22 June 2016
Wednesday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time
Recent trends in education have identified a norm of judgment known as “outcomes assessment.” Those familiar with the insights of Jesuit Education, particularly those crafted by the educational standard of the Ratio Studiorum, created in 1599 know that looking for concrete outcomes is nothing new. Looking for concrete evidence is not any stranger to the gospel either. In today’s gospel Jesus equates the allegorical image of fruit with recognition of ultimate merit. It is a nice way of saying that all talk is not going to going to convince most people. So often today we can be easily swayed by a media blitz or a showy visual that, as Shakespeare stated in his play Macbeth that some things are “… a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Of course we may tempted to great things and then, realizing the futility of such efforts, sink back into malaise. Our soon to be canonized Mother Teresa of Calcutta advises wisely on this point when she admonishes us to do something beautiful for God, no matter how small.