Sixteenth Sunday ot 7 19 2026 Deacon Louis Zemlick Wisdom,Pray, evil is real, Father help us, Mother Mary Pray for us

Wisdom 12:13, 16-19 No catechism teaching CCC means Catechism Catholic Church CCC 0 read all of Chapter 12 read :14 nor can any King or Monarch confront you, maybe this got removed why ? 

Psalm 86:5-6, 9-10, 15-16 No CCC teaching read it all especially the edit outs.

Romans 8:26-27 CCC2736,2739,2766,2559,2630,2634,741,2543 so its all about Prayer really worth the read.

Gospel Matthew 13:24-43 CCC333,827,1034 If we dont try to Gods will were going to go to Hell, faith without works is Dead really dead.

Pray for Us Mother Mary and all you Saints, Lord Jesus save us, Father God thank you.....Holy Spirit guide us...Love and Forgive 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Epiphany Podcast Radio Program. This is Deacon Louis Zimlik here in the Diocese of Kalamazoo. We're glad you're with us here today. And I'm just trying to get my CD working here. I don't know if it's gonna happen or not, but that's okay. So um yeah, so really some uh crazy weather, right? Things we're not in control of over, you know, like like wildfire smoke, or we think our neighbors burn the leaves next door, and they're not. But I did see somebody burning a campfire, which I was kind of surprised of to see that. But um, you know, even in the middle of the middle of the summer, you know, they got a campfire going on. But anyway, hey, my brothers and sisters, it's good to be with you today on this 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time, um, you know, coming up this week too. And also uh notice that uh today, uh the 19th of July uh Sunday, this 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time is also the anniversary of St. John Pleasington and his hanging hung by the neck in 1679, hung by the neck until dead, and then drawn and quartered. And if you don't know what that means, you can look it up on the internet. And you know what his crime was, my brothers and sisters? His crime was that he was a Catholic priest in England. And the King of England uh didn't like Catholic priests, so that's what he was doing. He was murdering as many of them as he could. And so, hey, you know, you think you're having a bad day? That's what a bad day is. So, but it's also for us to remember in a certain way, for us to remember how a government's how uh I'm not talking necessarily about the United States government, at least not today anyway, but how we can come to these totalitarian states where we have politicians, powerful people uh making decisions for us. And we can even reflect even a little bit about that onto the Catholic Church as well, you know. But we want to try to be a power of good, right? And we also want to uh try to get along with each other. And last week also was the anniversary of the Eastern Church and the Western Church splitting back in 1054. And of course, you have the splitting, then splitting and splitting, and the, you know, of course, the Reformation, the Protestant Reformation, which, you know, part of this killing priests and outlawing Catholicism all developed out into as well. And uh now today we see a resurgence of Catholicism back into um the town square again, thanks be to God. But Jesus, my brothers and sisters, is the answer. Now, I know there's a lot of different religions out there, and you can follow those religions or spirituals if you want, but there is only one that really truly leads to the fulfillment of what God wants, and that is Jesus Christ. God made man. God comes down, you know, all these people who scream at Jesus, come down from the cross and I'll believe in you. Well, he has come down from the cross. God has died for us. God has saved us from eternal death. No other religion has done that. God has saved us from eternal death. And we're also called in the Catholic Church, we're called to have faith and reason, to use our brains. No other religions teach that. Unfortunately, even in some ways in the Protestant religion, they teach you not to think about it. You know, you just literally take literally everything that's in the Bible. And that's not always exactly the right thing to do. There's so many different interpretations, so many different theologians think different things, right? That's why we have the catechism of the Catholic Church to help us with that. But we're gonna have a reading today from the book of wisdom that is very much points directly to our hearts. There's no exact teaching on this piece of wisdom, but it is holy scripture, my brothers and sisters, at least in the Catholic Church it is. You know, along with 1st and 2nd Maccabees, which has a lot in it about um intercessory prayer. Even the book of James, they were thinking about outlawing at one time. Martin Luther didn't like that. And he was gonna outlaw that too. But uh let us go right into the scripture readings. I can, you know, go off into a thousand different directions here, and I don't want to do that, but um we're gonna go right into our readings today for this uh this Sunday that you will hear at Mass at most all the Catholic churches throughout the world. And if you any other uh you want to listen to the podcast, and of course, in our podcast too, we always list the um the catechism teachings. And if there's no catechism teaching, I'll put that right in there. No teaching on this in the catechism. But uh I also uh suggest that you look at this book of wisdom, chapter 12, and it's verse 13, 16, and then it skips 14 and 15. I think this has something to do with sin in there. I'm just I'm kind of making a little guess there, but I've got to check that later. But uh we see this happen in in the scriptures. We see Rome or the intellectuals within the church make these great, great, great poor decisions on editing scripture, which is always drives me crazy. But um let us go right into the readings and we'll talk about some of the teachings of these readings in the Catholic Church. And also this week, too, Saint Apollothanaris, St. Lawrence, Saint Mary Magdalene is on Wednesday the 22nd, as well as St. Bridget of Sweden. And then Saint James is next Saturday, July 25th. So let's go right to the readings today, lots to pray about. The Book of Wisdom, chapter twelve, verse thirteen, and then sixteen through nineteen. There is no God besides you who have the care of all, that you need show you have not unjustly condemned. For your might is the source of justice, your majesty over all things makes you lenient to all, for you show your might when the perfection of your power is disbelieved, and in those who know you you rebuke timetry, but though you are master of might, you judge with clemency and with much lenience you govern us for power wherever you will attend you, and you taught your people by these deeds that those who are just must be kind, and you gave your children good ground for hope that you would permit repentance for their sins. The word of the Lord, thanks be to God. Book of wisdom, my brothers and sisters. It's very powerful. And you notice I was intentionally reading these words very slowly because some of this stuff is very, you know, the it's it's it's written in a very uh stop and stop and go type way. The words are very thick, triple thick chocolate cake, sometimes I call that. You know, where you really just to for you to know your might when the perfection of your power is disbelieved. You hear that?

