Ordinary Time 17 - Risky Business

 

Ordinary Time 17

July 26, 2027

Risky Business

 

            Back in 2010, computer programmer Laszlo Hanyecz used a new currency to pay for two pizzas – 10,000 Bitcoin, a new cryptocurrency that was slowly catching on. Although those pizzas were delicious, if he had kept those Bitcoin instead of spending them on pizza, they’d be worth $1.1 Billion today!

            The key to good investing is to know when to spend and when to save, and what types of things we should invest in. Anyone remember the Beanie Baby craze of the late 1990s, when people bought those trendy little stuffed animals in the hopes that they would make millions in resale? They’re all sitting at the backs of closets right now, gathering dust, worth only pennies.

            There is a similar risk in Jesus’ investment strategy outlined in today’s Gospel. What if the man sold everything he had to buy the pearl, but it turned out to be a fake? What if the man sold everything to buy the field, but it turns out that the treasure buried within was counterfeit? Investors will tell you never to put all your eggs in one basket, but that diversification is the key to financial success. And unfortunately a lot of Christians take that advice to heart, when it comes to their pursuit of the Kingdom of God.

            In these parables, the Kingdom of God means two things – really, two sides of the same coin. It means that we allow Christ to be king of every aspect of our life – our thoughts, our words, or internet browsing, our private thoughts, our goals and dreams, our relationships, the jokes we laugh at, the media we consume. We allow Christ to be King of every aspect of our life. But while we imperfectly acknowledge Christ as King here, the idea of the Kingdom also points to Heaven, where Christ will be perfectly the King over our lives and our eternity.

            But many Christians want to play it safe. Yes, they want to acknowledge Christ as King and pursue Heaven, but they also think, “Well, Heaven isn’t a sure thing. I’ve never seen it; I’ve never been there. So I will try to pursue happiness here, and make Christ only a part of my life, and not the center.”

            I do admit that it is hard to live for a Heaven that we cannot see. It is risky – what if it’s not true? What if, after death, there is nothing? Yet I believe that there are two reasons why we can believe in Heaven – which should make us want to live for Heaven.

            First, because our hearts desire it. CS Lewis once said, “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” Have you ever experienced what I call “Christmas Afternoon Syndrome”? When we were younger, for twenty-five days we were all excited to get that new thing – the iPad, the bike, the Beanie Baby. And then Christmas morning comes, and we get it – yes! But then Christmas afternoon comes, and we feel – “Ugh, I thought that would have made me happier.”

            No matter how much happiness we experience on this earth, it’s temporary, while our hearts yearn for permanent. I remember reading an interview with the baseball great Cal Ripken Jr., who is a Hall-of-Famer and has a World Series ring. The reporter was asking him, “How does it feel to be retired?” He replied, “I hate it. Every year since I was five years old, I had a next season to look forward to. Now there are no more next seasons. I don’t know what to do with my life.” If our happiness is only based on the things of this world, we will feel this “what now?” moment when the pleasure wears off, the friends go home, and we’re left with ourselves.

            But we also believe in Heaven because Jesus revealed it to us. It says in Scripture that “no eye can see, no ear can hear, nor has the mind of man ever understood” what God has prepared for those who love Him. I’ve never been to Heaven, but I know the Man Who came down from Heaven, and when He says “follow Me”, I know that He is leading me back to where He came from – to that place where we belong.

            The asking price to invest in everlasting life is nothing short of everything. If we hope to live in the Kingdom where God is all-in-all, we train ourselves by living for Him here and now. We can’t hedge our bets and say, “Well, I’ve given God an hour a week. That’s enough.” A few dollars weren’t enough to purchase the pearl or the treasure in the field – it took every bit of a man’s fortune, but the payoff was so much greater. An hour a week isn’t enough to learn how to live in the Kingdom – only our entire lives will do.

            So here is my challenge. What aspect of your life have you not surrendered to Christ’s Kingship? Do we recreate for His glory? Do we use our phones in a manner that pleases Him? Are our friendships, our work, our marriage lived for Him? Today, let’s make the commitment to give that aspect of our life to His Kingship, that we may find ourselves living for Him now so we can live with Him for eternity.

            Back in the early 500s in Persia, a Christian nobleman named James Intercisius served as a military officer for the non-Christian Zoroastrian king of Persia. The king was quite tolerant with the Christians and allowed them to build churches and bury their dead, which was forbidden in Zoroastrianism. But soon the Christians became bold against the king and started tearing down the pagan temples, sometimes even celebrating Masses on the formerly-pagan altars. This turned the King against the Christians, and he began a severe persecution of them.

