Homily for Sunday July 21st

To read the homily for Sunday July 21st, 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C
"MARY HAS CHOSEN THE BETTER PART" (the Mary-Martha story) click on:
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"A BRUISED REED HE WILL NOT BREAK ..."

Homily for Saturday 20 July, 2013. Mt. 12:14-21.

          Jesus “warned them not to make him known.” Why? Jesus did not want celebrity status, based on his ability to heal people and perform the other miracles we read about in the gospels. Mostly Jesus worked quietly. The gospel reading we have just heard describes Jesus’ manner of work in language taken from the Prophet Isaiah.

          “He will not contend or cry out,” Isaiah writes. “A bruised reed he will not break, a smoldering wick he will not quench.” In his 2007 Encyclical on hope, Spe salvi, Pope Benedict XVI tells the story of a woman who was like Isaiah’s bruised reed and smoldering wick, Josephine Bakhita. Born in about 1869 to a wealthy family in the Sudan, she was kidnapped at age 9 and sold and re-sold in the slave market in Darfur. Beaten and flogged by her masters so often that she had 144 scars on her body, she came finally into the possession of the Italian consul in the Sudan. A kind man, he took Josephine with him when he returned to Italy in 1885. There Josephine heard about a master who was not only just and kind, but who loved her. He too had been flogged. He was waiting for her at the Father’s right hand.

          In January 1890 Josephine was baptized, and on the same day given confirmation and First Communion by the Patriarch of Venice, later the Pope, St. Pius X. In 1893 she entered an order of religious Sisters, with whom she lived until her death in 1947. Revered by all who knew her because of her gentleness, calming voice, and ever present smile, she was declared a saint by Bl. Pope John Paul in 2000. Asked once, "What would you do, if you were to meet your captors?" she responded: "If I were to meet those who kidnapped me, and even those who tortured me, I would kneel and kiss their hands. For, if these things had not happened, I would not have been a Christian and a religious today.” Because the Church has declared her a saint, we rejoice to pray: “St. Josephine Bakhita, Pray for us.”  

THIS DAY SHALL BE A MEMORIAL FEAST FOR YOU

Homily for Friday, July 19: Exod. 11:1—12:14.

          “This day shall be a memorial feast for you …” These words from our first reading conclude the instructions for the observance of Passover. “Memorial” is being used here in a special sense. The word is usually understood psychologically. A memorial commonly brings a past event, or a deceased person, to our memories. The celebration of Passover does more. Its celebration makes the past event in which God delivered his people from slavery in Egypt spiritually but truly present.

          Why is it important for us to understand this? Because that is what happens in the Eucharist. You have probably heard the Mass called the “Holy Sacrifice.” The sacrifice referred to is Jesus’ offering of himself to the Father, begun at the Last Supper, and consummated on Calvary. That happened, the Letter to the Hebrew tells us several times over, “once for all” – some two thousand years ago. It is not repeated in the Mass. Rather, it is made spiritually present – just as, for observant Jews day, the celebration of Passover makes God’s rescue of his people from bondage (an event even more distant in time than the Last Supper and Calvary) spiritually present.

          Whenever, therefore, we gather to obey Jesus’ command at the Last Supper to “do this” with the bread and the wine, we are there! We are there in the Upper Room with Jesus’ apostles. We are there with the Beloved Disciple and Mary, along with his other female followers – more faithful than the men – beneath the cross. We are there with but one difference: we cannot see the Lord with our physical eyes; but we do perceive him with the eyes of faith.

          Do we realize that when we come to Mass – and truly worship?

AN ASTONISHING CALL

Exod. 3:1-6, 9-12.

“Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro.” The man who had been brought up at the royal court in Egypt, associating with some of the most learned and cultured people of that age, has become a Nobody. Other passages in Scripture tell us that Moses is now an old man of 80. His meaningful life is over. But not for God. God calculates differently. Precisely at the time when neither Moses himself nor anyone who knew him could possibly expect that he would achieve anything significant, God breaks into his life and calls him to do what he had miserably failed to do half a lifetime before.

