May our lives become beautiful notes in the symphony of God’s good creation.

Sixteeth Sunday in Ordinary Time. July 17th 2011

Many of you, especially the youth, have heard of the novel known as the “Lord of the Rings.” The “Lord of the Rings” is actually a Trilogy of three different novels, all of which were made into blockbuster movies within the last ten years. The writer of the “Lord of the Rings” was a man by the name of JRR Tolkien. Tolkien was a very devout Catholic. He also wrote many other books, which are familiar to many, such as the “Hobbit,” which is part of the story of the “Lord of the Rings.”

There is another part to the story of the “Lord of the Rings” which is told in another one of Tolkien’s less known works called the “Silmarillion. The Silmarillion is part of the chronology of events that makes up the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. It is a type of a “Book of Genesis” of these great works and describes the origins of all of the characters of the Lord of the Rings, such as the Hobbits, Gandolf and the evil lord, Sauron.

As I said, the Simarillion is the least known of all Tolkien’s books. It is a long mythology about the creation of the world. In this book, Tolkien created characters representing both God and Satan, the Good Angels and the bad, the demons. The character for God, creates the world in a void and then allows his created “spirits” to form the earth and to give it order. The order is described as a great “symphony” of the most beautiful of all music.

The most powerful of these created spirits is Melkor, who is created good but then because of his pride, turns into the Satan like character. In an act of pride, Melkor places “discord” into the great symphony that is creation and tries to “spoil” the melody by “playing his own tune,” creating his own truth. The story then goes on to tell of the many battles that the powers of good and evil fight amongst each another.

In the Simarillion, the chief weapon of Melkor, the evil one, is lies, lies that cause discord in the symphony of truth. Tolkien writes of this, “Long was he (Melkor) at work, and slow at first and barren was his labor. But he that sows lies in the end shall not lack of a harvest, and soon he may rest from toil indeed while others reap and sow in his stead.”…. So along with the truth sown by the good god, Melkor the evil spirit had also sown some evil seeds, seeds of lies.

Even though it took these evil seeds much time to bear fruit, eventually Melkor, being patient, found some itching ears that would heed him, and some wagging tongues that would enlarge what they had heard; and his bad seeds, his lies, “passed from friend to friend, as secrets of which the knowledge proves the teller wise…” as the book tells us. The story continues by saying that:

“When he saw that many leaned towards him, Melkor would often walk among them, and amid his fair words, others were woven, so subtly, that many who heard them believed in recollection that they arose from their own thought.”

This little commentary on lies from the Silmarillion, may help us better understand our Gospel today and indeed the battle over the soil of our hearts and minds. Unlike the battles in the Silmarillion, however, this is a real battle, one in which we need to be sober, for Jesus tells us, “whoever has ears ought to hear.”

Jesus tells us that he goes and sows seeds in the good ground; yet Jesus very clearly lets us know that Satan is also there, sowing bad seed, the seed of lies. The seed of truth that Jesus sows, however small like the seed of the mustard plant, will grow. So too with the lies of Satan, they will yield a harvest as well, but one that is evil and is rotten, fit only for burning.

Let us take an modern example. In 1968, Pope Paul VI wrote an encyclical letter on human life- Humanae Vitae. The issue at the time, was whether artificial birth control could be used or not used in accord with the Church’s teaching and thus according to the plan, the “symphony of God”. In the encyclical, the Holy Father upheld the Church’s perennial teaching saying that artificial birth control went against the divine plan of God for the Human Person; and that it places discord in Marriage and family Life and so in society itself. The Holy Father wrote:

“Responsible men can become more deeply convinced of the truth of the doctrine laid down by the Church on this issue if they reflect on the consequences of methods and plans for artificial birth control. Let them first consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity, the lowering of regard of the woman, instead of her being seen as a trusting companion, she would be seen as an object to be used for one’s own selfish gratification and finally it would cause a general lowering of moral standards.”

Pope Paul here warns us about the danger of lies. Once any spouse believes that he or she can withhold a part of himself or herself, such as their fertility, in their love for the other, a lie is sown and takes root in their belief and the lie grows in their love for another and so begins to destroy their life together; and leads eventually even to the destruction of the life of human persons.

One look at our world today and we can see this lowing of moral standards in our world, especially in a lack of respect for the dignity and sanctity of human life and of the Human Person. Also, we can see a direct proportion to in the increase of divorce and abortion to the increase of the use of artificial birth control. Indeed the lies have grown and produced bad fruit—as seen in our current culture of death.

Yet, the seeds of truth are stronger and will endure. Jesus is the one who gives us the truth through the teachings of the magisterium of the Church, which is the pope alone and the bishops in union with the pope. The truths of the magisterium bear good fruit—the fruit of eternal life. Think of the seeds of truth sown by Blessed Pope John Paul and the good fruit that resulted.

Pope John Paul spoke the truth to the communist countries of Eastern Europe, and they came tumbling down. The seeds of truth produced the downfall of these atheistic ideological governments. John Paul reminded us that the teachings of the truth, of the Church, far from restricting our freedom, actually protect and even ensure our freedom and life—there is no freedom in lies, only slavery and death.

Our current Holy Father, Pope Benedict continues to sow the seeds of truth. As a good, protecting German Shepherd, he reminds the world, each of us, that any attempt in the building a society without God and the worship of God being primary; any such attempt, will end in colossal failure. He, like Bl. John Paul, lived through the lie, patiently sown by satan, of politics replacing theology. The lie claims that we can have politics without God; and so there needs to be a separation of Church and state in which the state is protected from any Church interference.

The truth is, is that the ideal of the separation of Church and state is not to protect the state from interference from the Church, but to protect the Church from interference by the state. The father of lies has completely turned it around. By the way, this is really what lies at the heart of the evil atheistic ideological government regimes of the world, from Nazism, to Communism and to socialism. Hitler himself once said that, “if you tell a big enough lie long enough and to enough people, they will eventually begin to belief it. Each one, Nazism, communism and modern socialism promise a man made utopia without religion, without the worship of God, without the Church, but instead they give us nothing less than a man made hell.

Pope Benedict is taking on the bad seed sown by the “father of lies” and he is very clearly pointing out the modern lies. He is not afraid to take, head on, the error of our day sown by the evil one. And, I would add, he is doing it very well, in a way that anyone can understand. I would even say he is more easily understandable than John Paul the II. We are particularly graced with his pontificate; so how we all need to listen closely to this Pope and follow his instructions and deligently study them. By learning from His teachings, which are the teachings of the Church, which are the teachings of God, we will allow good seed to be sown into our hearts that will produce good fruit in our lives and in our world.

Let us also realize that there is a field in which it is okay and necessary to pull up the weeds before the harvest time, the judgment time, and that field is the field of our hearts. We pull the weeds in and through repentance and the help of the grace of the Sacrament of Confession—the Sacrament that has the power to even change weeds into good wheat through God’s patient mercy; divine mercy in which he desires that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the Truth, the truth that sets men free, the truth that saves.

Today, as we celebrate this Mass, let us ask Jesus to sow and nurture the seeds he has sown in our hearts. May these seeds produce in us great fruits, and through our faithfulness, bring many, many souls back to our Heavenly Father. May our lives become beautiful notes in the symphony of God’s good creation. Let us pray to Our Lady, “Mother of the Good harvest,” that she would obtain for us the grace of the Holy Spirit, to worship our God in Spirit and in Truth and to make Him and His divine will always primary in our lives. Amen.