            His military leader James, to save his skin, sided with the king and abandoned his faith, often carrying out the King’s commands to capture and torture Christians. But when the King died and another was named, James’ family begged him to return to the faith of his fathers and believe in Christ. This intervention woke James up – how could he prefer his position and his riches to the everlasting joys of Christ in Heaven? He returned to his faith – just in time to be arrested by the new king for his Christian faith. He ended up being tortured, while his family watched – but that was too much for his family to bear, and they begged him now to abandon his faith to save his life. This time, James held firm, preferring to die for Christ than to live with all the riches of the kingdom. He is now St. James Intercisius, who lived for a Kingdom he could not see.

            Investors may say that we shouldn’t take risks with our money, but Christ says that Heaven is worth the risk. Do we really believe that living forever with Christ is greater than all the passing pleasures this world can offer us?

Ordinary Time 16 - Weeding the Soul

 

Homily for Ordinary Time 16

July 19, 2026

Weeding the Soul

 

            If you have a garden, weeding is a necessary but unpleasant task. If you have a soul, weeding out our vices is another necessary but difficult task. And there are a good number of similarities between weeding your garden and weeding your soul.

            First, what are the weeds? It can be understood on several levels: first, Jesus is making the point that the Church will be full of both saints and sinners until the end of time. In this understanding, it’s Jesus Who does the weeding. As St. Augustine said, “The church is not a hotel for saints, but a hospital for sinners” – which is good, because we are all sinners, so we are welcome here – not to remain sinners, but to be healed to become saints!

            But there is another interpretation – these weeds are also our vices. All of us have both virtues and vices in our soul. Virtues are those good character traits that make us like Christ, and vices are those habitual sins which make us quite unlike him. In this case, we cooperate with Christ in rooting out these vices!

            Our Catholic tradition gives us seven main vices, often called the Seven Deadly Sins. They are: Pride, Wrath (which is unjustified and uncontrollable anger), Greed, Envy, Sloth (which is laziness, particularly laziness in the spiritual life), Gluttony, and Lust. All of our other sinful habits fall under these categories. These are the weeds which choke out the good fruit of virtue in our soul. So how do we root them out? The same way we weed a garden.

            First, we focus on the big ones first, but without neglecting the little ones which can grow into big ones. We have a weed called mugwort which grows in every nice patch of flowers around here, but also gets to be six feet tall! It’s my crusade to rid this campus of this noxious weed. Likewise with the soul, examine your heart to see which is the most prevalent of your vices. Some people have a temper; others are tempted to lust; others struggle with pride. Last month, a young teen came to me in great distress and exclaimed, “Father, today was the worst day of my life!” I asked him why and he said, “Because I got braces!” Yeah, you and every other teenager in history – it was a struggle with the sin of vanity! Let us focus on the biggest one that we see in our life – as Thomas a Kempis said in the famous book, Imitation of Christ, “If you eliminate one vice every year, in short order you will be perfect!”

            But it’s far easier to root out a weed when it is small, when the roots are shallow. So it is with us – we must make sure not to overlook our small sins, lest they take root and become much harder to overcome. It is truly dangerous in the spiritual life to say, “Oh, it’s not a big deal that I gossiped once…that I indulged an impure thought…that I took something small from the store.” Every weed was once a seed…and every addiction, bad habit, or vice was once a seemingly-small and insignificant deed. Cut it off as soon as you see it cropping up in your life!

            Weeds can be frustrating, though. We have a weed called bittersweet on our campus and it’s utterly tenacious. I will cut the vine right down the ground – and it will put up four new shoots for every one that I cut. I have to be diligent and cut it continuously before it dies. Likewise, we must be persistent in overcoming vices. It’s not enough to come to Confession just once; we must come frequently. It’s not enough to overcome temptation once; we must fight it until we die. A young seminarian once asked a Bishop, “When will I be free of temptations of the flesh?” The wise bishop responded, “About five minutes after you’re dead!” All the saints know that they were still capable of sin – one time a person said to St. John Vianney, “You’re so good at hearing Confessions!” And the holy priest replied, “If I am a good Confessor, it is because I am first a great sinner.”

            One thing I’ve noticed when I’ve weeded is that the hole in the dirt left by the weed is actually perfect for more weeds to grow, unless we fill it with something good. As the old saying goes, “Nature abhors a vacuum” – and so does the soul. St. Paul tells us that “we reap what we sow” – if we fill our life with good things, prayer, sacramentals, uplifting thoughts, good deeds, we will have a much easier time to become saints. I love how St. Padre Pio would always, I mean always, carry around a Rosary with him, even sleeping with it. He would call it “his weapon” – the best thing to fight against the Evil One and his own vices. One day a man came to him and boasted, “Padre Pio, I prayed four Rosaries today!” The holy priest responded, “That’s wonderful! I have prayed 32!” His life was so filled with a love for Our Lady and Our Lord that there was no space for vices to take root.

