Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Reflection . . .

 

https://www.catholicwomenpreach.org/preaching/07122026July 12, 2026

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Olivia Catherine

Hastie

You would think—growing up in New England—I would be better at enduring the cold, gray winters. And every year, somewhere around February, I convince myself that I am. But then late May arrives with its return of sunlight, and I realize just how much of myself had gone dormant. I return to myself. Suddenly I remember what I love. I remember that I am nourished by warmth, by breathing in the clarity of ocean air, by evenings stretched long around tables with friends, and by the exhilarating chill of plunging into the Atlantic, by lilacs, hydrangeas, and beach roses bursting into color. Creation itself seems nourished back into fullness.

In summer’s light, the seeds buried deep in the earth seem to awaken too. They stretch toward life, toward growth. And perhaps that is why Jesus so often speaks to us in the language of gardens, soil, seeds, and harvest. We, like the earth, need certain conditions to come alive. We long to discover the fullness of who we are and to live into the truth of who we are meant to be. In today’s Gospel, we are the seeds, and yet we are also each other’s co-sowers.

Throughout my life, I have always felt a pull toward my vocation as a theologian, but I scattered myself across so many different places because I wanted to try things out. Sometimes, the birds came and ate the seeds up quickly. Other times, I felt the slow pain of the earth scorching around me until those seeds seemed too far gone to salvage. And still, there were moments where the soil where I planted myself was rich enough to bear fruit.

Anyone who knows me knows that my ministry with adults with intellectual disabilities at L’Arche is a cornerstone of who I am. And yet, strangely enough, it is not where I spend the bulk of my time anymore. But it remains the place I return to over and over again to remember something essential about myself and about the world.

Core members—folks with disabilities—ask me questions about myself in both a literal and cosmic sense. They hold up mirrors to the parts of myself I want to hide—the impatient parts, the insecure parts, the exhausted parts, the parts of me obsessed with achievement and productivity and appearing put together. And at the same time, they continually invite me into a more honest and tender way of living. They prompt me, again and again, to ask: what is the best way to live? What actually makes a life fruitful?

My fellow assistants—many of whom have become some of my closest friends—do this too. They call me into becoming my best self without awakening shame. They offer a kind of presence so rare in the world: a non-judgmental place of rest.

And I think that is what Jesus is getting at in today’s Gospel. Soil does not become fruitful through force or perfection. Good soil is soil that has been tended to. Softened. Nourished. Given water and sunlight and time. L’Arche has been that kind of soil for me, and let me tell you, it took many test runs.

For a long time, I thought that vocation was mostly about finding the right thing to do—finding the useful, marketable skill to make money and live: The right career. The right ministry. The right path. But in these last several years, as I have nurtured the beginning of my adult life, I have come to believe that vocation is just as much about finding the communities and relationships that make it possible for us to become who God is calling us to be.

In the parable, the seed is good from the very beginning. It was made good. And in the parable we come to see that the problem is never the seed itself. The question is whether it has the conditions necessary to grow and bloom.

I think many of us are tempted to spend our lives wondering whether we are enough. Whether we are talented enough, faithful enough, disciplined enough, holy enough. We look at the places where we have struggled, where things have not worked out, where our efforts have failed, and we begin to wonder whether the problem is us. To quote Taylor Swift, we might be tempted to say “It's me, hi, I’m the problem, it's me.”

But Jesus offers a different perspective. Sometimes the issue is not the seed. Sometimes the issue is that the seed landed among rocks, or thorns, or ground that had not yet been prepared. Growth requires relationships. It requires care. It requires belonging.  

That has certainly been true in my own life. Every meaningful transformation I can point to came not because I worked harder or became more impressive, but because someone made room for me to grow. Good teachers played to my strengths and watched me soar. My parents nurtured the earth around me so that I could thrive. Someone believed there was something worth cultivating. Sometimes we drop our seeds in the wrong places and we have to start all over again. But what a gift to be on a journey to find that perfect, just right soil.

We are also invited to be co-sowers in one another's lives. We help create the conditions where growth becomes possible. We encourage one another when the harvest seems distant.

The truth is that none of us grows alone. We rely on people who soften the hard ground around us. We ask our friends and family to help us navigate the things that get in the way of joy. We gather near the people whose presence reminds us that growth happens quietly, beneath the surface, long before anyone can see it.

Seeds do not stop being alive simply because growth is not yet visible. Beneath the surface, God is still at work.

And as we all bask in the joy of summer’s warmth, vibrancy, and sunshine, may we be reminded of this feeling when the trees are bare in the dead of winter. When the sun is setting before 4 pm (at least for me in Boston), when the mornings are sub zero. That the promise of a summer bloom for creation, is also the promise of growth and blooming in our own lives. I leave us with the words of Pope Francis from On Hope.

