Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church

Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church Blessed Sacrament Church is a Roman Catholic Parish committed to worshipping God and serving Jesus Christ. Go 1/2 mi. Allen & N. Manning.

We and our school serve the educational, sacramental, social, and spiritual needs of our community; we invite you to find out more and join us. Keeping Jesus at the center of all that we do and taking his direction in all things, we celebrate the sacraments, strive to be charitable to all, and serve God and our neighbors. This page has the most recent updates on our parish and school happ

enings and events. Directions:
From the West & East: Take I-90 to Exit 5 - Everett Road South
Make a left on Central Ave. to the church
Take a left on Colby St. to park in the lot in back

From the North & South: Take I-87 to I-90 E to Exit 5 - Everett Road South
Make a left on Central Ave. to the church
Take a left on Colby St. to park in the lot in back

By Bus: CDTA Bus Routes 1 (blue), 712 (orange) & 125 (green)
drop off at Lawrence St., right in front of the Church. Also, BusPlus Route 905 (red) drops off 1 block in either
direction of the church at N.

08/31/2026

Fr. Dan's homily this past Sunday:
I like to think of characters in the Bible in terms of their whole story arc, where they start and how they progress and where they finish, the way I might think of some of my favorite fictional characters. This isn’t to downplay the reality of the biblical characters, but to enhance the reality of the fictional. There’s something very real about the hobbits in the Lord of the Rings, or alien characters I watch in Star Trek, or the dogs in Bluey.
Everyone has a story arc, and the characters we read about in our readings today are very much in the middle of theirs. They are reluctant, or hesitant, or confused about God’s will for them, not having reached full understanding yet.
Jeremiah, for instance, did not get what he expected, when he was asked to be a prophet. He’s suffering; people hate him; he was put in the stocks for saying what God gave him to say: “Thus says the Lord…”.
And yet, if he refuses to go do his job, his role, as a prophet, it’s like he’s holding it in, like fire burning in his bones. He has to let it out. It’s his life’s calling; he must do it.
The same goes for Jesus today. He must fulfill his mission, even if it results in his death. And so he told his disciples this, and they got upset. Peter in particular starts to tell Jesus how it ought to go.
There’s a rule of thumb for New Testament characters: If you’re telling Jesus what to do, you’re in a bad spiritual space. Things are the wrong way round. Whenever that happens, it’s clear that they are not thinking as God thinks; they are not on the same spiritual wavelength. And I don’t mean asking for things, but telling Jesus what he should do. There’s a difference between asking and telling. We of course can ask for things, in prayer.
So, for instance, Martha tells Jesus to tell Mary to help her in the kitchen. And Jesus says, “No, Mary is where she needs to be, sitting at the teacher’s feet”. The mother of James and John asks Jesus to have them sit at his right and left in his kingdom, like princes. And Jesus says, “No one can ask for that; that has been planned by my Father”.
And in today’s reading, Peter tells Jesus “nothing so bad as that should ever happen to you!” Peter gets mad at Jesus for bringing up suffering. And Jesus gets mad at Peter for trying to avoid the suffering.
There’s always suffering. This is life. It’s not pretty, but we suffer all the time. We even sign up for suffering: we don’t know what the future brings, and that’s part of the reason we make the vows. Whatever happens, good times or bad, sickness or health, I go through it with you. And the other person says, whatever happens, good times or bad, sickness or health, I’ll go through it with you! And sometimes that ‘s not easy to fulfill.
Peter didn’t understand this yet, but he’s still in the middle of his story arc. He’s still learning who Jesus is and God’s ways. He certainly didn’t realize that to try to talk Jesus out of the cross is to be on the same wavelength as Satan. He sounds, inadvertently, just like the temptations Jesus experienced in the desert. Martha and the mother of James and John may not have been on the same wavelength as Jesus, but Peter, in this instance, was completely on the wrong wavelength, he was on the wavelength of Satan.
We can’t have Christianity without the cross, without suffering.
The alternative is to not suffer for others, not to care for others, or to do so begrudgingly, or only when there’s something in it for us. To make a donation, and then to spend twice as much publicizing the donation. To seek justice for a crime only when there’s a promise of a reward. These sorts of actions cannot be described as loving, except perhaps as self-loving.
So Jesus does not let the idea even enter his mind that he could get out of his responsibility and his duty and his mission, and live a different or more comfortable life. I know that Martin Scorsese has that film that explores this idea, of how Jesus experienced temptations such as this, and that's fine, that’s a piece of art, and a filmmaker's prerogative, to play with ideas about what it must have been like for Jesus to be tempted. But Jesus must reject it. He would be selling out his soul. We would sell out our souls if we didn’t hold to our responsibilities. Because temptations get to us as well, and we must not shirk our responsibilities to our neighbor, to the truth, to God.
We are called to be living sacrifices, as St. Paul says today (Rom 12). And there’s always a danger with living sacrifices, with people like Jeremiah, with Peter, with you and me. We are called to be sacrifices, but living sacrifices. Usually sacrifices placed on altars are killed, and so given to God. The trouble with living sacrifices is that they keep crawling off the altar. So Jeremiah tried to crawl off the altar, but in the end crawled back on.
And Peter, for his part, at the end of his life, a life full of proclaiming the Good News and teaching God’s ways and leading the church, he ends up in Rome, during the persecution of Christians, and he’s leaving Rome because of the persecutions, and he meets Jesus, or has a vision of Jesus on the road while leaving, and he asks Jesus “Where are you going?” And Jesus responds, “I’m going into the city, to be crucified again.” And Peter, understanding that this is his next and final participation in the willing sacrifice of Jesus, turns around, goes back to the city, and is ultimately arrested and he himself crucified, upside down.
We also suffer, we also are tempted. Let’s ask God for the strength to live our lives, our missions, as he teaches us and models for us, which is ultimately for our good, and for the good of all of his creation.

