Homily for the Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

As the gardens around our church and campus continue to take shape in these early summer weeks, the gardening motif in today’s Scriptures mentioning Cedar Trees and Mustard Bushes seems especially timely. But, of course, the gardening references are given not for themselves, as horticultural lessons, but as analogies, teaching about God’s hidden work in the interior life of His people.

 In His opening sentence, the Lord says of His gardener,  “…and through it all, the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how.” Certainly, contemporary botanists can teach us just how seeds sprout and grow, but, for amateur gardeners like myself, some mysteries remain.

 I freely and frequently admit that I don’t garden from seeds, but visit the local nursery, and purchase plants already in full bloom, and then plant them in urns or gardens, standing by for compliments and acclamations of “green-thumbery.” However, I am perennially confused by one botanical mystery in my garden, as, perhaps you’ve read in past Columns: I have a rogue Morning-glory whose original seed must have blown-in from someone else’s garden, which, each year, re-seeds itself and grows “I know not how.”

 It chooses various spots with no post to climb, content to wrap itself around other plants. My attempts at eradication for fear of its choking other plants seem only to strengthen it, leaving me mystified. I see the darned Morning-glory, as pretty as some become, as somewhat analogous with the attractiveness of sin, whose temptations sprout here and there in life’s circumstances, again: I know not how.

 Sin wants to take root within us, planted by the devil, too cunningly for our awareness until we come to the point of temptation: the weeds of the spiritual life.

 Getting back to the Lord’s Teaching about the Kingdom of God, and God’s work in the interior life, He says that the gardener “would sleep and rise, night and day…” which connotes both a passage of time and a sense of confidence that hidden growth would, indeed, take place. God, of course, has all the time in the world to work on us, and is utterly confident in our capacity for spiritual growth, knowing all the while that growth takes time.

 The question arises, then, of how much time and effort we might grant for spiritual growth, and whether we have the same confidence in God that God has in us. The Lord Himself suggests that not everyone will grasp the depths of His teaching
 concerning His intentions for us in the Kingdom. Saint Mark tells us: “He spoke the word to them as they were able to understand it, but to His own disciples He explained everything in private.” This calling aside, this private explanation can be ours as well when, night and day, in constancy of prayer, we allow God to grant quiet insights into the deeper meaning of the Scriptures and of the Lord’s Teachings.

 We are given today two mental images of birds resting in the shade of tree branches:
 + in a cedar tree (First Reading)
 + and a mustard bush (Gospel).

 The images given provide a pretty picture of birds resting and nesting, but providing shade is not the primary reason for the existence of the cedar or the mustard; it is secondary, at best, graceful as it is.

 Their existence, as God says through the Prophet Ezechiel, is meant to give glory to God: The majesty of the cedar, for example, will proclaim the majesty of God to all the other trees in the field. The sap coursing through the tree’s trunk and branches becomes analogous with God’s Grace coursing through our souls, feeding and strengthening the interior, or spiritual life, so that our exterior lives, like the cedar, will proclaim the majesty of God.

 Think of the Magnificat of the Blessed Virgin Mary for one's personal motto: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit finds joy in God, my Savior.”

 Saint Bernard of Clairvaux wrote: “The affections of the heart present no obstacle to the experience of God, once they have been freed from all egotism and every trace of self-interest, and directed toward the Living Christ at the center of one’s being.

 Moving toward, and eventually arriving at “the Living Christ at the center of one’s being” requires a gradual movement in grace in order to know God more profoundly. The terms we use in gaining knowledge of God give us further insight into the process of this spiritual growth. For example:
 + to know about God is called theology…
 + to come to know God comes through Faith…
 + to experience God comes in the area of mysticism…
 + to love God is known as ecstasy (from the Greek ex-stasis: outside of/ the state of being, or union with God in the realm of the soul beyond the limitations of the mind).

 Man can know about God without loving Him; it is Grace accumulated over time that leads us finally to love of God.

 What is needed to begin growth in the interior life is something of a practical mysticism wherein knowledge of self opens up  the possibility for greater knowledge of God. This self-knowledge should not be confused with ego-centrism or New Age  navel-gazing; It is the search for truth about myself as God knows me. This can lead to the discovery of the Truth of God, for no one who remains distant from God can live in harmony with himself.

 Spending time with God in prayer increases and deepens the possibility for growth in love of God. In this case, absence does not make the heart grow fonder.

 Our attendance at Sunday Mass is the foundation of the spiritual life, as the Documents of Vatican II teach us: the Eucharist is the source and the summit of our Catholicism, which is to say that the Holy Eucharist contains within it the beginnings and the fulfillment of all human longing.

 Our practical mysticism builds on this through:
 + personal prayer
 + prayerful reading of the Bible
 + visits to the Blessed Sacrament here at church.

 Eventually, the fruit of the interior life is that it reforms, redefines, and redirects the exterior life, so that, like the majestic cedar and the necessary mustard, we proclaim God’s glory to the world and provide this weary world a bit of shade in which to rest.