            Finally, weeding is easier when we enlist help! My dad used to pay us a dollar if we filled up a bucket with weeds – it went quickly when all five kids were helping! Likewise, we can quickly eliminate the bad habits and sins in the garden of our soul if we enlist the help of the saints, Our Lady, and Jesus Himself. This isn’t something we just grit our teeth and try hard, but rather, we simply allow Jesus to do the work Himself. It’s not by accident that Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene after the Resurrection as a gardener – it is He Who can take out the weeds of our vices and replace them with the fruits of holiness!

            I challenge you, today, to consider what vices you need to work on – and to commit yourself to using the tools Christ has given us to root them out of your life. No matter who you are, we all have vices we need to root out – even the saints. I think, for example, of St. Fortunatus. He worked for the kings and queens of what is now modern-day France back in the 500s, but his job was somewhat unique – he was the official court flatterer. He wrote poems and songs to praise the nobles, using his tongue to butter up and flatter the king. But after a while, he realized that, although it paid the bills, it’s not what his gifts of music and song was meant to be for – it was only his pride and greed that made him such a fawning sycophant. He left the court and became a bishop, and started writing poems and hymns about the Lord – many of which are still sung in the Church today. In order to become a saint, he had to overcome his vice of pride and greed – and, in giving that up, found the treasure of Heaven!

            All of us have the weeds of vices in our soul. But with the Lord’s help, and diligent effort, we can make genuine progress in the garden of holiness, that we may bear the fruit of virtue for the Lord!

Ordinary Time 15 - The Fruits of Virtue

 

Ordinary Time 15

July 12, 2026

The Cardinal and Theological Fruits

 

            Jesus gives this beautiful parable about the sower who is sowing grains of wheat. But obviously in such a parable, everything is a symbol of something else, as Jesus Himself explains it: the sower are the Apostles, the seed is the Word of God, the four locations of sowing seed are the four different types of souls who receive the Word of God…but there is one element of the parable that Jesus does not explain – what is the fruit that a good person bears thirty or sixty or a hundredfold?

            The fruit is virtue. Virtues are the good moral habits that make us like Christ (or, as the Catechism puts it, “The habitual disposition to do good”). It’s not just an individual action – anybody can be generous once. Rather, a virtue is so ingrained in us that it becomes part of our character, and it becomes even easy to do good, even when it takes sacrifice. This takes both prayer and practice. God can infuse virtue in is when we pray for it, but usually He gives us opportunities to practice virtue when we are challenged in patience, courage, purity, etc.

            But what kind of virtues ought we strive for? Tradition gives us seven main virtues – three that deal with God (the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity) and four that deal with our relationships in this world (the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude). Let’s look briefly at each one.

            First, at our Baptism, each one of us has received faith, hope, and charity. Faith allows us to believe that God exists, to trust Him, and to believe everything He has revealed in Scripture and Tradition. Hope gives us firm assurance that He will be faithful to His promises, especially the promise of everlasting life. Charity means that we love God above all things and that we love others for the sake of God.

            But the cardinal virtues are a little more confusing, so let’s break these down. First, temperance. This virtue teaches us to love God’s gifts rightly – to enjoy them in their proper place. I am reminded of the story of St. Charles Borromeo, the sixteenth-century Italian bishop, who had a great fondness for shooting pool. One day he was playing, when a friend asked him, “What would you do if you knew you were going to die in an hour? Would you run to the chapel, or find a priest for Confession?” He replied, “I would continue playing pool. I began this game with the intention of glorifying God, so why should I stop, even if I enjoy it?”

            There was a heresy in the early middle ages called Albigensianism which believed that all pleasure was evil – that to be a saint, we have to deny ourselves every kind of pleasure. Nope – not at all. Jesus’ first miracle was to make wine at a feast – clearly, God created good things, and we ought to enjoy them! But there is also a mirror-image error called Hedonism which believes that pleasure is the highest good. Also an error. The midpoint is the virtue of temperance – we enjoy God’s gifts rightly, in the way He intended, in balance. So we ought to feast on Thanksgiving and fast during Lent. We ought to enjoy alcohol in moderation – after all, St. Thomas Aquinas once said, “Drink to the point of hilarity, but no further” – in other words, enjoy a drink which can loosen us up and make us laugh, but not so much that we lose our reason. We ought to enjoy rest and recreation, but must not shirk our duties out of laziness. We ought to enjoy sexual pleasure, but only within marriage and open to life. We can all acknowledge that when we misuse God’s gifts, we are harmed – overeating leads to a stomachache, overindulgence in alcohol leads to a hangover, or sexual relations outside of marriage leads to unplanned pregnancy, broken hearts, and addictions. Hence, temperance is necessary for us to experience freedom!

