Homily – TWENTY FIRST SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME THE KEYS IN A PLACE WITHOUT KEYS 08-23-26

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Isaiah 22:19–23; Psalm 138; Romans 11:33–36; Matthew 16:13–20

A man once told me about the first night he spent in jail. He said the strangest thing was not the uniform, the bunk, or even realizing where he was. It was the sound of the door closing behind him. Click. He had heard doors close thousands of times before, but this one sounded different. Then he heard the officer’s keys disappearing down the hallway and thought, that is a terrible sound when somebody else has the keys. Years later he said, “It took me a long time to realize that the worst doors locked in my life were not made of steel.”

That makes today’s Gospel almost humorous. Jesus comes into a place like this talking about keys: “I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven.” In here, keys are not exactly a popular personal accessory. You hear them all day, but somebody else carries them. Somebody else decides when a door opens and when it closes. But perhaps that is exactly why this Gospel belongs here. Jesus reminds us that there is more than one kind of prison and more than one kind of freedom. Some people are locked up physically while becoming free inside. Others walk around outside imprisoned by addiction, anger, resentment, greed, or something that happened twenty years ago. You can leave prison and still carry a
prison inside you.

Before Jesus gives Peter the keys, He asks, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter answers, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Then Jesus entrusts him with the keys. What is remarkable is the man He chooses. Peter will make promises he cannot keep. He will become frightened. He will run away. He will deny three times that he even knows Jesus. Peter was called the Rock, but occasionally he behaved more like loose gravel.

Yet Jesus knew everything Peter would do and still saw someone worth building upon. God sees more in a human being than his worst moment. Some of you carry things heavier than anything locked in your property box: regret, shame, anger, children growing up while you are here, a mother getting older, someone you hurt, someone who hurt you, years you cannot get back. Maybe sometimes you replay the moment everything went wrong and think, If only I could go back. But yesterday is one door for which none of us has a key. Christianity does not pretend the past does not matter. Grace says something much greater: your past matters, but it does not get the final word.

So perhaps the most important question is no longer only, How did I get here? It is, Who am I going to become here? Do not wait for a release date to begin becoming free. Someone else may control when your cell opens, but nobody can force you to hate. Nobody can stop you from praying, telling the truth, asking forgiveness, forgiving someone else, encouraging a
man who is losing hope, or becoming a better father, son, husband, brother, or friend. Those are keys too. And sometimes they open doors more important than the ones made of steel.

For many of you, one day an officer will turn a key and a gate will open. I pray that the man who walks through that gate is not the same man who entered it. And remember the man from the beginning who heard those keys disappearing down the hallway. Eventually he discovered that the worst doors in his life were not made of steel. But neither were the most important ones. Christ had been opening those from the inside. So the next time you hear keys coming down the hallway, remember: someone else may carry the key to your cell, but with God’s grace, you still carry the key to the person you are becoming.

 

PRAYER

Lord Jesus,
You know the doors we wish we could reopen, the choices we wish we could change, the people we miss, the people we have hurt, and the wounds we carry from what others have done to us.
Give us courage to take responsibility without surrendering to shame, to remember the past without remaining imprisoned by it, to ask forgiveness where we have caused pain, and to forgive where pain has been caused to us.

When we hear doors locking around us, remind us that no lock can keep You out. Open what has become closed within us. Free us from anger, hatred, addiction, fear, and hopelessness. Help us not simply to wait for another day, but to become different men today. And when a door finally opens before us, whether into freedom, a new beginning, or one day into eternity, may the person who walks through it be closer to You and more fully the person You created us to become.
Amen.

