This
is Alice’s July newsletter. I explained Alice’s monthly newsletter here.This month focuses on the Sacred Heart of
Jesus.
Before
the newsletter, let us pray: For Pope Leo XIV
Hail
Mary, full of grace…
Hail
Mary, full of grace…
Hail
Mary, full of grace…
St.
Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle; be our protection against the
wickedness and snares of the devil; may God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do
thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God, thrust into hell
Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of
souls.
Handmaids of Mary St. Michael’s Warriors
July 2026 Newsletter
“The scapular will be for all the sign of our Consecration
to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”
~Pope
Pius XII
This month on the 16th is the feast of Our Lady of Mt.
Carmel, when Our Lady appeared to St. Simon Stock and gave him the brown
scapular.
Mt. Carmel is in northern Israel near the city of
Haifa.It is also where Elijah
challenged the pagan prophets and revealed the true God (1 Kings 18:16-45).
It is written on the Scapular, “whoever dies while wearing
this scapular shall not suffer eternal fire.”
This, the Sabbatine Privilege, was added to the Brown
Scapular by Pope John XII, making it an official church belief that Mary will
intercede and rescue those who die wearing the Brown Scapular on the first
Saturday after their death.
The Brown Scapular not only spares us the fires of hell, but
we will be quickly delivered from purgatory!!!!
Sursum corda. Can we wonder that the church whose mission is
to soothe the sorrows of our time is always seeking to lift up our hearts by
the treasures we have in the Catholic faith?One of the means by which the Church enables us to participate in her
treasures of grace is with sacramentals.
The Holy Spirit guided me this month to these sacramentals.
1. The Crucifix
One of our most treasured sacramentals is the crucifix.It is the image of Christ on the cross as the
victim for our sins, the price of our redemption.Meditation on the crucifix is one of the most
powerful means of awakening sentiments of sorrow for sin.
The crucifix should be place in a fitting and proper place
in the home, where each may glance at it frequently and think, if only for an
instant, of the love of Him whom it represents and the instrument of our
salvation.
“O Holy Cross, be my victor over all hostile powers, the
remedy for all my ills, my support in my weariness and the guarantee of the
resurrection of my body” Amen.
2. The Sign of the Cross
For Catholics the sign of the cross is a shield and a
safeguard against temptations and dangers that threaten the life of the soul.
St Cyril of Jerusalem said that when we make the sign of the cross the demons
see it, they are reminded of the crucified, and they take flight and hide
themselves and leave us.
All sacraments are administered with the sign of the cross:
in baptism fourteen times, and in the Sacrament of the Sick (Extreme Unction)
twelve times.In the mass no less than
45 times. It occurs with great frequency in the recitation of the Divine
Office.In addition, the Church grants
an indulgence of three years as often as one makes the sign of the cross, and,
as often as the sign of the cross is made with holy watery, an indulgence of
seven years.
3. Holy Water
Water was one of the first objects to be blessed by the
church for use as a sacramental.
It is the common teaching of theologians that holy water
confers actual graces, remits venial sin, and restrains the power of
Satan.It is also an efficacious means
for the relief of the souls in purgatory.As often as we use it devoutly, our good Mother, the church, implores
for us aid, consolation, and strength to do good and avoid evil.
Every Christian home should have a holy water font.These should be placed in convenient places
so that holy water may be taken frequently by the members of the family.May fear of ridicule never deter us from
making use of so a means of grace, both for ourselves and our dear ones, and
for the faithful departed.
Through the sacramentals:
“The lord will grant you love, holy and pure.You will forget the world’s fears.Ah much more, the devil too.Now the demon is manacled today.”
~St.
Therese of Avila
Handmaids of Mary and men of St. Michaels Warriors are
called to greater faith in the Blessed Mother, believing that She will defeat
the devil and bring unity and peace to our beloved Catholic Church.All Mary had to do at Cana was mention to
Jesus “they have no wine,” and Jesus filled all the water jugs with wine.Our part is to trust in Her Power.
“Who is She that comes forth as the Dawn…Terrible as an army
set in battle array…”
For the Fifteen Sunday of Ordinary Time in
Year A, Jesus begins His Parables Discourse, the third of five discourses in
Matthew’s Gospel.He begins the
discourse with the Parable of the Sower.
