Homily for the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

What Would You Ask?

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, July 29, 2023

Solomon was the son of King David and Bathsheba. He was the King of Israel who built the Temple, but later became a problematic figure in Israelite history. At the beginning of his kingly career, he was beset by self-doubt and inexperience as any untested young man would be. But in a dream, something happened. The Lord appeared to him and said, “Ask something of me, and I will give it to you.” This is definitely an extraordinary moment in the life of the young and inexperienced King Solomon. Responding, Solomon said, “Give your servant an understanding heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong.” His answer pleased God so much prompting God to say, “Because you asked for this, and not for long life for yourself, nor for riches, nor for the life of your enemies, but for understanding so that you may know what is right, I do as you requested.” Now, have this engraved in your soul. Whenever God is pleased with us, don’t interpret it as if God is gaining something he needs out of us. God needs nothing! We have nothing that God needs. God is pleased when we are fully alive. The glory of God is the human person fully alive. What pleases God is what brings us to deeper life. God is happy with Solomon because what he asked for is going to make him spiritually alive. That’s why God is pleased! But what is Solomon precisely asking for? He’s asking for a discerning heart! What is that? He is asking to see his whole life and work from the standpoint of God. He is asking for wisdom. For St. Thomas Aquinas, wisdom is the view from the hilltop. It means I am not looking at my life from my perspective or from the perspective of people around me or from what the culture expects. When I go up to the top of the mountain, I see the world from the perspective of God. That’s what wisdom means. That’s what Solomon asked for. 

But why is wisdom so important? It enables us to know what our life is about. It helps us to realize that our life is finally not about us, but about God. Wisdom will enable you to judge the whole of your life correctly. With wisdom in your heart and mind, you will value things properly. You will be able to choose the right things. With wisdom, you will know what to do with whatever comes your way. Let’s say you become wealthy, with wisdom you will know what to do with that wealth. Let’s say you become powerful, with wisdom you will know what to do with that power. You won’t abuse it. You won’t use it for your own end. You won’t use it for your own purposes. You will know how to use it aright. Suppose someone who doesn’t like you is now under your leadership; you are now the boss of someone you consider an enemy, with wisdom, you will know what to do and also what not to do with the power you have. We have a lot of people, powerful people, kings, presidents, CEOs, managers, directors, leaders of various groups within and outside the church who misused their power. Furthermore, suppose you are given a long life, with wisdom you will know what to do with those years you have been given. You won’t squander them chasing shadows and fleeting things. You won’t use your longevity for your own destruction and selfish enhancement. When you have the view from the hilltop, you will have spiritual self-control over your whole life. And part of your prayers would be: Lord, teach me to know the shortness of life and let me know how fleeting my life is (Psalm 39:5). 

Suppose Solomon had yielded to temptation, and said to God, “I want to be the richest man ever” and God grants his request and makes him the richest person ever but without wisdom. I tell you, he won’t use that wealth well. And later in his kingship, when Solomon lost the wisdom given to him by God what happened? He became extremely reckless. He became intoxicated with women and married lots of them. In the end, the amazing king who started with the Spirit of God ended with the flesh, ended in disaster. If you are given wealth but lack wisdom, the wealth would probably destroy you. If everything you touch turns to gold and you don’t have the view from the top, even the very people you love the most would turn to gold for you. Wealth without wisdom is utterly dangerous. Suppose the young Solomon had said to God, “make me the most powerful person ever” and God grants that to him, what would he do with that power? That power would devour him. Suppose he had asked God, “Give me all the pleasures in the world” and God does it, but without wisdom, it will be a disaster in a short order. Don’t we see this play out all the time in our culture? Consider the many young athletes, actors and popsters who are given all these things— wealth, power (cultural influence), pleasure (all the sensual pleasure they want). What happened to these young people? More often than not, those things they so coveted, became the very source of their own destruction. Why? Because they received them without wisdom. 

