Mysteries of the Kingdom.Pdf

Mysteries of the Kingdom Joan Watson

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Diocese of Nashville Office of Adult Formation www.dioceseofnashville.com

Version: 001 Contents

Session One: Introduction to the Parables 5

Session Two: The Sower 16

Session Three: A Few Kingdom Parables 25

Session Four: The Good Samaritan 36

Session Five: The Merciful Father & His Two Sons 44

Session Six: The Wise & Foolish Virgins 54 This study is intended for use by small groups. Each lesson consists of Scripture readings, analysis and commentary, and discussion questions. Each lesson ends with questions meant for personal/private reflection.

Begin with prayer and start reading the session out loud. The group should take turns reading the commentary and the Scripture passages (indicated by a ) aloud, or the leader can read the commentary and everyone can take turns reading the Scripture passages. Most lessons contain about six passages of varying length. Discussion questions follow the Scripture passages.

Some of the questions have direct and succinct answers, while others are more open-ended and are intended to foster discussion and conversation. There are responses to the questions provided at the end of each lesson to help facilitate in case a question isn’t clear or people need a jump start to conversation. The responses to the questions are often an important part of the unfolding of the lesson, so it’s important to unpack them well.

The leader should assist with the discussion to ensure everyone is able to contribute and to move the lesson along. It would be helpful to make sure everyone has the “responses” to refer to (at least at the end, if not before) to help their own reflection later in the week.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if there are questions during the study. If you as a leader are asked something and you are not sure of the answer, tell the participants you will get back to them the following week and feel free to email me in the meantime.

May God bless you and continually manifest his great mercy in your life. Know that you are in my prayers during this time.

In Christ,

Joan Watson

[email protected] Session One: Introduction to the Parables

“There is no doubt that the parables constitute the heart of Jesus’ preaching. While civilizations have come and gone, these stories continue to touch us anew with their freshness and their humanity.” –Pope Benedict1

The English word “parable” comes from the Greek word that means a comparison, or literally, “a placing side by side.” In Hebrew, the word used is mashal, which has a variety of meanings, such as parable, allegory, simile, figurative saying, or illustration. Some of Jesus’ parables are only a sentence, whereas others are long stories.

Jesus told more than forty parables. This study will look at five of his most famous parables and several shorter parables from his kingdom parables in Matthew 13.

The telling of parables was nothing new. Teachers throughout history have always told stories to illustrate their points, and Jesus was teaching as other rabbis did. We find several parables in the Old Testament too (see 2 Sam 12:1-7; Judges 9:7-15).

1. Why do you think stories are an effective tool for teaching?

2. Have you ever used a story to explain a concept or situation?

There are several reasons why a teacher would use stories to teach. Scripture scholar William Barclay mentions several reasons Jesus would teach in parables, including the fact that stories keep our interest and that they lead us to discover the truth for ourselves. By using stories, you are making a point using images, and images are the way most people think. Barclay points out, “There are very few people who can grasp and understand abstract ideas; most people think in pictures. … In order to be understood, every great 1 Joseph Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2008), 183.

— 5 — word must become flesh, every great idea must take form and shape in a person; and the first great quality of a parable is that it makes truth into a picture which everyone can see and understand.”2

The beautiful thing about the parables of Jesus is that they use images, characters, and events from the daily life of his audience to teach them deep truths. “If we want to teach people about things which they do not understand, we must begin from things which they do understand.”3

Jesus is taking his audience into deep mysteries, beginning first with things they know very well. This is one way Jesus showed us that holiness is found in the ordinary events of our lives. Jesus did not come to save us from our daily lives but to save us with his daily life. He did not come to save us from work but to sanctify and redeem work. He spent thirty years in the normal, quiet life of a family where he worked as a carpenter — to redeem work and to sanctify family life.

The Second Vatican Council reminds us, “For the very Word made flesh willed to share in the human fellowship. He was present at the wedding of Cana, visited the house of Zacchaeus, ate with publicans and sinners. He revealed the love of the Father and the sublime vocation of man in terms of the most common of social realities and by making use of the speech and the imagery of plain everyday life. Willingly obeying the laws of his country, he sanctified those human ties, especially family ones, which are the source of social structures. He chose to lead the life proper to an artisan of His time and place.”4

In his parables, Jesus showed a familiarity with the lives of his listeners. He used images from their occupations and their families. He used images from their kitchens, their backyards, and their daily chores to help them understand the mysteries of the kingdom.

3. What are some of the parables that come to mind when you think of the daily life of Jesus’ listeners in Palestine?

Jesus’ parables are simple but infinitely deep. They can be read by children, but there is a richness to them that even the greatest Scripture scholar cannot exhaust. Because they are often simple and straightforward, the dangerous temptation is to see the parables simply as children’s stories or a Christian version of Aesop’s fables. But to only see the parables as tidy illustrations to teach a lesson is to miss the real message of Christ’s words. It also fails to see the revolutionary nature of that message. As one Scripture scholar noted, “No one would crucify a teacher who told pleasant stories to enforce prudential morality.”5

2 William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, vol 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 64. 3 Ibid. 4 Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et spes, 32. 5 C.W.F. Smith, quoted in Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth, 186.

— 6 — As we will see, Jesus’ parables are different from other stories, because they are given to us to reveal to us the mysteries of the kingdom. Through the parables, Jesus shows his disciples the nature of the Kingdom of God. If the Son of God chose to reveal these mysteries through parables, we should strive to understand and learn from those parables.

To understand the parables, we must endeavor to hear them as his audience did. This is challenging on several levels. First, we must familiarize ourselves as much as we can with the time period and the daily life of his Palestinian audience so that we can hear these stories as they did. A misunderstanding of the time and customs can lead to erroneous interpretations of the parables. For example, if we are not familiar with the way people of that time spread seed, the sower whose seed lands on paths and rocks and thorns may seem rather careless. We will see next week why this isn’t reckless. “What seems to the western mind to be bad farming is simply customary usage in Palestinian conditions.”6 If we are really going to search the riches of the parables, we will need to learn a bit about farming, customs, weddings, geography, and history.

To hear the parables as Jesus’ first audience did also requires us to attempt to hear them anew and be open to what they have to teach us. While familiarity with the parables probably won’t breed contempt, it can breed apathy. Have we heard these stories so often that they fail to challenge us? Do they cease to surprise us? In this study, pray to the Holy Spirit to open your heart to hear these stories for the first time. Allow yourself to be surprised by the twist, to be shocked by the gravity of what they are revealing to us. Strive to hear them anew.

There is a danger in creating titles for the parables, since placing titles on the stories allows us to determine their focus. For example, by calling the parable “The Prodigal Son,” we tend to concentrate on the son who squanders his father’s wealth, whereas the parable truly has three protagonists, not one.7 But since it is difficult to speak of a story without giving it a title, we will do our best to give them general titles that allow us to hear the stories afresh.

It is important to hear these stories as their first audience heard them and to understand the literal sense of Scripture. The literal sense of Scripture is the face-value meaning of the words of the text. But it is okay for us to delve deeper into these parables and hear them with the ears of two thousand years of Church history, too. We can also discover the spiritual senses of Scripture. The spiritual senses of Scripture see allegories and signs in the literal text. The Scripture might tell us something about heaven, or the moral life, or about Christ.

First and foremost, these parables were meant to be heard vocally and have a straightforward message with immediate impact. But these parables have also been prayed by the Church for many years, and as the Church Fathers read these stories, they found beautiful allegorical meanings behind some of them. While some Scripture scholars reject

6 Joachim Jeremias, Rediscovering the Parables, trans. S. H. Hooke (London: SCM Press, 1966), 10. 7 Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth, 202.

— 7 — that the parables can be read as allegories, Scripture is like a multi-faceted diamond, whose various sides don’t diminish but enhance the beauty. While there is a danger in any allegory taken too far, there is also a vitality to the Scriptures that allows the parables to continue to speak to us today.

While the literal sense of Scripture is always primary and the spiritual senses always based on the literal, we must never limit the depth of Scripture by rejecting a deeper reading that has come to us after two thousand years of prayer and study. While we don’t want to err on the side of allegorically reading the parables and miss their true meaning, the Church Fathers’ allegorical treatment of the parables can often enrich our understanding of the kingdom.

A modern non-Christian New Testament scholar noted one difficulty in understanding the parables lies in the fact that we “do not have access to Jesus directly … To be blunt, he leaves us neither a physical body nor a body of writing.”8 As Catholics, however, we know that he did leave us a Body: The Church. And while our search for meaning in the parables begins in first century Palestine, it continues through the writings and prayers of the followers of Christ, the Church Fathers, and the Magisterium.

Pope Benedict pointed out that in the originality of the parables we are close to Jesus, able to almost touch his teaching and his language. “At the same time, though, we find ourselves in the same situation as Jesus’ contemporaries and even his disciples: We need to ask him again and again what he wants to say to us in each of the parables. The struggle to understand the parables correctly is ever present throughout the history of the Church.”9

Before we delve into the parables, we need to examine one aspect of Jesus’ use of parables that seems to be a stumbling block. By using parables, was Jesus purposefully hiding his teachings? We have examined the advantages of teaching with parables, but there is certainly also a side of telling stories to teach that can veil the message. Jesus himself seems to indicate that this is the purpose of his use of parables.

Read Matthew 13:10-17

4. What do you think? Is Jesus hiding his message on purpose? Why or why not?

8 Amy-Jill Levine, Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi (New York: Harper One, 2014), 12. 9 Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth, 183-184.

— 8 — Scholars have wrestled with this passage. In his work Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict poses the questions, “Is the point of the parables to make his message inaccessible and to reserve it only for a small circle of elect souls for whom he interprets them himself ? Is it that the parables are intended not to open doors, but to lock them? Is God partisan - does he want only an elite few, and not everyone?”10

St. John Chrysostom, referring to this passage, points out that if Jesus “had not wished to instruct and save [the Jewish people] then he should have kept still and not talked at all, even in parables.”11 The key to understanding Jesus’ words and intent here is to understand the context in which he was speaking and the reference he makes to Isaiah.

First, Jesus begins teaching with parables in earnest in Matthew 13. Up until this point, he has used a few, but now they begin to form the majority of his preaching to the crowds. Perhaps this is why his disciples question the decision. This turning point is due to the fact that now the Pharisees and scribes have made it clear that they intend to destroy Jesus. (See Mt 12:14) Like Isaiah and the other prophets, Jesus and his message will be rejected by the leaders of the people. Their line of questioning is now focused on trying to trap him.

The purpose of the parables is to reveal the mysteries of the kingdom. But not everyone is prepared to receive the kingdom. Not everyone can understand the kingdom. Not everyone wants to accept the kingdom.

Jesus does not want the crowds to misunderstand the nature of the kingdom. While they might have expected a Messiah who would free them from the oppression of the Romans and whose kingdom would restore the worldly kingdom of David, Jesus was gradually revealing to them that his kingdom was not of this world. If you were a first century Jew expecting a political Messiah, Jesus’ parables about seeds and soil would be unclear. You would hear the words, but you would not receive the message. You could not hear the true meaning of the parable through your preconceived notions of the kingdom.

Teaching in parables puts a responsibility on the hearer. Are you prepared to accept the message? Do you want to understand? Or do you want your ears and eyes to be closed to the truth of what Jesus is doing? Do you want the veil to be lifted, or do you want to remain in your ignorance? In fact, as St. John Chrysostom points out, the crowds could have asked for clarification just as the disciples did. But there is no indication that they did.

5. Why would someone not want to hear the message of Christ?

10 Ibid., 189. 11 Quoted in Giuseppe Ricciotti, The Life of Christ (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Company, 1948), note on 376.

— 9 — A parable “conceals truth from those who are either too lazy to think or too blinded by prejudice to see. It puts responsibility fairly and squarely on the individual. It reveals truth to those who desire truth; it conceals truth from those who do not wish to see the truth.”12

Ultimately, the parables are given to us to reveal the mysteries of the kingdom. Some translations of the Gospel use the word “secrets” in verse 11 and others use the more literal translation of the Greek “mysteries.” These secrets or mysteries can only be understood by those who have the faith to accept them. As we will see in this study, these secrets are not just descriptions of what the kingdom is like, but touch the very nature of what the kingdom is. In the end, this kingdom can only be understood by those who have encountered Christ and who are willing to be changed by him. “It is only those who are prepared to become disciples who can enter into the most precious things of the Christian faith.”13

“Jesus’ invitation to enter his kingdom comes in the form of parables, a characteristic feature of his teaching. Through his parables he invites people to the feast of the kingdom, but he also asks for a radical choice: to gain the kingdom, one must give everything. Words are not enough, deeds are required. The parables are like mirrors for man: will he be hard soil or good earth for the word? What use has he made of the talents he has received? Jesus and the presence of the kingdom in this world are secretly at the heart of the parables. One must enter the kingdom, that is, become a disciple of Christ, in order to ‘know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven.’ For those who stay ‘outside,’ everything remains enigmatic.”14

Those who are willing to become disciples, who are willing to follow Christ (and everything that entails) are the ones who will understand the kingdom. Otherwise, the kingdom will remain elusive. This is what Christ means when he tells the Apostles, “To anyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away.” (Mt 13:12) Those who are willing to follow Christ will gain the kingdom - and be given even more responsibility in that kingdom.

