Gove County
Catholic Parishes

Sacred Heart Parish, Park, Kansas
St. Agnes Parish, Grainfield, Kansas
Immaculate Conception Parish, Grinnell, Kansas

Message from the Parish Priest

- Faith Formation
Today's Readings
- Thursday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time
  
  Reading 1 Ez 12:1-12
  Responsorial Psalm Ps 78:56-57, 58-59, 61-62
  Gospel Mt 18:21–19:1

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time: August 19, 2018

LOVE FOR WISDOM AND EUCHARIST LEADS TO A FULL LIFE

Wisdom invites us to a better life. She invites us to a life that is transformed from one of ignorance and foolishness to one of knowledge and understanding. She appeals to our desire to learn, to grow in knowledge, to advance in understanding. Wisdom calls people from all over to partake in her banquet, even sending out emissaries to places far and wide. People are free to accept and decline her invitation, but those who accept will gain wisdom. In other words, wisdom is freely giving herself to anyone who accepts her invitation, her invitation “that you may live” (Proverbs 9:6). Jesus does the same in his “Bread of Life’ discourse. He freely gives himself to all who accept his invitation to partake in the Eucharist. “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him” (John 6:56). As wisdom invited us to a better life, Jesus does as well, promising that “whoever eats this bread will live forever” (John 6:58), inviting us to eternal life. Just as with Wisdom, he sent emissaries, his disciples, far and wide. When we come together to celebrate the Eucharist, we gather at two tables: the table of the Word and the table of the Eucharist. In the Word, we are nourished with knowledge, understanding and wisdom. In the Eucharist, we are nourished with the Lord, uniting us to the one body of Christ. Together, the tables satisfy our hunger for meaning and for life.

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time: August 12, 2018

JESUS NEVER CUSTOMIZES

Some people are not pleased that Jesus said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They knew Jesus as the carpenter from Nazareth, how could he claim to come from Heaven, and how is he the bread? Jesus responds directly to them and their murmuring and repeats that he is the bread of life that comes down from heaven, and he is the living bread. If they receive the living bread they shall not die. Some of those present responded by murmuring against Jesus and this teaching. The Oxford English Dictionary defines murmuring as; “A subdued or private expression of discontent or dissatisfaction.” As subdued and private these murmurings might have been, Jesus hears them and directly confronts them with the command, “Stop murmuring among yourselves.” He then goes on to repeat what he said about him being the Bread of Life and adds to it his relationship to God as His Father.This Gospel leads us to the question of whether or not we find ourselves murmuring. It could be over a particular teaching from the Gospel that we struggle with, and rather than embrace the need to work at change in our lives, we murmur against that particular teaching. We expect God to reform his teaching around us, rather than for us to reform my life around the Gospel. It could be some teaching of the Church that we disagree with. Rather than seek to better understand the teaching, we murmur and work at finding a way around it. It could be a teaching or exhortation of the Holy Father, rather than accept the challenges that the teaching gives us, we criticize the Holy Father and murmur that he is wrong.

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time: August 05,,2018

MANNA ? OR, WHAT IS THIS?

The Israelites did not initially recognize the manna that God gave them to eat. “What is this?’ they asked when seeing the flakes that resembled frost (Ex 16:15). They failed to recognize the Lord’s hand in answering their need. They failed even to recognize that this was food. It seems difficult to believe, considering how hungry they were. But we can be blind to a solution that doesn’t look like we expected. Moreover, we can fail to see God’s grace behind the blessings we receive. Lest anyone misunderstand the source of heavenly blessings, Jesus declares that it was his Father, not Moses, who gave the Israelites the bread from heaven. The bread—the basic form of sustenance—came from God. It is a short stretch then, to identify himself as “that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world’ (Jn 6:33). This extraordinary form of sustenance, coming from God, is also bread, but a special bread, the Bread of life. St. Paul tells the Christian community of Ephesus how fundamental a change they must make to their identity. They are to “put away the old self….and …put on the new self,” making a total conversion (Eph 4:22-24). This is what the acceptance of Christ entails. This is the difference between working for “food that perishes” and “food that endures for eternal life” (Jn 6:27). Like the Ephesians, we are called to change our very selves.

