Archive for category: Go and Glorify

You are here: / Go and Glorify

The goal of Christian life

/in

Father Stephen Bankemper

Guest

In the last few weeks, we have heard individual lessons that will aid our growth as Christians. For example, last weekend: forgive over and over (77 times in the translation we heard, seventy times seven in other translations); the weekend before that: if your brother sins against you, tell him his sin first privately, if he does not listen to you, with others, but not to retaliate, but to convert him; the weekend before that: there is nothing more important than one’s eternal life.

But while focusing on individual lessons is important, the danger is that our lives as Christians becomes just another version of if I-want-to-get-to-heaven-I-must-do-this-and-this-and-this. There is an overarching lesson that makes sense of all the individual lessons and can inspire us with the overall goal of our Christian faith; we hear it today in the first reading.

God says today through Isaiah, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,/ nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord./ As high as the heavens are above the earth,/ so high are my ways above your ways/ and my thoughts above your thoughts.” (Is 55:8-9) If only this truth could become most prominent in our minds, we would be well on the way to holiness!

To understand this, we must understand the purpose and goal of the Christian life — it is not to become a good person, but to be transformed.

There are different ways to describe this transformation. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul describes it as changing from bearing the image of the “earthly man” to the image of the “heavenly man”:

“The first man was from the earth, a man of dust [Adam]; the second man is from heaven [Jesus]. As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. I tell you this, brethren: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” (1 Cor 15:47-50)

How does this transformation take place? We heard this a few weeks ago (22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time) from Paul’s letter to the Romans: “Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind …” (Rom 12:2) In the Gospel of the same Sunday Jesus put it this way to Peter: “Get behind me, Satan! … You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” (Matt 16:23)

It is vitally important to know — lest our spirituality become muscular, so to speak, and Pelagian — that this kind of transformation is not something that we do, but something that happens to us. We have a part to play, but that part is what we do to open ourselves to the transforming work of the Holy Spirit.

Regularly reading and meditating on Scripture is essential. How can we know the mind of God if we ignore the books that teach us that mind?

Prayer is next, of course, where God speaks directly to our soul and communicates what He wants us to do.

Finally, practice. The more we seek to live as the prophets and saints and, especially, Jesus, teach us, the more habitual a holy life will become.

Let us learn the individual lessons that come through the scriptures but let us keep in the mind the overarching purpose of the Christian life, to become people who think the way God thinks and value what God values, so that we may become like him.

Father Stephen Bankemper is pastor, St. Catherine of Siena Parish, Ft. Thomas, Ky.

We gain when we forgive

/in

Father Michael Elmlinger

Guest

One of the most difficult things Christ to do for one another is to forgive one another. There can be a desire to hold onto that grudge, because the person has done something so horribly to us and is not deserving of our mercy and forgiveness. They have caused a wound within us that may never fully heal, or at the very least will leave a nasty scar. While it is true that some wounds take so long to heal (if they ever fully heal at all), nevertheless, we are still called to forgive all who have wronged us, because God has chosen to forgive us of all the wrongs that we have done, as well as the fact that when we choose to forgive, our hearts are set free from the imprisonment that wrath and resentment causes.

This is the essential teaching in our readings this weekend, particularly in our Gospel reading from Matthew 18:21-35. In this passage, Peter asks Jesus how often we must forgive those who wrong us. “As many as seven times?” he asks (18:21). Now, we have to keep in mind that in Peter’s eyes, as well as the eyes of the Jewish audience to whom Jesus is speaking and Matthew is writing, forgiving someone seven times is already seen as extremely generous. At this time, many rabbis considered forgiving someone three times to be sufficient. However, Jesus goes even further. He tells Peter, “not seven times, but seventy-seven times” (18:22; also translated as “seventy times seven”). By using this extremely high number, Jesus is not intending to put a hard limit on the number seventy-seven or four hundred ninety. Instead, it seems more likely that he is using hyperbole that would have been even more emphatic at his time to emphasize the need for a limitless mercy for those who have wronged us.