We see this axiom repeated later in Matthew’s Gospel, just before Jesus is arrested. Let’s look at the Parable of the Talents.

To put the parable in context, this parable is told during the last week of Christ’s life in Jerusalem. After his triumphal entry into the city, his message gets stronger and the opposition grows bolder.

12 William Barclay, Gospel of Matthew, 65. 13 Ibid., 77. 14 Catechism of the Catholic Church 546

— 10 — Let’s tackle our first parable:

Read Matthew 25:14-30

ªªShare your word or phrase. (Note: there will be time to discuss the parable soon; at this point, simply say one word or phrase that jumped out at you and maybe, if you’d like, briefly explain why.)

On one side, this parable does refer to the Pharisees who are unwilling to recognize that Jesus has come to fulfill the law. They have been given much - popularity and authority among the people, and most importantly, knowledge of the law. Instead of using these gifts to advance the Kingdom of Christ, they were burying their gifts - and the law - out of fear and pride. But let’s turn from the Pharisees and try to see what Christ might be saying to us. We can’t just look at what parables say to others. The parables are meant to jolt us, surprise us, frighten us, make us think - and this parable is no different.

First, it’s helpful to note that a “talent” was not a coin but a unit of weight. The worth of the talent would depend on the material, but regardless, it is a significant amount of money. The most common talent was made of silver and was worth 15-20 years of wages. That is a shocking amount of money, and perhaps it is surprising that he entrusted his servants with it. It’s also rather surprising that the servants with 5 talents and 2 talents were able to double that amount during the master’s absence.

One explanation of the parable is that the “talent” symbolizes the gifts and abilities we have been given. This is actually where we originally get the word “talent” to mean a special ability or aptitude.

6. With this interpretation, what is Christ telling us in this parable? Does knowing the large value of the talents give you any new or deeper insight?

7. Matthew notes in the parable that each man was given “according to his ability.” Why do you think this could be a merciful action on behalf of the master?

— 11 — 8. What can we take from the fact that the men were given different amounts of talents?

9. What is the reward for doing well? Why do you think this is the case?

10. Why is the last servant punished?

Another interpretation of the talents is that they represent knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom. Curtis Mitch and Edward Sri explain, “Remember that the disciples, unlike the crowds, were blessed to receive the interpretation of the parables in private (13:16). Their instruction in the kingdom is the sacred trust to be invested through a ministry of preaching and teaching the nations (see 28:19-20).”15 If we interpret the talents this way, perhaps the master’s rather severe reaction to the last servant makes more sense. Those who are given knowledge of the kingdom are also given the responsibility to preach the Gospel and spread the kingdom.

11. Do you think the master was too hard on the last servant? Why or why not? What can we learn from this?

15 Curtis Mitch and Edward Sri, The Gospel of Matthew, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010), 323.

— 12 — 13. What are ways we bury our knowledge of the kingdom?

We have been given a great responsibility. Since we know the Gospel, we have the responsibility to share it with others. He hasn’t given us our talents for ourselves, but so that we can put them to work in service of others and the Gospel. At the end of our lives, He will ask what we did with what we were given. We don’t want to show up without any fruit to show for our labors. Next week, we will be looking at a parable that further explores the idea of spreading the Word of God. That one uses the analogy of seed and different types of soil.

14. Is there anything in this parable you see differently now? You heard for the first time? Didn’t notice until now?

15. Does anything about this parable make you uncomfortable?

Personal Reflection

ÖÖWilliam Barclay points out that the fact that the resolution of the parable –For to everyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away – is the way it is with life. If we don’t cultivate a talent or gift, we will lose it; if we are lazy and don’t work at something, we will lose that ability. It’s the same with the spiritual life, too: “The nearer men and women live to him, the nearer to the Christian ideal they will grow. And the more they drift from Christ, the less they are able to aspire to goodness; for weakness, like strength, is an increasing thing.”16 Reflect on this. Does this describe your life now? In the past? How do we avoid this happening in our own spiritual lives?

ÖÖAre you ready to hear what the parables have to teach us? Or are you like the crowds, who are blinded and deafened by preconceived ideas about who Jesus is?

ÖÖ What do you want from this study?

16 William Barclay, Gospel of Matthew, 79.

— 13 — Questions and Responses

1. Why do you think stories are an effective tool for teaching? They keep our interest and attention; they are entertaining; they bring concepts to life and make things applicable to us. They are often bigger and more complex than a simple statement, allowing us to wrestle and discover the truth.

2. Have you ever used a story to explain a concept or situation? Answers will vary.

3. What are some of the parables that come to mind when you think of the daily life of Jesus’ listeners in Palestine? There are many, many options! The leaven (Lk 13:20-21), the man with the late-night guest (Luke 11:5-8), the lost coin (Lk 15:8-10), the sower and seed (Mt 13:3-9), the old and new wineskins (Mk 2:21-22), the persistent widow (Lk 18:1-8), and more.

4. What do you think? Is Jesus hiding his message on purpose? Why or why not? Answers will vary. After some discussion, continue reading - the study will delve into this more.

5. Why would someone not want to hear the message of Christ? Perhaps because they don’t want to obey. Maybe they don’t want to change their lives, don’t want to have to endure change, or don’t want to be stirred from their comfort zone. Maybe they want a political Messiah and don’t want to be disappointed in who Jesus is.

6. With this interpretation, what is Christ telling us in this parable? Does knowing the large value of the talents give you any new or deeper insight? Everyone receives gifts and talents in their lives. At the end, it’s not about how much we received, but what we did with what we were given. How are we using the gifts God gave us? Are we taking them for granted? Are we wasting them? Are we burying them, whether out of laziness or out of fear? The master entrusted his servants with a lot. God doesn’t give us his leftovers – He gives us greatness. But what do we do with that responsibility?

7. Matthew notes in the parable that each man was given “according to his ability.” Why do you think this could be a merciful action on behalf of the master? God gives us the perfect amount of gifts, talents, and blessings that he knows we can do something with in our lives. That’s even more of a responsibility! We are given exactly what we can handle. The master knew the last man wasn’t able to double five talents, so he didn’t give him five talents. He gave him what he knew he could handle. He knew his servants well. The problem is, that last servant didn’t know the master. He was overwhelmed and didn’t trust the master – and didn’t trust himself!

8. What can we take from the fact that the men were given different amounts of talents? God gives us different gifts in different amounts. The important thing is not what gifts we’ve

— 14 — been given, but that we use them for his glory. It doesn’t matter whether he gave one man five and one man two. He expected them to be used. Don’t worry about how many talents others have been given - concentrate on making sure you’re doubling yours.

9. What is the reward for doing well? Why do you think this is the case? The reward is even more responsibility! The master knows that if these men are faithful in this, he can trust them with even more. The more we do with God’s gifts, the more gifts he will give us and we will be able to bear even more fruit. “Enter into the joy of your master,” also indicates that these men are invited to feast and celebrate with their master.

10. Why is the last servant punished? He didn’t even try! He was too scared to even attempt to do something with what he was given.

11. Do you think the master was too hard on the last servant? Why or why not? What can we learn from this? Answers will vary. The master trusted his servants. Clearly, he knew the last servant wasn’t as capable as the first because he didn’t entrust him with as much. But even the last servant could have done something. The master is definitely tough and has high expectations. After all, it’s not as if the third servant lost any of his money! But the master entrusted him with a responsibility because he believed in the servant. God believes in us, or he would never give us the gifts and opportunities he has given us. Most importantly, he has given us the Gospel and the Holy Spirit. That is a huge responsibility. If we squander that responsibility and grace, we will have to answer for it.

12. The master in the parable gives his servants their talents before embarking on the journey. In the next chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus is about to go on a type of “journey.” What is about to happen? What are his disciples called to do after that journey? He is about to enter into his “exodus” (Luke 9:31), his death, resurrection, and Ascension. After that, his disciples are going to go out to all the world and spread the Good News. They will be entrusted with the gift of the Gospel message, the Church, and the sacraments, and will be given the responsibility to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth. (Lk. 24:44-49, Mt 28:18-20).

13. What are ways we bury our knowledge of the kingdom? Answers will vary. By not defending the Faith, by not speaking about Jesus and the Church to our friends and family, by neglecting our own intellectual formation or our spiritual life.

14. Is there anything in this parable you see differently now? You heard for the first time? Didn’t notice until now? Answers will vary.

15. Does anything about this parable make you uncomfortable? Answers will vary.

— 15 — Session Two: The Sower

As we mentioned in the last session, the 13th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel marks a turn in Jesus’ ministry. Because of opposition from the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus is beginning to use parables more frequently. We see at the beginning of this chapter that rather than speaking in a synagogue, he is speaking on the seashore. Matthew tells us that Jesus preached from a boat to the crowds on the shore. This is not a hyperbole - even today, you can test this natural phenomenon out on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee. There is a cove surrounded by a hill, which creates a kind of natural amphitheater. It is possible for crowds on the hillside around the bay to hear what is spoken on the water.

It is possible that a sower was even visible to these crowds as Jesus began to speak the parable. Regardless, it is a common image that his listeners would have understood well. To understand the image, we need to understand something about Galilean farming practices. Otherwise, we risk seeing this sower as carelessly spreading his seed in strange places. In Galilee, the seeds were spread by hand, then later plowed into the soil. Some of your field had probably been walked on and become a path for villagers, and some of it was only a few inches of topsoil on top of the limestone natural to that area. But you would spread seed on every available space, then later plow the land. Some seed would take, others wouldn’t.

Read Matthew 13:1-9

This is one of the few parables where we actually have Jesus’ explanation of the elements of the story. In fact, if we’re familiar with this story, it may be difficult for us to initially read the parable without hearing his explanation in our mind as we read.

— 16 — Read Matthew 13:18-23

This parable is one of the places in Scripture where we hear of the grouping of the three enemies of the Christian life: “the world, the flesh, and the devil.” (See also Eph 2:1-3) It is these three things that threaten our souls.

While we may tend to think of the soil as four different types of people, perhaps we need to instead look at our own lives and see that the four different types of soil are within us.

Path:

1. How does the devil use pride, prejudice, or fear to steal the Word?

2. What are other ways the devil steals the word?

3. Look at Mt 16:21-23. How is the devil working here?

4. How can we prevent the seed from falling on the path?

Rocky ground:

5. What does the seed in the rocky ground lack? What does this mean in our spiritual lives?

— 17 — 6. What is deceiving about the growth of the seed on rocky ground? What can we learn from this in our own faith journey?

7. How can we prevent the seed from falling on rocky ground?

Thorns:

8. What are some circumstances or things in our life or culture that threaten to choke the seed?

9. Our world today is often marked with busyness. How can busyness, even when we’re busy doing good things, choke the seed?

10. How can we prevent the seed from getting choked by thorns?

Rich soil:

11. Do you know people in your life who are examples of this rich soil? How can you tell?

— 18 — 12. Have we had moments in our lives where the word has fallen on rich soil?

13. How can we develop rich soil in our hearts?

Think about the Apostles listening to this parable. They were hearing the Word of God preached, but they would also be preaching the Word of God themselves. So this parable has lessons for both the hearer of the word and the preacher of the word.

Scripture scholar Mary Healy points out, “For a farmer working in the fields of ancient Galilee, a thirtyfold yield is a plentiful harvest. Sixtyfold is a bumper crop, and a hundredfold is nearly miraculous.”1Despite the failure of some seed, there is still a bountiful harvest - a supernatural one.

14. Coming off the growing rejection of Christ by the scribes and Pharisees, what do you think Christ was telling his Apostles?

15. While we know that the spreading of the seed wasn’t careless, it was definitely broad and generous. What can we learn from the liberal spreading of seed?

