Pip: Eleven shells hit a fuel tank. None of them exploded. One contained a handwritten note in Czech. Fr. John is asking what you call that — and the answer is not luck.
Mara: This episode follows a sermon on providence — the claim that God's governance holds even when evil is the instrument. Let's start with that question: luck, fate, or something else entirely.
Sermon: Providence, Luck, and the Shells That Didn't Explode
Mara: The sermon opens with a World War Two bombing run — eleven shells lodged in a fuel tank, none detonating, one carrying a handwritten note from Czech prisoners of war. The frame is a question: what do you call a result like that?
Pip: The note inside that shell is the hinge of the whole argument. The translation, when Intelligence finally found someone to read it, was this: "This is all we can do for you now."
Mara: And the point is that neither luck nor fate can hold that story. Luck is pure chance — spin the wheel. Fate is predetermined and immovable. Either way, there is no room for free will and no need for God.
Pip: Providence is the alternative — defined in the sermon as "God's wise, loving, and continual governance of all creation, by which He sustains the universe and directs history toward His good purposes while respecting our free will." That is a precise claim, not a vague comfort.
Mara: The precision matters because the sermon extends it to evil, not just good outcomes. The Czech prisoners were in a Nazi labor camp. That was not a good thing. But the sermon argues God used that evil to preserve the crew — and that this pattern runs through all of history, including the crucifixion.
Pip: Peter's line from Acts 2:23 lands hard here: Christ was "delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God" — and still killed by lawless hands. Providence and human evil, occupying the same sentence.
Mara: The sermon draws the practical consequence plainly: if God redeemed the greatest evil ever committed, then no evil in your life is beyond his power to redeem. The question becomes how you respond when evil arrives — and the sermon offers exactly two options.
Pip: Option one gets its own parable — the Devil's Supply Store, where discouragement and doubt are kept off the shelves because they are too valuable to sell. Hopelessness, the sermon says, is the weapon that causes a soul to do nothing, which is far more deadly than anger or lust.
Mara: Option two is Paul's confidence in Romans 8: that nothing — "neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come" — can separate us from the love of God. Providence is the ground that makes that confidence possible, not naive optimism.
Pip: Saint Padre Pio gets the closing word before the prayer: "God is our Father, so what have you to fear while you are the child of such a Father, through whose providence not even a single hair will fall from your head?" Lean on that and see what it holds.
Mara: The thread running through all of this is that the frame you bring to events — luck, fate, or providence — changes what you do when things go wrong.
Pip: Right. And the note in the shell is still there whether you read it that way or not. More to come from Candle in a Cave.
Elmer Bendiner, in his book, The Fall of Fortresses, describes a bombing run over the German city of Kassel: Our B-17 was barraged by flak from Nazi anti-aircraft guns. That was not unusual, but on this particular occasion our gas tanks were hit. Later, as I reflected on the miracle of a twenty-millimeter shell piercing the fuel tank without touching off an explosion, our pilot, Bohn Fawkes, told me it was not quite that simple.
On the morning following the raid, Bohn had gone down to ask our crew chief for that shell as a souvenir of unbelievable luck. The crew chief told Bohn that not just one shell but eleven had been found in the gas tanks—eleven unexploded shells where only one was sufficient to blast us out of the sky. It was as if the sea had been parted for us. Even after thirty-five years, so awesome an event leaves me shaken, especially after I heard the rest of the story from Bohn.
He was told that the shells had been sent to the armorers to be defused. The armorers told him that Intelligence had picked them up. They could not say why at the time, but Bohn eventually sought out the answer.
Apparently, when the armorers opened each of those shells, they found no explosive charge. They were clean as a whistle and just as harmless. Empty? Not all of them.
One contained a carefully rolled piece of paper. On it was a scrawl in Czech. The Intelligence people scoured our base for a man who could read Czech. Eventually, they found one to decipher the note. It set us marveling. Translated, the note read: “This is all we can do for you now.”
An almost unbelievable story. So how would you categorize the result? Was the B-17 crew lucky? Was it fate? Or was it something more?
Luck refers to events or outcomes that happen by chance rather than through our own planning or effort. Chance is the key element. Spin the wheel and see what happens. Fate, on the other hand, can be defined as a predetermined course of events, unwavering and unalterable. No matter what anyone says or does, good or bad, will have any effect on the outcome. Yet when it comes to luck and fate, where is God? Luck says chance and fate says predetermined. With either, there is no room for free will and there is no need for God.
