Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, (Year B)

Peace be with you and welcome to our celebration of the Mass for the 23 ^rd Sunday in Ordinary Time. You know, when I first read these readings today, I wasn’t overly excited. Initially nothing really jumped off the page. With the Gospel for example, it’s sad to say, but I think all of us hear readings with Jesus performing these amazing miracles so often, I think we sometimes get a little numb to them. We take them for granted. You know what I mean, “ho hum”, just another one of those Jesus’ miracles. Well, after I sat back, closed my eyes, and meditated for a few moments, I realized, there is something very unique and timely about today’s Gospel reading. Something that is still resonating down through the millennia even as we sit here today.

Anyone attended a Catholic Baptism lately? If not, let me refresh your memories. After the child is baptized with water, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, the white garment is emphasized as representing a new creation clothed in Christ with the white as an outward sign of Christian dignity. Then a lit candle is passed to a parent or a godparent representing the light of Christ. And then, the celebrant performs the rite of “Ephphatha” or the Prayer over Ears and Mouth. He says this, “May the Lord Jesus who made the deaf hear and the mute speak grant that you may soon receive his word with your ears and profess that faith with your lips, to the glory and praise of God the Father. Amen.” And as he says that prayer, he touches the child’s ears and mouth.

Ephphatha – “be opened”. Friends, this proclamation of Jesus still presents us all with a challenge here in the 21 ^st Century, perhaps even more so that it did 2000 years ago. Of course, on the surface, this is just another one of those Jesus’ miracles in the Bible but spiritually, just like the Church uses “Ephphatha” in the liturgy of baptism, it is a clear and precise instruction for each and every one of us.

You see, the unnamed deaf man represents all of us as we are often deaf to the voice of God and cannot speak plainly the truths of his message. Therefore, the Gospel asks us, in what ways do we need to be opened by God through Jesus? One big clue from the Gospel today is, Jesus crossed into the district of Decapolis. My sisters and brothers, this literally means Jesus crossed outside of the boundaries of his own Jewish homeland. Consequently, it forces us to ask, what boundaries are we afraid to cross to proclaim the Good News of Christ? The list of boundaries that divide us today is almost endless, politics, religion, race, neighborhoods, physical appearance, education, gender, sexual orientation. And Jesus said, “Ephphatha” – be opened!

Be opened. Ask, can we be open to beauty, goodness, and truth in a society so severely divided? Be opened. Know that we can learn from each other, especially from people who may be different than us. Be opened. To the complications of life and the reality that we just can’t always have easy answers. Be opened to the voice of God communicating with us from places we least expect. Be opened to experiences and truths of others that seem foreign to us. Be opened to the voice of God calling us to people and places that make us uncomfortable. Be opened to ultimately receiving love and graces from God.

Unfortunately though, being opened to the voice of God calling us in our modern 21 ^st Century American Society is not an easy task. Anyone ever read C. S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters? In case you haven’t, the general plot line is about an experienced demon, old Screwtape, teaching his apprentice demon, young Wormwood, how to tempt and ultimately take the soul of a new Christian for their master below, Satan. Of course, Screwtape makes maximum use of those secular false gods we all battle every day, pride, pleasure, power, and wealth. Fortunately, in the end however, Screwtape and Wormwood fail but there is one particular bit of wisdom Lewis puts forth in his book I often think about today. Having realized they had failed Screwtape tells Wormwood, someday Satan will make the world so noisy men won’t be able to hear God’s voice. Wow. You know that book was written in the early 1930’s. So here we are today, with our smart phones, smart pads, laptops, desktops, ear buds, smart TVs, wireless networks, and blue tooth. We are so connected to noise generating and visually distracting devices can God breck in? You must wonder, has C. S. Lewis’ 90-year-old prediction come true?

Being open to God’s voice can be challenging as it takes us out of our comfort zones in many, many ways. And when we talk about being open in this spiritual context, we’re not simply talking about hearing. It takes all of our senses. We all must open our hearts and our minds to any form God chooses to call us and there is only one sure way to do that. We must give God a little bit of time in our noisy days. We must find time to disconnect from our electronic world. Ask yourself, when is the last time I’ve intentionally laid my smart phone down in one room and walked to another room, where I can’t hear it? Of course, the operative word here is intentionally. An hour in Mass once a week is magnificent, but doesn’t the unlimited creator of the Universe deserve maybe just a few minutes of our dedicated attention the other six days also? We need time to ask, what needs to be opened inside of us? What do we need to hear from God? How can we let the Spirit strengthen all that seems weak and limited within us so we can be a blessing and strength to others? OK. Here’s our obvious homework. Find a silent place, disconnect from electronics, and dedicate just a few minutes listening to God at least once a day, until you come back to Mass next weekend. Ouch!

So, let’s talk about right now, at this very moment, before we stand for the Creed, take a slow breath, and focus for a few seconds. Ephphatha – be opened! Think, what is about to happen. We believe at this Mass Christ himself personally comes into us. More than touching our tongue or putting fingers into our ears, Jesus penetrates our whole being. At this Mass, let the Spirit help us to hear more clearly, and let the words of our worship come more freely from our hearts. Ephphatha. Be opened.

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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.