Father Francis Fernandez comments, “The only mistake the sower could make would be not to sow his seed for fear of its falling on soil where it might not bear fruit. He would be mistaken if he ceased to speak about Christ lest he might be lacking in the ability to sow the seed well, or because somebody might misinterpret his words or seem to be not very interested.”2

1 Mary Healy, The Gospel of Mark, The Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 83. 2 Father Francis Fernandez, In Conversation with God, vol 3 (Princeton: Scepter Press, 2000), 136.

— 19 — Christ ends the parable with the words, “He who has ears, ought to hear.” The Jewish concept of hearing goes beyond the physical hearing of sounds and words. It entails hearing and responding, hearing and doing. We see this in the famous Shema prayer of Deuteronomy 6.

Read Deuteronomy 6:4-9 16. Is the command simply to “hear”? What else is being asked of the Jewish people?

17. How are the command to hear and the things that follow related?

When we look at this parable and the others in this study, we must remember that it is not enough to simply hear the words of the parables. They call for a response. The crowds are hearing the preaching of Jesus, but not all of them are following him. The disciples, however, are leaving behind everything for him. They are not simply hearing, they are also responding. Because of this, Christ is able to take them deeper into his teaching.

As we saw last week, it is in the midst of this parable that Jesus reveals that many will not understand his teaching. His parables will be heard and not understood. By quoting Isaiah at this crossroads, Jesus reveals that his teaching will have the same result: a hardening of heart against his message. Their ancestors refused to listen to the prophets. Now they are refusing to listen to the Son of God.

Pope Benedict notes, “Prophets fail: Their message goes too much against general opinion and the comfortable habits of life. It is only through failure that their word becomes efficacious. This failure of the Prophets is an obscure question mark hanging over the whole history of Israel, and in a certain way it constantly recurs in the history of humanity. Above all, it is also again and again the destiny of Jesus Christ: He ends up on the Cross. But that very Cross is the source of great fruitfulness.”3

The more Jesus reveals of the kingdom, the closer he gets to his Cross. In fact, Benedict connects this parable of the sower to a parable Jesus tells on Palm Sunday. “On Palm Sunday, the Lord summarized the manifold seed parables and unveiled their full meaning: ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (Jn 12:24). He himself is the grain of wheat. His ‘failure’ on the Cross is exactly the way leading from the few to the many, to all: ‘And I,

3 Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth, 189-190.

— 20 — when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself ’ (Jn 12:32).”4

The parables find their true fulfillment in the Cross. The crowds don’t understand the parables right now because they don’t understand the kingdom. Just like the seed, growing unseen, the kingdom remains hidden now. The kingdom requires patience as it grows silently. As we’ll continue to see over the next few sessions, it is only in light of the Cross that the parables make sense, because the parables unveil the kingdom: and the kingdom is revealed on the Cross. The seed only bears fruit a hundredfold when it dies.

Christ is not just the Sower, he is also the seed, who dies and bears fruit.5 What he presents to the Apostles hidden in a parable, he will teach the world on the Cross: that “his kingdom will be established in a hidden and unexpected way — not through a triumphant conquest, but by way of suffering, setbacks, and seeming failure. It is a mystery that will culminate in the cross.”6

18. Is there anything in this parable you see differently now? You heard for the first time? Didn’t notice until now?

19. Does anything about this parable make you uncomfortable?

Personal Reflection

ÖÖThink over the four types of soil. Is one prevalent in my life? What are ways I can cultivate rich soil?

ÖÖWhat keeps me from spreading the seed liberally and generously?

ÖÖDo I have ears that are really hearing? Is the Word of God making a difference in my life, or am I simply going through the motions?

4 Ibid., 190. 5 Ibid., 191. 6 Mary Healy, The Gospel of Mark, 85.

— 21 — Questions and Responses

Path:

1. How does the devil use pride, prejudice, or fear to steal the Word? Answers will vary. We can resist what God is telling us because it goes against what we want to believe or do. Perhaps the Gospel doesn’t match our preconceived notions. The Pharisees didn’t want to listen to Jesus because he wasn’t one of them, he wasn’t what they expected in a Messiah, and he called them to examine their own lives. Maybe that’s our reaction to Jesus sometimes, too. Or maybe the Gospel is calling us to do something we don’t think we’re capable of, or we worry people will judge us or ostracize us if we truly live our Faith. Rather than trying to better understand the Gospel, we let our own pride or fear dismiss the hard sayings of Christ.

2. What are other ways the devil steals the word? Answers will vary. He can steal our peace because of worry or anxiety. He can steal the Gospel because we don’t understand something the Church teaches and we reject it without trying to understand, and so he tempts us away from the truth.

3. Look at Mt 16:21-23. How is the devil working here? The devil is using Peter to tempt Christ away from his Passion. Peter doesn’t understand, and so he tries to persuade Christ to reject the Father’s will. Because there is no understanding, the seed of the Gospel is easily plucked away from Peter.

4. How can we prevent the seed from falling on the path? Answers will vary. We can seek intellectual formation through good books, lectures, DVD and CD resources, and spiritual direction. When we don’t understand something the Church teaches, we can seek out answers. We can read the Scripture regularly and prepare well for Mass.

Rocky ground:

5. What does the seed in the rocky ground lack? What does this mean in our spiritual lives? The seed lacks roots. It doesn’t have a solid foundation from which to receive nutrients and grow. Our spiritual lives need a solid formation of both an experience of Jesus Christ and an intellectual foundation to support it when we go through dry or rough patches. Just because I don’t “feel” anything when I pray doesn’t mean Christ isn’t there. But I need to pray for the gift of faith and the virtue of fortitude to endure trials.

6. What is deceiving about the growth of the seed on rocky ground? What can we learn from this in our own faith journey? The plant grows up quickly at first! To a bystander, it seems healthy and strong. We will have moments in our faith journey when we may experience Christ in a very real way during a retreat or on a pilgrimage. It will seem like our spiritual life is strong and growing because

— 22 — I can feel Christ. But what happens when that experience is over? Appearances –and feelings- can be deceiving. Our spiritual lives need roots. We need those experiences, those retreats, those pilgrimages – those “mountain top” moments of glory – but we need to pray for perseverance and trust to endure the trials of life when we don’t feel God’s presence, too.

7. How can we prevent the seed from falling on rocky ground? Answers will vary. We can set a plan for our prayer life – setting aside a certain time of day to pray, etc – so that we have something to fall back on when our emotions deceive us or we don’t feel like praying. We can seek out a spiritual director or a friend to keep us accountable.

Thorns:

8. What are some circumstances or things in our life or culture that threaten to choke the seed? Answers will vary. Worries about the future that cause us to lose our peace; evils in our life that cause us to question God’s love; A culture that rejects God, the Church, and Church teaching can cause us to question our faith; anxiety about finances; pursuit of material goods or “keeping up with the Joneses”

9. Our world today is often marked with busyness. How can busyness, even when we’re busy doing good things, choke the seed? Answers will vary. Sometimes even our good works can distract us from our prayer lives or even become idols. We can become consumed in our children and their activities. It’s not bad to care about your children’s lives or serve on charitable committees or volunteer, of course! But does God always remain first in our lives?

10. How can we prevent the seed from getting choked by thorns? Answers will vary. Pray for the gift of trust in Jesus. Schedule time for prayer like you would schedule anything else that was important to you.

Rich soil:

11. Do we know people in our lives who are examples of this rich soil? How can we tell? Answers will vary.

12. Have we had moments in our lives where the word has fallen on rich soil? Answers will vary.

— 23 — 13. How can we develop rich soil in our hearts? Answers will vary. Many of the ways we avoid the other soils are ways we develop rich soil. Setting a plan for your spiritual life and making goals for your prayer life; seeking out good books and resources to help develop both your intellectual faith life and your spiritual life; reading Scripture regularly; praying for an increase of the virtues of faith, hope, and charity; praying for the Holy Spirit’s anointing in your life and for fortitude to do what the Lord is asking of you.

14. Coming off the growing rejection of Christ by the scribes and Pharisees, what do you think Christ was telling his Apostles? Some seed doesn’t bear fruit, but other seed bears LOTS of fruit. Don’t be discouraged. The harvest is sure - what you need to concentrate on is sowing the seed.

15. While we know that the spreading of the seed wasn’t careless, it was definitely broad and generous. What can we learn from the liberal spreading of seed? Answers will vary. Don’t be afraid to spread the seed. Don’t let yourself be discouraged by people’s responses – it may be that you’re sowing the seed for someone else to harvest. Don’t feel like you aren’t worthy to spread the seed. Spread it and let God worry about the harvest.

16. Is the command simply to “hear”? What else is being asked of the Jewish people? No; they are also commanded to love God and to teach their children about God. It is both hearing and doing, listening and then applying that truth to your own life and living the truth.

17. How are the command to hear and the things that follow related? If they really hear God’s voice, and if the Lord is really God, then certain things must follow. It is not enough to simply hear the voice of God or simply to know who he is. They must love him, and then following that, they must share him with their children. The commands that follow flow from the fact that God revealed Himself to the Jewish people; now there is a responsibility to love and teach. It’s not enough to simply know God, but we must also let that knowledge affect every aspect of our lives. We aren’t called to be faithful for one hour on Sunday, but our faith must permeate every action throughout the week – in our homes, at work, and in the public square.

18. Is there anything in this parable you see differently now? You heard for the first time? Didn’t notice until now? Answers will vary.

19. Does anything about this parable make you uncomfortable? Answers will vary.

— 24 — Session Three: A Few Kingdom Parables

Today we are going to look at three shorter parables. They are part of what is often called the Kingdom Discourse and fall immediately after the parable of the Sower that we looked at last session.

We can gather from a later verse (13:36) that Jesus addressed these parables to the crowds. He will later explain the first parable to his small group of disciples, just as he did the parable of the sower. These parables all use images from daily life in Palestine that Jesus’ listeners would be very familiar with, beginning with the sower and field image we just heard about last session.

The Wheat and the Weeds

Matthew 13:24-30

Jesus is describing the sabotaging of a field by planting tares or darnel, a poisonous plant that looks like wheat when it is very young. By the time you could easily tell them apart, the roots of the darnel would already be intertwined with the roots of your wheat. If you attempted to pull out the darnel, you would lose the wheat as well. Since darnel was bitter-tasting and poisonous, the seeds would be spread out after harvesting and picked out by hand.1 There were Roman laws on the books against planting bad seed in someone’s field, showing us that this scenario is not something Jesus invented, but would be something known to his listeners.2

This is the parable Jesus interprets for his disciples, so let’s look at his explanation. 1 William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, 86. 2 Curtis Mitch and Edward Sri, The Gospel of Matthew, 180.

— 25 — Matthew 13:36-43

1. What does this parable teach us about judgment? Whose job is it? When does it happen?

2. Why is it important to leave judgment up to God?*

3. How can this parable help us understand the presence of sin in the Church?

4. Why is it difficult to live in a world and in a Church where there are both weeds and wheat?

5. Are there ways the parable is reassuring?

6. What are ways impatience could ruin your harvest? What does this teach us?

— 26 — Every gardener knows that patience is a requirement. Growth doesn’t happen overnight. It is the same in the kingdom. Jesus is working in people’s lives, and we don’t necessarily know what he’s doing or where he’s working. We need to be patient and loving, and trust that he is at work. Judgment happens at the end, and it is important not to despair before then or judge people or situations prematurely.

But judgment will eventually happen. We know there are consequences to our actions. Far from rationalizing sin or wickedness, this parable doesn’t mince words when it comes to speaking about the “end of the age.”

7. How is judgment described?

William Barclay reminds us, “In the end, we will be judged, not by any single act or stage in our lives, but by our whole lives. Judgment cannot come until the end. It is possible to make a great mistake, and then redeem ourselves and, by the grace of God, atone for it by making the rest of life a lovely thing. It is also possible to live an honorable life and then in the end wreck it all by a sudden collapse into sin. No one who sees only a part of a thing can judge the whole; and no one who knows only part of an individual’s life can judge the whole person.”3

Mustard Seed

Matthew 13:31-32

The mustard seed isn’t actually the smallest seed, but it was used by Jesus here and at other times as a proverbial image for smallness (cf. Mt 17:20).

3 William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, 87.

— 27 — The picture Christ is painting is not entirely new. He is quoting the prophet Ezekiel, who describes a large tree that grew tall and towered over all other trees. Ezekiel tells us, “In its branches nested all the birds of the sky” and all the nations lived in its shade. Both times he mentions this image, he’s referring to the enemies of Israel, who are depicted as large and powerful trees that are eventually cut down for their pride (Ezekiel 17:22-24; 31:2- 13).

