Captured Fire: New Daily Homilies, Year One by Krempa S. Joseph

Author:Krempa, S. Joseph [Krempa, S. Joseph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: ST PAULS / Alba House
Published: 2010-10-10T04:00:00+00:00

THURSDAY, SEVENTEENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Exodus 40:16-21, 34-38; Matthew 13:47-53

The dragnet and the storeroom are two of the Lord’s images in today’s Gospel. Both images from long ago tell us something about the Church today.

The fishing net brings in all kinds of things. The mix of saint and sinner is a fact of the Church’s life. As an old saying goes, “Everyone singin’ about heaven ain’t going there.” Some people are always searching for the Church of the perfect, an exclusive club of saints. Such a Church will not exist until the end of time.

The Church is not only the household for the holy but also the place of the spiritual journey for sinners. Hopefully, we can be the place where people’s faith grows stronger, where people can learn to live the Gospel more faithfully, where people can realize the devastating effect of sin and experience the wonder of grace.

The final sorting is for the Lord to do. The best we can give the Church is not to be exclusionary but to be faithful Catholics so that others will be drawn into deeper communion with the Lord and the Church’s teaching. When we exclude people, we “hang up the phone” and lose our connection with them.

The second image the Lord uses is that of a householder who brings new and old from the storehouse. As a Church, we must bring emphasis to those truths that our world and our culture need right now. Years ago, the Church spoke with great force about the rights of workers. Today, she speaks about the right to life, about the rights of immigrants, the dignity of marriage. As Pope Benedict XVI has remarked, the Church speaks today against the degradation of sex education from the beauty of married love into “risk management.” In the next generation, the Church may be called upon to speak about other truths, new and old.

The Church’s teaching mission is not a “blue plate special” that is the same for everybody, everywhere. She is called to bring forward the truths our world needs to hear. The emphasis may shift but the mission is the same, the salvation of souls – all souls. Nothing more and nothing less.

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