11th
Sunday in Ordinary Time
at St.
Mary’s in Salem
12-13 June
2021
Ez
17:22-24
2
Cor 5:6-10
Mk
4:26-35
Praised be Jesus Christ!
“…we walk by faith and not by
sight.”
The Church’s liturgy for this Sunday presents us with two
rather suggestive images: one, the parable of the mustard seed spoken by Jesus
in today’s Gospel, and the other, the prophecy of the small tender shoot plucked
from the top of the Lebanon cedar in the Old Testament Book of Ezekiel. Both of
these images from Holy Scripture are all about our hope for glory, rooted in
the power of God to bring us, no matter how small or insignificant we may see
ourselves, to flourish and thereby really to conquer in this life and for
eternity.
As a freshman in college in first semester, I had a required
course in English Composition to take. Truth to be told, the teacher was not
all that bad, even if for some reason he did not like me… But that is another
story! One of the things I learned in that class had to do with journalism and
news coverage, which back then as now was determined by the dominant press narrative.
Let me explain!
My
college days were back during the Viet Nam war, and in class we would take
articles on the same war events from Time, Newsweek, US News and World Report
and compare them, especially for content. The magazine news articles should
have all read about the same because they depended on the same AP News Service
or its equivalent back then for the basic story. None of the magazines had its
own reporters on the ground to form an independent opinion of what was
happening in a given battle or skirmish of that war. Notwithstanding they
reported the facts differently, with each magazine putting its own spin on
those events. You wondered what was actually happening and why editorial commentary
could not be labeled as such. With events so reported, it was anybody’s guess
as to what was really happening there in Viet Nam on any given day. Today, we
would probably be more cynical and aggressive, crying about fake news, and
wondering out loud about what was actually happening.
I bring this up because of those couple sentences from Mark’s
Gospel, explaining how Jesus taught his disciples. Obviously, this has nothing
to do with news reporting but rather with teaching the true faith.
“With many such parables he spoke the word to them as they
were able to understand it. Without parables he did not speak to them, but to
his own disciples he explained everything in private.”
My question to myself would be whether Mother Church is doing
as well with the faithful today as Jesus did back then with His disciples. Are Catholics
generally enabled by the preaching and teaching we receive to know and begin to
comprehend the faith which comes to us from God alone or are we left to every
wind of doctrine which comes along? I am worried about basic Church teaching
both of a doctrinal nature and with regard to morality. What are we being
taught or not taught? Maybe more importantly, I am concerned about the Gospel
message being so proclaimed as Jesus did for the sake of the truth which comes
from God alone and in order to give people hope.
Understanding
the parable of the mustard seed, as it applies to the Kingdom of God, let us
say as it applies to the Church in the world ushering in Christ’s rule, has to
be one of the key Bible passages in this regard for our understanding the
Christian life and its importance for us and for our world. We the Church are
that tender shoot from the top of the tree, destined to grow into a mighty
Lebanon cedar. We the Church are that dinky mustard seed small as it is, like
the ones we may have seen in the Dijon mustard we put on our hamburger or
hotdog. It is that tiny seed which, when planted, can grow into a bush big
enough to be called a tree with place for birds to nest or find refuge.
“…we
walk by faith and not by sight.”
The whole
COVID crisis can help illustrate this distinction between being guided by Christ’s
teaching or being left to our own designs. At least in the United States now, concerning
COVID many more people are beginning to see that much of the early information we
were fed was not necessarily true. It may have been intended to condition or
control us. I know people who were so frightened by news reports that they
stayed away from Holy Mass and Communion for over a year. To the extent that
the Church leaders bought into these scare tactics and bowed to short-sighted government
bureaucrats, they as well were in some cases guilty of having blindly
sacrificed the faith and its truth about the meaning and destiny of human life to
what self-appointed guides were promoting with the slogan “Follow the Science”.
In some states, everything was locked down, but nobody was really caring for
the most vulnerable, namely the elderly and those with underlying health
conditions. We have numbers for those who died, but not for those who because
of the lock-downs or arbitrary mask mandates fell into despair and perhaps committed
suicide or otherwise ruined their lives and the lives of their families.
“…we
walk by faith and not by sight.”
What
does it mean to live in God-given hope? What does it mean to truly have faith
in God in Jesus Christ? In a lot of ways, such questions should in the first
place be posed to Church leadership who in this time of crisis abdicated their
responsibility to shepherd the flock entrusted to their care. Simply because
none of us is knowledgeable enough to sort out everything, we need to hold to
absolutes and put into perspective today’s equivalent of the supposedly
all-knowing news magazines of my youth.
If
we read the lives of the saints, we will note the number of them who died young
serving the sick during plagues or pandemic. They did not recklessly throw
their lives away but served Christ in the sick and those in need. They served a
truth far beyond self-preservation. Their conviction, their truth was rooted in
the second great commandment of love of neighbor. Very simply, we need to let
ourselves be taught by God and keep the government bureaucrats outside the
sanctuary and away from our loved ones.
Both
the parable of the mustard seed and the Lebanon cedar in the prophecy of
Ezekiel are all about our hope for glory, rooted in the power of God to bring
us, no matter how small or insignificant we may see ourselves, to flourish and
thereby really to conquer in this life and for eternity. The grass withers and the flower fades, but
the love of the Lord endures forever.
Praised be Jesus Christ!
PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI
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