In the July 2026 (Vol 28, No. 5) issue of the
magazine Magnificat, Fr. Philip Nolan, O.P. in his editorial has
this to say about this parable:
The sower, says Jesus, is the Son of Man (Mt 13:37).In the beginning of time, the Son of Man the
Word of the Father, brought life not merely to a barren landscape, but to a void
of absolute nothingness.All
things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be (Jn 1:3).Then, after the influence of evil stunted the
growth of that first gift of life, in the fullness of time the Son of Man, the Incarnate
Word of the Father, graced with his footsteps the hills of Galilee and the
streets of Jerusalem, scattering with abandon his words of new life for the
people of his time and the people of every time.
This puts the Word that is being sown into
perspective.He is the Word that brought
forth life in abundance from the beginning, and is the Word which saves life
now.What is being scattered is the Word
and words are the communicative constituents that are transmitted and received.As Jesus says in this passage, “Whoever has
ears ought to hear.”
Today’s Gospel:
On that day, Jesus went out of the house and sat down by the sea.Such large crowds gathered around him that he
got into a boat and sat down, and the whole crowd stood along the shore.
And he spoke to them at length in
parables, saying:
“A sower went out to sow.
And as he sowed, some seed fell on
the path,
and birds came and ate it up.
Some fell on rocky ground, where it
had little soil.
It sprang up at once because the
soil was not deep,
and when the sun rose it was
scorched,
and it withered for lack of roots.
Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it.
But some seed fell on rich soil, and
produced fruit,
a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.
Whoever has ears ought to hear.”
The disciples approached him and
said,
“Why do you speak to them in
parables?”
He said to them in reply,
“Because knowledge of the mysteries
of the kingdom of heaven
has been granted to you, but to them
it has not been granted.
To anyone who has, more will be
given and he will grow rich;
from anyone who has not, even what
he has will be taken away.
This is why I speak to them in
parables, because
they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand.
Isaiah's prophecy is fulfilled in
them, which says:
You shall indeed hear but not
understand,
you shall indeed look but never see.
Gross is the heart of this people,
they will hardly hear with their
ears,
they have closed their eyes,
lest they see with their eyes
and hear with their ears
and understand with their hearts and
be converted,
and I heal them.
“But blessed are your eyes, because
they see,
and your ears, because they hear.
Amen, I say to you, many prophets
and righteous people
longed to see what you see but did
not see it,
and to hear what you hear but did
not hear it.
"Hear then the parable of the
sower.
The seed sown on the path is 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.
The seed sown on rocky ground
is 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 wordhe immediately falls away.
The seed sown among thorns is the
one who hears the word,
but then worldly anxiety and the
lure of riches choke the word
and it bears no fruit.
But the seed sown on rich soil
is the one who hears the word and
understands it,
who indeed bears fruit and yields a
hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.”
~Mt: 13:1-23
I found Fr. Cajetan Cuddy’s explanation of this passage to be most
insightful.Other homilies focus on the sowing
and the four soils, but Fr. Cajetan explores the element of hearing involved in
the four types of reception.
Fr. Cajetan:
The Gospel's opening
line reads Jesus said to his disciples hear, hear the parable of the sower.This parable and this dynamic of hearing
serves as the gospel's meta context. The disciples hear Jesus.And what do they hear? They hear a command to
hear. Jesus commands them to hear the parable of the sower.Our Lord then exposits, he explains, he
unpacks the dynamics of hearing the word in each of the four disciplines.
Thus, if we were to
diagram, to frame, to outline this gospel, we could say that today's gospel
comprises three degrees of hearing.The
disciples hear from Jesus, a command to hear, a parable, about hearing the
word.Hearing, hearing, hearing. This is
the dynamic of today's gospel.And each
of the four seeds in the parable found in today's gospel, each of the four
seeds hears the word. We note, however, what also attends or doesn't attend
their hearing of the word.The
evangelical prepositions with and without With and without these prepositions,
these words, play critical roles in today's gospel.And perhaps most interestingly, the seed
that's most significant is the second seed, the one, quote, sown on rocky
ground.Each of the other three seeds
here's the word either with or without something else.The first without understanding. The third
with worldly preoccupations, the fourth with understanding.Notice the withouts and the withs that
punctuate these different scenarios vis-a-vis the seeds.