unknown 8:13

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

Okay, I'll come back. Psalm 86, our second reading, our next reading. Psalm 86, verses 5 through 6, 9 through 10, and 15 through 16. This one also there's not a catechism teaching. Lord, you are good and forgiving. You, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in kindness to all who call upon you. Hearken, O Lord, to my prayer and attend to the sound of my pleading. Lord, you are good and forgiving. All the nations you have made shall come and worship you, O Lord, and glorify your name, for you are great, and you do wondrous deeds. You alone are God. Lord, you are good and forgiving. You, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and fidelity. Turn toward me and have pity on me. Give your strength to your servant. Lord, you are good and forgiving. Our second reading is from the book of Romans, chapter eight, verses twenty-six and twenty seven. Brothers and sisters, the Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes with inexpressible groanings, and the one who searches hearts knows what is the intention of the Spirit, because he intercedes for the holy ones according to God's will. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. And our gospel reading today is the gospel of Matthew, chapter thirteen, verses twenty four through forty-three. There's a shorter version that ends at thirty, and um it leaves out the devil, which we don't want to leave the devil out because there's a lot of the devil stuff going on. A lot of evil in the world. A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew, glory to you, O Lord. Jesus proposed another parable to the crowd saying, The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everyone was asleep, his enemy came and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and then went off. When the crop grew and bore fruit, the weeds appeared as well. The slaves of the householder came to him and said, Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where have the weeds come from? He answered, An enemy has done this. His slave said to him, Do you want us to go and pull them up? No. He replied, No, if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them. Let them grow together until harvest. Then at harvest time I will s I will say to the harvesters, First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning, but gather my gather the wheat into my barn. He proposed another parable to them The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a person took and sowed in a field. It is the smallest of all the seeds, yet when full grown, it is the largest of plants, it becomes a large bush, and the birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches. He spoke to them another parable The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch was leavened. All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables. He spoke to them only in parables, to fulfill what had been said through the prophet. I will open my mouth in parables, I will announce what has laid hidden from the foundation of the world. Then he dismissed the crowds. He went into the house. His disciples approached him and said, Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the weeds in the field. He said in reply, He who sows good seeds is the Son of Man. The field is the world, the good seed the children of the kingdom, the weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is at the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. Just as 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 who caused others to sin, and all evil doers. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father. Whoever has ears ought to hear the gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ. May the words of this gospel wipe away our sins. My brothers and sisters, welcome to the Epiphany Podcast Radio Program. My name is Deacon Louis Zimlik here in the Diocese of Kamazoo, Michigan. We're glad you're with us here today on this beautiful Sunday, and we we pray for the Canadian wildfires to end. We have these wildfires constantly, and it's and it's uh you know, California has them. And uh, you know, these are things, these natural, sometimes natural disasters, sometimes it's it's uh uh negligence. There's been you know a forest fire or something, um uh or a campfire, and it's it's happened inadvertently. But um, my brothers and sisters, let us pray. Let us pray and understand that God is in charge, but let us also have faith and reason and the power of good works. And this is what Jesus is talking about in our gospel today is what are our works? What are the works that we're doing as brothers and sisters of Christ? But let us start off with the first reading. And I also want to mention and apologize that I've not talked about um theology of the body. I'm gonna do my very best at the end of this uh to talk about theology of the body, about marriage and the integral vision of man uh from St. Pope John Paul II. But let's look at this book of wisdom and all of these books that are in the Catholic Bible. Now, many will say, or some of our Protestant brothers, not all, some of the Protestant brothers and sisters say, you Catholics, put those books in there. It's like, well, we we we put the books together in the Bible, that's right, including the Bible that you have. Um, but it's Luther and King of England and all the reformers who decided to take books out. And it's very ironic that uh they're wisdom books, right? So knowledge to use this reason. And you and you have this a little bit with Islam too, you know, that you don't want to learn, you don't want the knowledge, you want to think about it because it almost becomes