12 Sunday in Ordinary Time June 20, 2021

12 ^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, June 20, 2021 (Season B)

Peace be with you on this, our celebration of the 12 ^th Sunday in Ordinary Time. And today also, just happens to also be Father’s Day. Now for those of you who remember one of Good Shepherd’s pastors from not too long ago, there’s no doubt in my mind if he were standing up here right now, he’d tell us all this is just another one of those Hallmark holidays invented to make us buy stuff. And unless you live in a cave with no TV, computer, or mail delivery, you must certainly understand his opinion. Regardless however, all of us who are alive should probably take some time today to reflect on the miracle of life and say, “thank you” and “happy Father’s Day.”

You know there’s a little story I’ve told before but today especially, it deserves repeating. Hopefully, anyone who has sat here in Mass through the years is at least somewhat familiar with the Biblical word Abba. So, scholars tell us it is a more familiar Aramaic form for the Hebrew word Father and beyond that I personally, had never given it much thought until a business trip to Israel over 30 years ago. I was at a Mediterranean coastal beach near Tel Aviv and noticed a little girl running full speed through the shallows when she suddenly tripped and went facefirst into the sand and water. So, she comes up out of the shallow water on her hands and knees, sputtering and spitting, looks around, sees her father on the beach, and then runs to him with her arms open wide, crying, “Abba, Abba, Abba.” My friends, since that day, some 30 years ago, on a beach in Israel, the word Abba has never really meant the same to me. Jesus lived at a time when the Jewish people wouldn’t even say the sacred Hebrew name of God out loud. Today we pronounce that ancient holy name Yahweh but, after that simple event I witnessed in modern day Israel, I’ve realized Jesus tells us we can literally call God, Daddy. Now I think, there’s something we can meditate on for a while.

So, the Catholic Church cautions homilists on secular holidays like this to stay focused on the readings for the Mass and don’t go astray so to speak. Regardless, there is someone I believe deserves mentioning today in particular however, who may not initially appear to be relevant to today’s readings. Some of you may not even know it, but Pope Francis named 2021 the “Year of St. Joseph” and certainly, I think Father’s Day may be a good time to talk about him for a couple of minutes. The “silent saint” who utters not one single word in Scripture and yet was chosen by God to be the protector and provider for God’s incarnate Son on earth. We’re told by St Matthew; Joseph was a righteous man but even as a righteous Jewish man he does not do exactly what the Mosaic Law called for. Joseph does not put a pregnant Mary aside. Acting on faith, he brings Mary into his home. He parents and protects Emmanuel, “God with us” and quietly, contributes to what Jesus Christ, both God and man, will become. Even impacting in a way, how Jesus would conduct his earthly ministry.

People often say, “We don’t know anything about Joseph.” Well, we do know what matters. The Bible tells us he was righteous. We certainly know he was faithful. His actions proved that. Joseph was courageous as he packed up what little he could and went into the unknown foreign land of Egypt. He was generous as the needs of Mary and the Child Jesus came before all else, even his own familiar life and livelihood. Joseph was wise because he clearly understood God’s ways were not his ways. Perhaps most important to realize is this, Joseph was kind. His kindness may outweigh all his other good qualities, even his righteousness. We all understand, righteousness can sometimes produce judgementalism and become a stumbling block but kindness, which contains an element of mercy, can move that block aside. Joseph’s kindness was a demonstration of his strength. His upbringing, in unyielding righteousness would have told him to cast Mary aside but his kindness taught him mercy at times, must outweigh the law. This is something Jesus himself often taught, perhaps most vividly in the story of the woman caught in adultery.

So, we really do know a lot about Joseph after all. His righteous life developed faith. Faith gave him courage. Courage permitted generosity. Generosity let him grow in wisdom. And ultimately, wisdom taught Joseph kindness. Maybe a good little prayer to say now and then would be, “Saint Joseph, teach me kindness.”

Well sisters and brothers, believe it or not, thanks to good old Saint Augustine and an ancient prayer to Saint Joseph, dating back to the 11 ^th Century AD, it came to me, this Gospel reading today is tied to Jesus’s earthly stepfather. Now however, I have to go back even further than that trip to Israel in the late 80’s to make the connection. In 1968 I was a 20-year-old Army helicopter pilot in Vietnam and on one occasion I admitted to a Catholic Chaplain one of my fears was burning in a crash. So, he hands me a Saint Joseph Holy Card with a prayer on the back and tells me the prayer dates to the First Crusades. He says if I say the prayer daily with faith, I will not die a violent death and will be protected from flames. Really? Now honestly, this was not a very religious time in my life, but as old Ike Eisenhauer once said, “There are no atheists in the foxhole.” So, I prayed. Here are the closing words to that prayer; “I never weary contemplating you and Jesus asleep in your arms. I dare not approach while He reposes near your heart. Press him in my name and kiss his fine head for me and ask him to return the kiss when I draw my dying breath. St Joseph, patron of departing souls – pray for me.”

Now St Augustine compares today’s Gospel of a boat on a stormy sea to a Christian’s life. He says all of God’s children embark with Christ on a life full of dangerous storms, especially attacks from evil spirits and temptations of the flesh. He always emphasizes that we should never fear, because Christ is ever with us and will never leave us to face our perils alone. With the specific imagery of today’s Gospel reading however, St Augustine likens the sleeping Jesus in the back of the boat to our own reliance on self-centered egos and then, because of distractions by the cares and pleasures of the world, we have allowed the power of God within us to go to sleep. It’s only when we reawaken Christ within us through faith that the power of the storm is calmed.