08/30/2026

From Fr. Quinn:
I’m happy to be back from retreat, and also a week of vacation, and I hope that everyone else who has been away for vacation, retreat, renewal, or reset in any way has had the opportunity. For myself, I was at a Franciscan Monastery, with a host who spoke almost no English, and so it was a good week of quiet prayer, without many distractions.
This Sunday, the key phrase for me in the Gospel is Jesus saying to Peter “You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”
Should it be expected that we are able to think as God thinks? That seems like a tall order! Can I think as a dog thinks? I’m not a dog. Can I think like a mosquito thinks? I’m not a mosquito, and I never will be.
I have had to learn how to think the way a computer, photocopier, or other piece of machinery “thinks”. But isn’t that more about getting into the mind of the programmer? About how they designed and built the machine? Learning the principles of good design, programming, and organization helps one to design systems or machines that are intuitive and easy for others to use. (Just ask a library scientist!)
Similarly, learning how to think like a dog, or a horse, helps one to be a good trainer, a good companion, and a good human for the animal, whether riding the horse or directing the sheepdog.
Jesus is so upset here because he knows it is possible for Peter, and any of us, to grow in our understanding of the mind of God. Maybe he thought Peter had made such progress, and yet Peter’s actions here clearly show the contrary, thus disappointing Jesus. But divinization, sanctification, conversion of our minds to the ways and understandings of God is possible. May we always endeavour to get into the mind of the maker! (As it so happens, The Mind of the Maker is an excellent book by Dorothy L. Sayers.)

The school entrance is getting some TLC by the memorial tree and dedication stone! Many thanks to the Alarcon Family fo...
08/29/2026

The school entrance is getting some TLC by the memorial tree and dedication stone! Many thanks to the Alarcon Family for all their hard work! Stop by to see the finished product, either before or after mass, or at the school's open house, this Wednesday, Sep. 2, from 5-7 PM.