            The next virtue is justice, which means that we give everyone what we owe them. We owe our parents respect and care (and if you’re under 18, you owe them obedience), we owe our country our loyalty, we owe God worship, we owe our neighbor the basic necessities of life. A lot of things we think we’re doing because we’re kind, but it’s actually just plain justice.

            For example, in years past I’ve spoken about the need to dress well for Mass, as we recognize we’re not going to the beach but the very presence of Almighty God. Inevitably someone says, “Oh but Father, we’re just lucky that they’re coming to Mass,” as if we’re doing a favor to God. My friend, our attendance at Mass is actually an act of justice – it is what we owe our Creator as His creatures. God is not “lucky” that we’re here – rather, we owe Him worship, and in His benevolence He is kind to give us so many graces and blessings in the Eucharist and in the Scripture readings. Or we can be that way to our fellow people, too. How many of us have held the door open for others and then had a kind of smug, “Yeah, I’m a good person” feeling? Eh, we’re only doing what we ought to do, since we owe it to our neighbors to treat them with respect. Jesus has a pithy quote in one of the Gospels for this attitude, when He says, “These servants ought to say, ‘We are unprofitable servants, we have only done what was required of us.’”

            Of course, we also ought to exceed justice by practicing mercy. Mercy is giving people what they are not due. Back in 2021, a Rhode Island woman named Lisa Hull awoke to phone ringing to give her the news that no mother wanted to hear: her son had been killed in a tragic automobile accident. Devastated, she was tempted to anger at the other driver, but as a woman of deep faith, brought it to prayer. The Lord opened her heart to realize that the other driver must’ve been suffering from extreme guilt and shame – and she alone had the power to release him from that by publicly forgiving him. But could she do that? She went back and forth, but finally decided to call him and tell him that she forgave him – it was truly an accident, he wasn’t drunk or anything – and this call brought so much mercy into his life. He attended the funeral and burial, and he found peace because of the mercy shown from the mother. So, while justice is critical, we are called to go above it through practicing mercy.

            The third cardinal virtue is fortitude – the courage to do what’s right despite difficulty. Aquinas distinguishes between two types of good things we desire: what he calls concupiscible goods and irascible goods. Big words, I know – but simple concepts. Concupiscible goods are things which are good and easy. So, at the end of a long day, we desire sleep – that is good for us, and it’s easy to do – just lay down on a comfortable bed. But some good things take effort – working out, for example, or having a prayer life, or standing up for a kid who’s bullied in school. These “irascible goods” are those which take fortitude – the strength to pursue the good despite difficulty. These are good things, but they are difficult.

            One of the most devout Catholic athletes is Hall of Fame catcher Mike Piazza. But his road to stardom was one that required great fortitude. He was drafted in the 62^nd round, and only because his father was friends with the Dodgers’ coach. No one expected him to make the majors. But he knew that God had given him the talent – so he needed the fortitude to persevere, work hard – and not just for his own ego, but to glorify God and to give him a platform to speak about Christ to the public. In fact, when he was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2016, he said in his speech, “My Catholic faith [is] the greatest gift, which has had a profound impact on my career and has given me patience, compassion and hope. Pope Benedict the XVI said, ‘One who has hope, lives differently.’” It wasn’t so he could be rich and famous, but so that Christ’s Name could be praised in this professional athlete, that Piazza had to tap into that virtue of fortitude in order to overcome the odds and make the majors. And look at his witness to Christ now!

            Finally, the last of the cardinal virtues is prudence, which Aquinas calls the “charioteer of the virtues” because it drives the rest of them. Prudence is knowing what virtue to exercise in each given situation. For example, let’s say you want to make a small sacrifice for God by giving up dessert for a week. But a friend invites you to his birthday and offers you some cake. Is it more virtuous to take the cake, or keep the fast? Prudence helps you decide. I need to rely on prudence all the time – for example, I often have kids at my school tell me, “Father, can you talk to Johnny, he’s picked up vaping and we’re concerned about him.” I have to discern whether or not to talk to him, when to do it, and what words to say. That’s the virtue of prudence – discovering when and how to live out the other virtues.

            This beautiful parable of the sower and the seed is incomplete without considering what this fruit is that a healthy Christian can expect – the fruit is a life overflowing with virtues. Aristotle said that “virtue is excellence in being human.” One might say that it is the excellence of the Christian life, as well – replete with the human virtues of prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude, as well as the divine virtues of faith, hope, and charity.