But it's the second
scenario. The second is the only seed framed in terms of both a with and a
without.The one who hears the word and
receives it at once with joy, but he has no root.In other words, he is without root and lasts
only for a short time, with joy, but without root, the paradoxical and
distinguishing complexity of the second seed.So evidently this second seed understands something. Of the word it
hears.If it lacked all understanding,
there would be no basis for its initial joy.The seed rejoices precisely because it does understand to a degree.What it lacks, however, is root. And thus the
joy of its, the seeds, the second seeds, limit under understanding, limited
understanding is short-lived.In
contrast, the fourth seed. Who hears the word and understands it, bears fruit
and yields a hundred or sixty or thirty fold.This final seed who hears and understands is rooted.So now we see as we progress through the
gospel, in addition to the theme, the dynamic of hearing, we also have the
theme and dynamic of understanding.And
the theme and the dynamic of rootedness.Understanding and rootedness are essential attributes in the
contemplative life in the theologian's contemplation.As we know, understanding implies a certain
intimate knowledge.
Notice what Fr. Cajetan points out.In the first soil, “the seed sown on the path is the one
who hears the word of the kingdom without understanding it.”In the second soil, “the seed sown on rocky
ground is the one who hears the word and receives it at once with joy. But
he has no root [without] and lasts only for a time.”In the third soil. “the seed sown among
thorns is the one who hears the word, but then [with] worldly anxiety and
the lure of riches choke the word and it bears no fruit.”In the
fourth soil, “the seed sown on rich soil is the one who hears the word and
understands it.”The soil metaphor is
related to the dynamic of hearing.
For the pastoral homily I’m going to turn to a Franciscan Friar, Fr.
Jonathan St. André, TOR of Franciscan University of Steubenville.
Fr. Jonathan:
In the gospel for the
15th Sunday in ordinary time, we hear the marvelous parable of the sower and
the seed. It's a beautiful parable that I think uh has so much to instruct us
in in our tradition and spirituality. And actually, it's a parable that was
close to St. Francis of Assi's heart. I've got my writings of St. Francis here,
which are dogeared and beat up because I love reading them. And in his early
rule chapter 22 in a section in admonition to the brothers he actually includes
this parable in its entirety and gives some commentary on it. St. Francis
writes, "We have nothing else to do but to follow the will of the Lord and
to please him. Let us be careful that we are not earth along the wayside or
that which is rocky or full of thorns." In keeping with what the Lord says
in the gospel, the word of God is a seed.So Francis of Assi is really imploring us, cautioning us, asking us,
what kind of earth are you? How are you going to be receiving the seed of the
word of God?
And I think if you're
like me and you're honest and you look at your own heart, you look at your own
soul, you look at your own spiritual life, that you are all of those different
kinds of earth in the parable.Sometimes
parts of our heart are the wayside and the seed, the word of God, the message
that we hear hits our heart, but it's too shallow. It can't really take root.
Sometimes it's the rocky ground and we're all gung-ho and we're excited to move
forward in faith and follow Jesus and then the trials come and it's like okay
things slip away, slide away, we pull back. Sometimes it's the ground where the
thorns have grown alongside the word and they choke out the word and the thorns
in the scripture passage really relate to the allure of the world the
temptations also anxieties for many of us we're just we get so anxious about
many things that it can choke out the truth of God's word in our life so the
constant pursuit of the spiritual life is to ask what kind of earth am I for
the word for the seed that is the word?
So, at different moments in our lives we can be any of the four soils.The Word of God as seed is constantly being sown,
and our hearts have the capacity to plant the seed in any of the four
ways.May our hearts be of rich soil
more often than not.
Sunday Meditation: “But
blessed are your eyes, because they see,
and your ears, because
they hear.”
This is a lovely hymn that matches today’s Gospel perfectly, “Seed,
Scattered and Sown.”
