Sunday Gospel Reflection, July 26, 2026: More precious than thousands of gold and silver pieces...

More precious than thousands of gold and silver pieces…
What is our true treasure? 

     We have this ultra-positive image of King Solomon. But is it really justified? When, in the First Book of Kings, God appears to Solomon in a dream and says, Ask something of me and I will give it to you, Solomon requests an understanding heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong. Sounds good, right? Sounds humble? But what will Solomon do with the gift – this treasure – he is given? In point of fact, Solomon will soon begin to marry foreign queens and build his own home before building the Lord a temple. 

    Moreover, Solomon’s desire to be able to distinguish right from wrong brings to mind Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden; their sin, after all, is to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God does affirm Solomon’s request as a way of affirming the humility with which it requested, but Solomon must then choose to use the wisdom he is given to fulfill God’s will, recognizing that he needs the Lord and the power of the Lord’s love in his life. This is the goal of the psalmist in Psalm 119: The law of your mouth is to me more precious than thousands of gold and silver pieces, he sings. Why? Because God’s commands (and laws and decrees) are God’s way of remaining close to us. Like the psalmist, Solomon needs to have a listening heart and to remain open to relationship with the Lord. Alas, this will prove harder than he imagines. 

    When all is said and done, our relationship with the Lord – our union with God – is our greatest treasure. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples four parables, each of which is meant to reveal something about the treasure that is the kingdom of heaven where we will be eternally in right relationship with God. There are different ways to pursue the kingdom. One person comes upon the treasure by accident, while another is actively searching for fine pearls. In every case, however, discernment is required to separate the good of life from the bad, in order to draw closer to God and deepen our relationship with him. 

    We cultivate that relationship in the here-and-now through our temporal relationships on earth. Paul reminds the Romans that all things work for the good for those who love God. We are called to be a community for each other in the Body of Christ, as we are conformed to the image of God’s Son. We are called according to God’s purpose, to fulfill his will, which is that all may be one. When we enter in to be in his Body, then his image is the image we set forth – not in judgment or domination, but in compassion and mercy. For that is his will: that his compassion and mercy might flow out from us, to his world – a true and powerful manifestation of his kingdom… on earth! 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture Class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com

The Kingdom of God is... (Gerald Darring)

     The Kingdom of God is a space. It exists in every home where parents and children love each other. It exists in every region and country that cares for its weak and vulnerable. It exists in every parish that reaches out to the needy. 

     The Kingdom of God is a time. It happens whenever someone feeds a hungry person, or shelters a homeless person, or shows care to a neglected person. It happens whenever we overturn an unjust law, or correct an injustice, or avert a war. It happens whenever people join in the struggle to overcome poverty, to erase ignorance, to pass on the Faith. 

     The Kingdom of God is in the past (in the life and work of Jesus of Nazareth); it is in the present (in the work of the Church and in the efforts of many others to create a world of goodness and justice); it is in the future (reaching its completion in the age to come). 

     The Kingdom of God is a condition. Its symptoms are love, justice, and peace…' 

--Gerald Darring,
St Louis University,
Center for Liturgy

Image source: NGC 602, a young star cluster, from NASA, https://www.ncronline.org/spirituality/scripture-life/spirituality/solemnity-our-lord-jesus-christ-king-universe-kingdom-not
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Could God's love really be that great? (Fr. Richard Rohr)

    The ego prefers a dualistic worldview where bad people are eternally punished, and good people (like ourselves) are totally rewarded. But the soul does not need to see others punished to be happy! Why would anyone like the notion of somebody being tortured for all eternity? What kind of psyche or soul can condemn others to hellfire? Certainly not Divine Love. 

 

    Could God’s love really be that great and universal? Could it be anything less? Love is the lesson, and God’s love is so great that God will finally teach it to all of us. Who would be able to resist it once they see it? We’ll finally surrender, and God—Love—will finally win. God never loses. That is what it means to be God. That will be God’s “justice,” which will swallow up our lesser versions of retributive justice. 

--Fr. Richard Rohr,
Center for Action and Contemplation,
March 7, 2026

Image source: https://southernsteelfabrication.com/products/gods-infinite-love
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Everything is turned upside down (Henri Nouwen)

    The Kingdom is where everything is turned upside down. Those who are marginal, those considered not respectable, are suddenly proclaimed as the people who are called to the Kingdom. The part of us that is weak, broken, or poor suddenly becomes the place where something new can begin. 

    Jesus says, “Be in touch with your brokenness. Be in touch with your sinfulness. Turn to God because the Kingdom is close at hand. If you are ready to listen from your brokenness then something new can come forth in you.” 

