Luke 14:25-33, Solemnity of St Ignatius de Loyola Here in this parish we are well acquainted with the conversion story of Ignatius. Each year we rehearse how a cannonball shattered his leg and his dreams of serving as a knight; how he recuperated for months on end in pain and boredom; how he then began…
Month: July 2017
Losing It – Johnny Go, SJ
Matthew 13:44-46, 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time We have two very similar mini-parables in today’s Gospel reading, and the one thing they have in common is that their characters both find something and lose something. In the first one, a person digs up a valuable treasure in some field, and what does he do? He…
Searching for the Right Fuel – Ron Rolheiser, OMI
Matthew 13:44-52, 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time Sometimes everything can seem right on the surface while, deep down, nothing is right at all. We see this, for example, in the famous parable in the gospels about the Prodigal Son and his older brother. By every outward appearance the Older Brother is doing everything right: He’s…
Pippin, the Jesuits and the Pearl of Great Price – Mark Lopez, SJ
Matthew 13:44-52, 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time One of the musicals I loved listening to as I was growing up was “Pippin.” This was about the quest of a young prince, son of King Charlemegne, to find the meaning of his life. (To be clear, I’m not yet THAT old. It’s just that this musical…
Why Let The Bad Mix With The Good? – Francis Alvarez, SJ
Matthew 13:24-43, 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time “…if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them. Let them grow together until harvest…” (Matthew 13:29-30). I read our Gospel today, and I remember the spicy surprise that met a Jesuit who transplanted sprigs of basil beside some sili. After a few weeks,…
Hopeful Imagining – Mark Aloysius, SJ
Matthew 13:24-30, 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time When I was a teenager, our English teacher wore a t-shirt that amused me immensely. On it was written the caption, the older I get, the better I was! I remember him using the t-shirt to both educate us about tenses and also about life. As time passes,…
Listen to the Groaning – Johnny Go, SJ
Matthew 13:24-43, 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul uses an intriguing description to refer to the sound of the Spirit praying in us: “The Spirit himself intercedes with “inexpressible groanings.” There’s a reason why the Apostle didn’t liken it to something more conventional and even appealing. Like why…
Thinking Small – Ron Rolheiser, OMI
Matthew 13:24-43, 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time A year ago, I was at a religious education conference which had as its keynote speaker Maya Angelou, a black woman of considerable talent and remarkable graciousness. Among the many things she shared was this story: “When I was six years old,” she said, “one summer day on…
Forgive the Weeds – John Foley, SJ
Matthew 13:24-43, 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time In this week’s Gospel story, the servants ask whether they should pull out weeds that have been woven in with the wheat. “No,” the Master says. “If you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them. Let them grow together until harvest.” This parable…
The Heart of the Gospel – Mark Aloysius, SJ
Matthew 13:-19; 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time In the film Inception, a team of skilled thieves, who steal corporate secrets through entering the dreams of others, are given the task of planting an idea in the mind of an heir of a major corporation. The idea that they are tasked to plant is to dissolve…
Reckless Lover – Fr Harold Parilla
Matthew 13:1-9, 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time If we find in the Bible a prodigal son, one theologian says, there also is a prodigal sower. By prodigal here is meant wasteful and indiscriminate. In the Gospel for today, God is presented as a prodigal giver, as one who is “reckless” in his manner of giving….
Sower – Rudolf Horst, SVD
Matthew 13:1-9, 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time For people who live in a city, the parable of the sower and the seeds are difficult to understand. And for people who live in the province it is also not easy to understand. Wasn’t the farmer careless throwing the seed on a path, among the thorns and…
One Lost Sheep 