Yeah, all the hegluia. Dominus phobiscum. Let the spirit do so now. Lectio, sancti, vinjali, segun, tu markar. Glory your tea, please, O dear. Jesus said to his disciples,
Is a lamp brought in to be placed under a bushel basket or under a bed and not be placed on a lamp stand? For there is nothing hidden except to be made visible. Nothing secret except to come to light. Anyone who has ears to hear ought to hear. He also told them.
take care what you hear. The measure with which you measure will be measured out to you. And still more will be given to you. To the one who has more will be given. And to the one who has not even what he has will be taken away.
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will be measured out to you and still more will be given you to the one who has more will be given and from the one who has not even what he has will be taken away at a human very natural level this is basically the law of use it or lose it which every student every athlete every musician knows well the more we learn
The more we can learn, the more we work out, the greater our stamina and strength in the tougher exercises we can do. The more we practice the piano, the more our talent develops, the less we practice, the more our skills atrophy. If we develop a gift, it grows. If we neglect a gift, it diminishes. At a spiritual level, the principle is also true.
Jesus says in St. Luke's gospel, give and gifts will be given to you. A good measure packed together, shaken down and overflowing will be poured into your lap. He instructs us to give to everyone who asks, to forgive and we will be forgiven, to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. The law of the Christian life is one of love,
in total generosity. Jesus Christ has taken on our nature and given it for our salvation down to the last milliliter of his precious blood. He's bestowed on us as Saint Paul reminds us every spiritual blessing in the heavens. And now he calls us and he means it as he calls us to love one another as he loves us.
to measure out to others what he has limitlessly measured out to you and to me. And that's meant to lead to a virtuous spiral, having been loved totally by him and seeking to love others by that same Christ-like degree. We've become capable of receiving even greater gifts from him. It's not
pour out to others, and then you will be rewarded. God's already given us everything. But the more we generously give out, the more capable we are receiving of His gifts. With regard to mercy, Pope Francis is used a very beautiful medical image. He says, the human heart has a systolic and a diastolic function. It pumps in blood, and then it pumps out blood.
But if that diastolic function stops, if we cease pumping out mercy, the heart's dead, and we can't receive the mercy God wants to give us. That's why Jesus, after he taught us the Our Father, said, for unless you forgive others their sins, neither will your heavenly Father forgive you yours. Not because he doesn't want to, but because we can't receive the gift of His mercy unless we're paying that mercy forward.
And that's why Jesus tells us today, emphatically, the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you. Because that's the measure we can receive. Saint John of the Cross, perhaps the greatest doctor of the interior life in the history of the church, has told us that where we don't find love, put love, and you will find love.
The more we give by the Lord's standards, the more we create a culture in which others seek to live by that standard, not everyone, of course, but some. And then we begin to get others on that same virtuous upward spiral. And we receive more, not just because we have a greater openness to the love that comes from God and others, but also because we have raised the bar for others.
And some, perhaps even many, will seek to live by that Christian standard we set. The specific context of the Lord's challenge and command in today's gospel is the way we respond to His holy word. He tells us, take care how you hear. That's because immediately before today's passage,
as we heard in yesterday's gospel is the parable of the sower and the seed which describes how generously we are supposed to receive the gift of God's word and in general how open we are to His action in our life. Jesus takes a soil sample and He says that there are essentially four types of receptivity.
In order to understand his image, we need to know a little bit about Middle Eastern farming practices 2,000 years ago. They're almost the exact opposite of what farmers do today. Today, of course, we work the soil first and then we plant the seeds. In the ancient world, they'd just scatter seeds everywhere and it would fall in four different places. The first would be the hardened soil, the path that everybody would walk on.
Birds of the year would come and take away those seeds. They couldn't penetrate. Second were these strips of land along the sides of the path. But there's a thick layer of limestone about three to five inches underneath the soil throughout the Holy Land.
And so the seeds could immediately spring up some roots, but the roots couldn't go more than three inches. So the water would be trapped there for a little bit, but as soon as the seeds germinated, the sun, very hot in the Middle East at noontime, would scorch those seeds because the roots were shallow. Jesus was describing those people as the superficial ones. And we live in a consumerist culture, and many are superficial.
They'll judge everything by whether they like it or dislike it, not whether it's true or untrue, or whether it comes from the Lord or just some guru. There are many with the soil. The third soil, he says, is thorny. The soil is otherwise good, but there are thorns growing there. And as they grow, they choke the growth of the seed. Not only do they suffocate them almost
like a cobra wrapping itself around a prey, but they can exhaust the nutrients in the soil. Jesus could have easily said that thorns are sins because we know they choke God's growth inside of us. But that's not what Jesus said. Jesus said that the thorns are worldly cures and anxieties, the lore of riches and pleasure. Things that worry us. Things that draw us even more than God.