blasphemous, you know, to think about God or to talk about God in a way that things can things can change. We believe that. Everything is not just, you know, cookie-cutter type thing, you know, this is it, final. No. God wants us to work this out. Are we doing a good job? Uh, maybe, maybe not. You know, we have to ask God whether we're doing a good job or not. I think it's been kind of a mess, you know, even between the Eastern Church and the Western Church, even between some of the religions, and and you know, why Islam does not speak out when there's this murdering of people and the raping of women, why this these things are not by clerics, why these things are not denounced, you know, that that this evil is perpetrated against good people, you know, uh Hindus and Buddhists and you know, people fighting and killing each other. The leaders need to speak out in a very strong and powerful way. The leaders of these different religions need to speak out in a loud and powerful way if to legitimize your religion, if you are a religion of peace. If you are, speak of peace. Speak of not doing these atrocities, these horrible things. But we know well that in many of these religions, some of these, including Islam, you know, it's all about you know that everybody we gotta take over everything. Well, I don't know about you, and but most people want to be free, free to choose. Choose rightly, of course. But my brothers and sisters, this is this is the thing about faith, and this is the beautiful thing about the Roman Catholic Church, the Holy Catholic Church, both the East and the West, right? As we speak of reasoning, we speak of thinking, we speak of developing an attitude of love. And this love is fulfilled in a sacrificial love, my brothers and sisters, of dying for the other. Not killing people by conversion of a sword, not telling people, beating people over the head like they did in England, you know, if you don't become part of the Anglican church, then we're gonna we're gonna do like we did with that priest. We're gonna we're gonna kill him. We're gonna draw and quarter him, we're gonna put his head on the on the on the on the bridge in England. These are the things of the past, and unfortunately, some of us have not grown out of this. Some of us have not grown out of this this type of sick violence. And whenever a religion is talking about violence like that, my brothers and sisters, I would not be part of that. I would not be part of that. This is why the fulfillment of Judaism, the fulfillment of all of the prophecies that have been spoken about for the last 5,000 years, have come true in the man Jesus Christ on the cross. The man on the cross. It's real and it's freedom. You're not dictated that you must do this. But if you want eternal life, because that's why God came, you know, that's why God came to give us eternal life. That's why Jesus came to give us eternal life. And we see this in this book of wisdom. It's very good for all of us to read. You know, whether you're Catholic or not, read the book of wisdom. Read the holy scriptures in their full. My Protestant brothers and sisters who have never read these wisdom books, read these wisdom books. And then ask yourself, why don't we have these wisdom books? Why don't we preach on these? Of course they call them apocryphal. You know, they're not important. They're the these are books that the children read or whatever. Listen, wake up. Wake up and just think. It's maybe somebody lying to you. You know, whatever religion that you're in, if it is preaching hatred, I would not be there. I would not be part of that that part of that religion. God is not a God of hate. God is a God of love, pure love. And the only place where you find that perfection is in the Holy Eucharist, the sacrament of Holy Communion. And unfortunately, even for our Christian brothers and sisters, many of them have gotten rid of that because they've gotten rid of the priesthood. Right? They've gotten rid of the sacraments of baptism, the sacrament of matrimony, of marriage, the sacredness of marriage, the sacredness of having one wife, not ten. See? That the woman is to be respected, she's to be revered, see? And not to say, well, you don't put her in a position, but everyone has their role to play. Everyone. Men, women, children, old, young, everyone has their role to play at different points in their lives. See? And somehow we just we just wrestle against that. Because we are disobedient. Because we want our way. Because I want to be the boss. Well, you want to do the right thing, or do you just want to be right or think that you're right? Believe me, I've been there. I've done that. I'm a human being. I know what it's like. You know, I'm the boss. This is the way it's gonna be. Well, it's the wrong thing, Deacon Louie. What do you think now? Well, I better change my mind, right? I better change my mind. This is where faith and reason comes in. Encourage you to read that book of wisdom. Very powerful. Nothing on the kids. On the psalm reading, but very good to read and pray on. Now, Romans. Oh boy, we got lots of stuff from Romans. And it's really all about prayer, my brothers and sisters. And why do we complain of not being heard? Are we not? Here it is, 2736 of the 2736 Catechism. Are we not convinced that we do not know how to pray as we ought? Are we asking God for what is good for us? Question mark. See? Are we asking God to change us, to learn, to be converted, to do good works? And yes, that is part of your salvation is to do good works because God calls us for that. Read the book of James. It's in there over and over and over again. It's one of the reasons why they thought about the reformers, the Protestant