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Homily – TWENTIETH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME: GOD IS NOT FINISHED WITH YOU 08-16-26

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TWENTIETH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME: GOD IS NOT FINISHED WITH YOU 08-16-26

Isaiah 56:1, 6–7 • Psalm 67 • Romans 11:13–15, 29–32 • Matthew 15:21–28 

If there is one thing you learn in prison, it is how to wait. You wait for count. You wait for chow. You wait for commissary. You wait for the phone. You wait for mail. You wait for medical. You wait for somebody to answer a request. You wait for court. Some of you are waiting for release. Occasionally you wait so long for something that you begin wondering whether the Second Coming might happen first.


But there is another kind of waiting that is much harder. Waiting for your family to trust you again. Waiting for your children to answer the phone. Waiting for someone you hurt to forgive you. Waiting for a relationship to heal. Waiting to find out what will happen in court. Waiting for another chance. Waiting for God to answer a prayer you have been praying for months or years.


That is the kind of waiting we find in today’s Gospel. A Canaanite woman comes to Jesus because her daughter is suffering. She is desperate. She cries out, “Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David!” And Jesus says nothing. That may be one of the hardest sentences in the Gospel. Jesus says nothing. We know how the story ends. She did not. She had to stand inside the silence.


Some of you know exactly what that feels like. You have prayed, “God, help my family. God, take care of my kids. God, give me another chance. God, help me become a different man.” And sometimes heaven seems silent. The danger is that eventually we begin interpreting silence as rejection. Maybe God does not care. Maybe I have messed up too badly. Maybe after everything I have done, God does not want to hear from me anymore.


The woman in the Gospel refuses to believe that. She stays. The disciples want her sent away, but she stays. She does not receive the response she expected, but she stays. She does not understand what Jesus is doing, but she stays. Finally, all the fancy words disappear and her entire prayer becomes three words: “Lord, help me.”


That may be one of the greatest prayers in the Bible. You do not need a theology degree to pray it. You do not need a prayer book or the perfect vocabulary. You can pray it in a chapel or lying awake on your bunk at two in the morning. When you are angry, “Lord, help me.” When temptation comes back, “Lord, help me.” When you receive terrible news from home, “Lord, help me.”


When somebody gets under your skin and you are about to make a decision that will turn one bad day into six bad months, “Lord, help me.” When you think about your children and wonder what they think of you, “Lord, help me.” When memories return and shame tells you that you will never be anything more than your past, “Lord, help me.” Sometimes three honest words are holier than three hundred impressive ones.


Then Jesus finally says something extraordinary to this woman: “O woman, great is your faith!” Notice what He praises. He does not say, “Great is your understanding.” She did not understand. He does not say, “Great are your answers.” She did not have many answers. He says, “Great is your faith.” Why? Because she stayed.


That may be something some of you need to hear today. Great faith does not mean you never struggle, get angry with God, or wonder why your life unfolded the way it did. Sometimes great faith means that after everything that has happened, you are still here. Still talking to God. Still trying. Still getting up. Still believing that somehow your story can become different. Still refusing to walk away.


And that brings us to Saint Paul. In today’s second reading Paul says something I wish every man in prison could hear: “The gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.” Irrevocable means that God has not changed His mind about your worth. Prison has a way of reducing a human being to a number, a charge, a conviction, a sentence, or the worst decision he ever made.


The world looks at your record and says, “That is who you are.” God looks at your record and says, “That is where you have been.” There is a difference. Your crime may be part of your story. Your addiction may be part of your story. The people you hurt and the mistakes you made are part of your story. Christianity never asks us to pretend those things did not happen.


Grace is not pretending the past does not matter. Real conversion means having the courage to say, “I did this. I hurt people. I made choices that brought consequences. I cannot undo yesterday.” But then grace adds another sentence: “Yesterday does not get to decide who I become tomorrow.”


Look at the people God has worked with. Moses killed a man. David committed adultery and arranged another man’s death. Peter swore that he did not even know Jesus. Paul persecuted Christians. One of the last people Jesus spoke to before dying was a convicted criminal hanging on the cross beside Him. God has never been frightened by a bad résumé. He is interested in what happens next.


