Decisions, Decisions, Decisioins: Homily for the 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time

 

1 Kgs 3:5, 7-12

Ps 119: 57, 72, 76-77, 127-128, 129-130

Rom 8:28-30

Mt 13:44-52

 

We make most daily decisions without much effort: do I cross now or wait until that car passes?  orange or apple juice at breakfast? take a nap or exercise?  Other choices however, require  discernment, thought, and effort.  We have all made life changing choices and will do so in the future.  Among the most important of those choices was the choice for or against Jesus.

 

The first reading and gospel both involve life-changing choices.  God asked  Solomon what he desired, with “and I will give it to you” implied rather than stated 

Solomon was young, nothing more than a kid.  Despite that he did not ask for things most of us would want: a long life, a healthy life, riches, or a great car.  Solomon asked for understanding,  he asked for the wisdom to discern

between good and evil, and the ability to be a good leader.   His request pleased God. It was granted. 

 

One can only pray that our national leaders--BOTH parties--would ask God for the same.   Imagine congress praying for the wisdom to be good leaders

rather than offering human sacrifice on the altar of abortion, worshipping the perverse and sexually  bizarre. The pathetic assistant surgeon general who supports blocking a child’s puberty, is beneath contempt. 

 

Every choice involves a cost. Sometimes we realize what that cost will be.  Other times the cost comes as a surprise.  When we make a choice other options  are closed off.   Sure we can change our minds about orange vs. apple  juice, or even have both,  but the most important choices close off the other possibilities. 

Choosing to marry a particular man or woman, closes off the choices among all others. Choosing to enter religious life closes off the option to marry and have a family.

 

The three short gospel parables are about choices.  They are related but each has a unique message.  Unlike their usual response the apostles replied 'yes'

when Jesus asked if they understood. Repetition seems to have had an effect. 

They finally got it,  just as we get it and begin to understand what Jesus is telling us the more we listen to His word.

 

The first two parables recall an event in 1990. that blew the art world and the  Society of Jesus out of the water.  Dublin's Leeson Street Jesuit Community sent a painting that had been hanging in the dining room for more than sixty years to be cleaned. It was thought to have been a copy of a long-missing Carravagio called "The Taking of Christ."  But one of the art restorers noticed something.

It WAS the missing painting worth tens of millions of pounds.  It was both the treasure discovered accidentally in a field and the pearl of great price noticed by an expert.  It is now on permanent loan from the Society of Jesus to the National Gallery of Ireland.  Don’t miss seeing it if you’re in Dublin.

 

What about buried treasures? Most people today would ask why the treasure was buried in a field in the first place.

 

Matthew wrote his gospel when invasions were a regular threat.  One way to keep a treasure safe was to bury it in a field.  Of course before selling the field

it was important to remember first, that it was buried and second, where it was buried. Today we hear stories of very valuable objects found at flea markets, a kind of buried treasure equivalent,  and estate sales, particularly those of local eccentrics. Indeed, PBS’ Antiques Road Show is premised on this gospel passage.  

 

When the man realized what he had found buried he went away happy,

chose to sell everything he had, and purchased the field so as obtain the treasure.  When we realize the value of the Kingdom of Heaven, when we truly understand and commit ourselves to following Jesus, we too can go off happy,

knowing that we have found the most valuable treasure.  

 

The man’s discovery in the field was an accident.   Not so for the merchant.  He was an expert on a quest. He was looking for fine pearls and found an exceptional one.  The merchant realized, on the basis of his experience, knowledge, and sharpened attention to what he was doing, that this was the real thing.  He had found the pearl for which he was searching.  He too chose to act

and commit to a course of action so as to obtain it.

 

The merchant’s excitement mirrors that of the one who discovers Christ later in life or the one who, having been baptized into the church, rediscovers what he or she had given up during that spiritual chaos known as young adulthood, and returns to active observance.  

 

Both of these figures made irrevocable choices.  Neither could have repurchased what had been sold. Neither could ever go back to the time before he made the decision.  They had passed the point of no return. 

 

The final parable is a bit different. 

 

All of us can identify with fishing though few have experienced fishing with a drag net. A drag net picks up everything,  fish, plant life, and all kinds of inanimate objects.  After the net is hauled ashore the fishermen go through the contents,

keep the good fish discard those that are not good, and dispose of the detritus.

The parable recalls last week's gospel about the weeds and the wheat. When the field was harvested the weeds were thrown into the fire and the wheat stored in barns.

 

Good and evil, virtue and sin, have coexisted since the beginning of time, some things will never change.  Our dilemma is whether or not we choose to trust in the promises of Christ as described by Paul, “We know that by turning everything to their good God cooperates with all those who love him, with all those that he has called . . .”  

 

Accepting or refusing God’s grace is our free choice.  We can never be forced

to accept or cooperate with that grace. However, all other important choices in our lives depend on that decision. 

 

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Photos from ten years ago in Ogunquit, Maine.  Only had 24 hours there visiting my sister and a friend who were vacationing there.  

 

Saw the blue door and geraniums and reached for the shutter.  Ogunquit is a very charming place though the traffic getting there in the summer is dreadful.

Kayaks for rent.  I did not even consider the possibility.

This photo triggered many memories even though I was never a lifeguard.  Mostly movie memories such as 'Summer of '42', 'Where the Boys Are',' and all the Annette "Beach Blanket Bingo" movies.

Black and white adds another character to it.

Processed to exhance the dark-light contrast.

