Hold it Tightly: The 17th Sunday of Ordinary Time

                                                            Hold it Tightly:

The 17th Sunday of Ordinary Time

July 30, 2023

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1 Kings 3:5-12; Psalm 119; Romans 8:28-30; Matthew 13:44-52

 

Solomon utters a most edifying prayer in Scripture when he asks for an understanding heart in order to govern well. How we wish this was the prayer of politicians and leaders of all types. Solomon set the standard in becoming a person for others whose goals was to contribute to the common good. God rewards him with the gift of discernment to be able to choose what is best for one’s soul. He is given what we often want: the ability to have confidence that we are doing the right thing when we are doing our best.

 

The Gospel concludes its sayings on the reign of God by claiming that when a person gets a glimpse of this reign, it offers promises that nothing else in the world can provide and one can only regard it as one’s highest priority. Think about it. This reign of God means that we are loved so radically, forgiven so wholeheartedly, reconciled so thoroughly that we know deep down in our soul that this love is personal and profound, and it is meant that we know it with certitude. With God’s acceptance, with God’s inclusivity, we fully know that we can be quite fine even if the church does not accept us. No human judgment, no human exclusion, no human derision, or no human-created categories of being can ever separate us from God’s mercy and saving work. God wants us most deeply to know that God desires a really tight relationship based upon affection and care for each other. 

 

God can grant Solomon an understanding heart filled with wisdom because God first has that compassionate wisdom that God wants to share. God understands your suffering – and your joys. God knows human suffering better than we know it, and God also knows the badness that a human heart can do to others, whether it is harsh condemning words, our demonizing people who hurt us, or the ways we put people on the outside of our lives because another person is not living or choosing as we would like them to live. We hurt people so much that we nearly break them. Sometimes we do so by accident. We are the cause of so much suffering in other people; sometimes the church is the cause of this suffering, and the effects are long-lasting and indelible, but fortunately, we have a treasure that erases that suffering.

 

Our God makes sense of what we need. This is a God who saves. This is a God who can bring us joy even when the world around us seems to be dark. This is a God of hope and optimism, and yet we know our work is challenging. This God gave us Jesus as the one to follow and to imitate because he holds the same understanding heart as God. He is the one who keeps urging us in so many ways to accept his friendship and to put our trust in him as he did in God. When we recognize what a gift we have, we can only rejoice, and then celebrate with those who always realize that they have found this gift and treasure it. Just holding onto it provides us with the compassion, care, and understanding that reveals to others that we believe. Our treasure is the work that God is doing with and for us. Any increase of mercy, any increase of hope, any increase of acceptance shows to us that God is at work in the human heart. For this, I rejoice, and I want to hold onto the joy of knowing God, Jesus, the Spirit, and you, God’s companions.

 

Scripture for Daily Mass

 

Monday: (Exodus 32) Moses turned and came down the mountain with the two tablets of the commandments in his hands, tablets that were written on both sides, front and back; tablets that were made by God, having inscriptions on them that were engraved by God himself.

 

Tuesday: (Exodus 33) The tent, which was called the meeting tent, Moses used to pitch at some distance away, outside the camp. Anyone who wished to consult the LORD would go to this meeting tent outside the camp.

 

Wednesday: (Exodus 16) The children of Israel set out from Elim, and came into the desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departure from the land of Egypt. Here in the desert the whole assembly of the children of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron.

 

Thursday: (Exodus 40) On the first day of the first month of the second year
the Dwelling was erected. It was Moses who erected the Dwelling. He placed its pedestals, set up its boards, put in its bars, and set up its columns. He spread the tent over the Dwelling and put the covering on top of the tent.

 

Friday (Levitiucs 23) When you come into the land which I am giving you, and reap your harvest, you shall bring a sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest, who shall wave the sheaf before the LORD that it may be acceptable for you.

 

Saturday (Leviticus 25) This fiftieth year you shall make sacred by proclaiming liberty in the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when every one of you shall return to his own property, every one to his own family estate.

 

Gospel: 

Monday: (Matthew 13) Jesus proposed a parable to the crowds. "The Kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a person took and sowed in a field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, yet when full-grown it is the largest of plants.

 

Tuesday: (Matthew 13) He who sows good seed is the Son of Man, the field is the world, the good seed the children of the Kingdom. The weeds are the children of the Evil One, and the enemy who sows them is the Devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. Just as weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age.