If somebody is listening right now, and their dearest loved one is in the hospital, and today might be the last day, it's going to be very hard for them to pay attention. That's legitimate worldly care. Likewise, if somebody right now is thinking, what am I going to have for breakfast? And they're focused on that. Similarly, that pleasure is going to distract. Lord wants us to note
the thorns that can choke his growth within us and to address them. But he goes through those three insufficient forms of soil to get to the last, which is the type of soil he wants to find in us that he absolutely found in his mother. He calls it rich or good and fruitful soil.
that receiving the Word of God bears through 30, 60, or 100 full, big biblical numbers. When we hear the Word of God, it's supposed to change our life, not just a little, not just in two or five ways, but over the course of time, in 30, in 60, and a hundred ways or more. That's the power of the Word of God.
That's what we see in the lives of so many of the saints at their conversion. And that's the type of measure that the Lord wants us to give out in response to the measure of the way He has sown Himself and His holy words in us. Take care what you hear. He wants us to pay attention.
to listen well to what he's saying, to receive on good and fruitful and rich soil, the seed sees souls as he speaks. He wants us to be at the edge of our seat, whether the pew here in Irondale, or the seat with which we're watching this mass on television, attentive to his every word, remembering it, pondering it like our lady in our hearts,
piecing it together with everything else he's taught us and letting it become the true foundation for what he wishes to teach us later in prayer in the other listening to Sacred Scripture and what he reveals to us in day-to-day events. Take care how you hear. The second way he wants us to attend to what he says is to treasure it, to nourish it, to water it,
so that it may grow. A lot of the times we listen in a way in which it passes from one ear straight through the others. If the word of God is going to have an impact on us.
We have to listen the same way as if I were to say to a whole bunch of high school kids, listen. There's a buried treasure full of gold coins behind the high school in the sports field. I am going to give you 17 steps to find it, but you're going to have to listen carefully. Here it goes. One, two, three. We know how much attention they would attend to each of those instructions.
The Lord has given us an imperishable treasure in his word that mods can't destroy, that rust can't corrode, and even that the IRS can't tax. But do we listen that way? If we do, if we do, then it will change us. And so a little test. What was yesterday's song?
Do you remember what it was at Mass that we prayed five times? Did it impact you? Did you nourish that word? I've mentioned what the gospel was, but do you remember what the first reading was from the letter to the Hebrews upon which by the Mitch preached a beautiful, very rich homily? What about this last Sunday? What was the gospel on Sunday, which is supposed to influence our entire week? I say this not to make anybody feel guilty, but just
as a self-test, because I know you all remember Sunday's gospel was the wedding feast at Cana. What is the impact of the Word of God in our life? Do we water it so that it might grow? Do we remember it? Do we try to apply it to our life? In the third way, we take care of what we hear,
is to teach it, to pass that word on, to measure it out as generously as the Lord has sought to sow it in us. Any teacher will tell you that if you really want to learn something, teach it to others. That's why Jesus begins today's gospel asking, is a lamp brought in to be placed under a bushel basket or under a bed and not be placed on a lamp stand.
Jesus has ignited the lamp of our minds and hearts with His Holy Word. And He doesn't want us to place it under a basket or a bed, but place it prominently so that it can illumine everything. He doesn't want us to keep what He teaches secret, but to make it visible. He wants us to be His witnesses, not enter a witness protection program.
He wants us to bring His Word to the light of day so that others may be similarly illuminated as we have been. The Word should ultimately take on our own flash, and we should become living commentaries of it in the midst of others who should be able to see the Word in us before they even hear us echo what the Lord has given. I'm honored to be the National Director of the Difficult Mission Society.
four papal societies that are all directed toward shearing our faith until the ends of the earth. The society of propagation, the faith, which most know of because Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, my predecessor, led it for 16 years.
The Missionary Childhood Association, formerly known as Holy Childhood, which asks children to help their peers grow in faith throughout the world to give them the same gift of the Word of God that they're able to receive in their Catholic schools or religious ed programs or at home and home school with good Catholic family. The Society of St. Peter the Apostle
which helps young men and women follow vocations to the priesthood and religious life in missionary territories, where they and their local churches because of poverty would never be able to act on that vocation without our generosity. In the missionary union, which links cloistered sisters and religious men, the homebound, and so many others together to pray for the missions, just like the co-patreness of the missions St. Therese this year did from a caramel in France.
before Jesus ascended. He gave all of us the command to go to the whole world to all nations and proclaim the gospel to every creature. He even wants us to proclaim the gospel to the insects. It's not our principal audience, but every creature. He doesn't want us choosing. He wants us lavishly sharing it even with those who do not have the capacity to respond.
But he certainly means all those made in image and likeness, baptizing them and bringing them into a sacramental life, teaching them everything he has taught us because we've attended to what we hear so that they with us might be devout disciples and ardent apostles, remembering that he is with us always until the end of time is the greatest gift. He gave as the father's first missionary everything we needed.
He gave us His Word, gave us Himself in the sacraments. He gave us His trust in the Great Commission, ascending to the Father's right side and leaving the salvation of the world, the fulfillment of His plan to you and me because He trusted us enough to take on that task, giving us the Holy Spirit to help us accomplish it. But we've got to want to do it. We've got to focus on it. We've got to prioritize it.