--Henri Nouwen 

Image source: https://intervarsity.org/blog/upside-down-kingdom
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Thriving in God's garden (Rev. Shirley Ruedy)

     I was flipping through a garden magazine last week when I came across this advertisement for a weed whacker. The ad read, “Effortlessly tackle tough weeds with braided carbon steel blades. The trimmer tackles tough weeds effortlessly. Save time with easy set-up. Keep every space looking its best. It can handle anything outside, giving you a beautifully maintained garden you can be proud of.” 

     Makes it sound easy, doesn’t it? A perfectly manicured and weedless garden. Well, not perfect and certainly not weedless. That will not happen. Until the harvest time according to Jesus’ eschatological vision, when the darnel and the wheat will be separated—at the end of the age. 

     But what about now? How are we to live? Jesus teaches that the kingdom is not yet fulfilled. That is yet to come. In the meantime, the world is complicated, with many questions unanswered or unanswerable. We live among the good and the evil and the somewhere in between. There are the redeemed, the believers, and the committed. There are also the unredeemed and the uncommitted. 

     But who are we to judge the human heart? To separate the wheat from the weeds? That will be up to the Sower, the Son of Man. Jesus teaches that the kingdom of God is a gift of divine grace offered to all of those willing to receive it and commit to it. Thriving in God’s garden among the weeds, our own included, with unexpected visits from the unidentified enemy, requires our patience, forbearance, acceptance of God’s grace, and above all, our love—all that he modeled when our Lord lived among us. 

     So let us truly see in order to perceive, truly listen in order to hear, truly keep our hearts alive and able to understand the eternal message of the Lord: 

     “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.” 

—The Rev. Shirley Ruedy,
Deacon, Trinity Episcopal Church of Staunton

Image source: https://thegoodheart.blogspot.com/2011/07/priorities-wheat-or-weeds.html
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Thirsting for God's justice (Fr. Greg Boyle / St. Hildegard of Bingen)

Real justice restores
by loving people
into their wholeness.

--Fr. Greg Boyle

    Thirsting for God’s justice, believers should now suckle the holy element from God’s breast and never have enough of it, so that they will be forever refreshed by the vision of God…. When we grasp justice in this way, we shall surrender to it, taste virtue and drink. We shall be strengthened by it. 

--St. Hildegard of Bingen 

Image source: Galya Stambolieva, https://galyastambolieva.com/artworks/breastfeeding-art/woman-nursing-child-i/
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Sunday Gospel Reflection, July 19, 2026: Your might is the source of justice...

Your might is the source of justice…
Just how open is God’s kingdom? 

    Jesus spends a lot of time in Matthew’s Gospel teaching the crowds about the kingdom of heaven, particularly through the use of parables. We are pretty familiar with the image of the mustard seed, which grows into a large bush where the birds of the sky come and dwell (ordinary mustard seeds do nothing of the sort!) and the image of the yeast, which suggests that God’s kingdom expands in ways we cannot imagine. More complex is the parable of the weeds among the wheat, in which good seed grows and bears fruit, but darnel, a pernicious weed, grows as well. When asked, Do you want us to go and pull the bad weeds?, the master gardener instructs his workers, No, if you pull up the weeds, you might uproot the wheat with them. God is patient, not judgmental; like the farmer, God is willing to wait until all have a chance to show themselves. And, as Psalm 86 reminds us, the Lord is good and forgiving, open to all who seek to live in right relationship with him. 

    This notion of God’s expansive compassionate justice is announced in the Book of Wisdom as well. Though you are master of might, you judge with clemency, the author of Wisdom states, and with much lenience you govern us. Rather than simply annihilate the enemies of God’s people, God gives all good ground for hope because God permits repentance for sins, not only to the people of Israel, but to all. God has the care of all. Moreover, should we ever be tempted to impose our own judgment, we should remember what Paul tells the Romans: the Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness. The Spirit joins us in our groanings, enabling us to pray for our world and its sinful brokenness. God is the one who searches hearts, and only God is called to judge them. 

    Jesus’ parables reveal a secret: the reign of God is here and the reign of God works more profoundly than we could possibly imagine! We are called to do whatever reveals his love – to let him rule our lives, direct our hearts, rule our hearts. In so doing, we will see that reign dawn and division decrease. But if we give into fear, we lose the very thing we put our faith in. It’s God’s way we follow, God’s justice we enact… not our own. And God’s kingdom is large enough to hold all! 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture Class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com