Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
This is Sundays with Bishop Ken.
Thanks for sharing some quiet time with the Lord today. We welcome guest reader Brenda Piazza. Brenda is a parishioner of St. Catherine of Siena Parish in Mendon, New York, where she joyfully serves in a variety of ministries.
Brenda also shares her gifts with us each liturgical season, narrating our little book's reflections.
And now, here is today's Gospel and homily,
[00:00:46] Speaker B: A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew 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 thirty fold.
Whoever has ears ought to hear the Gospel of the Lord.
This parable is about the Word of God.
Scripture when you look at this parable, you wonder whether to approach it from the point of view of the seed which represents the Word of God, or from the point of view of the different kinds of soil which represent us who receive the Word of God.
Let's start with the seed.
A seed has life in it.
By using this analogy, Jesus reveals the Word of God is alive.
It isn't simply information.
It isn't simply instruction. It is God speaking to us live.
You know how the Catholic Church, if I can put it this way, has a higher theology of the Eucharist than many other Christian faiths.
We believe the consecrated bread and wine are more than symbols of God's presence.
They are the body and blood of Christ, and not just temporarily.
In other words, not just. When we are receiving communion, we believe that the consecrated bread and wine continue to be the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus.
This has been a Catholic emphasis.
The Catholic Church also has, again, if I can put it this way, a higher theology of the Word of God than many other Christian faiths.
Now that may surprise you.
After all, other Christian faiths have emphasized Bible reading far more than we have.
Let's take a closer look at our doctrine.
We believe that when we listen to the Word of God or read it thoughtfully God is speaking to us. Live.
We aren't listening to or reading something God once said.
God is speaking to us. Now, just as in the Eucharist, the Lord uses bread and wine to be present to us, so in the Scriptures, God uses words as a vehicle to be present to us, to speak to us, to act upon us.
Like the gentle rain falling upon the ground in today's first reading and like the seeds sown in today's Gospel.
The Second Vatican Council document entitled the Constitution on Divine Revelation says the Church has always venerated the divine Scriptures just as she venerates the body of the Lord.
That is a remarkable statement, and it would surprise many Catholics.
This means we listen to Scripture differently than we listen to any other words.
We receive it as we receive the body of Christ.
We are not receiving information.
We are receiving the Lord who speaks to us. Live.
We rinse our minds of all other thoughts and we tune into the Lord speaking to us.
When we do that, thoughts come to us that were the farthest things from our minds and thoughts that sometimes seem to have little connection with the actual words of the text.
It may be a word of comfort or a nudge or a flash of insight.
It is the Lord who is speaking to us personally.
Remember the Gospel passage about the two disciples on the road to Emmaus?
The risen Lord was walking with them, although they didn't realize it, and the Lord was explaining the Scriptures for them.
It's exactly what happens when we prayerfully listen to or read the Scriptures.
So we talked about the seed.
Now let's look at the soil.
The Gospel speaks of the different kinds of soil on which the seed fell.
The footpath, rocky ground, thorny ground, fertile ground.
We usually see this as representing different kinds of people.
Well, it struck me that it also represents different parts of our lives.
Our private life, our family life, our business life, our social life, and so on.
Part of our life may be rich soil where we receive the Word of God very openly and it takes deep root.
But it may not occur to us to let the Word of God affect other parts of our lives.
To use a stereotypical example, the movies sometimes portray a Mafia leader who goes to church, is dedicated to his family, and then routinely kills people or orders their killing.
The Word of God never enters the other part of his life.
We too might have other parts of our lives where we don't let the Word of God enter.
I hope we'll all receive this parable of the seed in the soil into all parts of our lives.
I hope we'll return to our strong Catholic tradition of praying the Scriptures.
I hope we'll return to the traditional practice of scripture reading, taking a few lines of scripture each day and letting the Lord speak to us through the words.
It's easy to do one of the simplest and oldest forms of prayer, and it's enjoyable.
It's there for the asking.
It can change a day.
It can change a life.
[00:07:46] Speaker A: Thanks for joining us today.
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