More Parables

Posted on July 24, 2023 by Friar Musings

This coming Sunday is the 17th Sunday of Ordinary Time. We continue to listen to more parable from the Gospel of Matthew. Again we are presented with a doublet: the hidden treasure and the pearl of great price.

Matthew 13:44-52 ⁴⁴“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. ⁴⁵Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls. ⁴⁶When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it. ⁴⁷Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea, which collects fish of every kind. ⁴⁸When it is full they haul it ashore and sit down to put what is good into buckets. What is bad they throw away. ⁴⁹Thus it will be at the end of the age. The angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous ⁵⁰and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth. ⁵¹“Do you understand all these things?” They answered, “Yes.” ⁵²And he replied, “Then every scribe who has been instructed in the kingdom of heaven is like the head of a household who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old.” Continue reading →

The Mustard Seed and Yeast

Posted on July 22, 2023 by Friar Musings

This coming Sunday is the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time. In this post we move away from the parable of the “Weeds among the Wheat.”

31 He proposed another parable to them. “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a person took and sowed in a field. 32 It is the smallest of all the seeds, yet when full-grown it is the largest of plants. It becomes a large bush, and the ‘birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches.’” 33 He spoke to them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch was leavened.” Continue reading →

Our Impatience with the Weed

Posted on July 21, 2023 by Friar Musings

This coming Sunday is the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time. The landowner (God) is quite patient and accepts that there will be “weeds” among the harvest – it is the lot of the human enterprises. Some people do not/will not/cannot hear the Word sown in their lives. The laborers in the parable are quick to want to eradicate the poison. I think history has shown that we reach beyond our calling – not to simply point out error – but to extinguish the source and root of that error. In the first centuries of the Church, when some of the epic battles over theological orthodoxy and heresy were waged, executions were not part of the Church’s response. There might be condemnation, banishment and loss of position, but people were not put to death. Yet a millennia later the island nation of England has its book of Protestant and Catholic martyrs as witness to our human reaction to “weeds” among us, despite the Gospel message. Continue reading →

Two Sowings

Posted on July 20, 2023 by Friar Musings

This coming Sunday is the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time. One should note that this parable of the “Weeds among the Wheat” is explained in Mt 13, outside our gospel, but closely placed:

36 Then, dismissing the crowds, he went into the house. His disciples approached him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.” 37 He said in reply, “He who sows good seed is the Son of Man, 38 the field is the world, the good seed the children of the kingdom. The weeds are the children of the evil one, 39 and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. Continue reading →

Weeds Among the Wheat

Posted on July 19, 2023 by Friar Musings

This coming Sunday is the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time. This parable is unique to Matthew and unlike the other evangelists who also tell a pericope of the “Sower and the Seed,” Matthew’s use and placement of this unique parable seems to serve as a reinforcement of the themes of on-going conversion “in the world” that place where anxiety and the lure of riches choke the word and it bears no fruit (Mt 13:22). Continue reading →

Why do people not believe

Posted on July 18, 2023 by Friar Musings

This coming Sunday is the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time. As we covered in the previous post we have moved from the missionary commissioning of the Twelve with the warning that things will not always go well for them. This is part of the message in Matthew 10 and 11. While Matthew 12 is not part of the Sunday cycle of readings, it is covered extensively in the weekday readings – as we covered previously. Continue reading →

In the flow of Sunday Gospels

Posted on July 17, 2023 by Friar Musings

This coming Sunday is the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time in Lectionary Cycle A. In the flow of the Sunday gospels since the 11th Sunday there was a strong theme of mission. In those five gospel readings we have witnessed Jesus commissioning the Twelve, encouraging them to proclaim the message of Good News from the rooftops, while warning them that all this will come at a cost. On the 13th Sunday gospel Jesus makes clear they will face opposition and pushback from all quarters of life, including their families – and they may well have to choose between family and Jesus. In the course of those three gospels, in a previous post I noted that Mt 10:9-25 was not a Sunday reading but it only emphasizes the opposition, trials, and suffering that they may well face on this mission. Continue reading →

Why the varied responses?

Posted on July 15, 2023 by Friar Musings

This coming Sunday is the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time. In the context of Jesus’ ministry the parable serves to explain why it is that the good news of the kingdom meets with such a varied response as we have seen in chapters 11–12, from enthusiastic acceptance to outright rejection. The fault lies not in the message, but in those who receive it.

People are both inadequate in themselves to respond as the word of the kingdom requires (compacted and shallow soil), and also exposed to competing pressures from outside (tribulation and persecution, anxieties and lures, and behind them all the evil one himself). The wonder is not that some do not produce fruit, but that any do. But here lies the parable’s encouragement both to Jesus’ followers then and to all who since then have preached this same gospel; not all will respond, but there will be some who do, and the harvest will be rich.

Image credit: “The Sower” Vincent van Gogh (June 1888), Van Gogh Museum, Public Domain

Sower, seed or ground?

Posted on July 14, 2023 by Friar Musings

This coming Sunday is the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time and we have been considering Jesus’ parable of the sower who went out to sow. In the parable there are three primary images: sower, seed, and ground. While there may be some differences in emphasis or specific details, the general understanding of the three images and their interconnection can be summarized as follows: Continue reading →

What did they hear?

Posted on July 13, 2023 by Friar Musings

What did they hear?

This coming Sunday is the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time. Matthew 13 is a “day of parables.” The parable of the sower is spoken in public to great crowds (vv. 1–3), but its explanation and the teaching about parables are spoken only to the disciples (vv. 10–11). More parables are then spoken to ‘the crowds’ (v. 34), but the crowds are again left behind (v. 36), and the second explanation and further parables are spoken to the disciples in ‘the house’ (which Jesus had left in v. 1). The unresponsive crowds are thus clearly distinguished from the disciples to whom alone explanation is given, and this distinction is spelt out in vv. 11–17. Continue reading →

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