Yet we know that there is a God who Rules over all things. Saint Paul teaches us in the letter to the Colossians, in Jesus “all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:16-17) Therefore, we do not believe that things come about by luck or chance, nor do we believe that the ways of the world have been set on the path of fate from which nothing deviates. Instead, we believe in God’s providence, defined as God’s wise, loving, and continual governance of all creation, by which He sustains the universe and directs history toward His good purposes while respecting our free will. It is God’s providence that allowed Saint Paul to write in his letter to the Romans, which we read today: “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”
I think that sometimes, when we read those verses, we believe they refer only to good occurrences, but that is not the case. They also include evil, for God uses both to serve his purposes.
Consider the fellows whose plane was shot up with those non-explosive shells. Miraculous. Incredible. They went on to live another day, and that is good. However, consider those Czech POWs in a Nazi work camp. Was that a good thing? Do you think they were thrilled with the idea? No. It was evil, yet God used that evil to bring about good and to serve his purposes.
The greatest example we have of God using evil to bring about good is Jesus. On the Day of Pentecost, Peter said to the Israelites, “This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.” (Acts 2:23) And the why, behind the good that came from this evil, Peter explains in his first epistle, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.” (1 Peter 3:18b) If God could take the greatest evil ever committed—the crucifixion of His own Son—and use it for the salvation of the world, then there is no evil in your life that is beyond His power to redeem.
All of this points to the fact that much is going on in the world around us that we do not see or even catch a hint of. We see only our small world, but in all of it, nothing good or evil will disrupt God’s providence—His loving care of his children.
This teaches us something about our lives, although it is not an easy lesson or one that is easily practiced—both the good and the evil of our lives are used by God. God did not create the evil—hear that—God is not responsible for the evil in our lives, but He takes it and uses it for His purposes to accomplish His will and our salvation.
And the fact is, both good and evil will come. It is inevitable. So, how do we respond? When it is good, we dance. The more important question is how we respond to God’s providence when the evil comes knocking, because it most certainly will.
There are variations and nuances to the answers, but there seem to be only two options. Option one can be explained with a story. It goes by several different names, so I’ll call it The Devil’s Supply Store.
The legend explains that the devil used to sell his items and artifacts to potential buyers and demons. He would sell them items such as the scent of lust, a collar of greed, and blades that inflicted wounds of anger, along with other weapons that shot pride deep into the hearts of unsuspecting souls. With these weapons and more, demons were able to spread darkness across the world even more effectively.
One day, a potential buyer, another demon, arrived. As he perused the devil’s wares, he saw in the back corner something that caught his eye. On a plain pedestal sat two unmarked items, an old wooden mallet and a very boring-looking wooden spike. He inquired about them, and the devil quickly said they were not for sale. The Demon, even more curious, asked why. “Explain,” he said. The devil said, “They are discouragement and doubt. Together, they become hopelessness. They are my most powerful weapons. When none of my other items work, I employ these two, and they get the job done every time.” “How so?” said the demon, who would know very much more.
The devil sighed, leaned in, and said, “Nothing paralyzes the soul more than discouragement and doubt. While my other items may cause the soul to act out, such as anger or lust, hopelessness, discouragement, and doubt cause a soul to do nothing, which is much more deadly. They are no respecter of persons. They drain their victims of courage and faith, blurring and blocking out their visions and dreams with anxiety and fear. When the soul succumbs to hopelessness, it becomes an empty shell, a sack with only enough energy to feel sorry for itself.”
Option one, when evil comes knocking, is to fall into despair and hopelessness. You can lose your faith and curse God, or—option two—you can understand that when Paul says, “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God,” he really does mean all things. Whether good or evil, all things are under God’s providence. This understanding gives Paul the confidence to go on and say, “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Saint Padre Pio wrote, “God is our Father, so what have you to fear while you are the child of such a Father, through whose providence not even a single hair will fall from your head?”
Your life is not a matter of luck or fate. It is a fulfillment of God’s providence—God working out His will for your life and the lives of others, and for your salvation. That is what it is really all about. God sees all the good and all the evil and, in His love, uses it so that you might be with Him eternally.
“Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong. Do everything in love.” (1 Corinthians 16:13 NIV) Stand secure in God’s providence.
Let us pray: Eternal God! Whose eyes are over all Thy works, especially intent on Thy servants: vouchsafe to turn away from us whatever is hurtful, and grant us whatever is advantageous, that through Thy favor, and under the benign influence of Thy special Providence, we may securely pass through the dangers and difficulties of this life, and happily arrive at the eternal joys of the next. Through Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen.
Pip: There is a cave, and there is a candle — and this week, someone lit it by asking who gets to decide which plants are weeds.
Mara: That question runs straight through the posts Fr. John published recently — a sermon that moves from a Charlie Brown comic strip to a Persian king to the parable of the wheat and the weeds. Let's start with the field.