Through the prophet Ezekiel, the Lord promises to restore Israel’s destiny, not using the Babylonians, the Assyrians, or the Egyptians, but a “tender shoot,” a “lowly tree” (Ez 17:22-24). Perhaps this recalls the “shoot of David” mentioned in the Messianic prophecy of Isaiah 11:1. The imagery of Ezekiel reminds us that God chooses “the weak of the world to shame the strong” (1 Cor 1:27) and that he “has thrown down the rulers from their thrones but lifted up the lowly” (Luke 1:52).

The reason Jesus is conjuring up in the Apostles’ minds an image from Ezekiel is because he is announcing the fulfillment of the prophecy. The mustard seed, even though it’s small and lowly, will bring forth the restoration of Israel’s hopes. He comes to bring not an earthly kingdom that will fall, but the new kingdom that will be everlasting.

8. What might the birds be a reference to?

9. Why would this parable be an encouraging message to the 12 Apostles? To us?

This parable reminds us that we shouldn’t fall into the trap of discouragement when spreading the Gospel. We are called to be the mustard seed, the small beginning. This is not just a parable for the early Church, but for every age of the Church. Our efforts may seem small compared to the large world that is our mission field. We cannot forget that the kingdom begins as a mustard seed, and our mission field is often right here at home. The kingdom grows one person at a time.

10. How does this parable indirectly call for action?

— 28 — We also see an unspoken call for patience, as in the parable of the weeds and the wheat. The mustard seed does not grow into the tall tree overnight. Cardinal Ratzinger used the image of the mustard seed to caution teachers and evangelists against the danger of impatience when spreading the Gospel:

In speaking of the new evangelization, he warns against: “…the temptation of impatience, the temptation of immediately finding the great success, in finding large numbers. But this is not God’s way. For the Kingdom of God as well as for evangelization, the instrument and vehicle of the Kingdom of God, the parable of the grain of mustard seed is always valid (see Mk 4:31-32). The Kingdom of God always starts anew under this sign. New evangelization cannot mean: immediately attracting the large masses that have distanced themselves from the Church by using new and more refined methods. No—this is not what new evangelization promises. New evangelization means: never being satisfied with the fact that from the grain of mustard seed, the great tree of the Universal Church grew; never thinking that the fact that different birds may find place among its branches can suffice—rather, it means to dare, once again and with the humility of the small grain, to leave up to God the when and how it will grow (Mark 4:26-29). Large things always begin from the small seed, and the mass movements are always ephemeral.”4

11. What do you think he means when he says the parable is “always valid” and that evangelization means “never being satisfied…”?

Ultimately, we must remember that we are called to do our small part, and then we leave the “when” and the “how” up to God.

The Leaven

Matthew 13:33

4 Joseph Ratzinger, “The New Evangelization: Building the Civilization of Love,” Jubilee Address to Catechists, Rome, December 12, 2000.

— 29 — ªªShare your word or phrase. (Note: there will be time to discuss the parable soon; at this point, simply say one word or phrase that jumped out at you and maybe, if you’d like, briefly explain why.)

We have yet another image taken directly from daily life. This is a scene everyone would know well, and perhaps Jesus even pictured his own mother Mary in his mind as he related the story.

While we don’t have precise knowledge of measurements from biblical times, most scholars agree that three measures of wheat flour would have made a large amount of bread - probably enough to feed over a hundred people! And while some translations speak of “yeast,” the Greek word refers to a fermented starter, like how one would make sourdough bread today.

12. Are there any parallels to the previous parable of the mustard seed? Any differences?

13. What do you think Jesus is teaching about the kingdom with this parable?

14. Some translations speak of the woman mixing the leaven, but the Greek actually says she “hid” the leaven in the flour. Does this change your interpretation in any way? Augment it?

Scripture scholar Curtis Mitch points out that Jesus describes the woman’s action in the past tense. The leaven, the starter, is already at work. In the same way, Jesus’ ministry is already at work and the kingdom is in their midst. But if the Apostles had certain expectations (see Luke 19:11), Jesus was here to straighten them out.

Both the parable of the mustard seed and the parable of the leaven paint pictures of a kingdom that, at the present moment, is silent and hidden. But they are also both about the huge impact that the Kingdom will have. The mustard seed, the leaven, and the kingdom might not look like much now. But the mustard seed will grow to be a plant big enough for all the birds of the air. The leaven is going to transform the dough into enough to feed a huge crowd. The kingdom might not be what you’re expecting, but it’s going to stretch across the entire world - even to places yet undiscovered.

— 30 — 15. The parable of the leaven speaks about the transformative power of Christianity in the world. How can we see this at work throughout Church history?

16. How can we be leaven in today’s society?

Some bakers might disagree with the interpretation of the hidden leaven working quietly in unseen ways. William Barclay says that some would point out the “working of the leaven is plain for all to see. Put the leaven in the dough, and the leaven changes the dough from a passive lump into a seething bubbling, heaving mass. Just so, the working of the kingdom is a violent and disturbing force plain for all to see.”5 In Acts 17:6, we see the early Christians referred to as “people who have been creating a disturbance all over the world.”

Perhaps both interpretations are true. Sometimes Christianity is quietly transformative and other times it is more disruptive. “This parable teaches both that the kingdom is always there working unseen, and that there are times in every individual life and in history when the work of the kingdom is so obvious, and so manifestly powerful, that all can see it.”6

17. Can you think of a time (in Church history or in our own time) that the working of the kingdom was less hidden and more obvious and even disruptive?

In all three parables, Christ alludes to the hidden nature of the kingdom. Don’t miss the kingdom in your midst because it doesn’t look like what you were expecting - because there are sinners in the Church or because it is small or even invisible. Just as Jesus’ own work was relatively small and quiet - beginning first in a completely hidden life in Nazareth and then growing to a small group of followers in the towns of Galilee - so too the kingdom today will often be overlooked or ignored because it is humble and spread slowly, person-to-person.

5 William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, 96-97. 6 Ibid., 97.

— 31 — In discussing these parables, Jeff Cavins points out that if we follow Christ throughout our lives, we can often look back and see how he has worked. “He starts small in our own lives, and he starts changing our lives. And if we look back, we see that we have grown into something that we never thought we could grow into. But all along the way, we don’t think we’re making a lot of progress… but we look back and we say, ‘Wow, Lord, you have done some things in my life.’”7

18. Is there anything in these parables you see differently now? You heard for the first time? Didn’t notice until now?

19. Does anything about these parables make you uncomfortable?

Personal Reflection

ÖÖCan I see examples of what Jeff Cavins was talking about in my life? Can I look back and see where God was working, perhaps hidden or silently?

ÖÖHave there been times in my life when I was the servant, anxious to pull out the darnel even at risk of losing the wheat?

ÖÖAm I quick to judge the weeds from the wheat? Do I assume I know people’s motives, actions, and backgrounds? Do I take on the role of judge instead of leaving it to God? What can I do to better separate judging actions from judging people?

ÖÖHow can I plant the mustard seed today?

ÖÖHow can I be leaven today?

* We should remember that while it is never up to us to judge someone’s eternal soul - since we don’t know their motives, actions, and backgrounds - we can judge an action. It is not wrong to state that certain actions are sinful. Christ commands us not to judge (Matthew 7:1-5), but he does command us to rebuke and correct someone who sins against you (Matthew 18:15-17; Luke 17:3). There is a difference between judging a behavior and judging the state of someone’s soul.

7 Jeff Cavins Great Adventure Bible Study, Gospel of Matthew

— 32 — Questions and Responses

1. What does this parable teach us about judgment? Whose job is it? When does it happen? It is God’s job to judge, and it happens at the end of time. It is important not to be hasty and judge people prematurely. [Note: our personal judgment happens at the end of our lives, when the time we were given to use our talents and spread the kingdom is over. At the end of time, there will be the General Judgment, when everyone is judged (see Mt 25:31-46).]

2. Why is it important to leave judgment up to God? Jesus is the one who sorts the good and bad because only He knows what he is doing! Only he knows our heart, and only he can know the state of someone’s soul.

3. How can this parable help us understand the presence of sin in the Church? Wickedness and fidelity exist side by side. There are going to be sinners in the Church – even leading the Church. While that can test our faith, it shouldn’t destroy it. Even our first Pope denied Christ. The devil works on all of us, and if we allow the weeds in the Church to lead us away from the Church, we’re giving the devil what he wants.

4. Why is it difficult to live in a world and in a Church where there are both weeds and wheat? Weeds are a distraction. They’re also a challenge. They can test our faith. We should be able to expect more from Christians and we should hold Christians, especially Christian leaders, to a higher standard. But there is sin in this world. Perhaps we know people who have left the Church because of the sins of its people, and we have to struggle with that and try to walk with them during the pain and hurt that they might suffer. Or perhaps we have been hurt by someone in the Church and we have to grapple with that and its effect on our faith.

5. Are there ways the parable is reassuring? Jeff Cavins points out that people accuse the Church of hypocrisy because there are sinners in it. ‘If the Catholic Church was the real church, there wouldn’t be a bunch of sinners in it.’ But Matthew 13 seems to say otherwise- the Church does have weeds in it… for a time. Don’t despair at the wickedness in the Church or in the world, because we know justice will come in the end. Also, there is always hope for family members and friends who might be living sinful lives – judgment doesn’t come until the end. So keep praying!

6. What are ways impatience could ruin your harvest? What does this teach us? At the beginning, you might try to pluck out the darnel and end up plucking out good wheat because you couldn’t tell them apart. While it’s growing, once you know it’s darnel, you risk pulling the wheat along with it. At the end, patience is required when sorting out the seeds by hand. Don’t judge prematurely. We don’t know what Jesus is doing in the hearts of our family and friends.

— 33 — 7. How is judgment described? As a harvest. The wheat goes into barns, but a pretty unpleasant fate awaits the weeds - a fiery furnace with the wailing and gnashing of teeth.

8. What might the birds be a reference to? All the nations, all the people who hear the Gospel, even the Gentiles.

9. Why would this parable be an encouraging message to the 12 Apostles? To us? The apostles only number twelve … soon to be eleven. These twelve are getting a commission to go out to the whole world! But they shouldn’t get discouraged. The kingdom will start small and grow in time. He’s saying the same thing to us. Our efforts in this life may be small compared to the spread of the Gospel throughout the whole world. We may be tempted to be discouraged when we don’t see the fruits of our labor. But these small efforts can change the world.

10. How does this parable indirectly call for action? The mustard seed will never grow if it is not planted! Someone has to plant the seed for it to grow into a great bush. Like the parable of the talents, if we have been given the seed, we have to do something with it.

11. What do you think he means when he says the parable is “always valid” and that evangelization means “never being satisfied…”? We can’t just see this only as a parable for the past – that once the Church was small and now it has grown. Rather, we must always see the Church as needing to grow and evangelize. We can’t be content with how far the Gospel has spread. There is always someone who needs to hear the Gospel message. Even if they’ve already heard it, if they’re not living it they need to hear it again from us.

12. Are there any parallels to the previous parable of the mustard seed? Any differences? Answers will vary. Both are about something small becoming big; both are about something that requires patience and time. While the mustard seed parable seems to focus on growth outward, this parable seems to look more at transformation from within.

13. What do you think Jesus is teaching about the kingdom with this parable? The kingdom makes a difference in the world by changing and transforming it from within. We are called to be in the world but not of it. The leaven mixes with the dough and seems to be part of it, but its presence radically transforms it. Perhaps the leaven doesn’t seem to have a huge majority presence in the dough, but the dough transforms into something completely new thanks to the presence of the leaven. This is what we are called to do in the world. The Epistle or Letter to Diognetus, n. 5, is recommended reading on this idea.

— 34 — 14. Some translations speak of the woman mixing the leaven, but the Greek actually says she “hid” the leaven in the flour. Does this change your interpretation in any way? Augment it? Answers may vary. Maybe it’s meant to augment the hiddenness of the work of the leaven, or the fact that we might not even know transformation is happening. Maybe it’s a call to work quietly and humbly. Maybe it emphasizes that we are mere instruments in the hands of God, and we do his work wherever he puts us.

15. The parable of the leaven speaks about the transformative power of Christianity in the world. How can we see this at work throughout Church history? Answers will vary. Missionary activity, especially of the Jesuits like Francis Xavier and Isaac Jogues; the rise of Christianity in the first centuries of the Church (for more on this, see Seven Revolutions by Mike Aquilina and James Papandrea); the establishment of the hospital system and school system; contributions by Catholics in art, music, language, and law.