That is when he goes into one of the most beautiful parables of Matthew’s Gospel: the parable of the Unforgiving Servant, where we hear about this servant who owed his master “a huge amount” (18:24), but was forgiven of his debt by his master. In the original Greek for this passage, it actually says the amount that the servant owed and is translated in other versions of this passage: “a myriad of talents.” A myriad was the equivalent of the number 10,000, while a talent was a unit of measurement for denarii. The denarius was the equivalent of a day’s wages. Now, a talent was worth 6,000 denarii, so that meant that this servant owed his master 10,000 talents, which equates to 60,000,000 denarii. That is the equivalent of over 160,000 years of wages that he owed! He was never going to pay that back, and yet the master chooses to completely forgive him of the debt when the servant begs him to give him more time. That is an incredible act of mercy on the part of the master!

However, when this servant met another servant who owed him “a much smaller amount” (only 100 denarii), rather than showing that same mercy he received, instead, he forces the servant to pay him what he owes. The master is not happy when he hears this news and tells the servant, “I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to. Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?” (18:32-33). He then throws him in prison until he is able to pay back the full debt, which is ultimately never.

When we choose not to forgive those who have wronged us, the truth is that we are very much like this unforgiving servant. In reality, while our neighbor can certainly do some horrible things to us, the debt that they owe us pales in comparison to the debt that we owe God when we sin against him, who is an infinite God. Our sins against that infinite God thus bear infinite value, and yet, God still chooses to forgive us. That is the same mercy we are to show to one another.

That said, there is another thing that choosing to forgive our neighbor does for us: it frees our hearts from the prison of resentment and wrath. Ultimately, what do we gain when we choose to hold a grudge against someone and refuse to forgive them? We do not gain anything. In fact, we lose something: the peace that is meant to reign within our hearts. We allow that person’s sin against us to have power over us. However, when we choose to forgive someone of the debt that they owe us, we reject that power and instead choose to live in the freedom of the children of the Father. We choose to look past the evil the person has done and ask God to intervene in their lives to transform them into the person that he wants them to be. We gain nothing in refusing to forgive one another. We gain everything when we choose to forgive as the Lord himself has chosen to forgive us.

Father Michael Elmlinger is a priest of the Diocese of Covington, Ky. Father Elmlinger is currently studying Canon Law at the University of St. Paul, Ottawa, Canada.

Fraternal correction

/in

Father Daniel Schomaker

Guest

On this 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time the Church calls us to reflect on “fraternal correction.” We need a little context to understand Jesus’ teaching. Immediately preceding the passage for Holy Mass this weekend, is the story of the lost sheep — where only one of a hundred is lost. And Jesus tells his disciples (us): “It is not the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost.” (Mt. 18: 14b)

Being lost in the spiritual life is multifaceted. Sometimes, it means abandoning the Way that leads to Heaven. Or, being deceived into thinking you are on the right path though you aren’t. We might find ourselves searching but end up wandering around aimlessly instead. And sometimes we can be on the right path, we just get turned around and are facing the wrong way, or we have stumbled and fallen on our face!

All of this “lostness” is the consequence of sin. Living contrary to our nature — which is willing the good of the other — and instead giving into the ego and living for the self. The Lord Jesus, does not accept us being lost, and comes seeking us out.

Too often in our society we forget that our selfish actions, our sins, have an effect not just on ourselves, but on the community of believers — the Church. And so, Jesus teaches us how to correct the bad behavior of a disciple and heal the hurt caused to the Church.

It starts privately! Not on social media as is so often the case today! As Jesus’ disciples, we are not called to shame or humiliate each other, but to love. Remember what we learn in the Scriptures: the love the disciples had for one another lead to the “adding of those who were being saved.” (Acts 2:47b) Shaming a brother or sister in Christ can be a detriment to the apostolic mission.

If the correction isn’t accepted, then Jesus calls us to take one or two others with us to give witness to the facts of the bad behavior. This is in keeping with the Law found in the Book of Deuteronomy. It is still quiet, private.

Only when there is obstinance in the one who is sinning is it brought to the authority of the Church — those who have the power to bind and to loose. And then if there is not conversion and reconciliation does Jesus command that they be cut off from communion. It is from Jesus that we get the practice of excommunication.

This sounds extremely harsh on the part of Jesus, but all sin is a barrier to communion. But there is in fact a positive side to this being “cut off” from the Church. The sinner is returned to the state of one who is in need of evangelization. They then get to hear the Gospel proclaimed again. And hopefully more clearly so that they can be returned to the communion of disciples and reintegrated into the Church. Remember, sometimes the healing process can be difficult, and the medicine doesn’t always taste good.

There is nothing that cannot be healed and forgiven. “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

Father Daniel Schomaker is pastor, Blessed Sacrament Parish, Ft. Mitchell and director, Office of Worship and Liturgy for the Diocese of Covington, Ky.