Sermon: Proper 11 RCL A — Identifying Weeds
Pip: The sermon opens with a very relatable Lucy moment — she tells Charlie Brown his problem is simply that he is himself — and uses it to name something the sermon treats as a persistent human instinct: the confidence that we can correctly identify who the troublemakers are.
Mara: The sermon sets up that instinct and then runs it straight into Isaiah, where the Lord designates a deliverer for Israel. Here is the passage: "I have stirred him up in righteousness, and I will make all his ways level; he shall build my city and set my exiles free, not for price or reward, says the Lord of hosts."
Pip: And the deliverer in question is not David, not Gideon, not Jesus — it is Cyrus, a pagan king who worshipped idols and had never heard of the God of Israel. Which means the people hearing Isaiah's announcement would have looked at their liberator and seen exactly the wrong kind of person.
Mara: That is precisely the tension the sermon develops. Cyrus conquered Babylon, freed the Israelites, and funded the rebuilding of Jerusalem — all without sharing their faith. The sermon then moves to the gospel parable, where a farmer's field fills with Darnel, a poisonous grass nearly indistinguishable from wheat until the grain head forms.
Pip: By the time you can tell the difference, the roots are so tangled that pulling the weed destroys the wheat. So the farmer says: wait. Which is, frankly, a harder instruction than it sounds when you have already mentally drafted your weed-pulling list.
Mara: Augustine is quoted directly on this: "How many sheep are outside, how many wolves within! And how many sheep are inside, how many wolves without! How many are blaspheming Christ who will yet believe in Him!"
Mara: The sermon holds up Paul as the case in point — present at Stephen's stoning, feared by the early church, and yet the future Apostle to the Gentiles. The people who saw a wolf were not lying; they were simply wrong.
Pip: So the sermon's practical instruction lands in Romans 12 — repay no evil for evil, feed your enemy if he is hungry — because the alternative is letting someone else's sin generate yours.
Mara: And the sermon closes with a sharp reversal: those who crucified Jesus believed they were doing exactly the right kind of weed removal. The job of identifying and pulling, the sermon argues, belongs to the angels at the end of the age — not to us.
Pip: What stays with me is Cyrus — the idea that the person you would most confidently label a weed might be the one God has already called by name.
Mara: That tension between what we see and what God sees seems like territory worth returning to. More to come from Candle in a Cave.
Charlie Brown rests his head in his hands while leaning against the wall. He looks miserable when his friend Lucy approaches. “Discouraged again, eh, Charlie Brown?” Charlie Brown does not even answer. “You know what your trouble is?” Lucy asks. Without waiting for a response, she announces, “The trouble with you is that you are you!” Charlie Brown says, “Well, what in the world can I do about that?” Lucy replies, “I don’t pretend to be able to give advice. I merely point out the trouble!”
Lucy demonstrates a human failing that has truly plagued us from the beginning. According to our assessment, ___ is the trouble. After this determination has been made and solidified in our minds, we decide that something must be done about ___. However, this is not how the Lord would have us operate.
The Lord, speaking through the Prophet Isaiah, describes a great leader. He says,
Thus says the Lord to his anointed… whose right hand I have grasped, to subdue nations before him and to loose the belts of kings, to open doors before him that gates may not be closed. (Isaiah 45:1)
Of this anointed one, the Lord declares:
I have stirred him up in righteousness, and I will make all his ways level; he shall build my city and set my exiles free, not for price or reward,” says the Lord of hosts. (Isaiah 45:13)
One clue to the person’s identity is the title “anointed.” That word can also be translated as “messiah.” From this, you might think the Lord is speaking of one of the great Israelite heroes: David, Gideon, or Esther. Or perhaps we might think the Lord is talking about Jesus, but as it turns out, the Lord is actually speaking of a pagan king, a worshiper of idols, and a believer in false gods.
For roughly 70 years, the Israelites had been in exile in Babylon after being conquered. However, as with all empires, the next one is already on deck, waiting for its turn to dominate the world scene. Enter Persia, and the anointed one whom God was praising: Cyrus.
Cyrus conquered the Israelites’ enemy, the Babylonians, and then set the Israelites free. Free to return home and rebuild Jerusalem and the temple. Free to worship the one true God. Cyrus did these things and much more for the Israelites, even though he himself was not a believer.
The Israelites would have looked at Cyrus and been appalled by the kind of person he was. When Isaiah told them who their messiah would be, they were. Even so, the Lord looked at Cyrus and said,
I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hoards in secret places, that you may know that it is I, the Lord, the God of Israel, who call you by your name. (Isaiah 45:3)
Today in our gospel, Jesus tells the parable of the wheat and the weeds. A farmer sends out his servants to scatter wheat seeds. However, at night, when no one is watching, an enemy comes in and scatters weed seeds. Everyone believes all is well until the plants begin to mature. It is then that the weeds are discovered.