This is a great photo.  I was able to erase someone walking into the water and focus only on the kid running barefoot on the beach with his.  This will be an indelible memory for both.

 Fr. Jack, SJ, MD

Gettin' Old: Homily 3rd World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly

Gettin' Old:  Homily 3rd World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly

23 July 2023

 

On January 31, 2021, Pope Francis designated the Fourth Sunday of July

as the First World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly. Today is the third annual observance. It is a day on which to pray for the intention of those who are old, an opportunity to meditate on the great gift of wisdom, and a time to acknowledge the critical role played by elders throughout the world

 

It is not easy being old in the youth-crazed, old-age denying, and productivity obsessed U. S.  The same is apparently true in Australia about which Trappist Michael Casey writes: "Some societies reverence the old, seeing in them the embodiments of ancient wisdom and experience.  We, on the contrary, seem to hanker after illusory youthfulness, so quickly and irretrievably left behind." 

There are no valid arguments to counter this assessment.

 

Among the most insulting of comments directed at an old person is the ever popular and terribly hackneyed, "You're not 83 years Ollllld.  You're 83 years Youuuuuuuuuunnnnng."  A waiter said that to my then 85 year-old mom.  Can't quote her response in sacred space but I suspect the young man thought twice before saying it again.

 

Insisting that an octogenarian is young efficiently accomplishes two things. 

It strips the individual of his or her dignity and, more significantly, reveals the speaker's terror of aging, fear of death, lack of compassion, and general unkindness.  Nothing horrifies Americans more than the thought of aging, the idea of having to live within the physical, cognitive, and functional limits imposed by the aging process.

 

I used to envy pediatricians only one thing: they have age-linked charts and graphs to track a child's physical, psychological, and cognitive development. 

One quick checkmark and ya' got that covered. Next patient. All I had in geriatrics was  a blank piece of paper on which to record the uniqueness that defined the old man or woman sitting on the other side of the desk.

 

No checkmark or click of a computer mouse on an electronic record  can summarize an old patient's history; no average, below average, or above average designation can describe the nuances of his or her life be it in the medical clinic or psychiatry office.

 

We become increasingly different as we age.  Department stores group children's clothing by age:  birth to six months, six to twelve months, one to two years, and so on.  Even though I keep looking, I've yet to see a clothes rack for 65 to 75 years old standing next to one for 60 to 65 year-olds. 

 

Some do have an easier time with aging than others.  No matter what however, we must not deny the reality of the old by insisting they are really young despite all evidence to the contrary.

 

If we are to truly honor and respect the elderly we must accept each individual

for who, what, and how he or she really is, rather than demanding they be

who, what, and how we want them to be which is young.

 

Stanley Hauerwas writes in his book Growing Old in Christ, "one of the problems of our time is the assumption that we can and should live as if we will never grow old." It is an important observation. In chapter twelve Job asks, “Is not wisdom found among the aged?  Does not long life bring understanding?”  Denying the reality of aging is a refusal to acknowledge and respect the wisdom of the old. 

 

Remember the motto of the late 60s  “Never trust anyone over thirty?” Ironically, those who marched while chanting that slogan are now septuagenarians, if they lived long enough.

 

Wisdom is neither innate nor genetic. It is acquired through long experience

of success and failure. It is acquired most easily by those with a listening heart, and the courage to enter into silence and prayer so as to reflect on their lives with awareness that those lives are nearing an end.

 

Wisdom is a force in the world that is critical to civilization, fundamental to being human, and the most significant factor separating us from all lower animals.  It also separates us from “artificial intelligence” a concept that is artificial but nothing more.   

 

When others insist that an old man or an old woman is YOUUUUUUUUNG

they are denying his or her existence, disparaging the challenges he or she has faced, and throwing in a complimentary dollop of hostility.

 

For many years JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association,  featured cover art with commentary by M. Therese Southgate, a physician

who was a self-taught art historian. Some weeks her essay was the best thing in the issue.

 

The May 3,1995 cover was a painting by Henri Amiel who Southgate quoted in her essay.

 

"To know how to grow old is the masterwork of wisdom

and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living."

 

Others have also reflected on aging. Bette Davis was more droll than Amiel in her pithy statement: "Old age ain't for sissies"

 

In his homily on the Feast of the Presentation some time in the early 1990s,

Jesuit Father Jim Casciotti said, "Old age can be a time of bitterness and regret, clinging to the past, and resenting any changes or loss of independence.  But, to those whose faith has deepened with the years

there comes wisdom, integrity, and a sense of providence."

 

As this annual day for the elderly becomes established in the calendar, I hope liturgists have the sense to include somewhere in the liturgy Habakkuk's great psalm for the elderly who gradually lose much. 

 

"For though the fig tree blossom not

nor fruit be on the vines,

though the yield of the olive fail

and the terraces produce no nourishment,

though the flocks disappear from the fold

and there be no herd in the stalls,

Yet will I rejoice in the Lord

and exult in my saving God.

God, my Lord, is my strength;

he makes my feet swift as those of hinds

and enables me to go upon the heights

________________________________________________________

 

 

 Hope this works.  Google completely screwed up my blog access.  Some kind help from someone on the computer helped to restore things but the work space does not look the same was as it did for the past eleven years. 

Will try to add a few photos and see what happens.   All of the shots are from Longwood Gardens where I first became interested in photography thanks to a med school classmate who is a very talented photographer.    These need no explanation simply that they are pretty.  Haven't been down in that direction in a number of years but if and when I do, off we go. 

Fr. Jack, SJ, MD