As many of you know on May 25th, Pope Leo
published his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, on the cautions and
moral use of artificial intelligence (AI).The encyclical established the Catholic Church’s social teaching on the
use of AI, especially in regard to human dignity and the common good.Let me say up front, I have not read the
encyclical but I have read summations and excerpts.The details of the encyclical are not the
concern of this post.What I do what to
point out is the starting quote within the document.
Magnifica Humanitas contains a quote from J.R.R.
Tolkien’s epic novel, Lord of the Rings.More specifically it quotes
from a piece of dialogue from one of its main characters, the character who
represents wisdom and moral rectitude of the wizard, Gandalf the Grey.After his sacrificial act of saving the
fellowship at the expense of his life, Gandalf will later in a “resurrection”
of sorts, return as Gandalf the White, the name change reflecting a process of purification.But as “Gandalf the Grey” he symbolizes a man
of wisdom.Indeed, grey has long been
associated with wisdom and prudence, alluding to the ancient Greek “grey-eyed”
goddess of wisdom, Athena.But I think
it also associates with those of us in a particular age group of grey-haired or
grey-bearded.(Ha, that’s one of the few
benefits of reaching my age!)Where I
work we sometimes refer to the experience “old-timers” as “the grey
beards.”
With that context, let’s turn to the quote:
It is not our part to master all
the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years
wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that
those who live after may have clean earth to till.
There has been several commentaries in the public domain on
why Pope Leo chose this quote.I’m going
to draw on two.
Of all the startling things one
might find in a papal encyclical, a quote from J. R. R. Tolkien might take the
cake. It’s not the first time a novel has made an appearance in such a format,
as The Brothers Karamazov showed up in Pope Francis’ “Dilexit Nos,” but
who would ever have thought The Lord of the Rings would appear in a
magisterial document?
But there it is—a quote from
Gandalf right smack in the middle of the text…As for the horrifically mixed
metaphor, blame Tolkien, not the pope.
Ha!The mixed
metaphor he refers to is the “tide” metaphor which opens the quote with the
tilling of soil as to the solution the tides present.That is a mixed metaphor but Tolkien has put
the quote into the mouth of Gandalf, so it would follow common speech patterns of
dialogue rather than formal prose.But
even in formal prose, I personally do not find mixed metaphors problematic per
se.They become problematic if they
confuse or contradict.I don’t find that
to be the case here.
Also interesting is that Pope Francis had used a quote from
a novel, The Brothers Karamazov.Over
the years I had found Pope Francis to have a very good knowledge of literature.I think recall the Holy Father quoting Dante
and Borges and Cervantes.There are
others I’m sure but my memory is faulty.He actually wrote a letter on the use of literature in the formation of
priests and religious.I published my reading
of it here.Pope Francis also had an Apostolic Letter commemorating the passing of
Dante Algheri, and I published two posts on reading through it, here and here.I don’t know if Pope Leo is as knowledgeable
of literature as Pope Francis, but he is following in his footsteps on drawing from
classic literature.
Kean provides the context of Leo’s Magnifica Humanitas
to show how the Tolkien (through Gandalf) quote is relevant.
Paragraph 90 [of Magnifica
Humanitas] gives us the most important question: “We are called to reflect
on the great ‘construction sites’ of our era and ask: What are we building?”
Throughout “Magnifica Humanitas,” the two images he uses to represent the
choice before us are of the Tower of Babel from Genesis and Nehemiah’s slow
reconstruction of Jerusalem from the Book of Nehemiah: The first story tells of
the thoughtless arrogance taken on by a humanity that sees its own
glorification as the goal of existence; the second tells of the humble and
painstaking act of constructing something holy, brick by brick. You can guess
which one our Augustinian pope prefers.
So, concerning artificial intelligence, the central subject
matter of the encyclical, Pope Leo is not innately opposed to AI, but he calls
into question the manner of its use and the implications of its purport. Pope Leo uses two opposing Biblical images to
present the possibilities.With AI, we
could be building a Tower of Babel, a prideful challenge to God’s
providence.Or we could be rebuilding
Jerusalem after the destruction of the Temple from the Babylonian siege.The first is degradation of human dignity;
the second is working with God for the building of human institutions.Kean consolidates Pope Leo’s thesis.