Reformation thought about getting rid of the book of James completely. Just for that reason. Politics. Politics, my brothers and sisters. Why do you think we got 40,000 different Christian churches? Right? They have all the splinter groups and all these other religions, too. Because they've become politics, become all political, right? Become, I'm we're gonna agree with this stuff, we're gonna agree with that. Worldly power. Well, worldly power is not where it's at. Heavenly power. The kingdom of heaven is where it's at. And the kingdom of heaven, my brothers and sisters, can be found in the Holy Catholic Church. The Holy Catholic Church. Is our prayer efficacious? The Lord's prayer. As every vocal prayer, it is through the word of God that the Holy Spirit teaches the children to pray to their Father. God is our Father. All of us, all of the baptized Christians. So beautiful. Christ with his angels. We hear that a lot. You know, because this is what we have to think about in this gospel reading today that hell is real, that we're gonna end up in one of two places, heaven or hell. Hell is real, sin is real, happiness is real, and the most important thing: love is real. And love is that man, Jesus Christ, on the cross. And love, my brothers and sisters, is the Blessed Virgin Mary and all her holiness, is our Lady of Guadalupe, is Our Lady of Nak, is all our Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and how many ways that the Blessed Mother comes to us, and how many ways of all the different countries, of all the people, of all different ethnicities, of all different backgrounds, young and old, have her as their mother, and God as our father. We are a family, my brothers and sisters. Do not run away from the church. Do not choose anger and hatred and join this religion or that religion because they hate these people over here or those people over there. See? Do not join that religion. And pray and pray and pray. And my brothers and sisters, you know, we see we see stuff even that happens in the Catholic Church, between the East and the West, between the regular Mass and the Latin Mass. We even see it in that. These are things that we need to work on and are working on. This is our life. This is a family. This is just in many ways, just like marriage. Don't run away from your marriage. Times get tough, things get hard. I understand. I've seen it. I'm married. I understand. I understand. Not all of it, not all the tragedies and things. I don't understand some of those things that happened have not happened to me. I pray to God that they don't. Different trials, different really things where the devil is really trying to kill us. Literally, kill us spiritually, emotionally. So, my brothers and sisters, let us pray. Let us pray, pray, pray. And um read this whole if if you get you get to mass and they read the short version of the gospel, um, just you know, make a make a make a uh uh proclamation for the longer version. I always try to read the longer version, but sometimes the priest will tell me, you know, you got to read the short version. And uh I'm never very happy about that. But holiness is the answer, my brothers and sisters, and don't run away. Do not run away from the fight. I'm not saying you need to fight the fight, but uh, if you're able, if you're strong enough to uh battle it out and in good words of love and kindness and appreciation um for each other and and to do it like uh uh a good person, like a good Catholic person, then continue to do that and try to help try to help people. In his general audience on the 2nd of April, 1980, the Holy Father, Saint Pope John Paul II, continued his series on theology of the body. Only by going back to the beginning. See, don't run away. Only by going back to the beginning as Christ did in his answer to the Pharisees on divorce, can we get the total vision of man, male and female? And only can we adequately understand marriage and procreation, having a family. My brothers and sisters, life is very difficult, it's very hard. And you know, we see it as parents as we get older. You know, our our children lose their faith, they go to the university, they lose their faith, they go into the military, they lose their faith. They just lose their faith, they lose contact with God, conscious contact with God. It's very easy to do. And the best thing for us to do is to realize that, to understand that, is to see the times in our lives where it's happened to us, and to be able to share that with our loved ones, whether they're you know relatives or not, or people at work. And if you feel like you have lost your faith, if you haven't been to church in a long time, you haven't been to the Catholic Church in a long time, or you're going, you're uh have another religion that you're uh practicing, think about the Holy Catholic Church of coming in to the Holy Catholic Church. There are some churches that are more conservative than others, some more liberal than others. You know, and could you know sometimes people need that to feel that political or that to feel comfortable in that environment. And we understand, but you know, the truth is the truth, and hopefully, as you progress in your faith, you will come to know the fullness of the faith, especially in the Holy Eucharist. So, my brothers and sisters, pray, pray for your families, pray for peace, pray for um, pray for everyone who is lost, a lot of lost people out there, the homeless, the hungry, and those who will die today. May Almighty God bless you all. In the name of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit. Amen. God bless you all. We love you. Have a good week. Ask the Blessed Mother to help you too. Blessed Mother Mary, pray for us. Amen.