Readings:
• Isa 55:10-11
• Psa 65:10, 11, 12-13, 14
• Rom 8:18-23
• Matt 13:1-23
This Sunday’s readings each refer, in some way, to creation and the natural world. And each also reveals something about the relationships between God and creation, man and creation, and creation and salvation.
The reading from the prophet Isaiah assumes, of course, that God is Creator and that he sustains all things by his might and mercy. The earth is watered and nourished by the rain and snow, thus it is “fertile and fruitful,” ready for the seed of the sower.
Creation, in other words, has been made not only to sustain mankind but to help us grow and thrive. But we also know that man, as Jesus told the devil in the desert, “does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God” (Matt 4:4; cf. Deut 8:3). God not only sends forth rain and snow, he also sends forth his word and, he says, “my word shall not return to me void but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it.”
The early Church Fathers understood this statement to be fulfilled in the sending of the Incarnate Word into the world.
“God’s word does not return to him void,” noted St. Jerome, “only through his doing the will of his Father as he filled all things on account of which he had become embodied and reconciled the world to God.” Yet, as we know from the Gospels and from our own experience, the world is not always receptive to the Word. “He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him” (Jn 1:11).
However, St. John also writes: “And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory…” (Jn 1:14). Mary, the Apostles, the disciples—they not only saw the Word, but they lived with him, walked with him, and followed him.
The Apostle Paul did not encounter the life-giving Word until after the Resurrection, but he was thoroughly transformed by Christ after his encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus. “So whoever is in Christ is a new creation,” Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Cor 2:5). Creation, he told the Romans, awaits the revelation “of the children of God.” Wounded by the Fall, creation anticipates being “set free from slavery to corruption.”
Paul, in a remarkable turn of phrase, wrote, “We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now…” The salvation of man is intimately connected with the salvation—the re-creation, if you will—of creation itself, a mysterious and awesome mystery, that will somehow culminate in a new heaven and new earth (Rev 21:1).
And we, Paul explained, “groan within ourselves,” for we who are in Christ wait for adoption, “the redemption of our bodies.”
In commenting on the parable of the seed and the sower, Fr. Richard Gutzwiller, SJ, offers an insight further connecting these themes. Parables, he states, both reveal and hide. Using earthly images, often drawn from agricultural settings, Jesus conveyed heavenly realities, but in indirect or cryptic ways, drawing listeners into the mystery without blinding them with the pure light contained within. “Behind all of this,” explains Fr. Gutzwiller in Day by Day with St. Matthew’s Gospel (Regnery, 1964), “lies the fact that the whole of creation is a parable about God.”
The natural world declares the glory of God; it points to the One who created, sustains, and loves. In Jesus, the Incarnate Word, the supernatural enters the natural realm in a most singular way. And the Word, who is Creator, draws upon creation to reveal salvation and the Kingdom.
Just as the word of God is likened to a seed, Jesus connects the seed, in his parable, to the “word of the kingdom.” This seed is the entire body of the teachings of the Incarnate Word, as well as the “good news” of his saving death and resurrection, by which the Kingdom is established and revealed.
(Note: This “Opening the Word” column originally appeared in the July 13, 2014, edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)
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Thomas Mirus in the podcast discusses the unity of the Church expressed in the early times based in serious, cogent, personal obligations that fell upon the hierarchy; also summarizes the core of Pelagianism and the Pelagian assault on Jerome.
The modern era in contrast is awash in laissez-faire. It will take an intervention of “some kind of wisdom” and Divine motion for “renewal” to take hold and make an impact. Unless of course we must consider that all is well or will end well in spite of the disarrays. Early Church “praxis” would contrast strikingly in today’s cultures.
They ruled East and West
by Thomas Mirus
https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/they-ruled-east-and-west-12785/
*****
Preface to the podcast
‘ So far in this series, we’ve seen a number of examples of early popes exercising authority over bishops and churches outside of Rome, and even outside of the West. As the documentary record improves, this becomes even clearer, and the popes in this installment, especially St. Innocent I, are striking for the extent to which they asserted their prerogative to govern the entire global Church. We also see evidence of the ancient discipline of clerical continence, the first instance of a person being executed for heresy, and the beginning of the Pelagian controversy.
Links
Pope St. Siricius’s Decretal to Himerius https://earlychurchtexts.com/public/siricius_decretal_to_himerius.htm
Way of the Fathers on the Pelagian heresy https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/413-heresiespelagianism-and-seeds-calvinism/ ‘
Among other things, this could not fit with “Memento mori.” It resembles those people who float propaganda and argue the propaganda so as to bypass the reality.
The natural or reasoned conclusion has to be that Cupich is saying that synodalizationism is a high grace available to all -presumably “who are genuine”.
The theological conclusion is that Cupich is DEFINING something about the Trinity that is completely novel and without foundation.
‘ A true synodal step is always taken on the floor, recognizing that modern discernment does not happen in a vacuum. The boundaries set by scripture, dogma, and historic councils are not restrictive cages; they are the stable parameters that give our current movements context, safety, and legitimacy. A synchronic approach asks: “How do we dance with those who are in the room today?” This is vital for inclusivity. However, a diachronic approach adds: “How does our dance honor the original choreographer, and how does it pass the choreography faithfully to the next generation?”
By synthesizing the synchronic and the diachronic, synodality achieves its full creative beauty. The Church is called to be intensely aware of the dancers on the floor today—their joys, their wounds, and their unique rhythms. But she must remain equally attentive to the historical floor beneath her.
When we respect the dimensions of the dance floor, the synodal journey ceases to be a frantic, isolated improvisation of the present moment. Instead, it becomes part of an epic, unbroken performance, a timeless ballet where the steps of the past guide the movements of today, carrying the whole body safely across the stage toward eternity.
Viewing synodality through the lens of dance rescues this unfamiliar word and concept from the realm of dry bureaucracy, committees, and paperwork. It reframes the communal journey as something dynamic, joyful, and deeply incarnational. Synodality is the Church learning to dance. It is an ongoing practice of listening to the divine melody, honoring the unique steps of every participant, and moving forward in a beautifully coordinated witness to the world. It reminds us that the goal is not to reach the end of the song as quickly as possible, but to praise the Creator through the grace, unity, and love displayed in every single step along the way.
But even more. Synodality viewed as dance also opens a fuller appreciation of how the Church is called to mirror the mystery of the Trinity. Early Fathers of the Church spoke of perichoresis, literally “a dancing around,” in describing the mystery of the Trinity. With this image, they meant the necessary being-in-one-another of the three divine Persons of the Trinity.
And so, the Church mirrors the Trinitarian mystery ever more effectively the more she embraces the dance of synodality. ‘
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2026-07/cardinal-cupich-reflection-synodality-is-like-dancing.html
One can know through both our Catholic Faith and reason, that a synod called to debate that which every Catholic must believe with Divine and Catholic Faith would not be one that serves to affirm The Unity Of The Holy Ghost, The Spirit Of Perfect Divine Eternal Infinite Love Between The Father And His Only Begotten Son, Jesus The Christ, Who Proceeds From Both The Father And The Son, but rather such a synod would serve to deny The Unity of The Holy Ghost, and thus would be, in essence, a synod to promote and accommodate heresy .
https://www.vatican.va/archive/cod-iuris-canonici/eng/documents/cic_lib3-cann747-755_en.html