"I don't claim to know my way,
I still run in circles every day,
Running around half blind,
Life can be unkind.
"But it's better than it was,
It's better than it was,
I complain very little because
It's better than it was…"
"Hello, city, you're found an enemy in me…"
"Any book which inspires us to lead a better life is a good book."
—Venerable Fulton Sheen (1895-1979)
Friends, Jesus speaks in today’s Gospel of the treasure buried in a field that a man stumbles upon. And he sells everything he has in order to buy that field. Could the field be the human heart, the treasure be the imago of Christ, and the selling of everything be the surrendering of all for the sake of the mission?Video reflection by Father Greg Friedman, O.F.M. (U.S.C.C.B.): Daily Reflection.
Jesus also speaks of the merchant’s search for a pearl of great price; when he finds the pearl, the merchant sells everything in order to acquire it. Could this pearl be the one thing worth looking for? And could the selling off of everything else be the living out of the successful, centered life?
Joseph Campbell says that the greatest tragedy in life is not so much failure but rather climbing the ladder of success and finding out that it is up against the wrong wall! Bob Dylan was reflecting ruefully on the same phenomenon when he said, “You find out when you reach the top / you’re on the bottom.” We can spend our entire lives pursuing goals that are worthless, or even goals that are objectively good but not ours—or better, not Christ’s for us.
"Maybe I'm better alone, maybe it helps me see,
Well one thing's for certain, I just know I have to be free,
I've waited forever, what's one more day?
I've waited forever, why can't I walk away?
I'm sitting here beside myself, oh what could I do?
But I've learned my lesson and I need something new…"
Friends, today in our Gospel, the mother of James and John asks Jesus on their behalf for high places of authority in his kingdom. Ah, there is the voice of ambition. Some people don’t care at all about money or power or pleasure—but they care passionately about honor. A lot of people can identify with James and John. They want to go places; they want to be movers and shakers in society. Perhaps a number of people reading this reflection are filled with these emotions.Video reflection by Monsignor Robert Cannon (U.S.C.C.B.): Festal Reflection.
But Jesus turns the tables on them: “You do not know what you are asking.” He is indeed a King, and he will indeed rule Israel, but his crown will be made of thorns, and his throne will be a Roman instrument of torture.
And so he tries to clarify: “Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?” The key to honor in the kingdom of God is to drink the cup of suffering, to be willing to suffer out of love, to give one’s life away as a gift. Look at the lives of the saints. It is not about aggrandizing the ego but emptying it out.
"Hey, don't write yourself off yet,
It's only in your head, you feel left out
Or looked down on.
"Just try your best,
Try everything you can,
And don't you worry what they tell themselves
When you're away…
"Hey, you know they're all the same
You know you're doing better on your own (on your own),
So don't buy in.
"Live right now,
Yeah, just be yourself,
It doesn't matter if it's good enough (good enough)
For someone else…"
Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus explains the parable of the sower. This parable is reminiscent of another well-known story of Jesus: that of the shepherd and the lost sheep.Video reflection by Maria R. Parker, Ed.D. (U.S.C.C.B.): Daily Reflection.
“What man among you,” asks Jesus, “having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it?” Can we imagine the shepherds in Jesus’s audience shaking their heads? No shepherd would be so foolish! Which is just the point: God’s love is so extravagant that it breaks all of our categories of what is reasonable.
One of our favorite pastimes is setting limits to the love of God. We say that God loves those who love him, or that God loves those who are in the right church or have the right doctrines. But God does not sow only on the receptive soil; he sows everywhere, even in those places that are least receptive.
"It's not my birthday,
It's not today,
It's not my birthday;
So, why do you lunge out at me?…"
Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus explains that he speaks in parables to baffle the crowds, who “look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand.” The parables of Jesus are often exercises whose purpose is to confuse and confound the hearer, overturning her expectations and upsetting her theological convictions.Video reflection by Alice Heinzen (U.S.C.C.B.): Daily Reflection.
God is just, but in light of the parable of the vineyard owner, one realizes that the ordinary notion of justice only vaguely indicates what divine justice is like. God is compassionate, but after hearing the story of the prodigal son, one knows that divine compassion infinitely surpasses even the most radical mode of human love.