Put yourself now in this position. You are Solomon. The Lord is standing right in front of you. He says to you, “What do you want?” “Ask something of me and I will give it to you? What’s your answer going to be? How I answer this question will tell me a lot about the state of my soul. Am I likely going to be tempted to ask for one of the worldly goods? You betcha! That’s just the story of humanity. We want all the goods of the world. We strive after worldly goods but hardly seek the supreme Good himself. We want power. We want prestige. We want honor. We want pleasure. We want wealth. Right now, examine the content of all your prayers. What do we ask? Worldly goods! Don’t get me wrong. Worldly goods in themselves are good. But how many times did we ask for wisdom? We ask for success without asking for wisdom. We pray for our children to be successful in life without asking that they be given wisdom. But if the Lord says to you today, “Ask something of me and I will do it,” ask for wisdom. That’s the right answer. When Elijah said to Elisha I will give you whatever you want. Elisha asked for a double share of his master’s spirit. When the disciples of John the Baptist followed after Jesus and Jesus turned and asked, “What are you looking for?” Their answer was, “Lord, where do you stay?” When Jesus asked the blind Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man simply said, “Lord, I want to see.” A key moment in the life of St. Thomas Aquinas has it that Thomas was praying before a crucifix for more enlightenment from Jesus. And a voice said to him, “Thomas, you have written well of me, what would you have as your reward?” Thomas said “Non nisi te, Domine” (which means “Nothing except you, Lord!”). If the Lord is standing right in front of you and then says to you, “Ask something from me and I will give it to you?” I hope you ask for the view from the hilltop (wisdom). 

Homily for the Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

Wheat Or Weed, Which One Are You?

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, July 23, 2023

Parables are invented stories meant to communicate deep spiritual truth. They are puzzles designed to engage the listener in active thought. During his public ministry, Jesus used parables. Now, not all his parables were explained and interpreted. Like the parable of the sower, the parable of weeds among the wheat is vividly explained by Jesus. But before we venture into the interpretation of the parable, let’s recount the story itself. From the lips of Jesus we hear of a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everyone was sleeping, an enemy entered his field and sowed weeds in it. Then the two began to grow side by side. Having noticed the appearance of the weeds among the wheat, the field owner’s servants ask him, “Do you want us to go and pull them up?” The master replies, “No, if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them. Let them grow together until harvest” when harvesters will collect the weeds, tie them in bundles and then set them on fire. As for the wheat, they will be gathered and stored away in the owner’s barn.” 

After dismissing the crowds and going into the house, the disciples came to Jesus and asked for an explanation of the parable. Replying, Jesus offered a direct and simple interpretation: “He who sows good seed is the Son of Man, (that’s Jesus himself), the field is the world, the good seed are the children of the kingdom. The weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.” I tell you, this parable makes me nervous. If you are serious about your eternal destiny, you cannot treat this parable with kid gloves. By the way, many of us, in our passion and zeal to get things right will waste no time in uprooting the weeds and setting them on fire. No serious farmer or gardener will take the advice of Jesus and allow the weeds compete for space and nutrients with their plants. But Jesus is not talking about plants, he is speaking about human beings. He’s speaking about the two kinds of people found in the world and in the church. 