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time: July 29, 2018
THE EUCHARISTIC DISCOURSE

Elisha and Jesus each are able to feed large crowds of people with seemingly insufficient amounts of food, but neither of these miracles could have taken place if it weren’t for two  people behind the scenes. Neither gets more than a single mention in the readings and neither is even named, but neither miracle could have happened without them. It is a man from Baal-shalishah who took barley from the first harvest baked it into twenty small loaves and carried it- not to a nearby shrine to the pagan god Baal, but all the way to Elisha, the prophet, the man of God. He couldn’t have known that his generosity would feed a hundred people. It is an unnamed boy who has five barley loaves and two fish. Was he on his way home from the market? Did he see the crowd and sense the opportunity to make some money? Or did the boy, attracted by Jesus, bring the food to give to him? Perhaps, as in both cases, the generosity of one is multiplied to satisfy everyone present. Neither Elisha nor Jesus made food appear out of thin air. Both, however, were able to take a meager amount of food and multiply it so that there was more than enough to feed a whole crowd. St. John hints at something when he describes what Jesus did: “Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed them” (Jn 6:11). It is the Eucharist he speaks of. Jesus, the Bread of Life, gives his Body to us in the Eucharist. One Body has been multiplied, as it has nourished billions of people over two thousand years, with more left over for countless generations to come.

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time: July 22, 2018

SHEEP WITHOUT A SHEPHERD

Jeremiah contrasts the shepherds the LORD condemns with the ones whom the LORD will provide. The uncaring shepherds scatter the flock and drive them away. The LORD’s shepherds will gather them, care for them, “and none shall be missing” (Jeremiah 23:4). Look around the world and  see the leaders whim we regard as good shepherds. We recognize them by the way they bring people together, breaking down divisions, making all feel welcome and supported. Saint Paul recognized this too, writing that Christ “broke down the dividing wall of enmity’ (Eph 2:14). Jesus sent out the disciples to preach, teach, and drive out demons. In today’s Gospel, we hear them return to report what they had done. Obviously, it had gone well, for now they have drawn a crowd. Jesus plans to take them to a deserted place so they can take rest and recharge, but people from “all the towns” hurry and get there first. Jesus must have realized that this would naturally happen if people were receptive to his disciples, so now he shows his disciples the responsibility they must have to the people they attract. They cannot flee from their followers; indeed, they serve them. Jesus’ heart was moved with pity (Mk 6:34). The Greek word Mark uses, esplagchnisthe,is formed from the word splagchna, which is the word used to refer to the inner organs of the body. So, this “pity” is literally a visceral form of compassion. Imagine, if you will, the feeling you get in your gut when you see or hear something especially moving. This is what drove Jesus to drop everything and attend to the crowds of followers.

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time: July 15, 2018

THE MISSIONARY EXPEDITION OF THE APOSTLES

When Amos is banished from Bethel for his prophesying, he responds, “I was no prophet….I was a shepherd and a dresser of sycamores” (Am 6:14). Like Jesus’ disciples, centuries later, Amos did not study to be a priest or a prophet. He was called by God from his chosen profession. He cared for sheep and also for the fig-like fruit of sycamore tree, which has to be pierced to allow it to ripen fully. Perhaps in his new role he needed to pierce the corruption of the rulers in order to let the kingdom of God blossom. Jesus sent out the disciples two by two, which certainly made traveling easier and safer. It is interesting to speculate about how they were paired off. Perhaps Peter, impetuous and outspoken, was sent with Thomas, unsure of what he did not see himself. Maybe Andrew, the fisherman, traveled with Mathew, the tax collector. Who might have been paired with Judas? Yet despite the differing personalities and backgrounds and attitudes, they were all able to do the work of the Lord. Jesus’ disciples could not bring much at all on their mission, still they were able to attract followers, drive out demons and cure many who were sick. They could only take a walking stick, their sandals, and clothes on their pack, but that is not all they had. They had authority over unclean spirits. They had the model of Jesus, whom they had witnessed accomplishing these things. They assuredly had the Lord’s guidance. God provided all they needed; anything more would just have been unnecessary and distracting.

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time: July 08, 2018

FAITH IS EVERYTHING

In Mark’s Gospel, faith is a prerequisite for healing. Jesus does not heal to make people believe; he heals those whose faith is strong. “Your faith has saved you,” Jesus tells the woman who has been ill for twelve years (Mk 5:34). But in this weekend’s Gospel, “he was not able to perform any mighty deed” among his own kin because of “their lack of faith” (Mk 6:5-6). Our faith aids our receptivity to God’s grace. Saint Paul found wisdom in the way he faced challenges. He begged the Lord to remove “a thorn in his flesh,” but accepted God’s grace as a response. He realized that the work he did despite his difficulty revealed the power of Christ more than work he could do easily. In his weakness, the strength of God was made manifest. Sometimes the real reason a prophet is rejected is because the people find the message to be too challenging. God warned Ezekiel that the people would be “obstinate of heart.” Ezekiel would be telling them that it was due to their sins that they were living in exile and that Jerusalem would soon be destroyed. Certainly, this was not what they would want to hear. Mark does not tell us what Jesus said in the synagogue, but Luke does: “he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the Poor” Lk 4:18). Perhaps most of those in attendance felt themselves better than “the poor” and did not appreciate that they were excluded from the “glad tidings.”