February 22, 2023 - Ash Wednesday

Paul T. Keil , February 22, 2023

Ash Wednesday, Year A

Peace be with you on this, our celebration of the Mass for Ash Wednesday, 2023. So, the first question that often arises for most of us, as we approach Ash Wednesday is, “What will I give up or possibly add to my daily routine this year for Lent?” Maybe we do an examination of our lives and come up with some bad habits we need to break, or we may get really serious and even decide and try to focus on an area of repeated sin in our lives. On the other hand, we may simply think of things like eating less, exercising more, or eliminating some food or drink we really like. Regardless, if those are the types of options you’ve been thinking about for the last few days – friends, you’ve been dwelling on the wrong question. The question we often fail to ask first and dwell on for a while is, “why?” “Why” is it so important to enter into these 40 days at all and view them as any different than any other days of the year?

Most good Christians will answer, “It is important so we can prepare ourselves for the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ during the Tridium.” While the answer is correct, it is somewhat limited and really doesn’t get to the heart of “why.” Yes, for sure, we want to grow by God’s grace, in holiness and virtue, but Lent is a lot more than a forty-day self-improvement program. The second reading we have today from Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians gives us a pretty good answer to the whole “why” question.

First Paul gives us an awesome job title beyond the simple word Christian, when he says, “So, we are ambassadors for Christ, as if God were appealing through us.” God appealing through us. OK St. Paul, that makes me squirm a little. Then good old Paul tells us, as ambassadors, what our message to the world must be. We are supposed to tell the world, “We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” Oh no, you may be saying to yourself right now, wait a second Lord, I’m not a Priest, a Deacon, or a missionary and you want me running around telling people to be reconciled to God? That ain’t my job. Well friends, all I can say is this, it’s right there in the Bible, written down by St Paul for all of us Christians.

Hearing this, some of us may feel inadequate or unworthy. How could God ever use an ordinary, sinful, broken person, like me to reach other people? The answer is, God does it all the time! All we need to do is read the Bible and try counting, how many times do the Apostles seem to open their mouths and insert their feet? Gosh, probably the greatest of all at that accomplishment was St. Peter himself. You have to wonder sometimes, why the Evangelists didn’t cut those repeated screw-ups by the Apostles out of the Bible’s stories. My sisters and brothers, I think they left all those embarrassing missteps by the Apostles in the Bible to show us just how normal and human those guys really were. They illustrate how God can do amazing things even through broken, sinful, unsophisticated people,,, maybe just like me and you. At the end of the day, it isn’t about our unworthiness; it is about our resolve to cling to Christ and be open to the movement of His grace in our lives.

This is what the season of Lent is truly about. This is the “why.” We engage in acts of almsgiving, fasting, and prayer so we can open ourselves more fully to the saving grace of Jesus, and be transformed into better witnesses to others, better ambassadors for Christ. And always remember what St. Francis told us, the best way to witness is without using words. So, now I’d like to say a simple prayer for us all to begin this year’s Lenten season. “Lord God, give me the Grace to recognize and overcome the sins, vices, or failings of my life hindering me from being the best ambassador for your Son Jesus, allowing you to appeal to the world through me.” Amen.

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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.