There is widespread agreement that the weed in question was Darnel, a poisonous grass. I am no farmer, but apparently, the wheat plant and the Darnel weed are nearly identical when young. It is not until the wheat begins to form its head of grain that the problem is identified. Yet by this time, the wheat and the Darnel have been growing side by side long enough that their root systems are intertwined. If you pull up the Darnel, the wheat will come with it. Therefore, the farmer tells his servants to wait until the harvest before doing anything about the problem.
Jesus uses this parable to describe the world around us, and the church fathers have gone one step further, saying it also describes the church—the righteous and the unrighteous growing together side by side. The rub is that, like the farmer’s servants, we are unable to tell the difference between wheat and weed, the righteous and the unrighteous, the evil. Like Lucy, we are remarkably confident in our ability to diagnose everyone who is a problem. However, I suspect that Jesus is rarely pleased with our diagnoses.
Many Israelites, if they had heard Jesus’ parable, could have easily looked at Cyrus and said, “That man is a weed. He needs to be pulled up and cast into the fire.” Yet God looked at Cyrus and said, “You are my anointed.”
Saint Augustine wrote, “How many sheep are outside, how many wolves within! And how many sheep are inside, how many wolves without!… How many are blaspheming Christ who will yet believe in Him!… In like manner, how many are praising within who will yet blaspheme.” (Tractate 45.12)
We see this problem throughout scripture. Think of Saint Paul. He began as one of the church’s greatest persecutors. He was present when St. Stephen was stoned to death and approved of it. Even after his conversion, the young church looked at him with great fear. They saw him as a weed or a wolf. Yet God looked at Paul and saw the Apostle to the Gentiles.
You and I lack the knowledge and ability to know who is righteous and who is not. As for pulling weeds, that particular job is above our pay grade. Jesus said, “Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire.” There will come a day when the wheat and the weeds will be separated. There will come a day of judgment, but that judgment and the casting of the weeds into the fire will not be accomplished by us. It will be accomplished by God’s holy angels.
Now, please don’t think I’m saying those who do wrong shouldn’t be punished or locked up. I’m not saying that at all. I am saying that we can’t truly know a person or their final outcome. Therefore, we must allow the wheat and the weeds to grow side by side until the Lord sends His workers to bring in the crop.
So what are we to do when we believe the evil, the enemy, is near? We must recall and practice what Paul teaches: “Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’ To the contrary, ‘if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:17-21) When you see evil, a person you believe to be a weed, do not allow their sin to cause you to sin. The enemy of us all has won if you do.
Can this be frustrating? Absolutely. Don’t we all want to go out and yank a few weeds? I’d wager each of you just imagined someone you’d go after first. Yet Jesus is calling us to walk a different way, the way He walked. Why? For there were many who looked at Him and saw a weed that needed pulling, even though He was here for their salvation. Yet they condemned Him and nailed Him to a cross. Did they believe they were doing evil? No. They thought they were clearing God’s field of just one more weed. Instead… they crucified the Lord of the harvest.
Our job is not to go around trying to identify weeds, and most certainly not to pull those we believe we have identified. Our job is to go where Jesus has led the way, to take up our cross and follow Him so that we may also bring glory to our Father in Heaven.
Let us pray: Lord, enlighten our understanding, Strengthen our will, Purify our hearts, and make us holy. Help us to repent of our past sins And to resist temptation in the future. Help us to rise above our human weaknesses And to grow stronger as a Christian. Amen.
Pip: Candle in a Cave — where the sermon opens with a statistical case against chocolate mint ice cream, and somehow that is exactly the right move.
Mara: Fr. John's recent writing takes the Parable of the Sower as its anchor — what it means to have good soil in your heart, and what quietly erodes it. Let's start with the sermon itself.
Sermon: Tending the Soil of the Heart
Mara: The Parable of the Sower is usually read as a sorting mechanism — which type of person are you? But this sermon pushes past that framing and asks a harder question: even if the seed landed in good soil, what happens to that soil over time?
Pip: The setup is a statistics lesson. Before getting to Jesus, the sermon walks through a set of perfectly true, perfectly misleading correlations — nearly everyone who dies from cancer has eaten chocolate mint ice cream — to make a point about how easily we bend evidence to say what we want, including scripture. Then comes the turn: "However, today Jesus said, 'Not so fast,' and, in a rare instance, told us what he meant."
Mara: That's the hinge. Because Jesus actually interprets the parable himself, there's less room to spin it. The soil is the heart. The birds are the devil snatching the Word before it takes root. Rocky ground is shallow faith that withers. Thorns are the overwhelming noise of the world choking off what grew.