Consequently, when I read St Augustine’s interpretation of today’s Gospel and thought of the sleeping Jesus in the boat and then thought of the sleeping Jesus in the Prayer to Saint Joseph, I realized through faith, the storms will be calmed, and he will never leave us to face our perils alone.

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Paul T. Keil, 18-19 July 2026 16 th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Season A Peace be with you and welcome to our celebration of the Mass for the 16 th Sunday in Ordinary Time. OK, some of you may remember I’ve said before, in Matthew’s Gospel, Chapters 5, 6, and 7 comprise the whole Sermon on the Mount, but did you know Chapter 13, where we are today, is often called the Sermon of the Parables. In this single chapter Matthew strings together seven separate parables from Jesus. Today we just heard numbers two, three, and four. Last weekend we heard the first one with the Parable of the Sower and what happens to the seeds scattered in different places. Next weekend you’ll hear the final three parables from Chapter 13 so, be sure to come back. So, what is Jesus saying in these readings. Last week we heard the parable about seeds as an allegory for Jesus’s words falling on a path and being eaten by birds, falling on rocky ground and withering with no roots, falling into thorns and being choked by life’s anxieties, and falling on fertile soil to bear fruit. Today we have Jesus giving us another parable about planting seeds and again, just like last week, Jesus’ disciples ask him to explain the parable. And since He stops to explain both parables about planting, he just might be trying to emphasize something important here for his disciples, and for us. One thing is clear in these parables however, God’s Kingdom will always coexist in this physical world with forces opposing it, like the wheat and the weeds growing together. Now many religious people struggle with this condition. Some see it as predestination. A weed in the wheat field or a seed in the rocks must represent people predestined to go to hell. That’s what it literally says, right? Still others ask in frustration; this is God we’re talking about, why does God’s Kingdom have to struggle with opposing forces at all? Why doesn’t God just get rid of the evil? Well, our old friend, St Thomas Aquinas wrote quite a bit about good and evil coexisting in our fallen world. He said sometimes the two are so tightly interwoven that you couldn’t have certain types of good without certain types of evil. For example, he said simply, “there would be no virtue of the martyr without the cruelty of the tyrant.” Friends, God delights in our freedom, our intelligence, and our cooperation when we freely make the decision to accept God’s love. Without free will we cannot choose to love. Jesus’ explanation of the wheat and weed parable certainly helps when he says; “The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels” and in the next verse he says; “The Son of Man will send his angels.” There is a very important take-away here every single Christian should remember. Eternal judgment belongs to God alone, not to anyone else – period. This is a consistent message Jesus gives us in all four Gospels but unfortunately, there are those who sometimes forget this simple divine fact about humanity’s relationship with the unlimited creator of the universe. We may perceive an individual as being bad or even intrinsically evil but judgment for their immortal souls belongs exclusively to God. I always like an old adage that goes like this, “if I ever get to heaven, I may be surprised by who I see there, and they may be even more surprised to see me.” I’ll admit, over the years for a long time, as I’ve meditated on this parable about weeds and wheat or last week’s parable about seeds, especially the ones falling into thorns choked by worldly anxiety, there was something always bothering me. You see, if we’re not careful both parables can make life, heaven, and hell sound kind of random or worse yet, they can make God’s love sound like it is exclusively reserved for preselected people. I know now however, there is nothing further from the truth. If you’ve lived life for a while and think back to times when you were say maybe,,, struggling in school, or first dating, or trying to make ends meet while raising a family, or competing for promotions at work, or trying to buy that first house, you realize there may have been times when your life wasn’t very spiritually fruitful. In fact, I now realize there were times in my own past when thoughts of God, salvation, or prayer were nowhere in my daily routine. I even wonder; was there a period in my life when I was one of those weeds or a seed in the thorns? Thankfully, with reflection on the whole of Scripture, guidance from the Church, and maybe some help from the Holy Spirit I realize now these parables are not “either / or” propositions. God doesn’t intentionally create some people as weeds and some people as wheat nor does God throw souls into the wind to randomly fall in the thorns, or on stony ground, or in fertile soil. If you’re not careful, you can come to those conclusions, however. You can read the Bible too narrowly and pick out verses here and there that help support your personal image of what you want God to be. Those tend to be the same people who like to do God’s judgment work for him. Here’s the thing; some of us here today may have actually spent some time as those ugly weeds but at some point, with God’s help, we decided to change and now we’re wheat growing in that good old fertile soil. My sisters and brothers, sin must never be viewed as a permanent state. Like we heard from the Book of Wisdom today, “you gave your children good ground for hope that you would permit repentance for their sins.” This is the greatest gift of our Christian faith; God loves us all so much, even great sinners, God is always ready to forgive. So, here’s a challenge and homework for us all today. Most of us know people out there from all age groups, but especially some of our youth, who may be temporarily living life like the weeds in our parable today or maybe tangled in those thorns of life’s tribulations. First and foremost, we must be confident, sin is not a permanent state of life, second, we don’t judge, third, pray for them no matter how nasty they may seem. And finally, if we’re really, really brave, we offer them a hand to pull them up and out of the weeds, rocks, or thorns into God’s fertile soil.