What are we building? What are the
great construction sites of our era? A tower to the heavens, the A.I.
enthusiasts tell us, whether you want it or not. It can’t be stopped. Perhaps
not, “Magnifica Humanitas” concedes, but it certainly doesn’t have to be a
folly that destroys human solidarity forever. It could be a new work of a
magnificent humanity, holy and built on the ideas and images and labors of a
humanity that seeks more than simply efficiency or profit.
Could it be possible that artificial intelligence would be
holy and transcend efficiency or profit?Highly unlikely.
Joseph Pearce, writing in the National Catholic Register,
“Why Pope
Leo Quoted Tolkien’s Gandalf,” has a little different perspective on Pope
Leo’s quote of Gandalf.
Essentially, Gandalf is saying that
localism is the only effective response to globalism. None of us, as
individuals, as mere pint-sized hobbits in a world of great and largely dark
powers, can defeat the power of global corporations and the invasive technology
that they are trying to impose upon us. “It is not our part to master all the
tides of the world.”
On the other hand, we are called
“to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set.” We are
only called to attend to the times in which we live and to work to make the
world in which we find ourselves a better place by loving and serving those
around us. It is pointless worrying about how evil our own time is and equally
pointless to vainly wish that things were different.
“I wish it need not have happened
in my time,” Frodo complains to Gandalf.
“So do I,” Gandalf replies, “and so
do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we
have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
Other than Pearce’s touch of contemporary ideology (“localism
is the only effective response to globalism”), he is identifying that Gandalf is
stating that resolving the immediate needs of your neighbors will cure what is
wrong with the world at large.If
everyone paid attention to one’s neighbors, the aggregate attention would bring
about the Kingdom of God.And it’s not
the geographic restrictions that Pearce identifies.He sees Gandalf’s quote temporally as well.
No, we cannot choose the time in
which we are born. We might wish to have lived, as Frodo does, in more peaceful
and virtuous times, unravaged by war and wickedness, but that is not for us to
decide. What we do need to decide is what to do with the time that is given us
in the times in which we find ourselves. In the words that Pope Leo quotes,
Gandalf tells us that we cannot stop all the wars and all the wickedness, we
cannot “master all the tides of the world,” but we can decide to fight
wickedness where we find it in our own small sphere of influence, “uprooting
the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have
clean earth to till.”
In the context of the situation, Pearce sees Gandalf’s quote
as containing a moral directive to Frodo.
Our calling, our responsibility, is
to be good and faithful stewards of the good things we’ve been given and to be
good and faithful servants of the Lord our God and of those who are our
neighbors in the Shire in which we live, and of those who will be born after
us.
And so, this I think is where Pope Leo is coming from.Artificial Intelligence requires a moral
responsibility to not use it in a prideful, self-centered way, and to consider
the benefits to the common good that it could contain as a glorification of God.
I’m only now getting the chance to post on our annual Father’s
Day, father/son adventure.This is an
annual event we do for Father’s Day.We
do some “adventure” together, just the two of us.I first wrote
about this in 2014 when Matthew was four years old.And if you’re interested, you can scroll
through all the annual
Father’s Day adventures using this link.
This year we decided to hike and explore one of Staten Island's
many parks, a lesser known park called Wolf’s Pond.It’s not a very large park, but it’s
eclectic.It has woods and hiking trails
as one would expect with fresh water ponds but it also runs up to the Raritan
Bay, which is part of the Atlantic Ocean.So it also has ocean front and beach.Here is a map of the park.
I don’t think any of the hiking tails are more than two
miles, so that should give you a perspective.The long tear-drop shaped pond on the southwest corner is Wolf’s Pond,
and you can see that only a sliver of land separates it from the bay.Major hurricanes have caused the ocean water
to breach into the pond and kill all the fresh water pond life.Several times in the last century they have
had to fix the damage and restore normal pond life.
The real adventure of this day was not so much the hiking
and exploring, but the drive.Matthew
has his driving permit and been taking driving lessons.The adventure was for him to drive us there
and back.Not using highways, which he
has not learned to do yet, it’s about a ten mile drive through the streets.I took one picture of him driving.
I will say he drives pretty well in the streets, but I have
to say he needs work on his parallel parking and managing parking lots.But we went there and back with no problems.
Here are some pictures of Matthew on the hiking trail.