16. How can we be leaven in today’s society? Answers will vary. By being a faithful Catholic in our workplace - even if that means standing up against bad business ethics or refusing to do something that would compromise our beliefs. By standing up for the teaching of the Church when it is challenged. By treating those around us, especially the poor and vulnerable, with respect and love.

17. Can you think of a time (in Church history or in our own time) that the working of the kingdom was more obvious and even disruptive? Answers will vary. Any time a Catholic challenges the status quo or makes waves against the tide of secularism, we see the leaven bubbling and disturbing things! Catholic leaders who stood up against slavery in the New World or against racism in the 1960s; John Paul II and the Solidarity Movement in Poland that stood up against Communism; Our Lady of Guadalupe and the conversion of Mexico in less than ten years; or perhaps a personal conversion story of how the Gospel disrupted your life!

18. Is there anything in these parables you see differently now? You heard for the first time? Didn’t notice until now? Answers will vary.

19. Does anything about these parable make you uncomfortable? Answers will vary.

— 35 — Session Four: The Good Samaritan

This week’s parable is definitely one for which a little background and context will help, if we want to approach the parable as its first audience did. To really appreciate what Jesus is saying, we need to have a good idea of who the Samaritans are and how they were viewed by the Jews (and vice versa). Many of us have heard that the Samaritans and the Jewish people didn’t get along, but let’s look a little at the history of their relationship.

After the reigns of King David and King Solomon, things in the kingdom started to go downhill. The kingdom eventually split between the tribe of Judah in the south - the Kingdom of Judah- and the tribes in the north - the Kingdom of Israel (See 1 Kings 12). The tribes in the north were no longer faithful to the covenant. Two hundred years later, in 722 BC, the Assyrians conquered the northern kingdom and sacked the capital city of Samaria (2 Kings 10). The Assyrians deported any leader that they didn’t kill and exiled the people. They settled other conquered people in the land, and these people brought with them several false gods. Over time, the people living in the north became a mix of foreigners and descendants of Jacob. They kept the Torah and religiously remained Jewish, but they had attachments to other gods as well.

Eventually, in an attempt to purify the people, a community arose that recommitted themselves to the Torah and based their life and worship entirely on the Mosaic covenant, the covenant made on Mount Sinai with Moses. They accepted practices like observing the Sabbath, circumcision, and animal sacrifices, but rejected the Davidic covenant, worship in the Temple in Jerusalem, and the Davidic writings (Psalms, Proverbs). They began worshipping on Mt. Gerizim, believing that the Lord wanted his temple built there, not Jerusalem. These people, the Samaritans, held that they were the true descendants of Abraham and were correctly interpreting the law, as opposed to “heretics” down south.

As we can see from the Gospel, Jews and Samaritans did not speak and usually avoided travel through each other’s regions (see John 4:9; Luke 9:51-55). The author of Sirach mentions that his heart “loathes” the “foolish” people who live in Shechem (a main city of Samaria), and says they are not even a nation (Sirach 50:25-26). The Mishnah, a collection of oral tradition of the rabbis, says, “He who eats the bread of Samaritans is like he who eats the flesh of swine.”

In the first century, relations between the Jews and the Samaritans was at an all-time low. A Jewish ruler destroyed a Samaritan house of worship, and there were numerous violent confrontations between the two groups. The historian Josephus even describes a massacre of Jews from Galilee who were passing through Samaria on their way to Jerusalem, and subsequent attacks on Samaritan towns.

— 36 — With that background, let’s look at the parable. First, let’s look at what prompted the parable. Jesus is tested by a scholar of the law:

Luke 10:25-29 1. Do you see anything wrong in the way the scholar views gaining eternal life?

There were over 600 commandments in the law of Moses. The scholar is asking which of these is most important. As modern day Scripture scholar Curtis Mitch quipped, “It would be nice to know how to prioritize your efforts.”

The scholar knows the answer, because it is not a novel one. Jewish thought already combined Deuteronomy 6 and Leviticus 19 as this man does. But he’s approaching life the wrong way. The way he asks his question gives him away. The verb that the scholar uses for “what must I do” indicates a “single-limited action.” As Jewish New Testament scholar Amy-Jill Levine points out, this scholar is looking for “something to check off his to-do list… If he’s efficient, he can inherit eternal life before lunch.”1 The scholar is starting off on the wrong foot!

The man asks a follow-up question, because while the answer he gave wasn’t really controversial, how to apply it was. He asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” The usual interpretation was that “neighbor” meant a fellow member of your community or people. Leviticus 19 indicates that resident aliens and strangers are not neighbors, but the command to love also extends to these people, because the people of Israel were strangers in the land of Egypt (see Lv 19:33-34). But it remained controversial how far this was supposed to be taken.2 “Leviticus does not explicitly require him to love his ‘enemy’ who lives across the border, outside the boundaries of the community. In Jewish thought, one could not mistreat the enemy, but love was not mandated.”3

Levine reminds us of something we often forget: “Only Jesus insists on loving the enemy … He may be the only person in antiquity to have given this instruction.”

Luke 10:30-37

ªªRead once — slowly, carefully. Don’t take notes, don’t do anything but listen. ªªRead again. Since you’ve heard the entire story once, while we’re reading it this time, underline a word or phrase that might stand out or jot it down in your notebook. Are you hearing any word for the first time? Does anything stand out that you might not have noticed before? 1 Levine, Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi, 84. 2 Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth, 195. 3 Levine, Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi, 93.

— 37 — ªªShare your word or phrase. (Note: there will be time to discuss the parable soon; at this point, simply say one word or phrase that jumped out at you and maybe, if you’d like, briefly explain why.)

The setting of this parable is very real. It is the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, a road Jesus’ audience would know well. Although it was well-traveled, being the only way to get from Jerusalem to Jericho and the lands east of the Jordan River, it was a dangerous road. At roughly 17 miles long, it was about a six-hour journey on foot, at a steep descent into the valley of Jericho. Jerusalem is about 2500 feet above sea level and Jericho is more than 800 feet below sea level. The road was treacherous and full of places to hide. Rome eventually established a military outpost on the road because of the prevalence of bandits there. Jesus’ audience wasn’t just familiar with the setting - it is possible they had even been victims of an attack like the one that begins the parable.

2. Who passes the man by without helping him? What are some reasons why they might not stop and help?

At the time of Jesus, there was a community of priests and Levites living in Jericho. So just like the setting is very real, the scenario is as well. The priests and Levites (who were descendants of the tribe of Levi and served under the priests) would travel to and from Jerusalem to serve at the Temple. Pope Benedict gives some reasons why they might not have stopped. “There is no need to suppose that they were especially cold-hearted people; perhaps they were afraid themselves ... or perhaps they were inexpert and did not know how to go about helping the man – especially since it looked as though he was quite beyond help anyway.”4

There is also a possible excuse regarding purity. The priest faces a dilemma. According to the law of Leviticus, priests are prohibited from coming in direct contact with a corpse, excepting for the burial of close family members (Lev 21:1,11; Num 19:11). If they do, they are unclean for seven days and are excluded from the worshipping community.

It appears they had a dilemma between charity towards the man and their purity laws. But note that Jesus actually takes away their excuse! In the account, they are traveling towards Jericho, which means they have already completed Temple service.

If we didn’t know the parable already, and we were standing there with Jesus’ listeners, we would not have expected what comes next. Like most of Jesus’ parables, there’s a twist.

3. Who helps the victim? Why is this extraordinary? Do you think he goes above and beyond?

4 Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth, 196.

— 38 — Amy-Jill Levine notes that it might be helpful for us to put these two groups into a modern context to really grasp the shocking nature of the “Good” Samaritan. “To hear the parable today, we only need to update the identity of the figures. I am an Israeli Jew on my way from Jerusalem to Jericho, and I’m attacked … the person who takes compassion on me and shows me mercy is a Palestinian Muslim whose sympathies lie with Hamas…”5

4. Does this put into perspective how surprised Jesus’ listeners might have been? How might it feel to have the “hero” of the story someone you despise?

The Samaritan is not obligated to see the victim as his neighbor. But he doesn’t ask if he’s obligated. “He does not ask how far his obligations of solidarity extend. Nor does he ask about the merits required for eternal life. Something else happens: His heart is wrenched open. The Gospel uses the word that in Hebrew had originally referred to the mother’s womb and maternal care. Seeing this man in such a state is a blow that strikes him ‘viscerally,’ touching his soul.”6

We usually translate the word that the Samaritan “was moved with compassion.” The original Greek word is hard to translate. It literally refers to the entrails. It is an emotion that comes from the very bowels of your existence.

5. Does the intensity of this emotion help us understand anything new about what Jesus is saying through the Samaritan?

Notice that the scholar’s second question was not, “Are the Samaritans my neighbors?” Pope Benedict points out that answer would be easy. Samaritans weren’t “neighbors.” With this parable, Jesus turns the question “on its head”. It’s not about a figuring out what check boxes to mark or how big the group of people you need to love is. The scholar’s

5 Levine, Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi, 115. 6 Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth, 197.

— 39 — predicament is much bigger. Rather than worry about who is his neighbor… He needs to learn how to be a neighbor.

The Samaritan “makes himself the neighbor and shows me that I have to learn to be a neighbor deep within … I have to become like someone in love, someone whose heart is open to being shaken up by another’s need. Then I find my neighbor, or – better- then I am found by him. … The issue is no longer which other person is neighbor to me or not. The question is about me. I have to become the neighbor, and when I do, the other person counts for me ‘as myself.’”7

Notice how the scholar of the law answers Jesus’ question. “Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robbers’ victim?” He isn’t even willing to say the word “Samaritan.”

Pope Benedict, in reflecting on this parable, admits that we need to be mindful of the material assistance we can give others and examine whether we are doing enough. But he adds, “But we always give too little when we just give material things.”8

7. What do you think he means by this?

Think also about the incident from the perspective of the victim. Amy-Jill Levine points out, “Jewish listeners might balk at the idea of receiving Samaritan aid. They might have thought, ‘I’d rather die than acknowledge that one from that group saved me’; ‘I do not want to acknowledge that a rapist has a human face’; or ‘I do not want to recognize that a murderer will be the one to rescue me.’”

8. Can you relate to this difficulty? What is Jesus trying to teach us?

This is one of the parables that the Church Fathers like to read as an allegory. While we have to admit this wasn’t the initial purpose of the text as Jesus addressed the scholar of the law, an allegorical reading isn’t completely off base. Benedict points out that since all the parables “invite us to faith in the Kingdom of God,” then an explanation that leads us to faith in Christ is never completely false.9 Now that we’ve looked at the literal meaning of the text, let’s look at a spiritual sense - the allegorical or typological sense.

The allegory changes a little from Church Father to Father, but at its heart, it sees the Good Samaritan as an image of Christ. We are the victim, fallen Adam who has been

7 Ibid. 8 Ibid., 199. 9 Ibid.

— 40 — beaten by the devil and wounded by sin, and Jesus becomes our neighbor to save us. He binds up man’s wounds with the oil and wine, which symbolize the sacraments, and takes him to the inn of the Church.

When we read the story with this allegory in mind, we realize that since we are so wounded by sin, the scholar of the law’s question truly is misguided. What can we do to inherit eternal life? If I’m the injured man on the side of the road, which I am, I can do nothing to deserve that eternal life. I need Jesus.

Just like the Good Samaritan, Jesus heals wounds. But he came not just to heal the wounds in individual lives - he also came to heal wounds in the family of God. He wants to repair the divisions that have occurred. We see this in his ministry to the Samaritans, when he preaches to the woman at the well and when he heals the Samaritan leper (see John 4 and Luke 17:11-19). The Samaritans are essentially estranged family members, and Jesus has come to restore the family. The angel Gabriel told Mary that he would “rule over the house of Jacob,” and that house includes the Samaritans too!10 As we’ll see in the final session, the kingdom of God is about the entire family reunited around the family table.

Next week we’ll continue this theme of a family reunited when we look at the parable of the merciful father and his two sons.

9. Is there anything in this parable you see differently now? You heard for the first time? Didn’t notice until now?

10. Does anything about this parable make you uncomfortable?

10 Thanks to Curtis Martin and his talk at the 2016 Applied Biblical Studies conference for some of the material in this lesson.