Look at what is RETURNING to Blessed Sacrament, for our parish AND school children: Catechesis of the Good Shepherd! We'...
08/28/2026

Look at what is RETURNING to Blessed Sacrament, for our parish AND school children: Catechesis of the Good Shepherd! We're currently getting the atrium ready, and need help with some crafts, so if you're crafty, give Fr. Quinn and Ms. Jensen a call. And if you have 3-, 4-, 5-, or 6-year-old children, contact Ms. Jensen to sign up!

Many thanks to the guys who repaired our air conditioning! This is the first big repair since it was installed. I'm th...
08/28/2026

Many thanks to the guys who repaired our air conditioning! This is the first big repair since it was installed. I'm thankful also to those parishioners who were generous to be able to donate towards the repairs, for the sake of us all! There is still one more repair to be made, to the rattling unit in the Mary Chapel. Please be patient, and restricted donations are always welcomed.

08/27/2026

Fr. Quinn's Homily from this past Sunday:

How many of us have nicknames? Are there people among our families or friends who have nicknames? In my generation of my friends and classmates where we grew up, no one really had nicknames for each other. I’ve never had a nickname, and I tried one on a friend once, and he didn’t like it, so he has always gone by his full name. But of those who do, nicknames stick when they are terms of endearment, and when they say something about the person.
Jesus asks a question about his identity, about what people understand him to be. The disciples have a lot of answers, but none of them satisfy Jesus: Elijah, John the Baptist, prophet, Christ. The danger here is that they are all comparisons, analogies, or words with too much baggage.
There’s a danger to nicknames, labels, or descriptors because they are limited. They can make someone a stereotype, or be reductive of a person. “I know everything I need to know about someone as soon as I know they’re from California.” Well, that can’t be true. A label can categorize me, and gives the impression that my actions are determined and flow out from this identity.
For instance, there’s a big difference between saying “that person is a nag” and saying “that person nagged me”. The second is just one action among many, while the first is completely dismissive of the entire person. It reduces the person, and gives the impression that they have no choice but to act this way, as if they have no free will or could never grow or change. It’s dismissive, and insulting.
So, nicknames, for the same reasons, are tricky! Jesus doesn’t want to be called “Christ” yet, because it will be misunderstood. It’s true; he is the Christ. He is the anointed one, the promised messiah that they had waited for. But people are going to expect the Christ to free them from oppression and occupation by the Romans, or another foreign power.
But instead, Jesus has come to save all humanity, not just the Jewish people, and he isn’t going to lead an army to conquer another nation, like King David. Instead, he conquers sin, death, and evil.

But then Jesus turns around and gives Peter a nickname! Nowadays we give people the name Peter as a name, but it’s a nickname. “Peter” is “Petrus”, which in English is “rock”. So, Jesus gives Simon the nickname “Rocky”. Now, we might call someone “dumb as a box of rocks”, but that’s not why Jesus nicknames him “Rocky”. He has the nickname “Rocky” because Jesus needs him to be solid, to be a foundation, something on top of which things can be built. You can’t build on top of squishy or flighty people.
So, does Peter live up to his nickname? Or when push comes to shove, is he flighty? Peter didn’t stay put when Jesus was arrested. He wasn’t by his side. Jesus’ mom and Mary Magdalene were there, but where were you, “Rocky”?
This is not the story that heroes have. We want the Man of Steel, or Ironman, or Powerman, or even Rocky Balboa. But the guy that runs away? Rocky? Peter? We shouldn’t want him as a friend, or as a hero, or as a foundation.
But Jesus picks this guy anyway. Why? Well, Jesus doesn’t pick a strong person, he makes a strong person. Why? God is a creator, not a scavenger. He doesn’t have to search around and find what he wants. He just makes it. God can make things out of nothing!
Peter was practically a nobody. He was just one fisherman among the many fishermen living and working in Galilee. And that’s ok. It’s ok to be a fisherman.
Regardless, Jesus can make Simon into Peter, if he would let him. Jesus still makes this type of person. The Church makes this type of person. Think of the people you have really looked up to. But think of the role models we have in the church. Maybe you’re thinking of someone personally whom you know. That’s good, but think also of the saints. Look at the quality of the people we fill our churches with: St. Joseph – what a good guy! St. Paul, St. Thérèse, St Anthony. They have been given the nickname “Saint”, and if we allow God to continue to create us, to work on building us, will will be given the nickname “Saint” as well!