That is why one of the most dangerous things you can do in prison is waste your time. Everyone here knows how to count time. “How much did you get? How much have you done? How much do you have left?” But there is another question that may matter even more: What is the time doing to you?


Two men can serve the same five years and come out completely different. One spends five years feeding resentment while another spends five years letting God rebuild him. One spends five years blaming everybody else while another finally begins taking responsibility. One becomes harder. The other becomes wiser.


One man can leave carrying the same anger, addictions, excuses, and wounds that brought him here. Another can leave knowing how to pray, control his temper, forgive, work, listen, take responsibility, and perhaps for the first time in his life, how to love. If the state already has your time, do not give it your soul too.


Use the time. Let God use it. Maybe you cannot choose where you sleep tonight, but you can choose what kind of man gets out of that bed tomorrow morning. Maybe you cannot control your release date, but you can decide who will walk through that gate when the day finally comes. Maybe you cannot repair your family today, but you can begin becoming the man who will know how to love them better tomorrow.


There are also things happening outside these walls that you simply cannot control. That brings us back to the woman in the Gospel. She cannot fix her daughter, so she brings her daughter to Jesus. Some of you have children outside these walls. You cannot tuck them into bed tonight, drive them to school tomorrow, or protect them from every bad decision. You may not even know exactly what is happening in their lives.


But you can bring them to Jesus. Say their names to Him. You may not be able to hold your child tonight, but God can. You may not be able to fix your marriage, but you can bring it to Jesus. You may not be able to make your mother forgive you, but you can bring her to Jesus. You may not be able to undo the pain you caused, but you can bring that pain to Jesus and ask Him to begin healing what you cannot reach.


There is a difference between giving up and surrendering. Giving up says, “I do not care anymore.” Surrender says, “I care deeply, but I finally understand that I am not God.” That realization is not weakness. It is the beginning of freedom.


There are two kinds of prisons. One has concrete walls, steel doors, fences, counts, and officers. The other is built from anger, shame, hatred, addiction, resentment, fear, and regret. A man can walk out of the first prison while carrying the second one inside him for the rest of his life. And a man behind a locked door can begin becoming free.


Maybe you cannot walk through the gate today, but you can forgive someone today. You can tell the truth today. You can stop blaming everybody today. You can apologize today. You can pray today. You can ask God to begin changing the man inside the uniform today. Your life is not on hold simply because you are here. God can work right here.


Today’s first reading says that God’s house is “a house of prayer for all peoples.” All peoples. That includes people with beautiful histories and people with complicated ones. People sitting in cathedrals and people sitting in prison chapels. People who have gotten most things right and people who desperately wish they could do some things over. Nobody walks through God’s door because he has a perfect record. We walk through because God is merciful.


So if you remember nothing else today, remember this. Your record tells where you have been. It does not tell God where you can still go. Your sentence tells you how much time you were given. It does not tell you what that time can become. And when you have no idea what to do next, you already know three words: “Lord, help me.”


The Canaanite woman prayed them, and Jesus heard her. Perhaps the greatest miracle in today’s Gospel is not simply that her daughter was healed. It is that a woman everyone else considered an outsider discovered that she had never been outside the reach of God’s mercy.


Neither are you.


So stay. Stay when God seems silent. Stay when you are discouraged. Stay when you are ashamed. Stay when changing is difficult. Stay when you fall and have to begin again. Stay when you cannot see what God is doing. Sometimes the greatest act of faith is simply refusing to walk away.


The fact that you are still breathing means God can still work. The fact that you have a past means you have a story. And the fact that the story is not over means God can still write another chapter.


God is not finished with you.


Do not be finished with Him.


PRAYER


Lord,
You know everything about me. You know the things I tell people and the things I hide. You know what I have done, whom I have hurt, what I regret, what I miss, and what keeps me awake when everything around me becomes quiet.


I cannot change yesterday. Give me the courage to stop running from it, the humility to take responsibility for it, and the wisdom to learn from it. But do not let yesterday become my identity. When shame tells me I am only the worst thing I have ever done, remind me that You know my whole story.