Possible, though difficult

/in

Bishop Emeritus Foys

Guest

Jesus has asked His disciples what people were saying about Him. Who do they say that He is. They answer that some think He is John the Baptist come back from the dead or one of the great prophets or Elijah come back to earth. But YOU, Jesus says — who do YOU say that I am. Silence, broken by Peter, who proclaims that Jesus is the Messiah, the one who is to come, the Savior of the world! Jesus commends Peter which must have made Peter feel honored indeed. He’s riding high!

Then, Jesus tells His disciples that they are on the way to Jerusalem where Jesus will suffer and die. Well, Peter was having none of that. Absolutely not! He had just been singled out as the rock upon which Jesus was going to build His Church and Peter was to play an important role in that. Jesus suffer and die? Preposterous, It didn’t fit Peter’s narrative. After all, this was a glorious moment. Jesus was going to lead the disciples to a great victory over those oppressing them.

And what was the response of Jesus to Peter’s outburst that “no such thing will ever happen to You?” (Matt 16:22) “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” (Matt 16:23) Wow! Talk about a quick fall from favor. One minute Peter is going to be the leader of (in Peter’s mind) a great revolution and in the next minute he is told to get behind the master because he doesn’t grasp the reality of who Jesus really is.

Jesus then goes on to tell His disciples that those who want to follow him must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow Him. (Matt 16:24) Jesus was very clear that following Him would entail sacrifice. The love that Jesus has for His Father in heaven and that Jesus has for us is a sacrificial love. Jesus gave his life up — literally and figurately — for the love of His Father and for love of us. Can we do any less?

Peter was not a bad person and was certainly dedicated to Jesus and to His mission. But, as Jesus told him, he was thinking as human beings do and not as God does. Jesus’ words and the prediction of His suffering and death did not fit Peter’s narrative, did not fit his image of who Jesus is and what Jesus ought to do.

Do we sometimes do the same regarding the Lord and other people? We pray, thinking that God needs to answer our prayers in the way we think He should. And should God not answer them in that way we become discouraged, disheartened, and maybe, just maybe, angry. We think like human beings and not like God Who always has our best interests at heart.

And what about our perception and expectation of other people? What expectations do we have of them. Do they measure up to the person we think they should be? Do they fit our narrative? And if they don’t, how do we respond? Do we try to change them? Do we write them off because they are not who we think they ought to be? And how would we feel if someone did that to us?

Jesus tells us that if we want to come after Him we need to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him. That cross will take many forms. At times it will seem too much for us to bear. At times it will mean accepting people and loving them and caring for them where they are. It will mean accepting the Lord without reservation and making Him our first and only priority. It will mean denying ourself and becoming selfless instead of selfish. It will mean thinking as God does and not as human beings.

Possible? Certainly. For all things are possible with God. Difficult? Sometimes. Worth it? Without a doubt!

Most Rev. Roger J. Foys, D.D. is Bishop Emeritus of the Diocese of Covington, Ky.

The only question that matters

/in

Father Phillip DeVous

Guest

The intertwined questions of what is true, and how do I live in truth, are the two most important questions in life to answer, no matter how urgent other matters might appear. We are confronted in our proclamation of the holy Gospel with both of those questions when Jesus asks the disciples, “but who do you say that I am?”

We are now immersed in a post-Christian moment in history. In this post-Christian moment, we are dealing with a culture-wide situation where knowledge of Jesus Christ is no longer “common knowledge,” much less a cultural norm. We are dealing with a situation where it is simply the case that many people no longer have a personal faith in Jesus and no longer practice the faith. I think something fundamental has changed and we must reckon with it.

The late Pope Benedict XVI insightfully described this situation when he observed: “A particularly dangerous phenomenon for faith has arisen in our times: indeed, a form of atheism exists which we define, precisely, as ‘practical,’ in which the truths of faith or religious rites are not denied but are merely deemed irrelevant to daily life, detached from life, pointless. So it is that people often believe in God in a superficial manner, and live ‘as though God did not exist.’ In the end, however, this way of life proves even more destructive because it leads to indifference to faith and to the question of God.”

The situation of post-Christian man is that he cannot conceive that he is in anyway separated from God because the question and the reality of God have been nullified. That means voided or invalidated as legitimate questions for serious consideration. One might even say God has been liquified — everything is God, nothing is God or whatever.