But why should evil be allowed to coexist with good? Because some goods would not exist unless paired with certain types of evil. In heaven, this principle would not hold. But here below, in our finite and sinful world, it is simply the case. Certain goods would not exist without a certain form of struggle, resistance, and even wickedness. Think of a child going to school for the first time. I remember taking my younger brother to school for the first time. The anxiety and difficulty he experienced as I took him from the world that he knows to this other unknown world was  enormous. He cried profusely from our home to the school. As he cried and wailed, some passerby wondered if it was the right thing to drag him along to school. Some even asked me to take him back. I remember leaving my family just a few months after the death of my father to live in a dormitory of a minor seminary. The anguish I felt each morning when the rising bell rings at 5:30 am was so deep. I left home when the whole family was still grieving over the death of my father; add to it, I had to live in an unfamiliar environment, surrounded by strange people and had to abide by new rules I considered very strict. Oh! I hated being there. Throughout my first year there, I cried and wanted to go home with my mother or grandmother each time any of them visited me. It was traumatic and a very painful experience for me. But it was that initial “necessary evil” that eventually led to my ordination to the priesthood. Without that suffering, deeper maturity, experience, and ultimately joy will simply not be possible. Suppose my mother surrendered to my suffering and opposition to stay in the dorm of the minor seminary? Suppose a mother listened to the wailing and opposition of her child to leave home, go to school and stay in an unfamiliar environment and with people he or she does not know? Maturity, experience and success of later years would not be attained. More to it, without the presence of certain evils, we are most likely not going to appreciate the good. I never knew that the greatest wealth God can give me is good health until I started studying Clinical Pastoral Education in a Californian hospital and spending seven to eight hours five days a week attending to the spiritual care of the sick. Hunger and starvation strengthens one’s appreciation of having food at his or her disposal. Loss of job and joblessness will raise your value of having a job. The presence of some evils amplifies and intensifies our appreciation and valuation of the good. 

With that in mind, let’s now look at the weeds. Who are they? How can we identify them? The weeds represent people who don’t allow the word of God to penetrate and take root in their lives. When God’s word is preached and taught, it falls on the path or on rocky ground or on thorns. They don’t provide the good soil needed for the seed of the word of God to germinate, grow and bear plentiful good fruits. They oppose and fight from within. They are disruptors. Whatever they are interested in, they go all in, and don’t listen to the pastoral guidance of constituted parochial authority. They adopt “my way or the highway approach.” They fight dirty and fight to finish. In the process, they harm the smooth operation of the church, weaken the zeal and interest of others who want to serve, damage people’s character, and cause serious disunity in the house of God. Like garden weeds, they take up space, compete for nutrients in the soil and sunlight and make it harder for the wheat of God’s gardens to flourish. Like garden weeds, these human weeds invade and disrupt the house of God. They suck some of the oxygen and energy that ought to be used for the propagation of the faith. But the good news is that the good Lord knows them. In his own time, he will act as the great Gardener. At the end of the explanation of the parable, Jesus warns, “Whoever has ears ought to hear.” If what weeds do in the garden— disruption of the ecosystem is what you do in the community, in your family and in the church, Jesus warns you to desist. Allow the word of God to penetrate your heart. There is enough grace to flip you from being a weed to being a wheat. 

God bless you!

Homily for the Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

The Seed Is The Word Of God

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

Church of St. Bridget of Minneapolis, MN

Sunday, July 16, 2023

By definition, a parable is a fictional story meant to teach a lesson. During his public ministry, Jesus used parables to teach deep spiritual truths. Because some of his parables are not explained, theologians, preachers, writers etc. have over the centuries struggled to explain them. But this dilemma is not what we are dealing with in Matthew’s account of the parable of the sower. At the end of the story, Jesus gives us an explicit explanation of the parable. Today’s Gospel opens as follows, “Jesus went out of the house and sat down by the sea.” After being surrounded by a large crowd of people, he got into a boat, sat down and began to teach. He sits down just as he did when he delivered the sermon on the mount. He takes the posture of an ancient teacher who would sit and is surrounded by his disciples. And the first parable he speaks is the parable of the sower: “A sower went out to sow,” Jesus says. As he spread the seed far and wide, some seed landed on the path and were immediately eaten up by birds. Some fell on rocky ground and got destroyed by the scorching sun. Some that fell on thorns were choked to death. But some seed fell on rich soil where it produces thirty, sixty, and hundred fold. 