When anger begins building another prison inside me, teach me to forgive. When I cannot control what is happening outside these walls, help me place the people I love into Your hands. Watch over my family. Protect my children. Heal the people I have hurt. Comfort those who have suffered because of my choices.


Where I am able to make things right, give me the courage to do it. Where I cannot repair what has happened, teach me to surrender it to Your mercy. Help me understand the difference between accepting responsibility for my past and allowing my past to imprison my future.


Use this time, Lord. Do not let me waste it. Make me wiser than I was when I came here, more honest, more patient, more responsible, more compassionate, and more free inside. Let the man who eventually walks out of this place be different from the man who walked in.


When I do not understand You, give me enough faith to stay. When I cannot feel You, give me enough faith to stay. When I fall, give me enough humility to get up again. When I have no beautiful words left, remind me that three are enough: Lord, help me.


Help me become the man You still see beneath everything I have done. Help me believe that mercy is greater than my past and that grace can still build something beautiful from what remains of my life.


When I begin thinking that my story has already been written, remind me:
My past is a chapter. My sentence is a chapter. This prison is a chapter. But none of them is the whole story.
You are still writing.


So today I place what remains of my story into Your hands.


God, do not let me waste it.


Amen.

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Homily – NINETEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME: WHEN THE STORM DOES NOT GET THE FINAL WORD 08-09-26

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1 Kings 19:9a, 11–13a • Romans 9:1–5 • Matthew 14:22–33

A man got out of prison after many years. His family was excited to see him, so his brother picked him up at the gate. As they drove home, they stopped at a grocery store. The former inmate walked in, froze, and quietly asked, “What happened to this place?”

His brother laughed. “What do you mean?” The man pointed to the self checkout machines. “So… they don’t even trust cashiers anymore?” His brother explained how everything worked, but after watching people scan their own groceries, the man said something his brother never forgot: “I spent years thinking the hardest thing would be surviving prison. I never realized the hardest thing would be learning how to trust the world again.”

That sentence is not only about prison. Many people outside these walls have never spent a single day behind bars, yet they live inside prisons of fear. They no longer trust other people. Some no longer trust themselves. And many quietly struggle to trust God. Fear builds invisible walls that can be harder to escape than the visible ones.

Today’s Gospel is about those invisible prisons. The disciples are trapped in a violent storm. These are experienced fishermen who know the sea well, yet this storm overwhelms them. Then, in the middle of the darkness, Jesus comes walking toward them. Instead of recognizing hope, they mistake Him for another danger. “It’s a ghost!” they cry.

Fear has a strange way of distorting reality. It convinces us that help is a threat, that tomorrow will be worse than today, and that nothing will ever change. Many of you know that voice. It whispers, “You’ll never repair what you’ve broken. You’ll always be remembered for your worst mistake. Nobody will trust you again. Why even try?” Fear always sounds convincing, but it has never told the whole truth.

Then Peter hears Jesus say one simple word: “Come.” He steps out of the boat, and for a few extraordinary moments, he actually walks on water. Think about that. The miracle is not only that Jesus walked on water. Peter did too. The impossible became possible because his eyes were fixed on Christ.
Everything changed the moment Peter shifted his attention from Jesus to the wind and the waves. The storm had been there all along, but only when he focused on it did he begin to sink. That is exactly what happens in our spiritual lives. When our minds are filled only with regrets, guilt, anger, fear, or everything we cannot control, our souls slowly begin to sink.
Someone once said that worrying is like sitting in a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it never takes you anywhere. Many of us become experts at replaying yesterday. We remember every bad decision, every argument, every addiction, every opportunity we wasted. The problem is that yesterday has terrible customer service. It never answers, never negotiates, and never gives refunds.
The only place where God’s grace can meet us is today. Jesus is not waiting for you in the past. He is not standing years from now demanding that you first become perfect. He meets you where you are today. That is where every new beginning starts.
The first reading teaches the same lesson through the prophet Elijah. Exhausted and discouraged, Elijah expects God to appear in dramatic ways through the earthquake, the wind, or the fire. Yet God comes instead in a tiny whisper. God’s greatest work often happens quietly.