This age of the nullification of God is a total paradigm shift in the consciousness and culture of the western world, leading to a profound reorientation of our souls. The consequence is that we now live within a formative cultural, educational, economic, personal, political and social situation that is fundamentally, not merely unbelieving, but anti-theistic in a radical way — right down to the very unconscious assumptions of every aspect of contemporary life and living.

Contemplating our situation, we see the Lord directs his gaze toward us, asking, “but who do you say that I am?” His disciples are meant to know the answer to the question. It is not a test. It is a call to profess our faith! After all, in our worship and prayer, we are the ones who swim up to the very heart of God and put our lips to his blood. We are meant to know. After all, the Word of God is made for our heart, and our heart is made for the Word of God.

In recognizing that we live within a situation where God’s existence is not so easily assumed and the presence of Jesus Christ not so readily recognized, we also consider the question, “Lord, where did you say you would be?”

Our Blessed Lord did not just leave us with mere memories of him that would degrade over time. He left us his Word and his presence in the Holy Sacraments and the Church. The Church and sacraments continue the work of Jesus’ incarnation, within us and among us. As St. Leo the Great has taught, “what was to be seen of our Redeemer has passed over in the Sacraments so that faith might be more perfect and more firm.”

In the Gospel passage we proclaim this Sunday, Peter’s answer is meant to be our own: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And in response to his answer, Jesus gives Peter the keys to the kingdom of heaven.

Those keys of the kingdom are the Holy Sacraments. If you want to access the kingdom of the divine life of God, the sacraments, most especially the Holy Eucharist, are the keys. The Holy Sacraments build up the Body of Christ, bringing the Holy Spirit’s power to us to transform us into living images of Jesus Christ. They are how Jesus Christ shares his holiness with us. They are the means by which the gaze of our whole existence is oriented to Jesus Christ above all things and in all things.

“But who do you say that I am?”

Our answer to that question determines everything, not just for us, but the very life of the world.

Father Phillip W. DeVous is pastor of Sts. Peter & Paul Parish in California, Ky.

Gratefulness to God

/in

Father Stephen Bankemper

Guest

As we continue our way through Matthew’s Gospel, we come to the surprising story of Jesus and the Canaanite woman, surprising, not just because Jesus speaks to her in a manner that seems offensive to us (and likely to her as well), but also because just two verses later he pays her the highest compliment he pays to anyone in the Gospels.

To get a better feel for this encounter, we should remind ourselves of how the apostles might have viewed this woman.  Matthew tells us that she was from the region of Tyre and Sidon, places not high in the esteem of the Jews.  Further, she was a Canaanite woman.  Besides the fact that Canaanites worshipped pagan gods, the Jews’ opinion of them is reflected in the book of Wisdom:

“Those who dwelt of old in thy holy land/ thou didst hate for their detestable practices,/ their works of sorcery and unholy rites,/ their merciless slaughter of children,/ and their sacrificial feasting on human flesh and blood.” (Wis 12:3-5a)

This was the woman the apostles saw crying to Jesus for mercy.

Many have struggled with Jesus’ treatment of her: first ignoring her, then dismissing her request to the apostles, and finally dismissing her to her face with his comment about taking bread meant for children and throwing it to dogs.  Yet she does not back down from Jesus, but uses His term to further argue for her request.

It is worthwhile considering her rejoinder to Jesus.  Instead of taking offense, she merely answers, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”  Whether or not she finds Jesus’ words objectionable, she is in fact acknowledging the truth of his comment: she is not a Jew and does not have the same claim on Jesus that the Jews have.  Yet she is not asking for salvation or to be part of the covenant – the “bread” that belongs to the children.  She is asking only for freedom for her daughter — a “scrap” that even an unworthy Canaanite woman might eat from the floor beneath the table.  And her insistence leads Jesus to praise her with his highest praise: “O woman, great is your faith!”

We Catholics — especially we “cradle” Catholics — are subject to the temptation to take our membership in the Catholic Church for granted.  We can forget that we do not have a right to be Catholic, that it is an undeserved grace.  Our baptism into Christ’s salvation, the opportunity to have our sins forgiven and wiped away, the ability to worship God with “the sacrifice acceptable to him,” these are astounding graces.  In our society in this time there is very prevalent the attitude that “we all worship the same God,” that “all religions are the same,” but, in fact, all religions are not the same.  We are, through no merit of our own, members of the Church begun by Jesus.  We offer his true sacrifice on our altars, we receive his true Body and Blood in Holy Communion, we receive his Holy Spirit in the sacraments, especially Confirmation.  Those things do not make us better than anyone, they make us undeservedly blessed.  Let us always (hopefully eternally) be grateful to God and use these graces to serve him with all our hearts.

