11th Sunday in OT 2024

In this transcription, St. Paul's message about walking by faith, not by sight, is explained. The person of faith sees things from an eternal perspective and trusts in God's plan for their lives. Jesus uses agricultural images to explain how the kingdom of God grows over time, even though the growth may not be apparent. The Prophet Ezekiel's prophecy about God's plan for the remnant of Israel seemed absurd at the time, but eventually came true when the Persians conquered the Babylonians. All things work together for good for those who love God, but this does not mean that everything will work out well for everyone. The speaker shares a personal story about their younger sister with Down syndrome, and how their parents initially struggled with the news but eventually found peace and joy in her presence. our second reading we hear St. Paul say that we walk by faith not by sight and what St. Paul is saying there is not that as people of faith that we're blind to the things around us that we walk by faith in spite of our sight that we ignore the world or the culture around us what he's saying is that the person of faith sees things at a deeper level the person of faith sees things we're supposed to see things from an eternal perspective from God's perspective we're not simply meant to view the world in our lives in a merely earthly sense God has a purpose and a plan for our individual lives for our country our world our society and it's all going towards a place right it's all in God's providence and it's meant ultimately for all of us to end up in heaven that's God's purposes and plans that that is his plan for each individual person and so St. Paul is calling forth his readers to have this eternal divine perspective to view things that the way God views them and we see Jesus speaking about something similarly and the importance of having trust in his purpose in God's purposes and plans so he uses these two images agricultural images of the first seed being scattered on the land and obviously at that time they didn't have all the technical equipment and scientific understanding that we do now they certainly had some understanding but he speaks about how long as a farmer and a sower he goes out he's scattering seed on the land and then he doesn't need to know or understand all the ins and outs scientifically of how the crop grows but he knows that it does right so he has to surrender and entrust that process to nature to the Lord but he offers what he has he offers the seed to the land and then as Jesus says of its own accord the land yields fruit first the blade then the ear then the full grain in the year and then eventually the harvest comes so and then Jesus switches and then he starts using a similar image but slightly different again to compare the kingdom of God the kingdom of God is something that starts out small but then it builds over time but it's that change is imperceptible we don't see it again on a merely earthly level but over time we see how God then brings the kingdom into greater and greater fruition and it's something that our spiritual growth isn't something that we can measure on a scientific level all right we don't say well this week I was 20% holier than I was last week we know that there is growth that God is at work in our lives if we continue to cooperate with that grace but so much of our spiritual lives are hidden and that's why Jesus uses these parables that we have to entrust our lives to him and trust that he is at work in our lives day to day if we are being faithful to him helping us to grow in greater holiness sanctity and preparing our souls for the life of heaven this is especially important for us when things from an earthly perspective don't seem like they're going well when we're experiencing suffering or opposition or the plans that we had for our lives and ourselves aren't turning out as we would have hoped or expected and at that point if at any at any time in life but especially at that point it's important to entrust ourselves fully to the Lord and to trust that he's working even in that that's the situation that the Prophet Ezekiel finds himself in and so again just to situate the Prophet Ezekiel historically he was around the time when the Babylonians came in and wiped out the kingdom of Israel so there were two invasions there was one in 597 BC and then the definitive one 587 BC where the Babylonians came in and wiped out the city of Jerusalem completely and deported the people to Babylon to a foreign land so the Prophet Ezekiel lives through this and he lives as an exile from his people and God is still speaking to his people through Ezekiel so this prophecy to the people of the time must have seemed ridiculous or laughably absurd because God says I too will take from the crust of the cedar from its topmost branches tear off a tender shoot planted on a high and lofty mountain on the mountain heights of Israel I will plant it and then that it shall put forth branches and bear fruit and become a majestic cedar so the people would have understood that what he's saying is God is going to save a remnant and then he is going to turn it into this great kingdom which is going to spread out throughout the whole earth but again hearing that at the time people would have been probably looking at Ezekiel and thinking what are you talking about we just lost our temple we just lost our city we're living in a foreign land how is God going to bring good out of this and at the very end of the prophecy today and today's first reading God says as I the Lord have spoken so will I do and eventually that came true the Persians came in conquered the Babylonians and the Jewish people were able to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple build a new temple to God's honor and then ultimately that would have been the temple that Jesus would have known so God is at work even though it's