XV SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME  – CYCLE A – 2017

The theme of the first reading and the Gospel is about agriculture: earth, water, seed; but these realities of our earth are used to take us to the level of the Word of God which does not go back before having fulfilled  his mission, in the same way as the rain fertilizes the earth and the seed, the Word changes our hearts and fulfills his mission: making us in the image of Jesus.  

FIRST READING : Is 55: 10-11

Ø  The Word that goes forth from God does not return without having accomplished its mission, 

Ø  Jesus, the Word made flesh speaks to us words of life, teaches us, calls us, and for love of us abandons himself in our hands   to be crushed   by our sins.  

Ø  On so doing he does the will of the Father who sends him to fulfill his saving mission: fertilize, make the seed germinate, to give food to….  

  RESPONSORIAL PSALM
R. (Lk 8:8) The seed that falls on good ground will yield a fruitful harvest.
You have visited the land and watered it;
greatly have you enriched it.
God's watercourses are filled;
you have prepared the grain.
R. The seed that falls on good ground will yield a fruitful harvest.
Thus have you prepared the land: drenching its furrows,
breaking up its clods,
Softening it with showers,
blessing its yield.
R. The seed that falls on good ground will yield a fruitful harvest.
You have crowned the year with your bounty,
and your paths overflow with a rich harvest;
The untilled meadows overflow with it,
and rejoicing clothes the hills.
R. The seed that falls on good ground will yield a fruitful harvest.
The fields are garmented with flocks
and the valleys blanketed with grain.
They shout and sing for joy.
R. The seed that falls on good ground will yield a fruitful harvest.

The psalms may be classified in different ways. One is according to the final doxology after some psalms.  Using this method we discover 5 books of psalms.    

v The psalms were not written by King David alone, he wrote some of them only. But since he is portrayed singing the praises of God using musical instruments, the tradition considered him the author of psalms.     

v The psalms are prayerful poems. They are the expression of the diverse feelings common to all human beings in the diverse situations of human life.   

v The church from the beginning has organized the liturgy of the hours distributing the psalms along a pre-established time frame. In the church many pray the psalms every day, and it is true that sometimes we pray a psalm of sorrow and we are happy, but this is not a contradiction.    

v Why? Because we pray as a community, as a church in the name of the whole human race and giving voice to the entire creation. There are always human beings who weep, laugh, are born, die, are sick, are persecuted, are abandoned…. 

The vocabulary of this psalm is very beautiful and evokes the theme of the earth, of agriculture:  

·       The Lord waters the earth, his clouds are filled with water which falls upon the earth  

·       Thus the earth is softened and allows the seed to germinate   

·       And with the food that the fields produce, the flocks multiply.  

GOSPEL: Mt 13:1-23

     This parable is like the model for all the other parables of Jesus narrated by the evangelists. 

     The parable    

o   Describes a situation or a real event, from the daily life, a human reality with which the listeners may identify themselves easily.   

o   And after narrating this which we could call a story, Jesus makes us jump to another level of our life, the level of the relationship with God, with the other human beings and with ourselves.   

o   And leaves us with the task to draw the consequences in our own life, our response to the call that God makes to us through the parable.  

     In today’s reading:   

o   The story is the work of a farmer and the seed  

o   The farmer, the sower goes out to sow, this is his work  

o   And to sow he throws the seed abundantly in the furrows 

o   And the seed o seeds fall in different places: the road, the stones, the thorns, and some in the furrows.   

o   According to the place the seed has landed its life will be different: it will be trampled under feet, burned by the heat, chocked by the thorns, will produce the grain in different measure.  

     Jesus ends this story saying “He who has ears….”   

     The disciples want to know the meaning and also the reason he speaks in parables.  

     Jesus repeats the words of Isaiah which are difficult for us to understand because they are said according to the Semitic mind: God does everything, makes hear and makes us deaf…  But what this expression means is that if we do not want to listen, even if we are told we will not understand.  

     And Jesus explains the parable:   

o   The seed on the road: the evil one takes the word from us when we listen without understanding, without reflecting on what we hear.    

o   The seed on the rock: sprouts very soon but it withers after a short time. Thus the one who receives the word with joy, with euphoria, but since it does not have roots it withers also, the enthusiasm dies out when the hardships to follow the Word appear in our life.           

o   The seed among thorns: The word is chocked in our heart by the many worldly worries and the seduction of riches.  

o   The seed that falls on fertile ground: The one, who listens to the Word, understands it and gives fruit. This understanding is the fruit of reflection and prayer, it is a responsible understanding. 

     After finishing this explanation Jesus leaves to our responsibility to understand and make fructify the good God has put in our heart, and also in the heart of every human being.

SECOND READING : Rom 8:18-23

v Paul considers that the sufferings of the present time cannot compare to the glory that waits for us. 

v He says that creation is subjected, in some way, to suffering and groans with birthing pain, until it will give birth to the new creation fruit of the Paschal Mystery of Jesus. 

v Then the glory of the children of God will be revealed, glory like the glory of the Son Jesus.  

CLARETIAN CORNER

I thank you very much for the holy card of the divine law which you have sent me.  I am very grateful for it because the Holy Law is the only magnet of my love: from the moment God, Our Lord, taught me its beauty, the object of my meditation is the harmony of its beauty, and I would like to carry it written on my forehead to teach it to every creature.   (Taken from a letter of  María Antonia to St. Anthony M. Claret – Santiago of Cuba October 31^st  1857).

The second means is the formation of the youth from both sexes, and for this I will write the booklet you asked me for; but I cannot do it until my return from the trip of the Queen and her family, because during the trip I have to preach every day many sermons; some days I have preached up to 8 sermons: to the clergy, the people, the nuns, the prisoners….   (Letter of St. Anthony M. Claret to María Antonia. Royal Place of St.    Ildefonso, August 31^st 1860).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CLARET, ST  Anthony Mary – Letters

CONFERENCIA EPISCOPAL ESPAÑOLA, Sacred Bible, official edition.

PARIS, Ma. Antonia – Letters

SCHOKEL, Luis Alonso. The Bible of Our People (text adaptation and commentaries by)