11th Sunday Ordinary Time (B) 16 June 2024 Sermon

 11^th Sunday of Ordinary Time (B) 16 June 2024 Miraculous growth

 The Gospel speaks of the mysterious growth of the Church. Like a tree which grows night and day without being visible in the actual progress of growth. (You can't watch it grow). So the Church somehow has increased from a handful of disciples to millions.

We realize that a lot of Christians are not overly good in their lives, but still the continuous growth of the Church has been clearly miraculous, and much is yet to be hoped for.

If we look at Church history we see many different movements that have tried to destroy the Church and failed, though they have made plenty of trouble.

The Church as such is indestructible – the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

We must, of course, not be complacent, but we can benefit from studying the opposition.

Physical attack: Jews, Romans, Barbarians, Vikings, Muslims, Secularists, Communists, Nazis – to name a few down the ages.

And undermining of the faith: all kinds of heresies, schisms, and internal persecutions – one Christian against another. Such as: Arianism, Albigensianism, Pelagianism, Jansenism, Protestantism - all manner of false beliefs enticing people from the true faith, or punishing them for keeping that faith.

We still have a lot of these things; it is just a matter of what name they go by. One of our biggest problems today would be an aggressive secularism, trying to remove the Church’s right to exist on its own terms – accusing us of ‘hate speech’.

And the prophecies tell us there is worse to come! Such as the Antichrist.

Christians have been very unpopular much of the time, yet all we have been doing in essence is to bring the world the word of life, and Bread of life.

All the malice towards the Church ultimately comes from the evil one who opposes everything Our Lord establishes, or seeks to do.

And that opposition can find a place in the human heart where through pride we do not want to be told what to do,  nor give up sins to which we are attached.

Despite our turbulent history we have had good people in every age who have been able to keep the truth intact, and pass on to succeeding generations the essentials to survive.

Thus we have the Martyrs, and the unsung saints who did good in their time.

Christ is the head, Mary is the Mother, and the Holy Spirit is our guide, and these are all powerful sources of help, animating the right people, the right movements and bringing it all together.

Always we pray. When we pray things will go better. See for example how the early Church prayed Peter the first head of the Church out of prison (Acts 12,5-9).

Then we keep to our mission of seeking to baptize all nations, offering the way of salvation, free of charge.

A glorious future is proposed, even finding union with our enemies if we and they make all due repentance.

Yes, we have misbehaved but that is no reason to change the beliefs. Let’s keep; the beliefs and stop the misbehaviour.

Let’s keep going another century or so and see the marvels the Lord will do in our midst (Ps 125 (124), 3)

Christians have often felt they have been abandoned but the Lord has never been far from us. He is just helping us in other ways besides direct rescue – to form us more completely as disciples, and children of God, fit for Heaven.

Remember our past and how many crises we have ridden out; one or two more crises will not defeat us!