Here are some pictures of Wolf’s Pond.
The Canadian geese had monopolized this but there were ducks
and turtles and people fishing.It’s
actually a very lovely park for those who live by here.
Once you come out of the woods, you can see ocean.
We explored a remote area of the shore for a bit as
well.
There was lots of fallen trees, washed-up stuff from the ocean,
and a seaweed stinky smell.It was not
somewhere you wanted to hang out.
That’s yours truly, with his camera.
I should mention, Wolf’s Pond Park has a very nice memorial
to those who fought in the Battle of the Bulge.I took several pictures, but I’m only going to share one.
On the way home, I had Matthew stop at what I thought was an
upscale pizza place.It turned out to be
an expensive Italian restaurant.
Matthew wound up getting a prime rib that was enough for
three servings and I had cavatelli in a Bolognaise sauce.Delicious!We took home the left overs.
There are two halves to today’s Gospel, but
with a subtle interconnection.For the Fourteenth
Sunday in Ordinary Time in Year A, Jesus first offers a prayer to the Father
where He reveals the Father/Son relationship and then invites those listening
into the heart of that relationship.
I think it would be helpful to read the
entire chapter eleven of Matthew’s Gospel to understand the context of today’s
passage.Jesus has been preaching across
the Galilean cities, and in some which He names He is rejected.And so He thanks the Father for having
revealed to children what the “wise” rejected.What was revealed?That there is
a relationship between Father and Son.In a sense, Jesus is exposing Himself as the child with the innocent
heart.
Then Jesus turns to us and invites us as
children to share His Passion.His Passion?He says to share His yoke, and isn’t it
supposed to be easy?Just last week we
heard from the previous chapter in Matthew, that “whoever does not take up his
cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.”Can Jesus have changed His mind from one chapter to the next as to
whether one needs to suffer with Him or one needs have their burden lifted?These are not mutually exclusive.
Today’s Gospel:
At that time Jesus exclaimed:
"I give praise to you, Father,
Lord of heaven and earth,
for although you have hidden these
things
from the wise and the learned
you have revealed them to little
ones.
Yes, Father, such has been your
gracious will.
All things have been handed over to
me by my Father.
No one knows the Son except the
Father,
and no one knows the Father except
the Son
and anyone to whom the Son wishes to
reveal him."
"Come to me, all you who labor
and are burdened,
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from
me,
for I am meek and humble of heart;
and you will find rest for
yourselves.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden
light."
~Mt: 11:25-30
For the exegetical explanation, I’m going to turn to Raymond Ruan.I don’t know who Raymond Ruan is.His YouTube channel says he’s from Singapore
and he has been publishing these exegetical videos since 2011.The voice does not sound it belongs to a man,
so I think he has a reader.But I don’t
know.I have watched some of his videos and
found them very good.This one is
excellent, and so I embed it.
Raymond Ruan:
We dive a little
deeper into what's happening when Jesus prays to the father. We have two panels
here. Panel one shows the high Christology. When Jesus says that all things
have been handed over to me by my father, he is showing us his exclusive eternal
relationship with God the father. He is the pre-existent son.Moving to our next slide, we dive a little
deeper into what's happening when Jesus prays to the father. We have two panels
here. Panel one shows the high Christology. When Jesus says that all things
have been handed over to me by my father, he is showing us his exclusive eternal
relationship with God the father. He is the pre-existent son.On this slide, we see how beautifully the
whole Bible ties together. What we call the symphony of scripture. We have three
images here. First, the meek king from Zechariah 9 who rides on a beast of
burden to banish the warrior. Jesus fulfills this by ruling with breathtaking
gentleness instead of military power.The
blueprint of discipleship. Here we have the greatest image of Jesus washing his
disciples feet. His words are profound, but his life is the greatest lesson he
offers. He teaches us how to bear the weight of human existence through radical
love.