not always apparent to us we have to have that trust in him in Paul's letter to the Romans in chapter 8 verse 28 he says all things work together for good for those who love God that's a powerful quote a powerful scripture passage for us to always keep in mind st. Paul doesn't say some things he says all things so even the evil the sufferings the difficulties that we experience if we love God will be used for our greater good our greater glory as well as God's and so it's important for us though to understand the verse he doesn't say that everything is going to work out well for everybody well because if I become bitter angry selfish closed in on myself things aren't necessarily going to work out for my good he says if we love God so if our desire is to be a saint if my goal in life is to love God above everything else then everything st. Paul says will work out for my good either in this life and in the next or maybe just in the next from our from again having that divine perspective that he's perspective II of eternity and I'm sure many of us could probably share examples in our own lives where this is where this is happening we experience some sort of suffering or difficulty but then through our faith through pursuing God in that we found greater joy greater peace God drew a greater good out of what may have been a great suffering or trial or difficulty you know in my own life and our family on one of those situations that came up was the situation with my younger my youngest sister in our family being born so I'm the second of eight so my youngest sister Rachel has Down syndrome and she was born in 2005 so July 2005 so I just graduated from high school and we knew she was supposed to be born a couple months later and it was actually after a Saturday night vigil mass my dad taking some of us to mass and we get in the car and he looked at his cell phone listens to a voicemail and says your mom just had the baby we have to go to the hospital we're all thinking okay she's not supposed to have a baby for another two months but okay and then we go there and then fortunately we found all this out after the fact when my mom was stable and in the hospital but we found out she had been hemorrhaging at home and fortunately one of my answers there with her there would call get the ambulance but it was really close in a couple more minutes we would have lost both my mom and my youngest sister and so one of the things that we found out that my parents did not at this time know that Rachel had Down syndrome and doctors did some tests and then gave my parents the news and they were shocked by this news they weren't expecting her to have Down syndrome and it's a little bit of a backstory to this they had felt that God was calling them to be open to another child they were both on in years my dad is 51 my mom was 47 when they had her they've been open to life in their marriage the whole time and they both felt God in prayer was asking them to be open to another child and they were thinking hey God we're a little bit older this isn't the normal way it works but if you're calling us to be open to having another child we will and then Rachel was born and one of the challenging things for my parents especially my dad was having a child that late in life with special needs was a lot of the unknown the fear of the unknown what is this going to mean for our family how are we going to provide care for her right especially as we're getting older and it's something that they really struggled with and my dad especially he shared later on that when he felt in a certain sense kind of betrayed by God like God we were open to you we were open to your plan we were generous offering you know offering to have as many children as you wanted and now you're giving us a child that's gonna have all these medical issues and problems and how are we going to deal with this and it was through prayer that my parents especially my dad came to a deep peace about it he said that he was praying for a while that my that God would heal my sister to heal Rachel and then he had God speak to him very very clearly in prayer saying that he wasn't going to heal my sister he was going to heal my dad and to give him that that peace right to understand that he had a plan and purpose for Rachel's life just as he did for our whole families and then it was after experiencing that in prayer that my dad was able to be at peace with that and then of course you know now almost 20 years later Rachel's like the bet we kind of joke in the family that there's no you know debating who's the favorite it's Rachel everyone loves being around Rachel she's a great joy to our family we can't imagine family life without her but of course in the midst of you know a dangerous medical situation and then also the unknown of having a child with special needs understand how parents would be certainly concerned and baffled and feeling betrayed and what's going to happen all of that and there's there's choices when those things happen right we can close in ourselves think that God has abandoned or betrayed us that we can't trust him anymore or we can pursue him we can pursue him in prayer and trust that he is going to work out his purposes in our life for his good and so oftentimes we only can see that after the fact we see how God's hand is with us throughout our entire life even in the even in the challenges and the difficulties and so my brothers and sisters as we continue to celebrate this Holy Mass let's ask the Lord that he would give us an increase in love and trust that we would entrust our lives fully to him know that he is at work that he is building in us sanctity and holiness preparing us for that harvest of eternal life in heaven with him and trusting that no matter what happens in our life if we love him above everything else that he will use everything in our lives to work out for our good and for his greater glory