"LORD, I AM NOT WORTHY . . . "

Homily for June 30^th, 2018. Matthew 8:5-17.

          The centurion who asks Jesus to heal his serving boy is a Roman military officer, something like a colonel today. This is clear from his response when Jesus says he will come at once to heal the boy. The officer shows both courtesy to Jesus and respect for the Jewish law by saying: “Lord, I am not worthy to have you under my roof.” Luke’s version of this story tells us that this Roman officer has taken a genuine interest in Jewish religion, and has even built a synagogue. He knows, therefore, that in entering a Gentile house Jesus could become ritually unclean. Hence the officer suggests an alternative: “Just give an order and my boy will be healed.” I do that all the time, he says. I give orders to those under my authority, and they do what I command.

          Upon hearing these words, Matthew tells us, Jesus “showed amazement.” Normally it is the witnesses of Jesus’ healings who are amazed. Here it is the Lord himself who shows amazement. I have not found faith like this from my own people, Jesus says. This outsider, who has neither our divine law, nor our prophets, he tells the people, shows greater faith than you do.

The words which follow about people coming from east and west to take seats at God’s heavenly banquet alongside Israel’s heroes are a prophecy of the Church. Originally a sect within Judaism, the Church would break out of its Jewish womb to become the worldwide community that we know today.

          The centurion’s words continue to resound two millennia later. “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof,” we say before we approach the Lord’s table to receive his Body and Blood, “but only say the word, and my soul shall be healed.” Even after a good confession, we are still unworthy of the Lord’s gift. He gives himself to us for one reason: not because we are good enough; but because he is so good that he longs to share his love with us.  

          How do we respond? By gratitude! By walking before the Lord in holiness and righteousness all our days, trusting that when the Lord calls us home to himself, we shall hear him saying to us, very personally and with tender love: “Well done. … Come and share your master’s joy.” (Matt. 25:21).

 

PETER AND PAUL

Homily for June 29^th, 2018.

AYou are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church.@ In Jesus= language, Aramaic, the words for Peter and Rock were the same. In calling his friend, Simon, APeter,@ Jesus was giving him a new name: ARock.@

In reality, Peter was anything but rocklike. When, on the night before he died, Jesus told Peter that within hours Peter would deny him three times, Peter protested: AEven though I have to die with you, I will never disown you.@ (Mt. 26:34f) We all know the sequel: Jesus was right, Peter wrong.

Jesus gave the position of leadership of his Church to the friend whose love was imperfect; whose impetuosity and weakness made the name Jesus gave him C Rock C ironic: as ironic as calling a 350-pound heavyweight ASlim.@  Before he was fit to become the Church=s leader, however, Peter had experience his weakness. He had to become aware that without a power greater than his own, he could do nothing.

With Peter the Church honors the Apostle Paul. His call was as surprising as the choice of Peter to be the Church=s leader.  Who could have imagined that the Church=s arch-persecutor, Saul, would become its first and greatest missionary, Paul? If Peter was impulsive, impetuous, and often weak, Paul was hypersensitive, touchy, subject to wide swings of mood: at times elated, at others tempted to self-pity. No one who knew Paul would ever have accused him of Ahaving it all together@ C to use modern jargon.

Is there anything like that in your life? When you look within, do you see any of Paul=s touchiness, or Peter=s impetuosity and weakness? Take heart! You have a friend in heaven C two friends, in fact: Peter and Paul. The same Lord who gave the vacillating Simon the name of ARock@; who summoned the Church=s arch-enemy, Saul, to be her great missionary, Paul, is calling you. In baptism he made you, for all time, his dearly loved daughter, his beloved son. He called you to be not only his disciple, but an apostle: his messenger to others. You say you=re not fit for that? You=re right. Neither am I! God often calls those who, by ordinary human standards, are unfit. But he always fits those whom he calls.  

God has a plan for your life, as surprising and wonderful as his plans for Peter and Paul. Knowing this, and aware of how God was accomplishing his plan in Paul=s own life, Paul could write: AI am sure of this much: that he who has begun the good work in you will carry it through to completion, right up to the day of Christ Jesus@ (Phil. 1:6).

Those words are part of the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. And the best news of all is simply this. The only thing that can frustrate the accomplishment of God plan C for you, for me, for any one of us C is our own deliberate and final No.

"BY THEIR FRUITS YOU WILL KNOW THEM."

Homily for June 28^th, 2018: Matthew 7:15-20.

          Catholics now in their late sixties came of age in a day when the Catholic Church was proud to be “the Church that never changes.” That boast was actually only half true – as such then young Catholics started to discover with the close of the Second Vatican Council in December 1965. The Church’s faith never changes. There has been development, of course. But we believe that this development has been guided by the Holy Spirit, so that what we believe today about the Pope, to take one example, is an entirely legitimate development of what the apostles believed. Just about everything else except our beliefs has changed and will change: styles of worship, of preaching, and methods of handing on the faith to others. No one has stated the need for such change better than the great 19^th century English convert, at the end of his life a cardinal, Blessed John Henry Newman. “To live is to change,” Newman said, “and to be perfect is to have changed often.” Catholics less than 65 today have grown up in a Church which is rapidly changing.