Father Stephen Bankemper is pastor, St. Catherine of Siena Parish, Ft. Thomas, Ky.

The desire for glory

/in

Father Phillip DeVous

Guest

What are we to make of those powerful, yet mysterious words of St. Paul, “those he justified he also glorified?”

The justification of which St. Paul speaks is a true reconciliation with God that occurs the moment one believes and receives Baptism. This justification is a dynamic, ongoing event of reconciliation with God, in which the Christian, acting in cooperation with this grace of reconciliation, becomes progressively perfected in divine charity after the pattern of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. Thus, we understand that one comes to be saved, by which we mean no longer alienated from God, both at the beginning AND throughout the arc of one’s whole life.

Grace is a reality given at precise moments but is also a yeast that fosters a leavening of holiness throughout life. The dynamism of the grace of justification moves in the direction of glory, which St. Paul understands to be a complete and total sharing in the fullness of the being of the Trinitarian God. This grace of justification leading to glory is given at precise moments — the Holy Sacraments. The dynamic relationship of justification and glory within a person is developed through the agency and action of the Holy Sacraments, received, of course, with faith.

St. Thomas Aquinas in reflecting on this relationship between justification and glory recalls that grace has five primary effects: healing the soul, making it so the soul wills the good, working in such a way that the willed good be effectively carried out, persevering in the good, and finally reaching eternal glory. This is why the Holy Sacraments of the Church are essential to salvation, for it is in and through them we personally receive the Trinitarian life, which is the glory of which St. Paul speaks.

In contemplating these mysteries of the faith, the issue of desire arises. C.S. Lewis was a keen observer of things divine and the longing, or lack thereof, for the spiritual. He passionately believed in the primacy of the spiritual; yet he noted that for modern man, enthralled by materialism, the vision of things divine was dimming and the desire for the spiritual was waning:

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures … when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

To be too easily pleased by the passing things of the world is a species of what is called acedia or sloth in the spiritual life. There are many ways to understand it, but the most fundamental is one loses the sense of the reality of God; one’s “desire” for the holy withers; and one becomes apathetic towards the spiritual. Consequently, we chase after things to consume or to distract. Inevitably this devolves into a destructive boredom which settles over everything. It is one of the great ironies of our day that we are ruled by an empire of desire without limits, yet so very little really excites us.

“No longer a vice afflicting individuals only, acedia has become a cultural reality” writes R.J. Snell in “Acedia and Its Discontents.” He further notes that “nestled deep in the roots of our ways of acting and living, sloth seeps into our loves and lives in virtually every domain, before finally transforming itself into boredom and nihilism.”

This is deadly for the Christian! We are meant to seek the Kingdom of Heaven with the passion of someone who finds a treasure buried in a field and who then goes out and sells everything he possesses to obtain that field to the exclusion of all others. Further, we are enjoined to have the eye of a merchant seeking the finest pearls, excitedly looking for the finest of them all, because one desires this object of great beauty and perfection. And when found, we give up everything to obtain this impeccable jewel.

Grasping the contemporary struggle with acedia, a cause of our cultural affliction and a sickness of our soul, we pray with faith and fervor, “that through the powerful working of your grace these most sacred mysteries may sanctify our present way of life and lead us to eternal gladness.”

Father Phillip W. DeVous is the pastor of Sts. Peter and Paul Parish in California, Ky.

Eyes fixed on Christ

/in

Father Michael Elmlinger

Guest

A temptation that I have faced and I am sure many others have faced as well is, when there are moments in life when it seems like there is a lot going on at once, to begin to sacrifice the time that I would normally give to the Lord in order to focus on whatever major challenge I am dealing with in the moment. However, it almost never fails that when I do so, I find myself overwhelmed by the “storm” and begin to drown in the midst of the suffering, whatever it may be. Each time I am reminded by the Lord that, while it is always important to keep my eyes fixed on him, it is especially important during these storms to keep my eyes fixed on Christ.