— 41 — Personal Reflection

ÖÖHave there been times when I don’t want to recognize the goodness of the Samaritans in my life? Can I relate to the difficulty the Jews would have had with this parable? What is Jesus trying to teach me?

ÖÖHow am I called to be the Good Samaritan this week? In my family? At work?

ÖÖHow am I the victim in the parable? Do I recognize this?

ÖÖPope Benedict XVI’s encyclical on love, Deus Caritas Est, points out that the parable of the Good Samaritan universalizes the concept of neighbor, but that it also remains concrete. “Despite being extended to all mankind, [the concept of neighbor] is not reduced to a generic, abstract and undemanding expression of love, but calls for my own practical commitment here and now” (§15). What does this mean in my life?

Questions and Responses

1. Do you see anything wrong in the way the scholar views gaining eternal life? He seems to be approaching it as a checklist. Perhaps he’s even looking for a short cut.

2. Who passes the man by without helping him? What are some reasons why they might not stop and help? A Levite and a priest, those who would be expected to be models of the law. Answers will vary: Fear (what if he’s faking and he’s going to hurt me? What if it’s a trap? What if whomever attacked him is just around the corner?); weak stomach; too busy or preoccupied; rationalized that he was already dead or couldn’t be helped; didn’t know how to help.

3. Who helps the victim? Why is this extraordinary? Do you think he goes above and beyond? A Samaritan; because they are enemies and supposed to be the “bad guys” in the story, not the good guys. In some way, yes, he does – he spends his own money, he takes time and care and seems to do more than is required … Would I do that? At the same time, if we’re supposed to love our neighbor as ourselves… wouldn’t I want someone to do it for me if I was lying there?

4. Does this put into perspective how surprised Jesus’ listeners might have been? How might it feel to have the “hero” of the story someone you despise? Samaritans are supposed to be the bad guys! When so many people from a group act out against our group, we tend to objectify them all and give ourselves a pass at hating them or at least distrusting them. Jesus reminds us that we can’t objectify or label people based on the actions of others. It would be hard to be helped by someone who belonged to an “enemy” group. It would be a blow to pride.

— 42 — 5. Does the intensity of this emotion help us understand anything new about what Jesus is saying through the Samaritan? Answers will vary. He wasn’t doing it out of obligation; he wasn’t weighing the pros and cons; he did it out of love and compassion because it was the right thing to do.

6. Remember the question the scholar first asked: “What must I do?” He was focused on something he could accomplish and thus deserve eternal life. Does keeping in mind this initial question affect how we see the message of the parable? Answers will vary. Perhaps Jesus is helping us see that “gaining eternal life” is not a checklist, but a way of life. It’s not about accomplishing a list of tasks or following certain rules, but living as he would. Augustine said “Love and do what you will.” He did not mean that we have license to do anything, but that if we truly love God and our neighbor, we will live a life of perfect freedom and perfect joy. Love of God and love of our neighbor are incompatible with sin. So rather than living the commandments out of obligation, we live them out of love.

7. Can you relate to this difficulty? What is Jesus trying to teach us? Answers will vary. Perhaps some of us have very real experiences of people hurting us. Would I be able to accept their help? In doing so, I would have to forgive them. It can be a test of our pride. Jesus is challenging us to see a human face even in the person of someone who represents hurt and suffering. It also reminds us that “but for the grace of God, there go I.” That person is created in the image and likeness of God, just as I am.

8. What do you think he means by this? Are the poor a check box for us? Are we satisfied by simply writing a check to a charity or giving coats to a clothing drive? It is good to give material assistance, but often the poor need much more – God, love, or a friend. We also need to remember that the poor are not only those who have less material things than we do. The poor can be found in the richest neighborhoods of our cities – even our own family. Mother Teresa reminds us, “The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty -- it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There’s a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God.” Who are the poor in my daily life? How can I help them?

9. Is there anything in this parable you see differently now? You heard for the first time? Didn’t notice until now? Answers will vary.

10. Does anything about this parable make you uncomfortable? Answers will vary.

— 43 — Session Five: The Merciful Father & His Two Sons

The parable we generally call “The Prodigal Son” immediately follows two other parables, that of the lost sheep and the lost coin. These three parables make up Jesus’ response to the scribes and Pharisees who are murmuring against him because he dined with tax collectors and sinners.

When we hear this criticism of Jesus, we tend to interpret this as a criticism of Jesus hanging out with the wrong crowd. But the problem is bigger than that. It’s not just Jesus hanging out with sinners. It’s that he’s eating with them.

The Pharisees kept strict observance of food and purity laws while eating among non- Pharisees. Their observance would set them apart from everyone else. Biblical scholar Kenneth Bailey notes that meals were “critical” for the Pharisees, because they “had to be very careful about food laws and the demands of ceremonial purity. That is, they had to be strict about what they ate and with whom.”1 So it was more than just hanging out with a bad crowd - it was about the fact that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to keep purity laws while eating with that “bad” crowd.

However, for Jesus, the fact that he was eating with them was just as important. Feasts, eating, and meals were an important part of his public ministry - both in his actions and in his parables. Why? Because as we will see in the next session, they were images for a much greater feast: a heavenly one. And to invite sinners to that heavenly banquet is precisely why Jesus came.

The parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin remind us that God doesn’t just tolerate us, he goes looking for us. Jesus is not going to simply welcome repentant sinners, he will go looking for them. The third parable in the series will show us the same thing.

What shall we call this parable? This is one of the best examples of convention giving a parable a title that can narrow the scope of Jesus’ message. Some have suggested the parable ought to be called the Parable of the Father’s Love.2 Pope Benedict suggests the Parable of the Two Brothers and the Good Father. This parable is about three men, not one, and it pays to spend some time with each one. As always, we want to try to hear the parable anew.

Luke 15:11-32

1 Kenneth Bailey, Finding the Lost: Cultural Keys to Luke 15 (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1992), 59. 2 Joachim Jeremias, Rediscovering the Parables, 101.

— 44 — ªªRead once — slowly, carefully. Don’t take notes, don’t do anything but listen. ªªRead again. Since you’ve heard the entire story once, while we’re reading it this time, underline a word or phrase that might stand out or jot it down in your notebook. Are you hearing any word for the first time? Does anything stand out that you might not have noticed before?

To understand what is really happening in the first scene, we need to think about what exactly the son is asking. Most scholars agree that it was offensive for a son to demand his inheritance before his father was dead. In a sense, by demanding something that was not rightfully yours at that time, you might as well have declared that you wished your father dead. Not only does this son demand his share, he also essentially liquidates it and leaves, which would have been doubly shameful.

1. At the very beginning of the parable, by the time he gets to the third sentence, why might Jesus’ audience already be surprised? (It might be helpful to see the advice of Sirach 33:19-24)

2. Do you think this says anything to us about the father?

The fact that the father complies with the request is rather shocking. Jesus’ contemporaries would probably find such cooperation crazy. He is already painting a certain picture of the father in the very first lines of the parable. Pope Benedict says that from the beginning, we see the “magnanimity” of the father. “He can imagine what the younger son is going to do, but he lets him go his way.”3

He allows the son to make a choice, even though it’s a bad one. An Egyptian Scripture scholar noted, “‘Give me the portion that falls to me.’ That means the younger son considered it a misfortune to live under his father’s roof and that he was tired of obedience to his father, choosing rather separation and pleasure. For indeed, sin in its origins is the seeking of distance from God.”4

Jesus tells us that the son goes to a “distant” or “far” country. Perhaps to us, that means 3 Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth, 203. 4 Quoted in Bailey, Finding the Lost, 113.

— 45 — very little - we are living in a culture and a time when children regularly move away from home. But as we saw last session in the definition of “neighbor,” community was everything. The worst punishment to befall an Israelite was exile and life away from the Temple. Culturally, the fact that this son moved far from his people, and religiously, that he moved far from the Temple, are synonymous with Jesus saying that he moved away from holiness.

The Greek word for “property” used here is the same word used in Greek philosophy for “essence.” The son is not just spending his money on sinful things, in the process he is squandering his very essence. Sure enough, we soon find that the life he chooses leads not only to life away from the Temple, but eventually to life with pigs. Swine are unclean according to Jewish law, and now he’s surrounded by them. In addition, working for a Gentile would probably mean he had to work on the Sabbath.

3. What does the son’s quest for freedom lead to?

4. How has the son misunderstood the notion of freedom? Can you relate?

Pope Benedict points out that the son has defined freedom as autonomy and arbitrary license. “He wants to live only for himself, free of any other claim.”5 He believes he will be free when he can do whatever he wants, unburdened by the rules of his father’s house. He pursues pleasure, believing he will find happiness. And yet the road ends in a pig pen.

Because, after all, he didn’t just squander his inheritance. Remember, he was losing his identity, his essence. “By his very nature man is part of a shared existence and his freedom is shared freedom. His very nature contains direction and norm, and becoming inwardly one with this direction and norm is what freedom is all about. A false autonomy thus leads to slavery.”6

5. What do you think Benedict means by this? Can we see this today?

6. Why do you think the son came to his senses? Can you relate?

5 Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth, 204. 6 Ibid.

— 46 — 7. Some translations say “coming to his senses,” but others say “He came to himself.” How might that expression connect to the fact that we have seen him lose his “essence”?

8. Do you think his repentance was genuine?

9. If the son had traveled to a far country, he had a long journey back home. What might his thoughts or feelings have been during this time?

The parable tells us that the father saw his son while he was still a long way off, painting the picture of a father who has been waiting for his son. We see here the same Greek word we saw in the Parable of the Good Samaritan - more than just “compassion,” it is a feeling of love that comes from the gut of one’s existence. He runs out to meet him, another oddity in this father’s behavior toward his son. It would not be dignified for a man of his age to run, and certainly not to greet a man younger than he.

The father embraced his son - literally “fell upon his neck” - before the son even begins his speech. This should remind us that God loves us even before our fancy speeches are made. The passion of this father’s love is shown even before the son can apologize! It’s no wonder St. Catherine of Siena used to say that God the Father was “crazy” in love with us, “a mad lover.”

Notice that the Father does not say what the son had done is okay. He acknowledges that sin occurred - “my son was dead” - but he receives him back. The son has rehearsed a speech, assuming that he has forfeited his sonship. Notice verses 18 and 21 are identical- except for the final words. The father “changes the unspoken words to their opposite.”7 Far from letting him be a servant, he gives him a ring, a symbol of authority. Household slaves would normally be barefoot, and the son is given shoes.

10. What does this tell us about our own sins and the divine sonship we were given at Baptism?

7 Jeremias, Rediscovering the Parables, 102.

— 47 — The reunion scene is one of resurrection. The father describes his son as being “dead” and now “alive.” The Greek word the son uses to describe his action - “I shall get up and go to my father,” or “I shall arise,” is the same word used for resurrection (Mark 16:9, John 6:40).

In addition to resurrection language, the Church Fathers saw sacramental language. Allegorically, they spoke of the robe being a reference to baptism, using the Pauline image of putting on a new man like you would put on a garment. St. Paul reminded the Galatians that “as many of you were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Gal 3:27; also see Eph 4:24; Col 3:10). They also connected the banquet to which the son is invited to the Eucharist.

But notice that the parable isn’t over. We still have another protagonist to deal with - that of the older brother. Remember the two parables that preceded this one? They were both parables about seeking the lost. Notice what the father does when his son refused to come in. “His father came out…” He is seeking him, just as the woman sought her coin and the shepherd searched for his sheep.

11. What can we draw from this?

The older brother is bitter about the lack of justice in the situation, but his language betrays something deeper in his attitude. Do you notice anything? The older brother does not utter the word “Father,” as the younger brother did, nor does he refer to his brother as his brother, but simply “this son of yours.” Amy-Jill Levine points out, “Whereas the prodigal comes home to his ‘father,’ the older brother approaches the ‘house.’”8 Both the servant and the father recognize the older son as a member of the family, but he doesn’t seem to share that recognition.

What we may miss about the older son is that for many years he has seen himself as a servant in his father’s house. The younger son was willing to see himself as a servant but was welcomed as a son. The older son was welcomed as a son but saw himself as a servant. Pope Benedict explains, “He sees only injustice. And this betrays the fact that he too had secretly dreamed of a freedom without limits, that his obedience has made him inwardly bitter, and that he has no awareness of the grace of being at home, of the true freedom that he enjoys as a son.”9

12. What is the older brother depriving himself of at that moment?

8 Levine, Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi, 67. 9 Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth, 208-209.