Pip: And then comes the move that makes this more than a conversion story. The sermon turns directly to people who already believe — the ones who think the parable isn't about them.
Mara: Right, because the soil doesn't stay fixed. The sermon uses a Montana farming image to explain it: rocks don't sink in soil, they rise. You pick them out in spring, and if you don't, they're back. The sermon puts it plainly — "if you do nothing to tend the soil, over time the rocks will work their way to the surface, and the once-fertile soil becomes rocky."
Pip: The washing machine flood, the "Insufficient Funds" stamp on the mortgage — those aren't hypotheticals, they're the actual mechanism. The bird doesn't wait for crisis; it works with whatever's already loose.
Mara: St. Paul and St. Josemaria Escriva both get quoted here. Escriva's image is striking — the world, the devil, and the flesh as adventurers trading you "the poor bauble of pleasure" for "the pure gold and the pearls, the diamonds and the rubies, drenched in the living and redeeming blood of your God."
Pip: That is not a subtle metaphor.
Mara: It isn't. And the sermon lands on a practical response: pray, cooperate with grace, and stop shooting yourself in the foot while asking God why your foot hurts. Paul's line from Philippians frames it — "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" — meaning tend the gift, don't just receive it and walk away.
Pip: Soil maintenance as spiritual discipline. Which, given how the sermon started, is a long way from chocolate mint ice cream — but the logic held the whole way through.
Mara: The through-line is vigilance — not anxious striving, but the steady, daily work of keeping the ground clear.
Pip: Guard the soil. Tend it. And maybe don't let the mail lady open your letters first.
As most of you are aware, Chocolate Mint Ice Cream is an abomination unto the Lord. For those who disagree, I’ve come across some really interesting statistics that prove this point and why it should be banned forthwith. Nearly all sick people have eaten Chocolate Mint Ice Cream at least once in their lives. An estimated 99.9% of people who die from cancer and heart disease have eaten Chocolate Mint Ice Cream. 99.9% of people involved in car crashes ate Chocolate Mint Ice Cream. 93.1% of juvenile delinquents come from homes where Chocolate Mint Ice Cream has been served. Among people born in 1839 who later ate Chocolate Mint Ice Cream, there has been a 100% mortality rate. Given the interpretation of these facts, I rest my case.
One of my first jobs out of college was as a Statistical Analyst. I was terrible at math, but once someone gave me the right number, I could make it say and do whatever you would like. The example above is not among my better works. One of the difficulties with Holy Scripture is that we can do the same thing with it. Depending on who you ask, you’ll get all sorts of interpretations of even a single verse. However, today Jesus said, “Not so fast,” and, in a rare instance, told us what he meant.
The soil represents the heart. The birds snatching the seed away represent the devil, who snatches the Good News from the heart of one who hears it before they have the opportunity to grow and flourish. The seed that fell on rocky ground represents one who hears the word of God and believes at first, but has no depth and therefore withers and dies, producing no fruit. The seed that fell among the thorns is like one who hears the word of God, but everything going on around them is so overwhelming that they are choked off. Finally, there is the seed that fell on good ground. It grows. It flourishes. It produces. The Word of God grows within the good soil, within the heart of the believer.
If we are ones in whom the seed has been planted in good soil, then we may wonder what this parable has to do with us. It seems to be only about those who have not yet come to faith. But we know that scripture is multivalent, that is, it has many levels, so not only does this parable speak to those who have not yet come to faith, but it also speaks to the believer. Why? Because at this moment, your heart may be good and producing good fruit, but what about when you leave here? The heart is as temperamental and erratic as the Queen, my crazy cat.
Example: You leave here today and, in your heart, feel the presence of God. You feel at peace, and my goodness, what an amazing sermon that was! It’s all good! Then you head home. When you get home, you discover that the water line on the washing machine has decided to blow out, and when you open the front door, you find everything in the house floating in about four inches of water. In that instant, that bird, the enemy of God’s people, snatches the good fruit, the good work that has happened, right out of your heart.
Or, come Monday morning, having just finished your prayer, you know in your heart that God really heard you. Soon afterward, the dog starts barking, and, given the time of day, you know it’s the mail lady. You go out and greet her with a smile; she hands you a few letters, returning the smile, and says, “Oh. I wonder what the bank wants?” You open it, and stamped in bold red ink across the mortgage payment are the words “Insufficient Funds.” It’s only the 11th of the month. What am I going to do? The worries of the world, like that thorn bush growing in the field, just choked the joy of God right out of your soul.
The soil of the heart is temperamental and erratic; however, it doesn’t always change as quickly as all that. At other times, it changes more slowly, like the seasons of the year.