This was a lesson that St. Peter had to learn the hard way, and thanks be to God that he does. In doing so, both he and the Lord provide the lesson to us so that we know what to do during those storms that we face in our lives. In our Gospel for this weekend (Matthew 14:22-33), Jesus has the disciples go into a boat to cross the sea while he goes up the mountain by himself to pray to the Father. However, while the disciples are crossing the sea, a major storm begins to oppress them. Already being a few miles offshore (cf. 14:24), they are too far out at sea to be able to simply go back and get out of the water. They are completely stuck and are likely becoming so frightened that they think they will die out at sea. We also have to keep in mind that some of these disciples are fishermen, including Peter, so the fact that this storm was giving them so much trouble tells us that this was not a typical storm that they would face. This was something lethal.

It is during this time that they become even more terrified when they see Jesus himself walking on the water, thinking that he was a ghost (14:26). It is here that Jesus reassures them who he is and gives a simple command: “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid” (14:27). Peter then tests him to see if it really is Jesus by telling Jesus to command him to walk onto the water. Amazingly, Peter is able to get out of the water and walk towards Jesus. In fact, in another translation of this passage, it seems as if Peter was even able to make it all the way to Jesus when it says that he “came to Jesus” (Revised Standard Version: Catholic Edition, 14:29). However, Peter does something that nearly dooms him; he takes his eyes off Jesus and begins to focus on the storm around him. He sees that this storm is not calming down and begins to think again that he is going to die. It is when he does this that Peter begins to drown and has to cry out to Jesus, “Lord, save me!” (14:30). Jesus calmly grabs him and says to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” (14:31), and just like that, the wind dies down.

What is amazing about this passage is that had Peter simply kept his eyes fixed on Christ, he would never have begun to sink into the water. He would have been simply there with Jesus while the storm continued to rage. It was only when Peter looked away from Jesus and began instead to focus on the storm around him rather than on Jesus that he began to drown. In doing so, he doubts his faith in Jesus that Jesus is in full control of the situation. While the storm would have continued to rage on, Jesus would have been there, quietly present, but in total control of everything going on around him. Peter could have remembered the message from our first reading from 1 Kings 19, which was that amidst the heavy wind, the earthquake, and the fire, the voice of the Lord was found as a tiny whispering sound, quietly present.

That is how the Lord can be for us in our own lives. While the storms in our lives are raging, Christ will continue to be quietly present in our lives, possessing full power and authority over those storms and being in complete control. Instead of focusing on those storms and trying to handle them ourselves, we are meant to keep our eyes and our attention fixed on Christ, who will see us through to the end.

Father Michael Elmlinger is a priest of the Diocese of Covington, Ky. Father Elmlinger is currently studying Canon Law at the University of St. Paul, Ottawa, Canada.

The parable of the sower: An examination of conscience

/in

Father Michael Elmlinger

Guest

There is a temptation when we read or hear a passage from the Scriptures, especially the Gospel, to assume that we are not the ones being challenged, as if we are not the intended audience of the message that is being delivered. This can be true with our Gospel this weekend with the parable of the sower (Matt 13:1-23).

It can be easy to view ourselves as being like the seed that is sown on rich soil (13:8, 23), where we “hear the word and understand it,” and “bear fruit and yield a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.” We can think, “Oh, I am already a Christian and a follower of Christ, so I am definitely this last seed. I don’t need to pay attention to the others.” However, if this is the immediate view of ourselves, we may end up missing the point of the parable and the challenge that Christ is presenting to us to grow into deeper holiness.

In truth, this parable of the sower can actually be a great examination of conscience for us to see where we truly are within our own spiritual lives. I think if we are truly honest with ourselves, we will find that we can be like all four types of seed that Jesus is talking about here.

First there is the seed that “fell on the bath, and birds came and ate it up” (13:4), which, Jesus says, represents “the one who hears the word of the kingdom without understanding it, and the evil one comes and steals away what was sown in his heart.” (13:19) The kind of person that Jesus is referring to here is someone who audibly hears the message of the Gospel spoken to him or her, but this person does not truly allow the message to take root in his or her heart.

This can be true for us particularly when it comes to the kind of sins that we commit. These sins indicate to us the aspects of the Gospel that we may struggle with. Even if intellectually we may understand what Christ has spoken to us, within our hearts we struggle with understanding how to live out the message of the Gospel. Because of this, we fall into sin, particularly habitual sins that we struggle with regularly. What are those aspects of the Gospel that we struggle with putting into practice in our own lives?

