Praying with Scripture | Part 2 | Homily for 22nd Sunday

Click here to watch the YouTube video.

I’ve got a question for you. A question that will bring some of you confusion, others great joy or guilt: What’s your “one thing”?

For those who are confused, don’t worry; I’ll explain the purpose of this question in a moment.

But for those who have great joy or guilt, I’ve got something for you: my “one thing” donation box here. You can either drop off your “one thing” on this paper slip or give a donation to the Fr. Rich Gelato Fund 🙂

Last weekend, I introduced the way I pray with Scripture.

I call it the RAP Song. And the song we’re going to sing is called The “One Thing.” RAP stands for Read, Ask, Pray.

Say it with me. Read: Any passage of Scripture. Ask: What’s your “one thing”? Pray: Talk with Jesus about your “one thing.”

I put the phrase “one thing” in quotation marks because it comes from the words of Jesus: “Martha, Martha. You are anxious and worried about many things. One thing is needed.”

And what was that one thing? Mary listening to Jesus speak to her heart.

Therefore, your “one thing” when you pray with Scripture could be a sentence, phrase, or even a single word – “one thing” that Jesus speaks to your heart.

Let me give an example:

When I read today’s Gospel, and asked, “What’s your ‘one thing’?” The verse that spoke to my heart was, “This people honours me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me.”

My first response was… “Ouch! That hurts!” I felt Jesus calling me out. That He wants my whole heart at this Mass.

But as I talked with Jesus more about this “one thing”, I was reminded of the first time in my life Jesus spoke to me through Scripture, back when I was one of the people living this Scripture quote – honouring Jesus with my lips BUT my heart was very far from Him.

It happened when I moved back home to Vancouver after graduating from St. Mary’s College in California. To set the stage, three significant things had just occurred in my life:

First, after 14 years of playing competitive golf and finishing as the top player on my NCAA Division 1 team, I made the hard decision to give up my childhood dream of playing on the PGA Tour. This left me asking the big question: What’s the purpose of my life? And I was deeply searching for an answer.

Second, my girlfriend had recently introduced me to a book called Heaven is For Real, sparking a deep fascination of the person of Jesus.

Third, my mom, knowing I’d been away from the Catholic Church for five years and immersed in a very sinful lifestyle, sent me an email and said: “My son, for my birthday this year, I want do just ‘one thing’: Go to Confession.”

With these three significant things stirring in my heart, as I moved back home to Vancouver and was sorting things out in my room, I found an old black leather Bible that caught my attention. I opened the front cover and found a printed note stating that my grandfather, Justice William Trainor, had been sworn into the Supreme Court of B.C. on this very Bible.

Here’s of picture of myself and my grandpa, shortly before his death.

Inside the Bible, there was a holy card, reminding me that my beloved grandpa had gifted this Bible to me for my First Holy Communion, shortly before he died.

As I flipped through the pages of this bible, I found “one thing” that I had never seen before – a small sticky note folded up inside the Bible, with my grandpa’s handwritten words: Eccles 2:11.

As a “good” Catholic, I looked up on Google was “Eccles” meant. Ah, it’s short for… Ecclesiastes!

I rushed through the Bible to find this passage in the Book of Ecclesiastes, eager to see why my grandpa chose this “one thing” out of the whole Bible for me, his grandson, to remember.

This must have been my grandpa’s favourite “one thing” from Scripture, I thought. And this was his “one thing” he wanted me, his beloved grandson, to remember.

Maybe it would talk about being rich and famous, like he was, as a federal politician and then supreme court judge in B.C.

Or maybe my grandpa wanted me to think about the joys of heaven, since he died soon after as a faithful Catholic.

I found the verse and it read, and I’d like you to read it out with me:

“Then, I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had spent in doing it, and again, all was vanity and a chasing after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.”

When I read these words, I was pierced to the heart. I felt like Jesus was speaking this “one thing” directly to me of what my life was like apart from him.

That considering all that my hands had done to become a professional golfer in California was a mere chasing after the wind, and that sinful life of partying, drinking, and drugs was all vanity.

After reading that verse, I immediately decided to go to Confession.

But as I got into the car, I suddenly got a huge headache and felt a strong temptation to go to Confession on another day.

But thankfully, by the grace of God, I recalled this “one thing” from Ecclesiastes and repeated it again and again – “vanity, vanity, vanity!” – as I drove to Confession, feeling strengthened each time by the power of God’s word now planted inside of my heart. 

In the confessional, I encountered Jesus in a profound way, an experience that changed the trajectory of my life for the better and ultimately led me to stand before you today.

Why am I sharing this with you? Well, to answer that fully, let me first show you a picture and then ask you a question.