In Jewish tradition,
a rabbi would invite disciples to take up the yoke of his teaching. Jesus
invites us to tether ourselves to his divine wisdom. But there is also the yoke
of Calvary.Jesus says we must deny
ourselves and take up our cross daily. We can't embrace his teaching while
rejecting his suffering.So here is the
paradox. How can a yoke that includes the agonizing weight of the cross be
considered easy?Grace meets demand. The
mechanics of the shared yoke. Here are the answers to the question by showing
us the mechanics of the shared yoke. Look at the human reality. A radical
demand plus human frailty equals crushing despair. Without grace, carrying our
daily cross is impossible.But look at
the reality of grace.Jesus doesn't just
assign us a burden and walk away. He steps into the harness beside us. As the
reflection from Epriest notes, when two people are yoked together, they are
united in all they do. They are never alone. Christ always takes the heavy side
of the beam. The cross remains real, but because grace bears the weight, the
burden becomes wonderfully light.
We will all experience suffering.But yoked with Jesus, the suffering becomes lighter.When we enter the Sacred Heart of Jesus we receive
His rest.
For the pastoral homily, I’m going to turn to the Order of Preachers in
India, specifically, Fr. Pratik Pereira O.P.
Fr. Pratik:
Dear brothers and
sisters, in today's gospel passage, we are invited into a deeply personal
moment in the ministry of Jesus. To understand the weight of his words, we have
to look at what was happening around him. Jesus had just finished preaching in
the cities of Galilee where many had rejected his message. In response, Jesus turns
to prayer. He praises the father for revealing the mysteries of the kingdom of
God not to the wise but to children. Jesus is not dismissing intelligence here.
Rather, he's teaching a profound theological truth. God is not a puzzle to be
solved by human cleverness. God is a person to be known through love, humility,
and a childlike trust. Jesus states clearly that no one knows the father except
the son and no one knows the son except the father. This means that we cannot
climb our way up to God through our own human efforts or sheer willpower. True
knowledge of God is always a gift freely given to us by Jesus.The relationship between the father and the
son is one of perfect intimate love. And Jesus invites us directly into that inner
life of God.
The image of a yoke
is also deeply practical. A yoke was a wooden frame placed over the necks of a
pair of oxen so they could pull a heavy load together. Crucially, a yoke is
never meant for a single animal. It is designed for two. When Jesus says, "Shoulder
my yoke," he's not asking us to carry a new set of heavy rules on our own.
He's inviting us to harness ourselves to him. He's saying, "Let me walk
right beside you. Let me pull the
heaviest part of the weight." The rest that
Jesus promises is not a life free of responsibilities, trials, or duties.
Instead, it is a rest for our souls born from a security of knowing that we are
never walking alone and that our worth is not [music] tied to how perfectly we
perform.
Jesus then reveals
his own character describing himself as gentle and humble in heart. This is the
only place in the entire gospel where Jesus explicitly describes his own inner
heart. He does not demand compliance through fear or intimidation. He draws us
close through gentleness. His humility is the antidote to our pride and anxiety
because he is gentle. We do not have to hide our weaknesses, our failures or
our exhaustion from him. We can bring our messy burdened lives directly to him
confident that he will meet a savior that each one of us will meet a savior who
welcomes us with open arms rather than judgment.
He is gentle, so we must be gentle.He is humble of heart, so we must be humble of heart.He is childlike, so we must be childlike.Lessons we need to internalize.
Sunday Meditation: “I
give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have
hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to
little ones.”
Finally I have not posted on the 250th anniversary of our
July 4th Declaration of Independence.It’s a remarkable milestone in our history. I
think a worthy hymn for this occasion is “My Country Tis of Thee.”
My country, 'tis of
Thee,
Sweet Land of Liberty
Of thee I sing;
Land where my fathers
died,
Land of the pilgrims'
pride,
From every mountain
side
Let Freedom ring.
My native country,
thee,
Land of the noble
free,
Thy name I love;
I love thy rocks and
rills,
Thy woods and templed
hills;
My heart with rapture
thrills,
Like that above.
Let music swell the
breeze,
And ring from all the
trees
Sweet freedom's song;
Let mortal tongues
awake;
Let all that breathe
partake;
Let rocks their
silence break,
The sound prolong.
Our fathers' God to
Thee,
Author of liberty,
To Thee we sing.
Long may our land be
bright,
With freedom's holy
light,
Protect us by Thy
might,
Great God our King.
That prayer at the end, “Protect us by Thy might,/Great God our King,”is worth praying at every patriotic event.
