Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Texts:
Is. 55:10-11
Rom. 8:18-23
Mt. 13:1-23

Welcome my dear sisters and brothers to the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. Today is the Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

The Readings:

In the first reading, Isaiah consoled the people of Israel by exhorting them to see the mystery of the word of God for them. The word of God would bring abundant life and comforting presence to them. The reading reminds us about the dynamism of the word of God that gives life to humanity. It challenges us to make the life-giving word of God to become the disposition of our hearts.

In the second reading, Paul stressed that the sufferings of life are occasions for the transformation of the believers. The groaning speaks about the human longing for freedom. The Holy Spirit inspires the believers to hope for the fullness of their freedom as children of God. The reading challenges is to embrace our suffering in full freedom and to understand it in the context of our Christian hope and the glory of God.

In the gospel, Matthew presented the Parable of the Sower. The parable speaks about the growth of the word of God, the decline of the kingdom and the kinds of people who accepted the word of God. The seed along the path symbolizes the immediate loss of the word of God. The path is a symbol of human emptiness that prevented the word from taking its root in the human heart. The seed along the rocks symbolizes the gradual loss of the word of God. The rocks are symbols of the sufferings and the trials in life that blocked the word to penetrate into the depth of the human heart. The seed along the thorns symbolizes the ultimate loss of the word of God. The thorns are symbols of worldly desires and pleasures that choked the word to develop in the human heart. The seed along the fertile ground symbolizes the good disposition of the human heart that accepts the word of God. The fertile ground is a symbol of the determination to put into practice the word of God that enabled the word of God to bear many fruits for the good of the kingdom. Matthew stressed that the apostles were given the grace to know the secrets of God’s kingdom. He admonished the community to live radically the word of God so that it will bear abundant life for them.

The Reflection:

The path, the rock, the thorn and the good grounds are the four areas that symbolized the human dispositions in accepting the word of God. The word of God must be integrated into our lives by our determination to put it into practice. It must be allowed to create an interior disposition that will empower us to bear good fruits for the kingdom in the good or bad times of life. Let us accept joyfully the word of God and to put it into flesh. What are the pathways, the rocks and the thorns of your life that prevented the word of God to grow? What are the “fertile grounds” of your life that made the word of God to bear fruits? How do you testify the life-giving word of God in your works and in your relationship with others?

The Testimony:

When I was still a little child, I used to go to my grandfather (the father of my mother) in order to ask for a blessing. My grandfather would always put his hands over my head and prayed for me. I often heard him murmuring or saying words that I could hardly understand. Being innocent, I always asked him about what he said or prayed for. But he just told me that those were words of blessings or “bendicion.” When my grandfather died, I missed him and his blessings. So I asked my grandmother and the elders to bless me with the same words or bendicion used by my grandfather. But they often refused me because they could not repeat the mysterious words uttered by my grandfather. Later on, I learned that those words were in Latin. During that time, those words were believed to have power and could bestow grace upon those people who asked for blessings. Whatever they were, I believed that those were prayers of faith, and when there is faith in all that we pray, then, there is always power in them. Reflecting on this childhood experience, I learned to relate the words of Jesus when He spoke to the disciples about the parables of the kingdom. Jesus said, “To you, it has been given the secrets of the kingdom but to them, it was not given” (Mt. 13:11). I believed that the disciples were given the power and the grace to know the secret of the kingdom. For me, I would say that the secret of the kingdom is the unassuming child-like trust in God that becomes the interior disposition of the heart. It becomes a tangible mystery that creates the inner power of the believer to know deeply the will of God and His plan for His kingdom on earth. The interior disposition of the human heart is wide open to allow the divine intimacy of God to dwell. This secret of the kingdom becomes a divine gift that enables the word of God to become life-giving in the believer and in his mission, thus he will experience the abundance of life. I hoped to become the beneficiary of the secret of the kingdom. And so, I began to open more widely my inner being in order to allow the mystery of God to move me and to make the divine gift of the intimacy of God to become the interior disposition of my heart so that I may become confident to proclaim the word of God. I am convinced that the word of God is divine, and it must create a divine life in me. The blessing of divine life should also be imparted to other people so that they may also benefit the divine life that God has given me. I firmly believed that my priestly vocation is a good ground in which the word of God can grow and bear fruits. I know that there are also pathway, rocky and thorny grounds of my life that prevented me from growing. And yet, despite these realities, I still hoped to bear abundant fruits for the kingdom. As my grandfather blessed me with words that made me feel secure in life, so the word of God will also bring abundant blessings in life, which I could only understand in faith. The word of God should be accepted in faith and in mystery. And so, I am resolved to be possessed by the Word of God and by the Eucharist so that my priestly life may become a fertile ground for the word of God to bear good fruits for the kingdom of God on earth.

The Eucharist:

The Eucharist is a celebration of the word of God and the good news of the kingdom. During the Holy Eucharist, the word of God is proclaimed. We are called to listen to the proclaimed word, to accept it, to live it and to share it. Thus, to celebrate the Eucharist is to embrace the life-giving word of God in the fullness of freedom as we proclaim the coming of the kingdom of God on earth. To receive Jesus in the Eucharist is to become beneficiaries of the divine life of God that bear good fruits and abundant life for the community. To eat the body of Christ is to become seedbeds of the life-giving word of God and bearers of hope for all people who lived in the shadow of sufferings and death. Therefore, in this Eucharist, we pray that the Father in heaven may bless us with His wisdom and knowledge so that we may understand more deeply the secret of the kingdom and be able to live the mystery of life in faith and in freedom. Yes, we pray that our Eucharistic celebration may become a prophetic proclamation of our determination to make our personal lives and our communities to become the fertile grounds of the word of God in this world.

May God bless us.

• Fr Victoriano Buyser, SSS