Then there is the “seed sown on rocky ground, where it had little soil” and “sprang up at once” but “withered for lack of roots” (13:5-6), which, Jesus says, represents “the one who hears the word and receives it at once with joy. But he has no root and lasts only for a time. When some tribulation or persecution comes because of the word, he immediately falls away.” (13:20-21)

For us, it can be easy to love the Lord when everything is going our way and we are on fire with love for him. However, the real challenge comes when we have to face life’s difficulties and bear its crosses. During these times, it can be easy to fall away and resent God for leading us to those crosses. When we face these difficult challenges, whatever those challenges may be, do we truly respond with the grace and submission that Christ does when he bears his cross?

Finally (at least before the good seed), there is the seed that “fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it” (13:7), which, Jesus says, represents “the one who hears the word, but then worldly anxiety and the lure of riches choke the word and it bears no fruit.” (13:22) How often do we allow our day-to-day worries and anxieties take up our mind to the point that we lose all trust in God and instead try to trust in ourselves? Or how much do we become focused on the things of this world that they end up becoming our own gods and lead to us making sacrifices to our relationship with the one true God rather than the other way around?

We see here that, while we ought to strive to be like the seed sown on rich soil, oftentimes we can be like the other seeds. We have to keep in mind that what Christ is doing here is not merely condemning us for being like these seeds, though they can certainly lead towards it. Rather, he is challenging us to be better, to be holier, to be the person that the Father is calling us to be through him and in the Holy Spirit. Each day we ought to seek greater and deeper conversion within our lives. One of the ways we can do so is to examine our conscience using this parable to see where we truly are in our relationship with the Lord and with one another.

Father Michael Elmlinger is a priest of the Diocese of Covington, Ky. Father Elmlinger is currently studying Canon Law at the University of St. Paul, Ottawa, Canada.

Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

/in

Father Michael Elmlinger

Guest

One of the greatest things that I was able to do as a seminarian was to be assigned to different parishes and to see more of the people in the diocese that I had not been able to see and meet before. On top of that, a great joy that I had was having the opportunity to express my gratitude, as well as all the other seminarians’ gratitude, to all the people of the diocese for all that they have done to support us during our time in seminary. I truly meant it when I said, “We cannot do this without you.” Without the support of the people in the diocese, it is difficult to say whether I would even be a priest at this time, because it was largely thanks to the prayers of the people of the diocese that I was able to hear the calling of the Lord in my life to be a priest.

That brings me to the Gospel for this weekend, where we hear that Jesus’s heart was “moved with pity for [the crowds] because they were troubled and abandoned like sheep without a shepherd” (9:36), showing the level of compassion that he has for them that the very depths of his being are stirred up by the fact that the people are missing a shepherd to lead them. This then leads him to give a commandment to the disciples: “The harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few; so, ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.” (9:37) The Lord wants to give his people a shepherd to lead them; he wants to give them priests who will offer sacrifice and act as a shepherd leading the sheep to safe pastures.

This is a commandment that Christ gives to all his disciples, including all of us to this very day. The Code of Canon Law, which binds all Catholics in the Latin Church, tells us that the entire Christian community (not just clergy) as a whole has the duty to foster vocations to the priesthood (cf. canon 233 §1), so that the needs of the People of God may be met, so that the sheep who are scattered may be brought back into the fold and led to the Heavenly Kingdom of our Heavenly Father. All of us bear the responsibility of praying to the Master of the harvest that he will send out laborers to this harvest. Not only that, but it is also partly by our prayers that men are able to hear the voice of the Lord calling them in their hearts to be priests.

I can say rather confidently that if it were not for the prayers of the People of God in our diocese in particular and throughout the world, that I likely would not have heard the voice of the Lord calling me to be a priest. If it was not for the support that I received from the People of God, then it is difficult to say that I would be a priest right now. For that support from all of you, I was, am, and will continue to be truly grateful to all of you.

However, our duty is not finished. Vocations to the priesthood are out there. The laborers for the harvest are out there. But they need our prayers and support in order to assist them in hearing the call of the Master of the harvest crying out to them and to respond to that call with a generous “Yes.”

My brothers and sisters in Christ, each and every day, “ask the Master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.”

Father Michael Elmlinger is a priest of the Diocese of Covington, Ky. Father Elmlinger is currently studying Canon Law at the University of St. Paul, Ottawa, Canada.