Many of you have experienced those quiet whispers. Sometimes they come through a letter that arrives on the day you were ready to give up. Sometimes through another inmate who unexpectedly offers encouragement. Sometimes through a volunteer who treats you with dignity, a chaplain who simply listens, or a single verse of Scripture that suddenly feels as though it was written just for you. God often speaks softly because He speaks directly to the heart.

Saint Paul tells us today that he carries “great sorrow and constant anguish.” Even the greatest saints knew disappointment and heartbreak. Faith does not remove suffering. It gives suffering meaning. God can take what seems wasted and transform it into something that bears fruit far beyond what we can imagine.

One of the greatest lies we can believe is that our story ended with our worst decision. The Bible tells a very different story. Moses was a murderer. David committed adultery and arranged a killing. Peter denied Jesus three times. Paul persecuted Christians. Yet none of them were forever defined by their darkest chapter because they allowed God to write another one.

The same is true for you. What brought you here may explain part of your past, but it does not have to determine your future. Your mistakes are chapters in your story, but they do not have to become the title. With God’s grace, the best chapter may still be waiting to be written.

There is one detail in today’s Gospel that I never want you to forget. When Peter begins to sink, Jesus does not stand at a distance giving advice. He immediately stretches out His hand. Immediately. Not after Peter proves himself. Not after Peter swims back to the boat. Not after Peter promises never to fail again. Immediately.

That is the heart of God. His hand is always faster than our failure. If today you feel like you are sinking, do not pretend everything is fine. Peter didn’t. He simply prayed one of the shortest and most powerful prayers in the entire Bible: “Lord, save me.” Sometimes three honest words are enough to begin changing a life.

The story I began with was never really about self checkout machines. It was about trust. That man eventually learned how every machine worked, but he later admitted that learning to trust again took much longer. Healing the heart is always slower than learning a new skill.

The same is true for every disciple of Jesus. God does not ask us to pretend the storm is not real. He simply asks us not to give the storm the final word. The waves may still be high. The wind may still be strong. The sentence may still continue. The future may still be uncertain. But when our eyes remain fixed on Christ, the storm loses its power to define us.

The storm is real, but it is never the end of the story. Jesus is. And His final word is never condemnation. His final word is always hope.

 

Let Us Pray

Lord Jesus,
You know every storm we carry within us. You know our regrets, our fears, our loneliness, and the mistakes that brought us here. Yet You never stop coming toward us. Even when we cannot recognize You, even when fear convinces us that all hope is gone, You continue to say, “Take courage. It is I. Do not be afraid.”
Teach us to keep our eyes on You instead of on the waves. Help us believe that our past is not stronger than Your mercy, that our failures are not greater than Your love, and that no prison wall can keep Your grace from reaching our hearts.
When we begin to sink, give us the humility to pray like Peter, “Lord, save me,” trusting that Your hand is already reaching toward us. Renew within us the hope that one faithful choice today is more powerful than a hundred regrets about yesterday.
As we leave this chapel and return to our daily routine, remind us that wherever we walk, You walk with us. May we never allow the storm to have the final word, because with You, hope is always stronger than fear, mercy is always greater than failure, and no one who reaches for Your hand ever walks alone.
Amen.

 

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Homily – SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME: SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME: THE TREASURE BURIED BENEATH THE DIRT 07-26-26

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A man once bought an old farmhouse that had been abandoned for years. The property was overgrown with weeds. The porch was falling apart. The windows were broken. Quite frankly, most people thought it should have been bulldozed. It was the kind of place where, if you leaned against the wall too hard, you suddenly found yourself helping with the demolition.