But why is the biblical God so elusive? Because he brought the whole of the finite universe into existence. God must be other in a way that transcends any and all modes of otherness discoverable within creation.
Friends, today we celebrate the Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene, the first witness of Christ’s rising, who declared the resurrection to the apostles.Video reflection by Theresa Notare, Ph.D. (U.S.C.C.B.): Festal Reflection.
In point of fact, the Easter declaration, properly understood, has always been and still is an explosion, an earthquake, a revolution. For the Easter faith is that Jesus of Nazareth, who had been brutally put to death by the Roman authorities, is alive again through the power of the Holy Spirit—and not in some metaphorical sense.
That the resurrection is a literary device or a symbol that Jesus’s cause goes on is a fantasy born in the faculty lounges of Western universities over the past couple of centuries. The still startling claim of the first witnesses is that Jesus rose bodily from death, presenting himself to his disciples to be seen, even handled.
The hope of ancient Israel was the unification of heaven and earth in a great marriage. Recall a central line from the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The bodily resurrection of Jesus is the powerful sign that the two orders are in fact coming together.
"f you have the courage to imitate Mary Magdalene in her sins, have the courage to imitate her penance."
—Saint Pius of Pietrelcina, O.F.M.Cap. ("PadrePio;" 1887-1968, feast: 23 September)
Friends, in today’s Gospel, someone tells Jesus, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, asking to speak with you.” Jesus stretches his hand toward his disciples and says, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother.”Video reflection by Janet McLaughlin (U.S.C.C.B.): Daily Reflection.
Family is wonderful. There is nothing in the world wrong with fostering the flourishing of your family. But over and again, the Bible places the goods of the world into question—even something as good as family relationships.
Why? Because family isn’t God. It is not that which you should serve with your whole heart; it doesn’t belong in the center of your life.
Is family the point around which most of your energies revolve? Is it your primary focus as you make your way through the day? Are there times when you feel your family obligations competing with the will of God?
Then remember Jesus’s words: “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?… Whoever does the will of my heavenly Father.”
"When we turned and shook as we had a look,
In the room where the dead men lay,
So big Jim Dwyer made his last trip,
To the shores where his father's laid…
"Fare thee well, going away, there's nothing left to say,
Farewell to New York City, boys, to Boston and PA,
He took them out with a well-aimed clout, and we often heard him say:
'I'm a free-born man of the USA.'
"He fought the champ in Pittsburgh and he slashed him to the ground,
He took on Tiny Tartanella and it only went one round,
He never had no time for reds, for drink or dice or whores,
But he never threw a fight when the fight was right;
So, they sent him to the war.
"Fare the well, gone away, there's nothing left to say,
With a slainte, Joe and an Erin go, my love's in Amerikay,
The calling of the rosary, Spanish wine from far away,
'I'm a free-born man of the USA'…"
Friends, in today’s Gospel, the Lord tells his opponents, who asked for a sign, that no sign will be given except the sign of Jonah—that is, the resurrection. According to the early Church Fathers, Christ’s coming precipitated a warfare with the powers that hold the world in their sway.ordo to the world, Jesus had to move into the arena of disorder, but this invasion was not met with passivity or acquiescence. Rather, the principalities of the world—Herod, Pilate, the scribes and Pharisees, the demons—waged a ferocious struggle against him, and it was only through the drama of the cross and resurrection that Jesus managed to defeat them.
In bringing God’s
"That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for Mankind."The Wayback Machine Tour of Apollo 11
Friends, today’s Gospel features one of Jesus’s most beloved parables: that of the mustard seed. “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.”Video reflection by Rev. George Rumley, O.S.B. (U.S.C.C.B.): Sunday Reflection.
How does God tend to work? What does the building up of the kingdom typically look like? From the very small to the very great—and by a slow, gradual process. God tends to operate under the radar, on the edges of things, quietly, clandestinely, not drawing attention to himself.
In the City of God, St. Augustine opined that the Church is like Noah’s ark, a small ship bouncing on the rough seas of history. As the great empires come and go, as the waves of history crash noisily against the shore, God’s kingdom is quietly advancing, unnoticed but inevitable.
One of my very favorite images from C. S. Lewis speaks to this principle. How, he asks, did God enter history? Quietly, in a forgotten corner of the Roman Empire—sneaking, as it were, behind enemy lines.