08/11/2026

Funeral for Anthony A. Campione.
Rev. Patterson, presiding.

08/03/2026

Fr. Quinn's homily today:
After weeks of agricultural readings about seeds, w**ds, buying valuable land, and today finally we talk about food. Well, actually, at first all of our readings mention hunger, or indeed, famine, first, and then speak about that hunger being satisfied by food provided by God.
The apostles in particular are directed to go feed the multitude. Firstly, I get the feeling that this was their food that they had brought for their own dinner, which they are now being asked to give up. But secondly, with the thousands of people gathered to meet Jesus, they certainly believe it to be impossible. However, Jesus has them bring the food to him first. He blesses it, and then they get to work feeding people. And, all being fed, the impossible came to pass, but only with the power of God.
Our vocations also involve things that seem impossible. Priesthood, religious life, marriage. People sometimes think of priesthood as a job with bizarre job requirements, of celibacy, of prayer, of obedience, of belief in certain things. Similarly, the poverty of religious life and the obligations of married life can seem very difficult, almost impossible. But these vocations are not jobs, but a way of life Hood has called us to. Just like the promises of marriage, the promises I made at ordination always impose upon me: I am always expected to pray with and for the people of God, and to be available when I’m needed.
Similarly, spouses don’t look at each other as jobs they hold. They don’t look forward to the day when they can retire from them and be done taking care of the other person, or at least, I hope not. You’re there for the good times and the bad times, the joys and the difficulties! Sometimes it seems impossibly difficult to fulfill the promises that spouses make to love, “as Christ loves his Church” as St. Paul says. It is also the responsibility of priests to fulfill their promises to love, including on the days when it is difficult.
Tuesday is the feast day of the patron saints of parish priests, St. John Marie Vianney. I will celebrate his feast day in the midst of my retreat this week. John Vianney was a nineteenth century French priest, who many thought was unfit for the priesthood. He wasn’t book-smart. He had bad grades in school, and so as an adult in seminary he had to take classes with children, and had to suffer their taunts. He thought that it might be impossible that he’d ever be a priest.
But he knew the Gospel. It was in exploring the life and the teachings of Jesus where he learned the most important lessons for his life, and ultimately for his priesthood. And he didn’t need a degree to tell him he had learned it. The proof that he had learned it was his way of life. And as with many of the saints, a well-lived life, lived for Jesus, is what causes the Church to bestow on them the title of Saint, and to propose them as examples to follow.
St. John Vianney, and all the saints, rely on God’s help, particularly in the sacraments. John knew that the sacraments are encounters with the loving, healing, and forgiving God. Not only was John able to approach the sacraments humbly to encounter Jesus, to be fed by the one who always has enough food for all, but he was called to be a provider of those sacraments for God’s people, as a priest.
Not only would John Vianney celebrate the Eucharist daily for his people, but he would sit in the confessional for up to 16 hours each day, letting people have all the time they needed to talk to God, to receive his forgiveness, and experience his transforming power in their lives.

Now, the church just isn’t complete without priests. It’s also not complete without sisters, and religious brothers. It’s not complete without missionaries. But to know our calling we must take the time to be quiet, to be contemplative, and to listen in prayer to the voice of God.
This is the reason for retreats. This is the reason for setting aside time for prayer. It’s also the reason we’re setting aside a room in our School and for our parish for Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. Some of you ma\y remember that Blessed Sacrament had done this once before. And last year we put it in Mater Christi School, and St. Pius School has done it for a while, and so has the Cathedral.
This is a style of faith formation for the youngest of children, 3, 4, 5 years old, where they are invited to work with materials that tell the story of Jesus, his parables, and the things they see in the Church and at Mass. In particular, it gives the littlest children the time to think and ponder and wonder about these things without rushing them. We’re giving the kids a solid 1 1/2 to 2 hours each week. It’s contemplative, not rushed.
It’s only in slowing down and listening that we hear the voice of the Lord, calling us to him, giving us his blessing, and sending us out to do what at first we might have thought impossible.