One afternoon, while clearing away brush behind the house, his shovel struck something solid. Curious,he dug a little deeper and uncovered an old wooden chest. Inside were hundreds of silver coins that had been hidden there generations before. The treasure had been there all along. Years of dirt had hidden it, but the dirt had never changed what it was worth.

I have often thought that people are a lot like that treasure. Sometimes life piles on so much dirt that we can no longer see who we really are. Bad decisions. Addiction. Anger. Shame. Broken relationships.

Guilt. Regret. Before long, we begin to believe that we are nothing more than the mess we have made. We start introducing ourselves, not by our name, but by our worst mistake.
But God never does.

God never confuses who you are with what you have done.

That is exactly what today’s Gospel is about. Jesus tells us that a man discovers a treasure hidden in a field. Notice something important. The treasure did not become valuable because someone found it. It was already valuable. The man simply recognized what everyone else had overlooked.

Perhaps that is how God looks at every one of us.The world has a habit of reducing people to labels. Outside these walls, some people remember you by your crime, your sentence, or your worst decision. Inside these walls, you may be known by a number, a housing unit, or a file in a cabinet. But God does not call you by your crime. He calls you by your name.

He knows everything you have done, yet He refuses to believe that your worst decision is the most important thing about you. Beneath all the dirt, He still sees the treasure He created in His own image.

Now, do not misunderstand me. God does not pretend that sin does not matter. Sin matters. Victims matter. Justice matters. Choices have consequences. But grace means your sin gets the final word only if you refuse to let God speak.

Once God helps us rediscover that dignity, He asks us the same question He asked Solomon: “Ask something of me, and I will give it to you.” Imagine Jesus standing here today and asking every man in this chapel that very same question: “What do you want Me to give you?”

Most of us would probably answer, “Freedom.” An earlier release. A successful appeal. A chance to go home. None of those desires are wrong.

But Solomon asks for something even greater. He asks for wisdom.

Why? Because Solomon understands that wisdom changes every other part of life. A man with physical freedom but no wisdom often walks back into another prison of his own making. But a man who receives God’s wisdom begins to experience freedom long before any prison gate opens. Wisdom brings peace into a noisy cell. Wisdom breaks the chains of bitterness. Wisdom teaches you how to forgive. Wisdom frees you from spending the rest of your life being held hostage by your past.

Wisdom also teaches us to recognize the treasures we already have before we lose them.
Isn’t it funny how human beings work? We spend the first ten years praying for our children to learn how to talk, and the next ten years wishing they would be quiet for just five minutes. Then the house grows silent, and we would give almost anything to hear that noise again.
We spend years wishing our parents would stop giving us advice. Then we would give almost anything to hear their voices just once more. We call today “just another day,” never imagining that it may become one of the days we treasure most.

Sometimes we do not recognize a treasure until we can no longer hold it.

Do not let that happen with Christ.

There is another lesson hidden in today’s readings. There is a world of difference between regret and repentance. Regret says, “I wish I had not gotten caught.” Repentance says, “Lord, I do not want to be that man anymore.”

Regret fears the consequences. Repentance longs for a new heart. Regret looks backward. Repentance walks forward.

Think about Peter and Judas. Both betrayed Jesus. Both were overwhelmed with sorrow. One ran away from God in despair. The other ran back to Him for mercy. The difference was not the size of their sin. The difference was whether they believed that grace could still reach them beneath the dirt.

Perhaps the greatest prison is not made of steel bars or concrete walls. Perhaps it is believing that your past is stronger than God’s mercy.

Saint Paul refuses to believe that. He tells us today, “We know that all things work for good for those who love God.” Notice what he does not say. He does not say prison is good. He does not say crime is good. He does not say suffering is good.

He says God is so powerful that He can bring good even out of what is broken. Only God can do that. Some of the strongest, wisest, and most compassionate people I have ever met are people whose lives were broken before they allowed God to rebuild them.

