{"id":1412,"date":"2014-07-20T12:32:01","date_gmt":"2014-07-20T16:32:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=1412"},"modified":"2014-07-20T12:32:01","modified_gmt":"2014-07-20T16:32:01","slug":"some-thoughts-on-violence-and-homily-16th-sunday-in-ordinary-time-year-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/some-thoughts-on-violence-and-homily-16th-sunday-in-ordinary-time-year-a\/","title":{"rendered":"Some Thoughts on Violence and Homily 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A"},"content":{"rendered":"

16th<\/sup> Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A<\/a>
\nWisdom 12:13, 16-19
\nRomans 8:26-27
\nMatthew 13:24-43
\nJuly 20, 2014<\/p>\n

Our God is all-knowing and all-powerful.\u00a0 There is nothing God cannot do.\u00a0 God can choose to do whatever he wants.<\/p>\n

What does God choose to do?\u00a0 God chooses to love<\/em>.<\/p>\n

When we sin God could choose to destroy us or to abandon us.\u00a0 Instead, because God loves, he chooses to show leniency.\u00a0 God doesn\u2019t have to forgive us but he does.\u00a0 God so loved the world that he gave his only son.<\/em><\/p>\n

Won\u2019t it be nice if we always made good choices?\u00a0 God loves us enough to give us free will.\u00a0 Unfortunately, we don\u2019t always choose to do what is good in God\u2019s eyes.<\/p>\n

We can look at the world and see bad events.\u00a0 There is violence in our streets; like in Chicago where every weekend for a few weeks there have a significant number of shootings.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s across the world.\u00a0 There\u2019s the kidnapping of almost 300 girls in Nigeria a few weeks ago.\u00a0 For the past two weeks, Hamas and Israel were exchanging missile fire.\u00a0 On Thursday, Israel went into Gaza with ground forces.<\/p>\n

There has been conflict in Ukraine.\u00a0 On Thursday, a passenger plane was shot down by a missile over Ukraine.\u00a0 They are still sorting this out but we assume it has something to do with the conflict there.<\/p>\n

None of this is God\u2019s will.\u00a0 It happens because of the choices people make.\u00a0 We can, we must<\/em> pray for an end to all of this violence.\u00a0 Unfortunately, it continues because people continue to make bad choices.<\/p>\n

God could choose to end all of it but God is lenient.\u00a0 God gives us second chances, and third chances that we need.<\/p>\n

We hear Jesus telling the parable about the good seed and the weeds.\u00a0 The workers want to rip out the weeds.\u00a0 It\u2019s standard gardening to get rid of the unwanted <\/em>weeds.<\/p>\n

Should God get rid of all the bad?\u00a0 We desire a world full of good people but unlike with weeds there are no unwanted<\/em> people.\u00a0 God wants everyone to be part of his kingdom.\u00a0 That\u2019s why God is lenient.\u00a0 That is why God sends his only Son to redeem us.\u00a0 Jesus also tells the parable of the mustard seed, the smallest of seeds but it grows into the largest of plants.\u00a0 In the little seed is great potential.<\/p>\n

God has planted the seed of good in all of us and gives us the time we need to make something good.\u00a0 But we do not have an eternity to do good.\u00a0 The time to stop sinning is now.\u00a0 We must act out of love, the same love that God shows for us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

16th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A Wisdom 12:13, 16-19 Romans 8:26-27 Matthew 13:24-43 July 20, 2014 Our God is all-knowing and all-powerful.\u00a0 There is nothing God cannot do.\u00a0 God can choose to do whatever he wants. What does God choose to do?\u00a0 God chooses to love. When we sin God could choose to destroy …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Some Thoughts on Violence and Homily 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-mM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1412"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1412"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1414,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1412\/revisions\/1414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}