07/31/2026

Fr. Quinn's homily from this past Sunday:
We have had a lot of agricultural parables from Jesus lately. And that’s fine; eating food is something everyone does every day. But today’s parables include a couple of parables concerning merchants and realtors.
Now, I don’t presume to know much about how business or land management work, but let’s see what we can glean from these parables anyway:
“The kingdom of heaven is like…” Before we go any farther, these are important words. Everyone should have an idea of what the Kingdom of Heaven is like; otherwise, we have no motivation to move toward it. And it’s probably best if what we imagine heaven is like is something like how Jesus describes it. And there are more than enough descriptions to be found in the Bible (many often made into artworks). Jesus calls it a banquet, it’s described as a new Jerusalem, or other times as a wedding.
And today, “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field,” or also “the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls.”
For people trading or doing business, the goal is…what? The best price for the best-quality product. For someone who sells tracts of land, they have to know what their buyer is looking for. So, the people looking to buy it are looking for what? Maybe good trees for lumber; maybe the sort of land with good soil for farming; maybe land with resources of ore, or oil, or a vein of gold? Maybe they’re looking for good riverfront for fishing, or maybe hunting lands, or maybe just something quiet and out-of-the-way, with a good view.
Anyhow, the character in Jesus’ parable finds a good piece of land, with something buried in it. Maybe it’s something natural, like oil, or maybe it’s something left there by some previous owner. Either way, the buyer recognizes it as valuable. He or she desires it. So what else is there to do but to gain it for him or herself. He has to own that field, but to do so requires selling everything else in order to be able to.
I myself would not recognize the difference between a pearl of lesser value and one of great price. I’m just not versed in it. I’ll react to beautiful things when I see them, but I’m not a jeweler, if that makes any sense. But also, recognizing the difference between the ordinary and the extraordinary, especially when they can be so close together.Even what we do today for the little one to be baptized. This is a simple washing with water, and yet it’s extraordinary; it’s so much more than an ordinary washing with water. We see the difference: between an ordinary pearl, the simple beauty inherent in giving a baby a bath, and the pearl of great price, the baptismal bath.
There’s something clearly better, or something more long-lasting, even eternal, about this pearl, this piece of art, this treasure buried in a field. And to acquire it, as businessmen do, they have to negotiate, trade, buy and sell, and so “use the good things of the world in such a way as to hold fast to those that ever endure.”
We’re not talking greed, just the pursuit, what can be a holy pursuit. And to satisfy the legitimate yearnings of your soul, what are you going to do? “The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls. When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it.”
What are you willing to do to acquire what needs to be acquired, to satisfy the yearnings of your soul?

Fr. Dan will be away this week on retreat; plese pray for him!

07/19/2026

Last week, in his parable, Jesus talked about seeds, and this week, he talks about w**ds.
Both, plants that are helpful for us and also w**ds, start off as seeds, a lot smaller than the big things they grow into. They grow into good things or into bad things.
But sometimes we can be mistaken about what is a w**d and what isn’t. Let’s take as an example the dandelion. Dandelions live on every continent except Antarctica. They reproduce very quickly. There’s no need for pollination, because they are asexual; they can make about 1,000 seeds per year. And the whole thing is edible:

The leaves are edible raw, as salad, or tea, best in the spring.
The flowers are sweet in flavor, made into wine.
The roots can be eaten like other roots, like carrots.
They ae full of vitamins A, C, K, Potassium, Iron, and Zinc.
They can be used medicinally, as a diuretic and an anti-inflammatory.