I’m not sure if it is the case in Oklahoma, but in western Montana, if you do any digging, you will soon discover the ground is full of rocks. Anyone who cuts hay or gardens knows that one of the first chores in spring is to go out into those fields and “pick rocks.” If you are uninitiated, it may seem that someone has played a dirty trick on you by throwing rocks onto your land, but what has happened is that the rocks have worked their way to the surface.
It is counterintuitive. The rocks should sink because they are heavier than dirt. Yet the soil settles downward, so the rocks rise to the surface. Those who like to garden know that you regularly have to clear the ground of the rocks that have worked their way up, or you’ll end up with a field full of rocks and busted equipment.
The soil of our hearts works in a similar way. The seed, that is, the Word of God, is planted. When it finds good soil, it will grow and produce good fruit. However, if you do nothing to tend the soil, over time the rocks will work their way to the surface, and the once-fertile soil becomes rocky. It has no depth and can no longer support life. The same is true of weeds and thorn bushes. If you don’t tend the soil regularly, weeds and thorns begin to encroach on the good soil and can eventually choke it off, leaving it unfit for growing anything.
St. Paul wrote, “To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” St. Josemaria Escriva put it this way, “The world, the devil, and the flesh are a band of adventurers who take advantage of the weakness of that savage you have within you. In exchange for the poor bauble of pleasure [that is the world] which is worth nothing, they want you to hand over to them the pure gold and the pearls, the diamonds and the rubies, drenched in the living and redeeming blood of your God—the price and the treasure of your eternity.”
The world, the devil, and the flesh want to destroy the good soil of your heart, whether when the seed is first planted or over time. The enemies of God seek to bring death to places where God has sown life. As Peter says, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8) So how do we defend ourselves?
The answer begins and ends with God. We pray, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” We are asking for God’s protection over our lives and, more importantly, over our hearts. God is faithful to His promises. The question is whether we will cooperate with His grace. Yes, there are random things, like broken water lines, that we can’t control and that work against us, but for the most part, we can handle them. It stinks, but call a plumber. The bigger problem is us. We tend to worry when we should pray. We tend to get angry when we should let something go. We tend to treat our relationship with God on an as-needed basis rather than seeking to maintain and strengthen it daily.
We defend ourselves against the world, the devil, and the flesh by asking the Lord our God to continue in that love and care. But as we do, we can’t be shooting ourselves in the foot and then ask God why it happened. We can’t say, “Oh, Lord! I’ve got this big hole in my foot. Yes, I pointed the gun and pulled the trigger, but Lord, why did you let that happen?” Free will is a beautiful thing, but it comes with responsibility and consequences.
St. Paul wrote in his letter to the Philippians: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12b). Salvation is from God, unearned and freely given. And notice, Paul doesn’t say, “Work for your salvation…” He says, “Work out your salvation…” We are not working to earn God’s free gift. So Paul is saying, work out this gift, hold on to it, and nurture it with deep reverence and holy seriousness. God has done and will continue to do His part, but if you want to produce good fruit and not have it stolen, withered, or choked off, you must engage and be vigilant in tending the good soil of your heart.
Our Father has planted a seed in the good soil of your heart. Guard that soil. Tend it. Water it. Keep it clear of predators and of anything that does not belong. Then produce fruit worthy of God’s glory.
Let us pray: Lord, if what we seek be according to our will, then let it come to pass and let success attend the outcome. But if not, Dear Lord, let it not come to pass. Do not leave us to our own devices, for you know how unwise we can be. Keep us safe under your protection, Lord our God, and in your own gentle way, guide us and rule us as you know best. Amen.
Frari (Venice) – Sacristy – triptych by Giovanni Bellini – Saint Benedict of Nursia and Saint Mark
In our reading to the Philippians, Paul said, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” So, if I were to ask you, how would you say you are working out your salvation?
Some may have a good plan, while others take the Hail Mary approach. Not the Hail Mary prayer, but the Hail Mary play in football, when you are at the end of the game and behind, so you make one last play and hope you come down with a score. I suspect most fall somewhere in between, but Benedict of Nursia worked out his salvation with a particular Rule. You know it as the Rule of St. Benedict, written around the year 530 A.D.
The Rule has five significant dimensions: silence, prayer, humility, manual labor, and obedience. These can all be studied in depth, but since our time is limited, I would like to focus on humility. In chapter seven of the Rule, Benedict outlines twelve degrees of true humility. He presents them as a ladder, referencing the ladder Jacob saw in a dream, on which the angels of heaven ascended and descended. Each degree, each rung of the ladder, brings you closer to heaven. He begins:
“The first degree of humility, then, is that a person keep the fear of God before his eyes and beware of ever forgetting it. Let him be ever mindful of all that God has commanded; let his thoughts constantly recur to the hell-fire which will burn for their sins those who despise God, and to the life everlasting which is prepared for those who fear him.”
