11) Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves.

 

Friday (Matthew 12) Jesus was going through a field of grain on the sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, "See, your disciples are doing what is unlawful to do on the sabbath."

 

Saturday (John 20) Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, "They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don't know where they put him."

 

Saints of the Week

 

July 16: Our Lady of Mount Carmel is the patronal feast of the Carmelites. The day commemorates the day Simon Stock was given a brown scapular by Mary in 1251. In the 12th century, Western hermits settled on Mount Carmel overlooking the plain of Galilee just as Elijah did. These hermits built a chapel to Mary in the 13th century and began a life of solitary prayer.

 

July 18: Camillus de Lellis (1550-1614), began his youthful life as a soldier where he squandered away his father's inheritance through gambling. He was cared for by Capuchins, but was unable to join them because of a leg ailment. He cared for the sick in hospitals that were deplorable. He founded an order that would care for the sick and dying and for soldiers injured in combat.

 

July 20: Apollinaris, bishop and martyr (1st century) was chosen directly by Peter to take care of souls in Ravenna. He lived through the two emperors whose administrations exiled and tortured him, though he was faithful to his evangelizing work to his death.

 

July 21: Lawrence of Brindisi, priest and doctor (1559-1619) was a Capuchin Franciscan who was proficient in many languages and well-versed in the Bible. He was selected by the pope to work for the conversion of the Jews and to fight the spread of Protestantism. He held many positions in the top administration of the Franciscans.

 

July 22: Mary Magdalene, apostle (1st century), became the "apostle to the apostles" as the first witness of the resurrection. Scriptures point to her great love of Jesus and she stood by him at the cross and brought spices to anoint his body after death. We know little about Mary though tradition conflates her with other biblical woman. Luke portrays her as a woman exorcised of seven demons. 

 

This Week in Jesuit History

 

• July 16, 1766. The death of Giusuppe Castiglione, painter and missionary to China. They paid him a tribute and gave him a state funeral in Peking (Beijing). 
• July 17, 1581. Edmund Campion was arrested in England. 
• July 18, 1973. The death of Fr. Eugene P Murphy. Under his direction the Sacred Heart Hour, which was introduced by Saint Louis University in 1939 on its radio station [WEW], became a nationwide favorite. 
• July 19, 1767. At Naples, Prime Minister Tannic, deprived the Jesuits of the spiritual care of the prisoners, a ministry that they had nobly discharged for 158 years. 
• July 20, 1944. An abortive plot against Adolf Hitler by Claus von Stauffenberg and his allies resulted in the arrest of Fr. Alfred Delp. 
• July 21, 1773. In the Quirinal Palace, Rome, Clement XIV signed the Brief for the suppression of the Society. 
• July 22, 1679. The martyrdom at Cardiff, Wales, of St Phillip Evans.