As I said already, this particular parable has an explicit explanation of its meaning. Some of the parables in the Gospel are not explained. But in the parable of the sower, we have the privilege of hearing from the lips of Jesus its meaning. So, there is no ambiguity here and it would be a mistake and unwise to assign a different meaning to it. But before we venture into its meaning, keep in mind that Jesus himself is the sower in this parable. Pope Benedict XVI contends that in a certain way the parable of the sower is autobiographical: “Jesus identifies himself with the sower who scatters the good seed of the Word of God and notes the different effects it obtains, in accordance with the way in which people hear the proclamation.” What’s the interpretation of this parable? Let’s listen to Jesus. He says, “the seed sown on the path” stands for the one who hears the word of God but does not understand it. Almost everybody in our society has heard about Jesus. Jesus is the most recognized figure in the history of the world. A lot of people in the West can actually tell you the basics of the Gospel and tell you something about Jesus. But the word does not take root because they don’t understand. If you take me to a baseball game or ask me to watch American football, I can watch it as long as I can but wouldn’t get it. The first time I watched the Super Bowl, those in the room were full of fun, energy, screaming, yelling, jumping up from their seats, and sometimes kicking their legs while seated. Why? Because they understood it. They got it. As for me, I was there completely lost and oblivious of what was going on. I simply didn’t get it. This is also what happens in spiritual life. The word of God has to be understood before it can be taken in. This and other factors are the reason why for the first time in the history of the country, the proportion of Americans who are religious is now below 50%. In 2021, the Gallup survey showed that only 47% of Americans identify themselves as religious. 

Next, Jesus says, “the seed sown on rocky ground is the one who hears the Word and receives it with joy. Because it has no root, it lasts only for a time.” These are people who are fascinated by the spiritual or religious. They may be attracted by a charismatic personality or by an intense experience or by the choir. Now, there is nothing wrong with that, it could be the way God has chosen to plant the seed. But the problem with this group is that when difficulties, trials and persecution arise, they lose confidence. They fade away. They stop coming to church, stop praying and stop attending any religious gathering. Because they lack the discipline, a keen sense of religion, the intuitiveness and perseverance required, the initial glow of faith evaporates with time.  The original excitement dims with time. Whatever you take seriously must be accompanied by discipline. One of the signs that you don’t take something seriously is the lack of discipline. A student who is not really interested in making good grades and graduating with honors will not crucify himself on the reading desk. He will have no appetite to discipline himself, wrestle with his books and study hard. But if making excellent grades and graduating top in his class is so important to him, he will discipline himself and surrender to the rigor of studying. Lack of discipline and perseverance is another reason why religious practice is dwindling in our culture. Going to Mass on Sunday is no longer a top priority for many Catholics. If there is no football game and I emotionally feel good, I will go to Mass. But will a student who goes to school when he feels like graduate? Would you like a pilot who went to school when he felt like fly you? Would you like a surgeon who skipped many classes to perform surgery  on you? Will you still have a job if you only go to work when you are in a good mood? Not at all! If you take something seriously you surround it with discipline. This is also required in religion. 

Third, the seed sown among thorns are those who hear the word but then worldly anxiety and the lure of riches chokes the word and it bears no fruit. What are these “worldly anxieties and lures of riches?” Power, honor, wealth, pleasure, prestige etc.  Some people hear the word, take it in, but they are unable to cultivate and set their priority right. A Christian should know the will of God. A Christian should understand God’s purpose and consider it a top priority. Without it, you are going to lose your way and succumb to the voices and inclinations of the world. It does not mean you cannot be interested in other things like sports, entertainment, politics, social issues etc. but the word of God is what orders and organizes all those other interests. What Jesus calls “worldly anxieties and lures of riches” should be a lesser concern to you. Be concerned about your finances, family, reputation etc. but don’t let any of them have a dominating role in your mind. Don’t let them off your interest in the word of God. If they do, you will bear no good fruit. Finally, what would enable the seed of the word of God to grow and bear fruit? Understand the faith. Read the Bible. Share the faith with others. Practice the faith. Persevere in your faith. Surround your faith with disciplines. Let God come first in everything you do. And when you do, the word of God will bear fruit— thirty, sixty, and hundred fold.

Homily for the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

Who Is The Commanding General Of  Your Life?

