Roman Catholic Sunday Homilies for your Spirituality. These may be used by priests for their homily, by the Basic Ecclesial Communities for their Bible Faith Sharing and by everybody who wants to reflect on the Word of God. I pray that His Word may truly be incarnated in your life.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus narrated the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds. This parable talks about the presence of good and evil in the world, and God’s attitude toward them. God sows the wheat. All good things have their origin in God. It stands for the children of the kingdom and the believers. They are the saints who endeavor to lead holy lives, following the precepts of the Lord. They are in the world and are expected to bear fruit in due season. Being sown by the Lord and being rooted in the Lord, their fruits will be good and plenty. But they will have their growth disturbed, and sometimes tormented by the presence of the wicked ones.
The Master knows about the presence of the wicked ones, and all the many persecutions suffered by the good ones. The saints of God must rest content that in due time the Master will intervene and uproot the wicked ones. The saints of God will be finally vindicated, and they will be preserved.
On the other hand, the Weeds which are not the works of God; they are works of the evil one. The weeds refer to the wicked ones in the world. They are the offsprings of the devil. They were planted in the world by the devil, and their work is to do mischief. They do not belong to the field, but they have usurped it. They are very deceptive; and they wander in the world in the garb of the good, deceiving people.
But their true color will emerge one day. Being bad, they have no fruits to bear, except thorn and thistles. And their lack of fruits will betray their wickedness. They have been allowed to flourish for a while, but their end is doomed. They will be destroyed.
So again our Gospel for today speaks to us about opportunities to grow, produce and be fruitful. Truly means that God is patient and always waits for us to return to him. He believes in our goodness. Even if we are surrounded with so many weeds, such sins and selfishness, pains and problems, temptation and troubles, we can still overcome these weeds. God gives us chances so that the wheat in us will produce an abundant harvest.
God allows time for us to be faithful and fruitful. God gives us time and space so that we can repent and reconcile with him. At the same time, God assures us that he always with us. At the harvest time, God will reward our perseverance and fidelity to God’s will and commandments.
Let us stay open to God’s grace and presence so that we will end up as wheat, and not as weeds, for God and for others. Amen. . .
The Holy Eucharist is never entirely about Jesus. Yes, it is first and foremost Jesus Himself, His Real Presence, His Body and Blood, but it is never only about Himself. It is always about Jesus and us, the People of God (the Body of Christ, the Church).
Our Gospel today presents to us an understanding of what the Eucharist is. St. John recounted the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and the fish, which he directly connected with Jesus' discourses at Capernaum when Jesus introduced Himself as "the Bread of Life" (6:35, 48). St. John even set up the context when the miracle happened. It was before the Jewish feast of Passover.
There are 4 Eucharistic movements that happened at the Multiplication of the Loaves and the Two Fish that speak about Jesus and the people.
The First Movement
Jesus saw the vast crowd and felt their need for food. He said to Philip, "Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?" Jesus was sensitive to the needs of His people. Before, they could express that, Jesus, moved with pity for them, provided not only food for the minds and hearts, but also regular food that filled physical hunger. This shows how sensitive Jesus is to the material and spiritual needs of the people.
The Second Movement
The disciples, overwhelmed by the desire of Jesus to feed the vast crowd and by the number of people, about 5,000 of them, presented to Jesus a boy "who had five barley loaves and two fish." Despite the fact that they knew that it would not be enough for so many, they presented it to Jesus anyway.
The Third Movement
Jesus took the little that was presented to Him and made use of that small contribution to feed the 5,000 men. Appreciating the boy's generosity, He then gave thanks to the Father for this small gift. After having been blessed, Jesus had the bread distributed to the crowd. The disciples, still astounded by what happened, distributed the loaves and fish to everyone. It was multiplied a thousand times over. Everyone ate their fill.
The Fourth Movement
Jesus did not want to waste any small portion of the gifts, so He instructed his disciples to pick up the leftovers. Nothing was wasted. Every crumb was given value. As the Gospel recounted, the disciples were able to collect twelve wicker baskets filled with fragments from the five barley loaves.
Lessons:
1) God knows what we need even before we ask Him. He is always ready to provide it for us. However, Jesus wants us to do our part, to also give our share.
2) Jesus answers our needs using what we give to Him. Even if the need is so great that what we give is nothing but just a single grain compared to what is required, He desires that we share even the little we have. And it is the small offering that we give back to God, that God uses as the basic instrument to make miracles happen.
3) The miracle of multiplication happened when the loaves were distributed. Miracles will also happen in our lives if we share what we have received from God with everyone. Even if we feel that what we have is not even enough for ourselves, and we share it anyway with those most in need, miracles will happen. We, then, are part of the miracle God is doing for His people.
4) When everyone was filled, Jesus taught us that material things are gifts of God and should not be wasted in a spirit of poverty. The gathering of the fragments, the crumbs left-over give us an excellent lesson in thrift as against wastefulness! Jesus is teaching us to give value even to left-overs, since by doing so we will be blessed all the more. The disciples "collected them, and filled twelve wicker baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves from the five barley loaves that had been more than they could eat."
5) When we are faced with challenges and difficulties in life, Jesus tells us to put our trust in Him. He wants us to engage with Him with whatever resources we may have, even if they are clearly insufficient, as was the case with the five loaves of bread and the two fish. Jesus will supply what is lacking. In the Christian faith, even if we don't believe it, we must use what we have in life to serve our Lord. It all adds up to a lot. God can make even the most limited resources productive.
All of the above presents us with an important understanding of what the Holy Eucharist is. The Holy Eucharist is Jesus giving Himself as food for us using the gifts we give Him, little it may be. Since the Holy Eucharist is always about Jesus and us, nothing can ever be wasted.
WATCH: Pope Francis' message for the 1st World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly
The Holy Father has designated the 4th Sunday of July as World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, close to the liturgical memorial of Saints Joachim and Anne, the grandparents of Jesus. This year the day falls on July 25.
Jesus’ explanation on the meaning of The Parable of the Sower focuses on the quality of the ground where the seeds were sown. Jesus made it easy for us to understand that the ground are the people who received the Word of the Kingdom that was sown. By this explanation, Jesus made clear what kind of farmer is the Sower. Well, the parable itself is called “The Parable of the Sower.”
Looking back to last Wednesday Mass, when the Gospel was about the Parable itself, Jesus started by saying; “A sower went out to sow.” He did not mind where the seeds would go. He just threw it everywhere; along the path, on rocky ground, among thorns and on good soil. He did not think about what will happen to the seeds, if it will just go to waste or will grow and bear fruits. He just sow it anyway to every kind of ground.
As Jesus explained it today, we understand that the seeds are the Word of the Kingdom and the ground are the people and the Sower is God, or we can say that Jesus is the sower. The way Jesus sowed the seeds is not the proper way a good farmer would do. Thanks be to God for that. God intentionally does not employ the farmers’ way of sowing seeds to sow the seeds of the Kingdom because He is a gracious God who is unconditional to everyone. God sowed the seeds of the Kingdom to everyone without selecting who is the best, who is more righteous, more pious, more faithful, more prayerful. He is sowing His word, His blessings, His grace to everyone, poor and rich, sinners and saints alike.
How are you sowing the seeds of the Kingdom? How are you sharing the good things God has given you? Are you helping only those who can help you back? Or are you sowing the seeds of your blessings to those whom the society thinks as not deserving and unworthy?
