Homilies

Fratelli Tutti, the title of Pope Francis’ latest encyclical, comes from his name-saint, Francis of Assisi, as did the title of his previous encyclical, Laudato Si’. Where the earlier document focussed upon our responsibilities for the natural environment, the new one attends to our human ecosystem.

Jesus’ caustic reproaches today (Lk 11:29-32) are occasioned by people asking for signs, for proof that the outrageous things He said and did were from God. On the face of it, that’s human enough: we all have our doubts about the claims of gurus, theologians and experts, let alone the remorseless critics of religion like the ABC and the SMH.

It’s quite a story (Mt 22:1-14). First we have a wedding – the setting for many a rom-com – think Steel Magnolias, Crazy Rich Asians or My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

On a fertile hillside he dug the soil, cleared the stones, planted the vines, built a tower, dug a wine-press. “What more could I have done for you, my vineyard?” the Divine Vigneron cries out in our first reading (Isa 5:1-7).

Music is beauty made of air. Plato said it gives “soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything”. Shakespeare called it “the food of love”. Einstein said he daydreamed, thought, even lived in music. Billy Joel says music expresses and heals our humanity.

So runs the chorus of an old English folk song that compares human life to a leaf changing with the seasons.[1] It seems rather fatalistic, with its promise of ageing and afflictions – the ‘frost’ after a relatively brief period of green.

It’s just not fair! When we hear this morning’s parable of the workers in the vineyard (Mt 20:1-16), the shop steward deep within each one of us irks with sympathy for those who’ve laboured all day under the hot sun. Why do those who worked only an hour, in the cool of the evening, get the same wages and even get paid first!

The word pandemic comes from the Greek words pan meaning all – as in ‘panorama’ and ‘pandemonium’ – and demos meaning the people – as in ‘democratic’ and ‘demography’.

Perhaps the most famous father in recent pop culture is Homer Simpson. Since 1989 he has starred in most of the 684 episodes and 31 series so far of the animated sitcom The Simpsons.

Today the Church celebrates the Feast of St. Gregory the Great, a highly educated nobleman of sixth-century Rome, by then a city overrun by barbarians and an empire crumbling.