Remember the story of the buried chest. The years of dirt never changed the value of the silver. In the
same way, your failures, your sins, your regrets, and even your years in prison have not erased the image of God within you.

Today Christ comes looking, not for perfect people, but for buried treasure. He has been digging patiently through years of pain, pride, addiction, anger, shame, and regret just to reach the man He created you to be.

Do not push His hand away. Do not cling to the dirt when He is offering you the treasure. Let Him keep digging.

Because the greatest miracle God wants to perform is not simply opening a prison door.
It is opening a human heart. And when He finishes His work, the world may still remember you for the worst thing you have ever done.

But God will rejoice because you finally became the man He always knew you could be.

Amen.

PRAYER

Lord Jesus,
Today You looked beyond our records, our failures, and our
regrets, and You looked directly into our hearts. Thank You for
seeing the treasure in us when we often see only dirt.
Give us the wisdom of Solomon, not simply to make better
decisions, but to become new men. Teach us to stop measuring
ourselves by our worst mistakes and to begin seeing ourselves
through the eyes of Your mercy. Where there is regret, give us
repentance. Where there is shame, give us hope. Where there
is anger, teach us forgiveness. Where there is fear, fill us with
trust. Break every chain that keeps us imprisoned inside, so that

even before these gates ever open, our hearts may already
know the freedom that only You can give.
Keep digging through the hard soil of our lives. Dig through our
pride, our addictions, our bitterness, our excuses, and our fear.
Uncover the man You dreamed of when You first created us.
Never stop believing in us, even when we struggle to believe in
ourselves.
When we leave this chapel today, remind us that we are more
than our past, more than our failures, and more than the
opinions of others. We are Your beloved sons, redeemed by
Your Cross, sustained by Your mercy, and called to become
saints.
For You are the greatest Treasure we will ever find, and in
finding You, we finally discover who we truly are.
Amen.

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Homily – SIXTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME: THE STORY GOD READS 07-19-26

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Welcome to From the Prison Chapel, a weekly feature from Dismas Ministry.

Each week, we are honored to share a homily by Rev. Fr. Jarek Sniosek of the Diocese of Venice Jail and Prison Ministry. Fr. Jarek has graciously given Dismas Ministry permission to share his homilies with our supporters, volunteers, prison ministers, and friends.

We present each homily in its original form, preserving the message as it was written. Following the homily, you’ll find a brief prayer.

 

📖 Wisdom 12:13, 16–19; Psalm 86; Romans 8:26–27; Matthew 13:24–43.

 

A man who had spent years in prison once rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and looked quietly at the tattoos covering his arms. Some reminded him of the gang he had once believed would never abandon him. Others marked decisions he would give anything to undo. Every image carried a memory. Every memory carried a regret.

Someone asked him gently, “Have you ever thought about having them removed?”

He smiled and answered, “I have. But even if every tattoo disappeared, I would still remember why I got them. My biggest problem isn’t what’s written on my skin. It’s making sure it isn’t still written on my heart.”

Then, after a long silence, he added something he had learned through years of struggle.

“But here’s the good news. God reads hearts much better than He reads tattoos.”

That may be one of the most beautiful ways to understand today’s Gospel. Jesus tells a story about wheat and weeds growing together in the same field. The servants want to pull up the weeds immediately. They want everything cleaned up as quickly as possible. But the owner says, “No. Wait.” Why? Because he knows something they do not. He knows that if they rush to judge the field, they may destroy the wheat that is still growing.

That is exactly how God looks at us.

People usually see the outside first. They see the arrest record, the newspaper headline, the prison sentence, the addiction, the divorce, the failure, the mistake that changed everything. Many people decide who we are by looking at one chapter of our lives.

God never does.

He looks beneath the surface. He sees the tears nobody else has seen. He hears the prayers whispered in the darkness. He notices every sincere effort to change, every apology, every temptation resisted, every act of kindness that no one applauds. While others may still see weeds, God already sees wheat beginning to grow.