And on the night he rose from the dead, told us, just as the Father sent me, so I send you, not just the one next to you, not just the one who you think is ten times more talented and gifted, you. Just as the Father sent me, I send you, because he loved us enough that he wanted to give us a big share in his saving work.
He wants us to measure out to others the word he without measure has given to us. How faithful have we been to that summit? Do we share the faith with our family members and friends and colleagues at work or school? Do we pray and sacrifice for those missionaries across the globe who are generously giving their whole life?
traveling tens of thousands of miles away from their home and their families and their loved ones so that others might come to realize just how loved they are by God who are given everything so that others might come to no love and serve Christ in this world and be happy with him forever. Do we hide the gift of our faith like a light under a lamp stand or do we live our faith
and try to share it as the light of the world, reflecting Christ's own risen light, so that others, in seeing our good deeds, might glorify like Jesus, like the saints, our Father in heaven. Today is a day on which Jesus once again gives us Himself in His Word and in the Word made flesh, so that from the inside,
We might be our abundant fruit and generously measure out the power of that word to others so that we might become living commentaries on the words of consecration as we say, as has been measured to us, this is my body. This is my blood. These are my calluses. These are my tears. This is my sweat. This is all I am and have given out of love for you.
The letter to the Hebrews today focuses on the radiance of faith that should flow from Jesus and all he has done for us. It describes how Jesus entered the eternal sanctuary of heaven beyond the veil and that Jesus' action should give us a sincere heart and an absolute trust, a pure conscience and souls that we can hold unwaveringly to our confession that gives us hope.
Encourage one another and rouse one another to love and good works with undiminished light. The letter has been telling us over the last two and a half weeks. Jesus has entered heaven to intercede for us. But Jesus is still generously obtaining for us all he knows we need. You and I need to be able to fulfill our God-given mission on earth, to fill others with the hope with which he has filled us.
And to help them, in turn, shine as light in the world and bear fruit, thirty-six to your hundredfold. Today, the church gives us the example of someone who eventually lived by this standard, and her life gives us hope. We celebrate the third-order Franciscan Holy One, Saint Hayasinta Marascotti. Justinta was her name in Italian.
She was a pious child, but eventually gave into the thorns of worldly cures and anxieties. She wanted to marry a handsome Marchese, but he spurned her not just for another woman, but for her younger sister. And so she salted and she was inconceivable and intolerable and eventually her father, knowing that she would never be able to recover, sent her to become a religious sister.
This was in the early 1600s in the convent where she was educated. But she didn't want to go and live fully by the standards of religious life. She said, I am a noble woman. I want to live as a noble woman. And so while she lived by the vow of chastity, she absolutely didn't live by the vow of poverty.
She wore habits made of only the finest fabrics. She had her own cup in her room and bought her own food. Rather than living a life of asceticism, she allowed all the visitors who wanted to come to see her and just diverted herself with their company rather than focusing on the lure. For 15 years, she lived her religious life this way. But then she got very sick. She wasn't able to go to Mass one day.
And the priest there who served the sisters came to bring her Jesus in her room. And he saw the luxury with which she was living. And out of great love for her called her to conversion. He told her that the only reason she apparently was in the convent was to help the devil. She was stunned by his words and made the resolution to amend her life.
From that point forward, she allowed the measure of the poor, chaste and obedient Lord Jesus to become the standard of her life. She lived with great asceticism from that point forward, rather than wearing the finest garments, wearing a habit that another sister had thrown away. She went barefoot.
She fasted on bread and water. She kept all night vigils. She nursed the sick during the plague. She gathered alms for the convalescence in the prisoners. She helped build homes for the aged. She founded two societies of oblates of Mary to help her in these works of mercy so that they too could measure out by the measure of the Lord's own charity.
They were called Sakone. Soko is the word for a bag in Italian. Sakone means big bag. They were called the ones with big bags because they were constantly filling those bags with what the poor needed and carrying those heavy loads to lift their burdens. After she died, people were tearing so many pieces of her habit.
that she needed to be dressed anew three separate times in the casket. She needed to vest herself anew in Christ's own poverty and in her baptismal garment. Her life is assigned to us that no matter what we have measured up until now, whether great or small, today is a time to change. We don't need to get sick
We don't need to have a priest visit us in our bedroom to look around and see how we're living. The Lord gives us that grace in His Word. We too can start living fully full time by His life. We too can start bearing abundant fruit for the word that today He sows in us. We too can measure out the measure we receive.
Today at Mass, the Lord tells us anew. Take care what you hear. He wants us to put what He teaches us on a lampstand, to preach it from the rooftops, to pour out what He is pouring in. He is pierced the veil of the sanctuary of heaven.
to make it possible for us to bear as much fruit in our life by His grace as St. Hayasimtha did in hers. May we live up to this mission in which Jesus reconstitutes us today so that one day with St. Hayasimtha, He may measure back to us eternal life.
St. Hyacintha Mariscotti. Pray for us.