 

Wednesday (Matthew 13) The Kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field, which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

 

Thursday (Matthew 13) The Kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea,
which collects fish of every kind. When it is full they haul it ashore and sit down to put what is good into buckets. What is bad they throw away. 

 

Friday (Matthew 13) Where did this man get such wisdom and mighty deeds?
Is he not the carpenter's son? Is not his mother named Mary and his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas? Are not his sisters all with us? Where did this man get all this?

 

Saturday (Matthew 14) Herod the tetrarch heard of the reputation of Jesus and said to his servants, "This man is John the Baptist. He has been raised from the dead; that is why mighty powers are at work in him."

 

Saints of the Week

 

July 30: Peter Chrysologus, bishop and doctor (406-450), was the archbishop of Ravenna, Italy in the 5th century when the faithful became lax and adopted pagan practices. He revived the faith through his preaching. He was titled Chrysologus because of his 'golden words.'

 

July 31: Ignatius of Loyola, priest (1491-1556), is one of the founders of the Jesuits and the author of the Spiritual Exercises. As a Basque nobleman, he was wounded in a battle at Pamplona in northeastern Spain and convalesced at his castle where he realized he followed a methodology of discernment of spirits. When he recovered, he ministered to the sick and dying and then retreated to a cave at Manresa, Spain where he had experiences that formed the basis of The Spiritual Exercises. In order to preach, he studied Latin, earned a Master’s Degree at the University of Paris, and then gathered other students to serve Jesus. Francis Xavier and Peter Faber were his first friends. After ordination, Ignatius and his nine friends went to Rome where they formally became the Society of Jesus. Most Jesuits were sent on mission, but Ignatius stayed in Rome directing the rapidly growing religious order, composing its constitutions, and perfecting the Spiritual Exercises. He died in 1556 and the Jesuit Order was already 1,000 men strong. 

 

August 1: Alphonsus Liguori, bishop and doctor(1696-1787), founded a band of mission priests that became the Redemptorists. He wrote a book called "Moral Theology" that linked legal aspects with kindness and compassion for others. He became known for his responsive and thoughtful way of dealing with confessions.

 

August 2: Peter Faber, S.J., priest and founder (1506-1546), was one of the original companions of the Society of Jesus. He was a French theologian and the first Jesuit priest and was the presider over the first vows of the lay companions. He became known for directing the Spiritual Exercises very well. He was called to the Council of Trent but died as the participants were gathering.

 

August 2: Eusebius of Vercelli, bishop (d. 371), was ordained bishop after becoming a lector. He attended a council in Milan where he opposed the Arians. The emperor exiled him to Palestine because he contradicted secular influences. He returned to his diocese where the emperor died.

 

August 2: Peter Julian Eymard, priest (1811-1868) left the Oblates when he became ill. When his father died, he became a priest and soon transferred into the Marists but left them to found the Blessed Sacrament Fathers to promote the significance of the Eucharist.

 

August 4: John Vianney, priest (1786-1859) became the parish priest in Ars-en-Dombes where he spent the rest of his life preaching and hearing confessions. Hundreds of visitors and pilgrims visited him daily. He would hear confessions 12-16 hours per day. 

 

August 5: Dedication of the Basilica of Mary Major in Rome is celebrated because it is the largest and oldest of the churches in honor of Mary. The veneration began in 435 when the church was repaired after the Council of Ephesus in 431 when Mary was proclaimed the Mother of God. This is the church where Ignatius of Loyola said his first Mass and where Francis of Assisi assembled the first crèche. 

 

 

This Week in Jesuit History

 

• July 30, 1556. As he lay near death, Ignatius asked Juan de Polanco to go and obtain for him the blessing of the pope. 
• July 31, 1556. The death in Rome of Ignatius Loyola. 
• August 1, 1938. The Jesuits of the Middle United States, by Gilbert Garrigan was copyrighted. This monumental three-volume work followed the history of the Jesuits in the Midwest from the early 1820s to the 1930s. 
• August 2, 1981. The death of Gerald Kelly, moral theologian and author of "Modern Youth and Chastity." 
• August 3, 1553. Queen Mary Tudor made her solemn entrance into London. As she passed St Paul's School, Edmund Campion, then a boy of thirteen delivered an address. 
• August 4, 1871. King Victor Emmanuel signed the decree that sanctioned the seizure of all of the properties belonging to the Roman College and to S. Andrea. 
• August 5, 1762. The Parliament at Paris condemned the Society's Institute as opposed to natural law. It confiscated all Jesuit property and forbade the Jesuit habit and community life.