So are dandelions w**ds, or the easiest crop to grow? A w**d is something that has no redeeming value, and that chokes out the useful plants. It is something that lives for itself and for nothing else, for no one else. Thorny plants, inedible plants, plants that suck up all the water, away from the good plants. It is my conviction that in the Garden of Eden, there are no w**ds, just the plants that are good for us. No poisonous ones, no thorny ones. There are w**ds that live around here: thistle, honeysuckle, and knotw**d are all invasive w**ds in New York. But dandelions aren’t one of them.

This mistaken identity about dandelions goes to show that we can be wrong about what are w**ds and what aren’t.
A prison chaplain of our diocese, Fr. Shaw, in his book about working in the prisons, mentions that some of his inmate friends, who are guilty of horrible crimes, surprisingly turn out to be the most fruitful people in God’s fields. He tells of a particular young man who repeatedly showed up in his jail for armed robbery. Eventually, he was hired to burn down a house for insurance fraud, and in the process badly burned himself. He went through a long recovery process, requiring skin grafts and physical therapy, and all that time Fr. Shaw cared for him and worked on him and prayed for him and prayed with him, and afterward, this man returned to his life of crime. Fr. Shaw eventually lost track of him, until 20 years later, when he received a letter from this man explaining that he was married, had a couple of kids, a home, a steady job, and he takes a lot of time to spend with his family.
This man was probably considered a w**d by many people. If he had been uprooted as a w**d too early, he never would have borne wheat, he never would have borne fruit. If he had been treated as a w**d by everyone, including the priest chaplain, he may not have ever borne fruit.
But there’s a stunning truth here: even if humans don’t see the good, God loves us when we are good and God loves us when we are bad, and feeds us with rain and sunlight regardless.
And so maybe instead of reading this parable only as two types of people: the w**d-people and the wheat-people, the “good” people and the “bad” people, we can see ourselves as fields in which both wheat and w**ds can grow.
There might be some w**ds growing in us that take a long time to rip out, and that we have to deal with, even while we’re also growing wheat. We may have sins to deal with, while at the same time we’re also bearing fruit.
Taking care of the roots of sin and w**ds can be done now or later. But it’s better if it is never planted as a seed, because it’s much more painful to rip them out full-grown. Remember: “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off, because it’s better for that to happen than to have your whole body thrown into Gehenna.”
If we have deeply rooted sins, vices, they are going to have to be ripped out of us, here on earth or at least in purgatory. It can also be a painful purification process. But remember that Jesus is the gardener of our souls, and if he is truly the good gardener, as he is the good shepherd and the good fisherman, then all his gardening and w**ding in us ultimately for our good.

La semana pasada, en su parábola, Jesús habló de semillas, y esta semana habla de la mala hierba.
Tanto las plantas que nos son útiles como la mala hierba comienzan como semillas, mucho más pequeñas que las grandes plantas en las que se convertirán. Crecen para llegar a ser cosas buenas o cosas malas.
Pero a veces podemos equivocarnos sobre qué es mala hierba y qué no lo es. Tomemos como ejemplo el diente de león. Los dientes de león viven en todos los continentes excepto en la Antártida. Se reproducen muy rápidamente. No necesitan polinización, ya que son asexuales; pueden producir unas 1.000 semillas al año. Y toda la planta es comestible:

Las hojas se pueden comer crudas, en ensalada o en infusión; son mejores en primavera.
Las flores tienen un sabor dulce y se utilizan para elaborar vino.
Las raíces se pueden comer igual que otras raíces, como las zanahorias.
Están llenas de vitaminas A, C y K, además de potasio, hierro y zinc.
Pueden utilizarse con fines medicinales, como diurético y antiinflamatorio.