In this picture, we see 4 options of soil conditions that Jesus speaks about in his parable of the sower and the seed, which resemble the 4 options of what our hearts can be like in our relationship with Jesus.

If you had to take a self-assessmentof your spiritual life right now at this Mass and honestly choose from these four options, which one would you choose: the hard path? the thorns? the rocky ground? or the good soil?

If we’re honest, some of us would choose the hard ground. Maybe you feel your heart is hardened because you are not baptized or in a state of mortal sin right now or you’ve never experienced Jesus speaking to you.

Others here might choose the rocky ground because you’ve had a very rough past, maybe with some physical or emotional abuse, and the idea of speaking vulnerably heart-to-Heart to Jesus in prayer might seem very difficult.

And if we’re honest, most of us would also feel like our spiritual lives have a lot of thorns, such as some of the evil intentions – or evil thoughts – that Jesus speaks about in today’s Gospel, thoughts of fornication, greed, anger, envy, pride, and so on.

And finally, some of us feel like it is only the great saints of the past like Anthony of Padua, or the great saints of today, like Fr. Justin, who have good soil in their hearts, And you just look at Fr. Justin every Sunday and you’re like, “Ahh, Fr. Justin… he must have such good soil… but here I am. Week after week, what’s it going to be: the hard path, rocky ground, and thorns.”

But I’ve got amazing news.

When you open the Bible to find your “one thing,” Jesus makes good soil so your heart can sing!

Yes, this is one of the first verses of my rap song. Say it with me: When you open the Bible to find your “one thing,” Jesus makes good soil so your heart can sing!

I’ll give one of the youth $10 if you can tell me that RAP verse after Mass.

Okay, moving on to the next slide before they memorize it! St. James told us in today’s 2nd reading. He is speaking to us right here, right now, at this Mass:

St. James is using this imagery of the good soil to give us confidence that when we welcome the “one thing” that Jesus, who is the gardener of our hearts, wants to plant in our hearts, it has so much power it can save our souls, and that word in Greek, to save, doesn’t just mean to get you to heaven but to bring deep healing and restoration to your heart, which include:

We all desire these in abundance, even much more than a altar server desires $10 from Fr. Rich for remembering a rap verse.

Friends, this is what makes our hearts sing! When these are coming forth from your heart, this is what the song of our heart sounds like! Say it with me. “Love, joy, peace, patience , generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

Fr. Justin’s vision for St. Anthony of Padua – An overflowing community in Christ, sent that all may have life to the full. This is what it looks like to have life to the full: love, joy, peace, and all these good things.

And these are some of the fruits that result from PRAYING with Scripture and cooperating with Jesus, the gardener of our souls, who wants to plant a good seed and in our hearts.

This was certainly true in my life back in 2011 when I had my conversion.

If I had to take that self-assessment back in 2011, I would have said my heart was like a hard and rocky path that was full of thorns, I had it all going wrong… but when I opened my grandpa’s Bible, Jesus created good soil in my heart and I welcomed that “one thing” Jesus wanted to plant – “vanity, vanity, vanity!”

And, by the grace of God, I was a “doer of the word” that day and cooperated with that “one thing” that led me to Confession, where Jesus truly uprooted all of the thorns that had been growing in my life for 5 years and He gave me a lot of new soil, and over time, I experienced a lot of love, joy, peace, and so much more, for many years to come, from that “one thing” of Ecclesiastes 2:11.

And this can be true in your life, too!

In fact, Jesus wants this to happen every single day of our lives, myself included.

To conclude, during the announcements at the end of Mass, I’ll announce another “one thing” challenge for this coming week.

For now, I just want to bring you into the experience of what it is like to have “one thing” throughout the Mass. I felt Jesus, out of His great love, wants to challenge each one of us – myself included – for the rest of this Mass.

“This people honours me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me.”

For the rest of this Mass, are we going to be one of those people? just honouring Jesus here at Mass with our lips but our hearts are far from Him?

Or will we say, “That’s not going to be me! Jesus, I’m going to worship you with my whole heart at this Mass. Every single word of this Mass, I’m going to say it like my life depends upon it.”

It’s your choice.

During Announcements

The “One Thing” Challenge: Open the daily Gospel, read it, ask yourself the question: What’s your one thing? Or if you’re praying with someone else, ask them: What’s your one thing?

To make this challenge exciting, if you come to Mass throughout this week, there’s a box near the entrance of the church with the question: What’s your one thing? I look forward to reading your “one thing”

On one side of the paper, there is the chance to write down your “one thing” or, if you don’t have one, you can make a donation to the Fr. Rich Gelato Fund.