Undoubtedly, this has been one of those very roller-coaster types of weeks at SVF. Last weekend, I was celebrating with the Florida Knights of Columbus in the organizational meeting for our new State officers of the Knights of Columbus, but it was quickly overshadowed by the sudden death of our brother Knight, John Krolikowski. Burying our Parish Manager (and my friend for seventeen years) in the church where he was married in Pennsylvania over fifteen years ago, was an emotionally-draining event that really took every bit of courage that I could muster. In some ways, it brought about a feeling of déjà-vu with my own brother’s funeral. Though we know that all of life is really under God’s control, our knowledge sometimes gives way to our impulses or passions. Ultimately, the temptation to try to wrestle some of the control away from Him sometimes emboldens us and makes us think as though we are the real masters of our own destiny. Then, when all seems to come unraveled in our efforts to be “in charge”, we are frustrated and shocked back into the realities of what life and creation really are: two of God’s precious gifts to us.

I know that, because of the good life that he lived and the hard work he performed to make himself a true “child of God,” he will see God face-to-face, and really have a beaming smile on his face. I hope we will all be united in helping John Krolikowski’s family in surviving their tremendous loss, and we offer you the opportunity to see his wish come true, that all of his four children will receive a Catholic school education. Your contribution to the “Krolikowski Children Scholarship Fund” can be put in the Sunday collection basket or brought to the church office during the week.

Additionally, this past week, little Kendall Gillis, preparing for first grade in our school, was beset with a serious illness, and had to undergo major brain surgery at her tender age. Her family and friends and I ask you to please include her and her family in your special prayers as she tries to make a full recovery (as of this printing, I didn’t get the final results). So, we see how fragile life is for us – that it’s never to be taken for granted.

We would like to know very much what the Kingdom of Heaven is really like. But the parables of Jesus never really tell us directly; they only tell us how to look for its coming. The passage from this Sunday’s Wisdom of Solomon seems to say that should not matter. All we should be concerned about is that God is all-powerful, that there is no god Besides the One, True God; and that this One God’s justice is at the same time mercy. In fact, it is the unmatched, unlimited power of God that makes is all-encompassing mercy possible. Moreover, we have all around us in nature and history the testimonies of such benign power.

Yes, it’s true. Jesus spoke in parables that we sometimes have a hard time deciphering. But His images unfold in our imagination and in our lives. They seem to say that we can learn something about the nature of His Kingdom by watching the way God allows what is already in process to come to maturity. They seem to say precisely that we can know something of the Kingdom of Heaven because we are part of its "becoming" – a becoming that is full of second chances. They also seem to say that it is always too soon for discouragement.

Our world is very much like the field that Jesus describes in this week’s Gospel. We make progress in history in some ways, and yet evil grows along with it. We develop channels of peace – the United Nations, Catholic Charities, the Red Cross, rules for the humane treatment of prisoners. But, we also develop weapons of war, mass destruction and mass terror. We raise the standard of living, but we also exclude many people from it, pushing them into some of the most dehumanizing of conditions, etc. Yet, the parable of Jesus assures us the wheat is growing, and we can see it and have a share in it. And this is not an excuse for inaction, but an encouragement to act, knowing that the grace of God empowers us!

Very Rev. Canon Tom