"Let us be confident as we await the coming of [our God], and what the desert may represent in our life — each one knows what desert [we are] walking in — it will become a garden in bloom. Hope does not disappoint!"

So scatter your seeds and continue the journey of finding that just-right soil. It is promised.

https://www.catholicwomenpreach.org/preacher/olivia-catherine-hastie

A Blessing for Suffering . . .

 

Prayer: A Blessing for the Suffering by John O’Donohue – from Eternal Echoes

May you be blessed in the holy names of those who carry our pain up the mountain of transfiguration. May you know tender shelter and healing blessing when you are called to stand in the place of pain. 

May the places of darkness within you be surprised by light. 

May you be granted the wisdom to avoid false resistance and when suffering knocks on the door of your life, may you be able to glimpse its hidden gift. 

May you be able to see the fruits of suffering. 

May memory bless and shelter you with the hard-earned light of past turmoil, may this give you confidence and trust. 

May a window of light always surprise you. 

May the grace of transfiguration heal your wounds. 

May you know that even though the storm might rage, not a hair on your head will be harmed.

This Day . . .A Blessing!

 

Blessing This Day

I only want to see the day ahead,
My attention will not go     
 backward into my history,
And my attention will not go forward
 into my future.

I am committed to staying only in
 the present time,
To remaining grounded in my world,
To feeling a bond with each person
 I meet,
To respecting my own integrity
 and my own honor,
To living within the energy of love
 and compassion this day,
And returning to that energy when
 I don’t feel it,
To making wise and blessed choices
 with my will, 
To maintaining perceptions of                  
wisdom and non-judgment,
To release the need to know why things happen the way they do,
And to not project expectations over how
I want this day to be ___
And how I want others to be.

And finally, my last prayer to trust the Divine.
With that I bless my day with gratitude and love.

    Caroline Myss

Hiding and Seeking . . .

 

 

 

A Prayer by St. Anselm of Canterbury

O my God, teach my heart where and how to seek You,
where and how to find You.
You are my God and You are my all and I have never seen You.
You have made me and remade me,
You have bestowed on me all the good things I possess,
Still I do not know You.
I have not yet done that for which I was made.

Teach me to seek You.
I cannot seek You unless You teach me
or find You unless You show Yourself to me.
Let me seek You in my desire,
let me desire You in my seeking.
Let me find You by loving You,
let me love You when I find You.
Amen
_________________________________

Too Muching!

 

Sometimes It Just Seems to be Too Much

Sometimes, God, it just seems to be too much:
too much violence, too much fear; too much of demands and problems;
too much of broken dreams and broken lives; too much of war and slums and dying;
too much of greed and squishy fatness and the sounds of people
devouring each other and the earth; too much of stale routines and quarrels,
unpaid bills and dead ends; too much of words lobbed in to explode
and leaving shredded hearts and lacerated souls; too much of turned-away backs
and yellow silence, red rage and bitter taste of ashes in my mouth.

Sometimes the very air seems scorched by threats and rejection and decay
until there is nothing but to inhale pain and exhale confusion.
Too much of darkness, God,
Too much of cruelty and selfishness and indifference. . .

Too much, God,
Too much, too bloody, bruising, brain-washing much.
Or is it too little,
too little of compassion,
too little of courage, of daring, of persistence, of sacrifice;
too little of music and laughter and celebration?

O God,
Make of me some nourishment
For these starved times,
Some food for my sisters and brothers, who are hungry for gladness and hope,
That, being bread for them, I may also be fed and be full.

(From Guerrillas of Grace by Ted Loder)

God of Care and Comfort . . .

 May the God of Comfort bless you. May God's care for you ease all that is troubling to you and reassure you in times of adversity. May you be encouraged by the whisper of God's love for you in the center of your being and may you rest securely in the arms of the One who will never let go of you. May you extend the hand of comfort to those around you who are in need of that same reassurance. May the God of Comfort be with you. --Maxine Shonk, OP

With liberty and justice for ALL!

 

Loving God,

We greet this Fourth of July with grateful hearts as we call to mind the vision of freedom and justice for all upon which our country was built.

We give thanks for those who imagined this vision.

We are grateful to those who continue advocating for and pursuing a land of peace, liberty and equity for all. We realize it is still being created, however, as we witness the divisions, prejudices and injustices that plague us.

May we hold fast to the dream and vision of unity within our country.

May we dedicate ourselves to living as brothers and sisters respectful of one another’s dignity and need for equity.

May we also realize the importance of reverencing our earth which provides for and sustains much of our lives.

We give glory and praise to our God and pray that we may always live in harmony as one family.

Amen.

~Sr. Rita Ostry, ND