          Are all the changes we have seen over the last half-century good? Clearly not. How can we judge such changes? Jesus tells us in today’s gospel: “By their fruits you will know them.” The most obvious change over the last half-century is in worship. Catholics who came to Church in 1960 experienced a Mass which was almost entirely silent; the few parts spoken aloud could seldom be understood: not just because they were in Latin, but because most priests took them at breakneck speed. Fifteen and even twelve minute celebrations of a rite considerably longer than today’s Mass were common. Praying the prayers aloud, as we now do, and in the language of the people, has enhanced popular participation in the Mass, at least where priests have learned to lead the celebration with reverence. 

          The charismatic renewal is another change. It did not exist before Vatican II. Speaking recently to some 50,000 charismatics in Rome, Pope Francis confessed that he was initially mistrustful of their movement. Now he endorses it enthusiastically because of its good fruits. It has made prayer real for millions for whom prayer was once just reciting words out of a book.

          The renewal of religious life for women has produced both good and bad fruits. The Sisters’ orders which have modernized, while retaining such things as community life, an updated uniform or habit, and enthusiastic faithfulness to Church teaching are growing rapidly. Those which are have erased all signs that they are different have no recruits at all and, though visibly dying, still insist that they are the wave of the future. Once again we see: “By their fruits you will know them.”

"ENTER THROUGH THE NARROW GATE."

Homily for June 26^th, 2018: Matthew 7: 6, 12-14.

AStrive to enter through the narrow gate,@ Jesus says. That Anarrow gate@ stands for every situation in which God=s demands weigh heavily on us and seem too hard to bear. We all experience such situations. It is important to know that trials and troubles are not signs not of God=s absence, but of his presence. Everything that threatens our peace of mind, or even life itself, is a challenge, and an opportunity to grow. Our trials and sufferings are the homework we are assigned in the school of life.

The idea that God is a supernatural protector who guards his own from all suffering is not a Christian idea, but a pagan one. Why is there suffering in a good world, created and upheld by a good and just God? Which of us has never asked that question? Our faith does not answer it. Faith gives us instead the strength to endure amid of suffering.

Our teacher in this school is Jesus Christ. Whatever trials and sufferings we encounter, his were heavier. The letter to the Hebrews says of Jesus: ASon though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered; and when perfected, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him ...@ (5:8f).

This is the Anarrow gate@ of which Jesus speaks in the gospel: the patient endurance of all the hard and difficult things that life sets before us. Jesus never promised that God would protect us from trials and sufferings. He promises that God will be with us in every trial and in every suffering. 

We pray, then, in this Mass in a special way: “Be with us, Lord, in times of darkness, when clouds shut out the sunshine of your love. Be with us in the power of your Holy Spirit. Lead us ever onward. Give us the protection of your holy angels, to lead us to you.”

"STOP JUDGING."

Homily for June 25^th, 2018: Matthew 7:1-5.

          “Stop judging,” Jesus says. Can we really do that? Even simple statements involve judging: “This coffee is too hot;” or, “Children, you’re making too much noise.” And what about the moral judgments of others that we make, and must make, all the time? An employer makes a judgment every time he hires a new employee. The pope judges when he makes a priest a bishop. Parents make judgments about their children in deciding such questions as  when to entrust them with a cell phone, or the family car. Clearly Jesus cannot be forbidding judgments like that.

          What Jesus forbids is making judgments that only God can make – because only God can see the heart. When God sent the prophet Samuel to Bethlehem to find a new king for his people, to replace Saul, Samuel was especially impressed with the young man Eliab. Surely, he must be the one, Samuel says. To which the Lord responds: “Do not judge from his appearance or from his lofty stature, because I have rejected him. Not as man sees does God see, because man sees the appearance, but the Lord looks into the heart.” (1 Sam. 16:7) Jesus, who was steeped in the Jewish Scriptures, would have been familiar with that passage. He would also have known the verse from the prophet Jeremiah, who represents God saying: “I, the Lord, alone probe the mind and test the heart, to reward everyone according to his ways.” (Jer. 17:10)   

          “Stop judging, that you may not be judged,” Jesus says. That is what Bible scholars call the “theological passive.” What Jesus meant was, “Stop judging, so that God will not judge you.” A devout Jew could not say that. Pronouncing the name of God was forbidden. To avoid doing so, Jesus uses the passive: “that you may not be judged.”

          We find this confirmed in the words that follow: “The measure with which you measure will be measured out to you.”  What this means is: God will judge you with the severity, or generosity, which you show to others.  Do you hope that, when you come to stand before the Lord God in judgment, he will show you mercy? Then start showing mercy to others. It’s as simple as that!