The following eleven degrees read similarly. Briefly, they are:
Doing the will of the Father over our own.
Complete obedience in submitting to superiors.
Remain patient, even in the face of injustice.
Confession of every sin and every evil thought to the Abbott of the monastery.
Be content under even the worst of circumstances.
Consider yourself to be the lowest of all.
Follow the Rule.
Keep silent unless questioned by a superior.
Do not be quick to laugh.
When you speak, do so quietly with as few words as necessary.
To be humble not only in heart but in appearance.
Having climbed this ladder and passed through these levels, Benedict states that the monk will no longer fear Hell but will instead experience total love for Christ.
Returning to your own rule of life, have you begun to climb such a ladder? Perhaps not as prescribed by Benedict, but have you set before yourself an intentional path that will help you develop a deeper relationship with God and lead you into greater holiness, so that you may grow in His image? If yes, good. Keep it up. If not, I can commend the Rule of St. Benedict, even if you only generally seek to incorporate those five significant dimensions – silence, prayer, humility, manual labor, and obedience – into your daily life.
In Book 1, Chapter 19 of The Imitation of Christ, Thomas à Kempis writes, “Not everyone can have the same devotion. One exactly suits this person, another that. Likewise, different exercises are suitable for different times, some for feast days and others again for weekdays. In times of temptation, we need certain devotions. For days of rest and peace, we need others. Some are suitable when we are sad, others when we are joyful in the Lord.”
The Rule of St. Benedict may not be for you, but it points to our need for an intentional, daily encounter with God so that we may work out our salvation. Therefore, I encourage you to develop one for your own life so that you may grow in the Lord’s wisdom, knowledge, and love.
Pip: If you've ever wondered what pesto, the Cold War, and the Book of Isaiah have in common, Fr. John has done the research, and the answer is more coherent than it has any right to be.
Mara: This episode follows a single sermon that moves from the origins of a national motto to the harder question underneath it — the difference between believing in God and actually trusting God. Let's start with that journey from Virgil's kitchen to the gates of Jerusalem.
Sermon: Trusting God or Just Saying So
Pip: The sermon opens with a question about national identity, but it's really asking something more uncomfortable — whether "In God We Trust" is a conviction or just text printed on currency.
Mara: The setup begins in an unexpected place. Virgil, writing a pesto recipe around 50 BC, produced the phrase that became America's first de facto motto. As the sermon puts it: "out of many, a single color — color est e pluribus unus — and if we shorten that and add proper grammar, we have the phrase e pluribus unum, which the founding fathers added to the Great Seal of the United States in 1782."
Pip: So the founding motto was essentially a salad metaphor. And it held for over 170 years until the Cold War made atheism the enemy and "In God We Trust" became the official counter-move in 1956.
Mara: That shift sets up the sermon's real question. The motto changed, but the sermon asks whether the trust behind it changed with it. And the answer comes through Hezekiah, king of Judah around 700 BC.
Pip: Hezekiah is a useful case study because he's not a villain. He kept the religious observances, ran the temple, did the visible things — and yet Isaiah records God saying, essentially, I've had enough of your burnt offerings.
Mara: The problem was that Hezekiah believed in God but didn't trust him. When Assyria threatened, he sought an alliance with Egypt instead. The sermon quotes Isaiah directly: "Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many — but do not look to the Holy One of Israel or consult the Lord."
Pip: It took the Assyrian army standing outside Jerusalem's gates before Hezekiah actually prayed. Which is a very human timeline for getting serious about trust.
Mara: And the sermon draws that line straight to the gospel. Jesus's invitation to "take my yoke" gets read not as shared labor with a partner, but as a replacement — setting down the yoke of sin, self, and fear, and picking up the yoke of discipleship instead.
Pip: The question the sermon lands on is precise: not "do you believe?" — the congregation already answered that by showing up — but "do you trust him enough to remove all those yokes and put on his?"
Mara: It closes with Thomas Merton's prayer, which holds the tension honestly: "I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me." Trust, the sermon argues, doesn't require certainty. It requires the desire to follow, and Merton's prayer suggests that desire itself is already a form of faithfulness.
Pip: In God We Trust — lip service or a way of life. That's the question left sitting in the pew.
Mara: The thread running through all of this is the gap between profession and practice — saying the words and living the weight of them.
Pip: Belief is the easy part, apparently. Trust is where it gets costly. We'll see what Candle in a Cave brings next time.