Entonces, ¿son los dientes de león mala hierba o el cultivo más fácil de producir? Una mala hierba es algo que no tiene ningún valor positivo y que ahoga a las plantas útiles. Es algo que vive para sí mismo y para nada ni nadie más. Plantas espinosas, plantas no comestibles, plantas que absorben toda el agua, privando de ella a las buenas plantas. Estoy convencido de que en el Jardín del Edén no hay mala hierba, solo plantas que son buenas para nosotros. Nada de plantas venenosas ni espinosas. Aquí hay malas hierbas: el cardo, la madreselva y la centinodia son especies invasoras en Nueva York. Pero el diente de león no es una de ellas.

Esta confusión sobre el diente de león demuestra que podemos equivocarnos al distinguir qué es mala hierba y qué no.
Un capellán de prisiones de nuestra diócesis, el padre Shaw, menciona en su libro sobre el trabajo en las cárceles que algunos de sus amigos reclusos —culpables de crímenes horribles— resultan ser, sorprendentemente, las personas más fructíferas en los campos de Dios. Relata el caso de un joven que ingresaba repetidamente en prisión por robo a mano armada. Finalmente, fue contratado para incendiar una casa con el fin de cometer un fraude al seguro y, durante el proceso, sufrió quemaduras graves. Pasó por un largo proceso de recuperación que requirió injertos de piel y fisioterapia; durante todo ese tiempo, el padre Shaw lo cuidó, lo atendió y rezó por él y con él. Sin embargo, más tarde, aquel hombre regresó a su vida delictiva. El padre Shaw acabó perdiéndole la pista, hasta que, veinte años después, recibió una carta en la que el hombre explicaba que estaba casado, tenía un par de hijos, un hogar y un trabajo estable, y que dedicaba mucho tiempo a su familia.
Probablemente, muchas personas consideraban a este hombre como mala hierba. Si lo hubieran arrancado como mala hierba demasiado pronto, nunca habría dado trigo; nunca habría dado fruto. Si todos lo hubieran tratado como mala hierba —incluido el sacerdote capellán—, tal vez nunca habría llegado a dar fruto.
Pero aquí hay una verdad asombrosa: aunque los seres humanos no veamos el bien, Dios nos ama cuando somos buenos y nos ama cuando somos malos, y nos nutre con la lluvia y la luz del sol en ambos casos.
Así pues, tal vez en lugar de interpretar esta parábola simplemente como dos tipos de personas —las que son mala hierba y las que son trigo, las «buenas» y las «malas»—, podamos vernos a nosotros mismos como campos donde crecen tanto el trigo como la mala hierba.
Es posible que en nuestro interior crezcan malas hierbas que requieran mucho tiempo para ser arrancadas y con las que debamos lidiar, incluso mientras cultivamos trigo. Puede que tengamos pecados que afrontar al mismo tiempo que damos fruto.
Podemos ocuparnos de las raíces del pecado y de la mala hierba ahora o más adelante. Pero es mejor que nunca lleguen a sembrarse, pues resulta mucho más doloroso arrancarlas cuando ya han crecido del todo. Recordemos: «Si tu mano te hace pecar, córtatela; es mejor que eso suceda a que todo tu cuerpo sea arrojado a la Gehena».
Si tenemos pecados o vicios profundamente arraigados, habrá que arrancarlos de nosotros, ya sea aquí en la tierra o, al menos, en el purgatorio. Puede tratarse, asimismo, de un doloroso proceso de purificación. Pero recuerda que Jesús es el jardinero de nuestras almas y que, si verdaderamente es el buen jardinero —así como es el buen pastor y el buen pescador—, entonces toda su labor de cultivo y de eliminación de malas hierbas en nosotros es, en última instancia, para nuestro bien.

Address

607 Central Avenue
Albany, NY
12206

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 4pm
Tuesday 9am - 4pm
Wednesday 7am - 4pm
Thursday 9am - 4pm
Friday 9am - 4pm
Saturday 3pm - 5pm
Sunday 8:30am - 11am

Telephone

(518) 482-3375

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