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Open in the Light

A homily for the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time


Last year for the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Her symbol is the sunflower. We arranged flowers, put them on the altar platform and put some underneath the altar. The ones underneath the altar closed up and they were pretty. And I was wondering what’s going out. Why did this all close up? Were they faulty? And everyone said no, they’re sunflowers, that they don’t have light.


They close up. They have to be in the light to be open. And so, this year I tried it. I had sunflowers out, you know, in front of the window. And these are those sunflowers. Nice and bright, open, you know, big, big show of sunflowers. All open. And then I put some in a closet off the sacristy.


And these are then kind of closed and shut and not very open. This is my extension of today’s gospel, where Jesus is talking about seed on the path, amongst the thorns, amongst the thorny ground, the rocky ground and the good soil. And we don’t do too much seed, but we do flowers a lot. And so I’m thinking it could be extended to say we’re like sunflowers.


We are sunflowers. And so where do we where are we placed? Are we placed in the darkness of, of selfishness, the darkness of self? First this darkness of just sin and sin and error. Are we in the bright light of truth? Saint Teresa of Lisieux says. It is not we who illumine the light, but we who are illuminated and made bright by the light.


That’s the call I think of today’s gospel, is to place ourselves in the light so that we are made. We are shining in the light. We are bright in the light. Now this Thursday is the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Saint Titus brings us as her symbol is the sunflower. Remember, Carmel means garden of God.


So every saint has a flower associated her name to them. Mary’s is the sunflower because Titus says it follows the sun during the day and keeps its head down. And humility. That’s probably part of our call, is to be, follow the sun. We keep our head down a little bit in humility.

Saint Teresa of Avila
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Please, Jesus, Not the Whole Passage

A Homily for the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Matthew 11:28-30

Back when I was in college, the pastor called. He had a wedding and none of the family could do the readings. Could I do that the readings? I said, “Sure.” Itwas a Saturday. I came in. Lovely wedding. Did the readings. Afterwards, I’m the sacristy putting the lectionary away. He’s putting his vestments up in the closet. And a woman runs in. runs into the secrecy all upset and she starts hollering at the pastor. You knew that man was a Lutheran and you knew he was in an irregular marriage and you still gave him communion. What kind of priest are you? And then she ran out of the sacristine and before he could respond. And so he looks at me and says, :If I had refused that man communion, everyone would have forgotten there was a wedding today. they would only remember that I had refused somebody communion. Then he turns to hang his el in this in the closet and he says, “And besides Jesus is a big boy. Jesus can take care of himself.”

In today’s gospel, we hear Jesus saying, “Come to me all who are burdened and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.” And we hear that, yeah, I’m heavily burdened. I’m heavily laden. I need some rest. But the next line, we don’t listen. The next line is the key line. And he says, for I am meek and humble of heart. We don’t like that. I want things my way. I want to holler at the pastor about communion. I want to take care. I want to protect God. Jesus is not a big boy. He cannot take care of himself. I’m going to take care of him. We we want things our way and that’s not meek. That’s not humble of heart. We are per we are just pushing ourselves in all different directions. I wonder why the burden is heavy and the yoke is burdensome. And Jesus then concludes and you will find rest for yourselves for my yoke is easy and my burden light. We like that part too.

So I think the key here is when you look at the gospels everything Jesus is never pushing his will never castigating chastising people. Instead avoid this sin um sin no more follow me. Jesus gentle and meek of heart.

That’s not our emotion. That’s not our way of life. Then we wonder why we’re burdened. So I think that’s the key. The whole passage pivots on those central lines, but we stop our ears when he says, “Learn from me, for I am meek and gentle of heart.” Uh, so that’s the burden. But if we can do it, everything falls into place.