Of all the places to begin a sermon, a cooking recipe seems like a far reach…but things happen. The recipe I have in mind was written about 50 years or so before the birth of Jesus. The author? The Roman poet Virgil. What is the recipe for? Pesto.
Virgil was writing down a recipe for pesto, but I suppose, being a poet and all, he couldn’t just say, “Add four cloves of garlic, so many leaves of basil, and half a cup of olive oil.” No, that would not do. And he certainly wouldn’t say, “Mash it all together until you have a green paste.” Instead, Virgil wrote, “They one by one do lose/Their proper powers, and out of many comes/A single colour, not entirely green…”
In Latin, “out of many, a single color” is color est e pluribus unus. If we shorten that and add proper grammar, we have the phrase e pluribus unum, which the founding fathers added to the Great Seal of the United States in 1782. Therefore, the de facto national motto of the United States of America did not speak of how great and mighty a nation we were. Instead, it essentially declared that we, as the United States of America, are a salad—a bunch of ingredients, tossed together and pounded into something new and tasty.
It was the unofficial official motto and remained in place until 1956, when it officially changed. You can blame that change on the Soviet Union and the Cold War.
In the USSR, if there was a state religion, it was atheism, and the leaders of our nation looked for many ways to distinguish the USA from them. One of those ways was changing the de facto motto from e pluribus unum to In God We Trust. Unlike the battle cry of the Crusaders, “Deus vult” (God wills it), “In God We Trust” was meant to be a humble recognition of our reliance on a loving God. It is the kind of reliance and trust that the Psalmist speaks of.
Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. They collapse and fall, but we rise and stand upright. (Psalm 20:7-8)
So, my question to you on this day, when our nation is 250 years old and one day is this: We declare In God We Trust, but do we really, corporately and individually, or is it just like when we slap our money down on the counter and say, In God We Trust, and here’s 100 bucks in case that doesn’t work out?
Understand, the question is not about belief or faith. I’m not asking whether you believe in God or have faith in God. I’m asking whether you trust God. Isaiah shows the problem clearly.
Hezekiah was king of Judah around 700 BC. He is considered one of the better kings; however, there were several major problems, none of which was their belief in God. The first chapter of Isaiah clearly shows that they were still practicing their religion. Yet God is tired of it because they outwardly serve him while inwardly they are corrupt.
What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts? (Isaiah 1:11-12)
That is the first problem. They do everything they are supposed to do, but in short, they are not practicing what they preach.
The second major problem is that they do not trust God. They believe in God, but they do not trust him.
At the time, the Assyrians were the dominant power, and to keep on good terms with them and avoid complete conquest, the nations paid tribute. However, when there was a shift in power in Assyria, Hezekiah and his royal court sought to free themselves from Assyrian rule and attempted to form an alliance with Egypt. The Lord says through Isaiah, “Don’t be stupid.”
Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel or consult the Lord! The Egyptians are man, and not God, and their horses are flesh, and not spirit. (Isaiah 31:1, 3a)
Yet it wasn’t until the Assyrian army had conquered all of Judah and stood outside the gates of Jerusalem that Hezekiah repented and truly trusted in God. He prayed, “O Lord our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are the Lord.” (Isaiah 37:20)
Hezekiah believed in the Lord, and Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, and the Lord, for his part, sent one of his angels: “The angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.” (Isaiah 37:36)
At the end of our gospel reading today, Jesus says, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Many understand this yoke to be the type designed for two animals that would pull as a team. From this, we can picture ourselves yoked to Jesus, and with Him, we can complete the work. It is a good message, and I have preached it myself. However, this is more of a contemporary understanding of the passage. Not wrong, but perhaps there is a better understanding.
Consider what Jesus said just a short time before: “Whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:38) These are actions required of the individual. This is what it means to be his disciple: do what the master did. Therefore, to take Jesus’ yoke upon us is another way of saying this. We all wear a yoke of some kind—the yoke of sin, self, and fear. Jesus is saying to set those aside and take up His yoke of righteousness, forgiveness, and eternal life. Take up His yoke of discipleship. In our attempt to do as He asks, we face the same question Hezekiah and the Israelites faced: Do you trust God?
Do you trust God enough to set aside sin, to set aside the things of the world, to set aside self, your will, and your ego? I know you believe in Jesus. I don’t think you would be here if you didn’t, but do you trust him enough to remove all those yokes and put on his?
In God we trust. That can either be lip service or a way of life. Take on the yoke of Jesus and walk with God. The author of Proverbs writes,
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones. (Proverbs 3:5-6)
Trust in the Lord, and you will find healing and refreshment; you will find rest for your soul, for His burden is light.
Let us pray (a deeply honest prayer from Thomas Merton): My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
Candle in a Cave 