— 48 — The feast is not an exclusive party - the older son is choosing to exclude himself. In an address to young men in prison, Pope Benedict recalled this parable and said, “We must abandon the selfish attitude of the older son who was sure of himself, quick to condemn others and closed in his heart to understanding, acceptance and forgiveness of his brother, and who forgot that he too was in need of forgiveness.”10

13. Look at verses 24 & 32. While almost identical, there is something missing in v. 32. What might this mean?

14. What do you think will happen?

The parable does not have an end. We don’t know what happens with the older brother, because “the parable immediately passes over into reality.”11 In a sense, the older brother is standing right in front of Jesus in the scribes and the Pharisees. It is up to them to decide the end of the parable.

It is important to note that this is parable is not a condemnation of the Jews in preference for sinners and Gentiles. The father in the parable reiterates that the older son is always with him, and “all that is mine is yours.” This is not an anti-Semitic parable, but one that reemphasizes the broadening of the kingdom to include the Jews and the Gentiles, the Pharisees and the tax collectors.

Like the other parables, we cannot let it stay in the past, as a reflection on the Pharisees. We must bring it home to ourselves today. Are we the younger son who has left the father’s house in search of freedom? Are we the older son who has a juridical relationship with God that is based on obedience and servitude, rather than an obedience that flows from love?

15. Father John Bartunek points out that the parable shows us “it is possible to live ‘in the father’s house’ without really getting to know the Father.”12 What do you think he means by this? Can you see evidence of this today?

10 Pope Benedict XVI, Homily, Visit to Casal del Marmo, Prison for Minors, Rome, March 18, 2007. 11 Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth, 209. 12 John Bartunek, The Better Part: A Christ-Centered Resource for Personal Prayer (Hamden: Circle Press, 2007), 693.

— 49 — As his public ministry continues, Jesus continues to reveal to us more about the kingdom. With this parable, he reminds us that his mission is to gather the family back together again. Even those who have wandered off, whether they are the tribes of Israel who have been exiled far from Jerusalem or the tax collectors and sinners who have cut themselves off by sin, all will be gathered together again around the family table. Next week we’ll see that this family feast is not just any feast, but a wedding feast.

16. Did this parable give you have any new insights about the Father’s love?

17. Which son do you think caused the father more sadness?

18. Is there anything in this parable you see differently now? You heard for the first time? Didn’t notice until now?

19. Does anything about this parable make you uncomfortable?

Personal Reflection

ÖÖWhich son do I resemble more?

ÖÖHow might God be asking me to resemble the father? Is there anyone in my life that I am reluctant to forgive? Am I imitating the father or the older brother?

— 50 — Questions and Responses

1. At the very beginning of the parable, by the time he gets to the third sentence, why might Jesus’ audience already be surprised? (It might be helpful to see the advice of Sirach 33:19-24) The father did something Jewish tradition –even Sirach – advises you not to do. His actions seem foolish and weak. Why doesn’t he just stand up to the son and say no?

2. Do you think this says anything to us about the father? The father loved his son so much he was willing to let him make this mistake. He didn’t want the son to remain home out of obligation – he wanted him to have the freedom to choose, because love is a choice made freely.

3. What does the son’s quest for freedom lead to? Slavery, life amongst swine. Writing about this parable, Pope Benedict points out, “The totally free man has become a wretched slave.”

4. How has the son misunderstood the notion of freedom? Can you relate? He has equated freedom with the license to do whatever he wants.

5. What do you think Benedict means by this? Can we see this today? We become fully free when we live for our created purpose – and we were created for others, for community, to give of ourselves to others. We were not created in isolation to live only for ourselves. So when we seek to live for our own ego and pleasure, we self-destruct. When we live for others, we are free. When we live for ourselves, we place ourselves in bondage.

6. Why do you think the son came to his senses? Can you relate? Answers will vary. Perhaps because he was hungry and miserable! It took suffering to wake him up to his mistake.

7. Some translations say “coming to his senses,” but others say “He came to himself.” How might that expression connect to the fact that we have seen him lose his “essence”? Perhaps he realized he had forfeited his happiness by seeking it in the wrong place. He remembered he was a son! In his sin, he had forgotten who he was, he had forgotten he was truly loved by his father, and he had forgotten what life was really about.

8. Do you think his repentance was genuine? Answers will vary. Maybe it was, or maybe he’s just hungry. But even if he’s just returning home because he’s hungry, that can tell us something about the Father’s love, too. We often have “imperfect contrition,” or sorrow for our sins motivated by something less than the perfect love of God - maybe the fear of hell or the fact that the sin is repulsive. With the sacrament of confession, even imperfect contrition is sufficient for the forgiveness of sins. The mercy of the Father is great!

— 51 — 9. If the son had traveled to a far country, he had a long journey back home. What might his thoughts or feelings have been during this time? Answers will vary. Maybe he was fearful and wondered what his father would do. Maybe he second-guessed his decision. Maybe he was tempted to turn back to his old life. Or maybe he was just busy practicing his speech!

10. What does this tell us about our own sins and the divine sonship we were given at Baptism? Nothing we do erases the indelible mark of Baptism on our souls. We do not lose our divine sonship because of our sins - we can always come back to the Father.

11. What can we draw from this? If the father is seeking the older son, it means he’s lost! Perhaps we’ve always been tempted to focus on the younger son as being lost - but maybe the older son is more lost, even though he never left.

12. What is the older brother depriving himself of at that moment? The older brother is denying himself the happiness of the party. He is supposed to share the fatted calf with his brother and his father, but he’s denying himself this joy because of his anger.

13. Look at verses 24 & 32. While almost identical, there is something missing in v. 32. What might this mean? They are the same, except for the end: “Then the celebration began.” Will they celebrate? Will the older son come into the party? We don’t know.

14. What do you think will happen? Answers will vary.

15. Father John Bartunek points out that the parable shows us “it is possible to live ‘in the father’s house’ without really getting to know the Father.” What do you think he means by this? Can you see evidence of this today? The younger son left the father’s house, unaware how good he had it there! The older son was unaware of the father’s love. He had been living as a slave and hadn’t gotten to really know who the father was. Both were sons, but seemed unaware of it because they had not taken time to know their father. Father Bartunek observes, “If the younger son had truly known how much his father loved him, how generous his father was, how eagerly he wanted to bequeath him prosperity and joy, he would have never paid him the insult of asking for his share of the inheritance while his father was still alive. … and if the older son (the dutiful one who seemed to do everything just right) had known how much his father cared for him, he would not have resented the celebration at this brother’s return. So although they had lived their entire lives under the same roof, they had not opened their hearts to their father; instead they had closed themselves into the little world of their egoism.” (The Better Part, 693)

— 52 — 16. Did this parable give you have any new insights about the Father’s love? Answers will vary.

17. Which son do you think caused the father more sadness? Answers will vary.

18. Is there anything in this parable you see differently now? You heard for the first time? Didn’t notice until now? Answers will vary.

19. Does anything about this parable make you uncomfortable? Answers will vary.

— 53 — Session Six: The Wise & Foolish Virgins

In this last session, we will end our study of the parables as we began it - looking at a kingdom parable from the last week of Jesus’ public ministry. He has entered Jerusalem with the praise of the crowds, and now he’s spent the first days of the last week teaching more strongly against the false witness of the scribes and Pharisees. Tension is building. In Chapter 24, he warned his Apostles of both the destruction of the Temple and the end of the world. He begins to speak about the need to remain vigilant. After he tells them a parable about reckless and wicked servants being unprepared for their master’s return, he begins another kingdom parable:

Matthew 25:1-13

Like Jesus’ other parables, he’s using a scenario that would be familiar to his audience. So to understand this parable, it’s helpful to know something about Jewish weddings. While we don’t know a lot of specifics regarding weddings at the time of Jesus, we do know that there were several stages. The first stage was the betrothal. While it is similar in some respects to our engagement period, it was more than a simple engagement - the young man and woman were legally married. (This is why Joseph would have had to get a bill of divorce in Matthew 1.) The bride continued to live with her parents during the betrothal, which could last up to a year, while the groom prepared their home.

When it came time for the wedding, the groom went to get his bride after sunset and led her in a procession back to the home he had prepared, where there would be a great feast. The procession was led by maiden torchbearers - the main characters of our parable. It is likely that the maiden’s lamps were actually strips of cloth tied to sticks. They would dip the strips into earthen jars filled with oil, soaking the strips, and thus create a type of torch.1 As they passed by homes, people would come out and join in the celebration. After

1 Curtis Mitch and Edward Sri, The Gospel of Matthew, 319.

— 54 — they reached their new home, the celebration there could last an entire week or more.2 Rather than go on a honeymoon, the bride and bridegroom partied and kept open house, receiving all their friends and family.3

One Scripture scholar speaks of an experience at a modern Palestinian wedding, when he saw maidens waiting for the bridegroom. When he expressed a desire to wait for the bridegroom himself, his local guide told him there was no way of knowing when he would actually arrive. The groom would often come unexpectedly, although he was required to have a man sent in front of him to announce his arrival.4 As we can see, Jesus’ scenario was not far-fetched!

1. Do you think the response of the “wise” virgins is rude? Why or why not?

2. What do you think of the Bridegroom’s response to the latecomers?

3. Who do you think the Bridegroom represents? What arrival do you think Jesus is speaking of ?

4. What do you think Jesus is saying in the parable?

5. What might the oil symbolize?

2 Ibid. 3 William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, 373. 4 Ibid.

— 55 — Many commentators speak of the oil as representing good works. This correlation has been used by Jesus before, in the Sermon on the Mount, when he spoke to his followers about letting their works shine like a lamp on a lampstand: “Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father” (cf. Mt 5:15-16). And a little while later in the Sermon, tells this story:

Matthew 7:21-23 6. What are some parallels between this story and the parable of the Ten Virgins?

7. What did the person do (or not do) to deserve this harsh rebuke? Do you find the rebuke surprising?

Just after this part of the Sermon, he speaks of a “wise man” and a “fool.” In this short parable, the fool is the one who does not do God’s will. As we saw in Session 2, it is not enough to simply hear. We must hear and act. Perhaps that fool and these foolish virgins are foolish for the same reason. We must persevere in doing the will of God and showing our faith through our actions. In the words of St. James, “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him … faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:14,17). The book of Revelation indicates that this is how we will be judged at the end of time: on our works. (Rev 20:12).

Perhaps the foolish virgins are those who have not persevered in a life of faith, in doing the will of God and manifesting their faith in a life of good works. When the bridegroom surprises them, they are unprepared. Jesus is warning us not to assume we can prepare for his coming later. We need to prepare today.

This isn’t the only place we see Jesus talking about a wedding. In fact, feasts and weddings come up frequently in the Gospels, both in Jesus’ parables and his life. Jesus’ first miracle was at a wedding. Is there a reason for this near-obsession about eating, drinking, and marriages?

Just after Jesus’ first miracle, John the Baptist’s disciples tell him about Jesus and the growing number of people following him. John the Baptist clearly knows who Jesus is, but how does he tell his followers? Does he simply say, “Jesus is the Messiah”? Rather, he uses an interesting image. He tells them, “You yourselves can testify that I said that I am not the Messiah, but that I was sent before him. The one who has the bride is the bridegroom; the best man, who stands and listens to him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. So this joy of mine has been made complete. He must increase; I must decrease” (Jn 3:28-30).

— 56 — John is speaking of himself as the best man (in Hebrew, the shoshben). In a Jewish wedding, this was the dearest and most trusted friend of the groom, whose job it was to arrange the wedding and act as a liaison as the bride met the bridegroom at his arrival. To us, this may seem like a strange way to point out the Messiah.5 After all, Jesus wasn’t even married. But this might not have seemed so strange to John’s disciples at the time.

All of this talk of weddings and bridegrooms would remind the Jews at the time of the famous Messianic prophecies of Jeremiah and Isaiah. Both of them depicted the Messiah as a bridegroom who fulfills a promise to Israel and Judah and brings great joy. (Jeremiah 33:10-11, 14-17). In one famous passage, Isaiah speaks of the Lord giving a great banquet, a special feast of wine. It is a banquet for “all people” full of “great wine” that will “swallow up death forever” (see Is 25:6-8). The prophets Amos and Joel also speak of the Messiah bringing a miraculous abundance of wine – so much that the mountains “drip” with it! (Joel 4:18; Amos 9:13)6

This sheds some light on the first miracle of Jesus, when he not only changes water into wine, but changes a large quantity of water into wine. In Jewish tradition, the wine at a wedding is provided by the bridegroom. St. John never names a bridegroom in his account of this particular wedding, perhaps to drive the image home: Jesus is presenting himself as a bridegroom. He confirms his identity as bridegroom when the people question him about his disciples’ lack of fasting. He asks them, “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?” (Mark 2:19)

If Jesus is the bridegroom, who is the bride? And when is the wedding? We see throughout the Old Testament that Israel is portrayed as the Lord’s bride. When she is faithful, the prophets speak of her beauty (Ezekiel 16:8-14). When she is unfaithful, they speak of her adultery. (Ezekiel 16:15-20; Hosea 1:2). When the Messiah came, he was going to establish a new covenant with his bride, the house of Israel (Jeremiah 31:31; Hosea 2:18-22).