And here is the part of the Gospel that can change not only your life but also this entire place. If God can already see the wheat growing in you, then He can also see the wheat growing in the man sleeping in the bunk next to you. That difficult person, the one who gets on your nerves, the one everyone has written off, the one you struggle to forgive—Christ may already be doing His quiet work in his heart as well. Before you decide who someone is, remember how patiently God has decided who you can become.

The Book of Wisdom tells us something remarkable today. Because God is all-powerful, He is also patient. Human beings often think power means acting quickly and punishing immediately. God shows His strength differently. His strength is revealed through mercy. He gives people time to repent, time to heal, time to become the person He created them to be. That means none of us should ever decide that someone—including ourselves—is beyond hope.
Now, I know what some of you may be thinking. “Father, you don’t know what I’ve done.”
You’re right. I don’t.

But God does.

And He still brought you here today.

That tells me something.

Your worst decision did not have the final word. If it had, you wouldn’t be sitting here listening to the Gospel. The fact that you are here means God is still writing your story.
Sometimes we spend so much time wishing we could erase the past that we forget something even more important. God is not asking us to erase yesterday. He is asking us to surrender today. We cannot rewrite yesterday’s pages, but with His grace we can decide what gets written on the next one.

St. Paul gives us another comforting promise. He says that even when we do not know how to pray, the Holy Spirit prays within us. Isn’t that encouraging? There are days when the only prayer we can manage is, “Lord… help me.” There are days when words simply won’t come because shame, fear, loneliness, or regret have stolen them. Yet even then, God understands the language of a broken heart. Before we can even finish our prayer, the Holy Spirit is already carrying it to the Father.

And perhaps that’s why I love that man’s words so much.

“My biggest problem isn’t what’s written on my skin. It’s making sure it isn’t still written on my heart.”

When he first got those tattoos, they told the story of who he thought he was. Years later, they became a reminder not of his past, but of God’s mercy. He discovered that while tattoos may remain on the skin, they do not have to remain on the heart.

The same is true for every one of us.

Maybe everyone outside still remembers your past. Maybe some people will always define you by the worst thing you have ever done. That is their choice.

But it does not have to become yours.

And it does not have to become the way you see the men around you either. Every person in this chapel is more than the worst decision he has ever made. Every man here is still a field where God is patiently at work. Some wheat is easier to see than others, but the Lord never stops cultivating hearts that are willing to let Him in.

Because today Jesus asks a different question. He does not ask, “What did your life look like years ago?” He asks, “What is growing in your heart today?”

If the answer is faith, even a little… if the answer is hope, even when it feels fragile… if the answer is repentance, however imperfect… then the wheat is already growing.

And where Christ sees wheat, He never gives up on the harvest.

Prayer
Lord Jesus, there are moments when I look at my past and wonder whether I can ever become the person You created me to be. Sometimes I remember my failures more easily than I remember Your mercy. Sometimes I believe the labels others have placed on me more than the name You call me by: beloved.

Teach me to see others with the same patient eyes with which You see me. When I am tempted to judge, remind me how gently You have judged my own life. Help me never to forget that every person I meet is someone You are still loving, still healing, and still calling by name.

Today I place my heart into Your hands. Pull out whatever keeps me far from You—not by force, but by the gentle power of Your love. Give me the courage to stop living as the person I used to be and the hope to become the person You already see.

When I grow impatient with myself, remind me that You are patient. When I feel ashamed, remind me that Your mercy is greater than my past. When I cannot find the words to pray, let Your Holy Spirit pray within me.

Help me believe that my story is not finished, that my life is more than my worst mistake, and that with You, even the field where weeds once seemed to flourish can become a harvest of grace. May I leave this chapel today determined not only to let You grow wheat in my own heart, but also to believe that You are quietly growing it in the hearts of my brothers as well.

Amen.

 

 

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