16th Sunday A
Catholic Biblical Association Meeting
Loyola University, Baltimore
July 19, 2026
Homiletic Challenge
Let me say what an honor it is that the Catholic Biblical Association chose to meet here at Loyola University in the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Allow me also to offer a word of appreciation for learned societies in general, and The Catholic Biblical Association in particular. Associations such as yours are among the few remaining fora where differing views and conclusions can be discussed and debated reasonably, thoughtfully, indeed profoundly, and without rancor. You both support and challenge one another in your scholarship. You cooperate in sharing the fruits of your study and reflection with other theologians, with scholars in various fields of endeavor, and with practitioners in the field such as myself. In so doing, you help unfold the depth, beauty, and newness of the Word of God, that Word, which is meant to be proclaimed, that Word, which disrupts, enlivens, and transforms.
You probably heard this before, but I’ll say it anyway. Both collectively and individually, you present quite a homiletic challenge for a non-specialist such as myself. You really don’t need me to provide historical context for today’s reading from the Book of Wisdom, or to exegete today’s passage from St. Paul to the Romans, or even to explain the parables that constitute today’s Gospel. Even I chose to do so, I’d be using resources you have provided and for which I thank you!
Searching today’s Scriptures, I asked the Holy Spirit to point out something in them that might have direct application to your life and mine, something that you and I might take to prayer, something that might shed light on our respective ecclesial vocations.
Leaving the Crowds He Went Into the House
In God’s grace, I may have found what I was looking for. It’s a transitional line in the Gospel indicating a change of scene: “Then, dismissing the crowds, he went into the house.” It was there, “in the house”, that the disciples asked Jesus to explain the parable of the weeds in the field.
What “house”? we might ask ourselves. Was it Matthew’s house? Simon Peter’s house? Perhaps that is not important. The point is that Jesus was alone with his disciples. It was not just welcome relief “far from the madding crowd”. It was a place of quiet, a place of trust, a place of intimacy with the Master.
It was here that the disciples were free to share their curiosity, their questions, their spiritual hunger and thirst. “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field,” they said. Without imposing too much of my imagination onto the text, I can sense their enthusiasm for the teaching of Jesus, their eagerness to hear, their desire to listen. Abiding with Jesus, they deeply desired to this listen to his every word, and to be inwardly nourished by his presence and his teaching.
So too, it was in private, apart from the crowds, that Jesus chose to disclose the mysteries of the Kingdom he embodied. To the crowds, he preached in parables. In private, he revealed to the disciples the mysteries of the Kingdom of God embedded in the parables he so masterly fashioned. In this place of solitude, where the truth of the Kingdom was sought, however imperfectly, Jesus would manifest his identity, his mission, his truth, and his love. With apologies to St. Irenaeus of Lyon, we might say that Jesus, little by little, accustomed their eyes to the light, attuned their ears to the truth, inflamed their hearts with love. But it took the patience that only God can muster. The disciples enthusiastically imbibed what they could, but they had a long way to go before they could begin to grasp what Jesus was disclosing to them in that intimate setting. Nor would they be formed in the Kingdom in isolation. Their formation included interplay between intimacy with the Lord and the rough and tumble of mission . . . both are necessary.
Application
Now, for the homilist’s inevitable application. You and I both experience the need for a place of solitude, a place of quiet, apart from the world’s sound and fury, apart even from the dusty roads of mission, ministry, and the academy. It is there, alone with the Lord, that we can give voice to our questions, wrestle with our doubts, probe the Word of God more deeply, and in his grace, draw our conclusions. It is there where we can experience fresh enthusiasm for the Word that is ever new, continually surprising, and always beyond our grasp. It is there where we can study and pray, pray and study, there where can repeat endlessly the entreaty of the disciples, “Lord, explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.”
Solitude, of course, is not the same as isolation. Solitude, intimacy with the Lord, is deeply personal but not entirely private. The Catholic Biblical Association might be thought of as that “house” where Jesus withdrew from the crowds to be with his disciples. That place where enthusiasm is shared and questions are raised, even as love for the Word made flesh grows apace.
Such a “house”, we can be sure, is visited by the Lord. It is a place where the Lord discloses the mysteries of the Kingdom. You are neither a monastery nor a cloister but learned disciples drawn together by the fountain that never runs dry, the light that is never extinguished, the burning bush that is never consumed. From that sustained encounter you enrich the Church – not only your students and not only other theologians and thinkers, but all of us who are engaged with you in mission and ministry. Together, each in our own ways, we seek to sow the good seed of the Word, knowing that, according to his set plan and purpose, God will give the growth to tiny seeds we plant. May God continue to bless your invaluable scholarship, now and always.