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, July 9, 2023

Our readings for this Sunday examine what it would be like to have Jesus Christ for a King. In our first reading, prophet Zechariah said, “Rejoice heartily, O daughter Zion, shout for joy, O daughter Jerusalem! See, your king shall come to you; a just savior is he, meek, and riding on an ass… His dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from River to the ends of the earth.” Five hundred years after prophet Zechariah, Jesus enters the holy city of David, just as Zechariah had said. He enters Jerusalem on a colt, on a foal of an ass. He rode in as the peaceful King, and as the one who would banish the weapons of war and introduce a whole new way of ordering things. Where is the kingship of Jesus expressed? On the cross! On that gory instrument of torture and death, he submits to the violence of the world. That’s what the cross was meant to symbolize. It does not represent Roman punishment alone, it also shines a spotlight on the whole human dysfunction and the dark ways of the world. On that cross, Jesus takes all that darkness upon himself and allows it to overwhelm him. After that he swallows it up in the ever greater divine mercy. The Resurrection of Jesus from the dead shows his lordship over the darkness of the world. It shows that he represents a new kind of kingship. He is the new King who addresses the cruelty, the violence, the disorder of the world not through more cruelty or more violence or more disorder, not through an explosion of divine vengeance but through a radiation of divine love and redeeming mercy. So, what prophet Zechariah prophesied long ago, the coming of the new David happened in Christ.

With that in mind, let us look at the Gospel today. Let us listen to what this new King, this strange, counter-cultural Davidic King said: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.” Who are those who labor and are burdened? Everybody! Everybody who lives under the burden of the old rule. Original sin poisoned the world from the very beginning, as such, we have violence meeting violence, hatred meeting hatred, vengeance giving rise to vengeance. I hate you, and you hate me. My family hates your family because your family hates my family. We are all caught in this dangerous game. We are born into it, we breed our children into it and it becomes our way of being. In the Gospel, John calls it “the world.” That’s what it means to labor and be burdened. What’s Jesus saying to us today? Come to me all of you in that situation and I will give you rest. People with economic worries, physical sufferings, oppression, depression, deepened injustice, moral failures, sins, spiritual dryness, fear of death and whatever it is, come to him. While commenting on this invitation of Jesus, St. John Chrysostom said, “Not this or that person, but all that are in anxiety, in sorrows, in sins. Come, not that I may call you to account, but that I may do away with your sins; come, not because I want your honor, but because I want your salvation. “And I,” says he, “will give you rest.”

What should be our response to his invitation? Submit to his kingship! Submit to his new ways of ordering things. Whether you know it or not, whether you like it or not, you are somebody’s slave. We all are! We are all slaves to this system I have described. We are all slaves to this world of cruelty, violence and injustice, the old way of being. But the new King is saying, Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. Think of a cattle with a yoke tied on its shoulder. With the yoke on its back and under the command of the farmer, the cattle accomplishes what the farmer wants. This might seem demeaning but that is what submission to Christ’s lordship looks like. It means we serve the purposes of the new King. We go where he wants us to go. So, the question today is, is Jesus the commanding General of your life? Is your family under his guidance? Is your professional and recreational life under his command? Is Jesus the Lord of every room in your house? Is your private and public life under the lordship of Jesus? Is your sexual life under his lordship? Your sexual life belongs to him, your friendship serves his purpose. Have you totally surrendered to his lordship? Does this sound oppressive? Maybe. But remember what he said, My yoke is easy, and my burden light. What does that mean? When we surrender to the path of love, which he laid out to us, when we surrender to the discipline of this new world where he reigns as King, our life becomes infinitely lighter, easier, more joyful, and we begin to move according to the divine rhythm and divine purposes. What makes our life burdensome is that we are held captive by the old ways of ordering things. But Jesus the new King has come in peace as Zechariah prophesied to establish a new order where divine love is more powerful than the system St. John calls “the world.” Do you want his peace and rest? Submit to him! Get under his yoke. Move according to the rhythm and pattern of his reign. Jesus wants to enter into your life and my life just as he entered the holy city of Jerusalem. And don’t forget we are meant to be the holy city in person. 

God bless you!