Isaiah 62:4-5

As we have seen in the parables, this covenant was intended not just for the people of Israel, the older brother, but for the Samaritans and the Gentiles as well. The new covenant is universal and is intended to include the entire human race (see Mt. 8:11). So we see in this new covenantal relationship that the Lord’s bride is a universal - “catholic” - group of people: the Church. But one question remains: when is the wedding?

Jesus gives us a clue when he answers the question about fasting. Let’s go back to his answer in Mark 2:18-20.

Mark 2:18-20

5 Brant Pitre, Jesus the Bridegroom: The Greatest Love Story Ever Told (New York: Image, 2014), 30. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Most of the second half of this session comes from his research. There is much I cannot include here. 6 Ibid., 42-43.

— 57 — Many translations speak of the wedding guests or “friends of the bridegroom.” But Jesus literally speaks of “the sons of the bridechamber.”7 Just like the best man, this is an official term from a Jewish wedding. They are the friends of the groom who helped prepare the bridal-chamber. In the long week of feasting that would make up a Jewish wedding, the groom, the best man, and these sons of the bridechamber were released from certain religious obligations. Jesus seems to be comparing his public ministry to this week of wedding celebrations.

The culmination of the Jewish wedding is the night the groom is “taken away” from his friends to spend the night with his bride. Through this mini-parable of sorts, Jesus is telling us when his “wedding” is going to take place: the day of the Crucifixion. Brant Pitre points out, “With this background in mind, we can now see the deeper meaning of Jesus’ parable. If Jesus is the bridegroom and his disciples are the sons of the bridechamber, then the day on which he will be ‘taken away’ from them can only mean one thing: the day of his passion and death.”8

Christ, the bridegroom, weds himself to his bride, the Church, in his crucifixion. St. Augustine said, “Like a bridegroom Christ went forth from his nuptial chamber … He came even to the marriage-bed of the cross, and there, ascending it, he consummated a marriage.”9 We see understanding of this even earlier, when Paul writes in Ephesians, “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the Church and handed himself over for her, to sanctify her” (Eph 5:25-26).

In John’s account of the Passion, we see that Christ was pierced in the side with a lance, and out poured blood and water. The Church Fathers saw in this an image of the Church coming from the side of Christ, just as Eve came from the side of Adam. Augustine explains, “In those two original humans … the marriage of Christ and the Church was prefigured… [A]s Adam was a type of Christ, so too was the creation of Eve from the sleeping Adam a prefiguration of the creation of the Church from the side of the Lord as he slept, for as he suffered and died on the cross and was struck by a lance, the sacraments which formed the Church flowed forth from him.”10

The blood and water that flowed from the side of Christ prefigures the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Eucharist. In his death, Christ is giving life to the Bride, a life that will continue to be given in the Church for thousands of years. The consummation of the marriage between Christ and his Church leads to eternal life for the sons and daughters of God.

In the second session, we looked at the fact that the parables find their true fulfillment on the Cross.11 The crowds didn’t understand the parables at the moment because they didn’t understand the kingdom. Just like a newly planted seed, the kingdom remained hidden. It is only in light of the Cross that the parables make sense, because the parables 7 Ibid., 85. 8 Ibid., 88-91. 9 Saint Augustine, Sermo Suppositus, 120:3, quoted in Pitre, Jesus the Bridgroom, 93. 10 Saint Augustine, Exposition of the Psalms, 138:2, quoted in Pitre, 111. 11 Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth, 189-190.

— 58 — unveil the kingdom: and the kingdom is revealed on the Cross. The seed only bears fruit a hundredfold when it dies.

The parables find their true fulfillment in the Cross, when the Bridegroom offers his life for His Bride. But as we saw in the kingdom parables, the kingdom is present now, but is not present in its fullness. There are still weeds among the wheat. The bread isn’t fully leavened. In another parable, we see that the net is full of good fish and bad fish (Mt 13:47-49). The kingdom comes in its fullness “at the end of time.” As Brant Pitre explains, “[A]lthough the wedding of the Messiah and his bride has begun, it is not yet fully complete. This is easy to grasp if we remind ourselves that the bride of Jesus is not any individual human being but the entire people of God redeemed by his blood. And while billions and billions of people have been united to Jesus over the centuries through the water and blood that continue to flow from his cross in baptism and the Eucharist, there are still countless souls who have not yet been washed and not yet drunk the wine of salvation.”12

So when is the kingdom complete? As we’ve seen in this session and the preceding ones, the kingdom is present when the family of God is reunified around the family table. But this table is not just any table: it is the banquet table of a wedding feast, the feast of the Lamb and His Bride. This is depicted in the last two chapters of the Book of Revelation, when John witnesses the heavenly wedding of the Lamb and his bride, the New Jerusalem (Rev 21:1-2, 9). So here we are back at our parable of the ten virgins. At the end of time, the bridegroom returns for his bride, the Church, to take her to the eternal banquet of the kingdom of heaven. Jesus told his Apostles at the Last Supper that he was leaving to go prepare a place for them, the same language used for a bridegroom preparing a home for his bride.

The Kingdom will come in its fullness after the “parousia,” the final coming of Christ at the end of time. But parousia, the word we use for this final coming, was used by the early Church to describe something else: the coming of Christ in the Eucharist at Mass. At every Mass we share in this eternal wedding banquet of heaven, which is why St. Thomas Aquinas called the Eucharist, “a pledge of future glory.”

Throughout this study, we have been looking at the parables to come to an understanding of the mysteries of the kingdom. The Greek word used for “mysteries” is translated in Latin “sacramentum.” In fact, the early Church called the sacraments “the holy mysteries,” something Eastern Churches continue today. The “mysteries of the kingdom,” that Christ taught to his Apostles are not just a body of knowledge or the words of a creed, but an invitation to a life in Christ through the sacraments. Paul saw himself and Peter as “servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God” (1 Cor 4:1). They weren’t guarding secret knowledge, they were guarding the life, mission, and sacraments of the Church. The parables are meant to challenge us and to shed light on our own shortcomings, but also reveal the great promise of what awaits us. Through our sharing of Christ’s life in Baptism, Holy Eucharist, and the other sacraments, we are the prodigal son that seeks the merciful Father in the sacrament of confession. We are the wounded victim on the side of

12 Pitre, Jesus the Bridegroom, 115.

— 59 — the road that needs the saving grace of Christ. But we are also the leaven that transforms society, the Good Samaritan that brings charity to those in need, and the good soil that will produce a hundredfold.

And hopefully, at the end of time, we will hear the master welcome us to the eternal banquet of the Kingdom: “Come, share your master’s joy” (Mt 25:21).

8. Let’s look at the parable of the ten virgins one last time. What lessons might we take from the parable if we think of the parable in terms of the Bridegroom’s arrival at Mass? At the end of our own life?

9. What is one thing we can do this week to begin to apply a lesson from that parable to our daily lives?

10. Is there anything in this parable you see differently now? You heard for the first time? Didn’t notice until now?

11. Does anything about this parable make you uncomfortable?

12. What have the parables in this study revealed to you about the kingdom (the Church) and the sacraments?

— 60 — Personal Reflection

ÖÖToday, at this moment – would I be with the wise virgins, or the foolish ones? Why?

ÖÖWilliam Barclay comments on the parable of the Ten Virgins with this reminder: “We cannot borrow a relationship with God; we must possess it for ourselves. We cannot borrow a character; we must be clothed with it. We cannot always be living on the spiritual capital which others have amassed. There are certain things we must win or acquire for ourselves, for we cannot borrow them from others.”13

What are ways I have tried to live on spiritual capital others have amassed? What are ways I can prepare today for a happy death?

ÖÖHave I allowed myself to be wooed by the Bridegroom this week? What are ways I have fallen short of the Bridegroom’s grace? What are ways I have shown him love?

ÖÖTake time to think back on all six sessions. What lessons have I learned from this study that I can take into my daily life?

Questions and Responses

1. Do you think the response of the “wise” virgins is rude? Why or why not? Answers will vary. It may seem like they should have shared. However, if the supply runs out for everyone, how embarrassing that would be for the couple!

2. What do you think of the Bridegroom’s response to the latecomers? Answers will vary. He sounds a little harsh and extreme. Or perhaps he just sounds just – they knew what was expected and they were foolish.

3. Who do you think the Bridegroom represents? What arrival do you think Jesus is speaking of ? Jesus; His Second Coming at the end of the world; perhaps also his coming when we die.

4. What do you think Jesus is saying in the parable? Don’t wait until the end of our life to repent or live a holy life, because we never know when the end of our life will be. We should always be prepared by living holy lives every day, ready to meet him at any time.

5. What might the oil symbolize? Good deeds or the virtues of a holy life; the gifts of the Spirit; faith

13 William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, 374.

— 61 — 6. What are some parallels between this story and the parable of the Ten Virgins? The calling out of “Lord, Lord,”; the response of the Lord that he never knew the ones knocking; the person believing they deserved to be let in; the failure of the person to do the will of the Lord

7. What did the person do (or not do) to deserve this harsh rebuke? Do you find the rebuke surprising? They did not do the will of the Father. It is perhaps surprising, since they name a lot of things that they did do. But they failed to do what the Lord asked and desired. Life is not a balance sheet of what we do and what we don’t do – it’s a life lived in obedience and love of the Lord.

8. Let’s look at the parable of the ten virgins one last time. What lesson can we take from the parable if we think of the parable in terms of the Bridegroom’s arrival at Mass? At the end of our own life? Answers will vary. It’s a good examination of conscience. Do I live each day ready to meet the Bridegroom? Do I realize I do meet the Bridegroom at Mass? Do I get to Mass early to prepare my heart, read the Mass readings ahead of time, and stir up awareness that Jesus is truly present on the altar? Am I so busy thinking about tomorrow that I forget the Lord wants to meet me today? Am I honestly preparing for death – not out of fear, but out of joy and love to meet my Lord? Do I pray for the grace of a happy death?

9. What is one thing we can do this week to begin to apply a lesson from that parable to our daily lives? Answers will vary. The answers are intended to be practical and doable. Such as: begin to pray to St. Joseph for the grace of a happy death for me and my loved ones; make a resolution to do one thing to prepare for Mass this week (like read the readings ahead of time, get to Mass early and spend time in quiet prayer before the Eucharist); go to the sacrament of Confession

10. Is there anything in this parable you see differently now? You heard for the first time? Didn’t notice until now? Answers will vary.

11. Does anything about this parable make you uncomfortable? Answers will vary.

12. What have the parables in this study revealed to you about the kingdom (the Church) and the sacraments? Answers will vary.

— 62 — Joan Watson is the Director of Adult Formation for the Diocese of Nashville. In addition to her work for the diocese, she is a popular speaker who has addressed a wide variety of audiences, from local parishioners to members of the Roman Curia. She previously worked for Scott Hahn at the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology and for the Nashville Dominicans at Aquinas College. She received her bachelor’s degree in history from Christendom College and her master’s degree in theology from Franciscan University. She served on the National Advisory Council for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops for four years. She writes weekly for Integrated Catholic Life and hosts the weekly series “3 Minute Theology” on Facebook and YouTube. Diocese of Nashville Office of Adult Formation

As the Second Vatican Council and Pope John Paul II reminded us, the catechesis of adults is the principle form of catechesis because it is “addressed to persons who have the greatest responsibilities and the capacity to live the Christian message in its fully developed form.” (Catechesi Tradendae, 43) If the adults in our parishes are living lives of authentic Christian witness, that will spill out into the catechesis of our children and the evangelization of our communities.

Catechesis does not stop at the threshold of maturity but is a lifelong process in which we continually seek to encounter Christ. The Office of Adult Formation aids local parishes in this process by providing support, diocesan-wide initiatives, and training to help build community and collaboration among the parishes’ adult faith formation leaders and serve adult parishioners.

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