The call reaches him on a day like any other. “The angel of the Lord appeared to him in fire flaming out of a bush.” Moses hears a voice calling: “Moses, Moses.” The double call is a sign of special love, and life-changing. When God called the zealous Jewish persecutor Saul outside the Damascus gate, he called twice over: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” 

So it is now for Moses. “Come no nearer,” God tells Moses, “remove your sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.” Never in Holy Scripture is the encounter with God routine or ordinary. Always there is awe, even fear.

“The cry of the children of Israel has reached me, and I have truly noted that the Egyptians are oppressing them,” God tells Moses. How surprised Moses must have been at these words. But also how gratified. The words which follow, however, shock him to the core of his being. “I will send you to Pharaoh to lead my people out of Egypt.”  

Me? Moses asks in astonishment. “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and lead the children of Israel out of Egypt?” To which God replies simply: “I will be with you.”

God says the same to us, when we are faced with what may seem impossible. “I will be with you.” With Him we can do all things, even the impossible.

I AM who I AM

Homily for Thursday, July 18^th, 2013: Exodus 3:13-20.

          “When I go to the children of Israel,” Moses asks God, “and they ask,  ‘What is his name?’ what am I to tell them?” To know someone’s name is to have power over the person. If someone calls out in a public place, “Hey, you!” I won’t pay much attention. If they call, “Father,” I’ll take notice. If I hear someone say, “Hello Jay,” I’ll know it is a friend.

          Every dog lover knows the power of the dog’s name. Unlike most animals, dogs know and respond to their names. Say a dog’s name, and the animal is alert at once. That is why smart dog owners may put their own names on the animal’s collar, never that of the animal. A thief who knows the dog’s name has a power over the animal which someone ignorant the name does not.

          How natural, then, for Moses to want to know the name of the God who is sending Moses, now a washed up old man of 80, back to Egypt to do what he had miserably failed to do 40 years before: liberate his people from Egyptian slavery.

          Whole books have been written about the answer that Moses receives: “I AM who I AM.” There is agreement on one point only: the answer is mysterious. How fitting! We can never have power over God. He is never at our disposal. We are at His disposal. God, and everything to do with God, is a mystery: not in the sense that we can understand nothing of God; but that what we can know about Him is always less than what will remain ever unknown.

          How wonderful, therefore, that God has come to us in his Son. His name we do know: Jesus. That holy name is a perfect prayer: repeated with each step, or with each breath or heartbeat or breath as we sit or kneel in prayer, the holy name of Jesus goes straight to the heart of the loving heavenly Father who told Moses, when he called him to become liberator of his people: “I am with you always.”oH     

A FAILED LIBERATOR

Exod. 2:1-15a

          Yesterday’s first reading said that Pharaoh, fearful that the Hebrews living in Egypt as slaves were becoming too numerous, ordered that every newborn Hebrew son must be thrown into the Nile. When the baby Moses is born, his mother obeys the letter of Pharaoh’s decree, though not its intent. After hiding her child for three months, she places him in a waterproofed basket among the reeds at the river’s edge. There the baby is found by none other than the daughter of the man who has ordered his destruction. A remarkable coincidence? That is the modern view. For the biblical mind the rescue was the work of God himself – a conviction which lives on in our saying: coincidences are God’s way of remaining anonymous.

          So it comes about that this son of an oppressed people is brought up at the royal court. Grown to manhood, Moses is not content simply to enjoy his privileged position. Seeing a fellow Hebrew being abused by an Egyptian, Moses kills the oppressor, and buries the man’s body in the sand. At great personal risk Moses has done something truly great: he has struck a blow for the liberation of his people.         

When Moses goes out the next day and sees two of his own people fighting, he tries to separate them. They are resentful. “Are you thinking of killing us, as you killed the Egyptian?” they ask. Moses was confident that he had covered his tracks. Horrified to discover that his blow for justice is known, Moses fears for his life, and flees. He becomes a refugee, stripped not only of the privileged life he has enjoyed hitherto, but also of the family and social ties which were so important in the ancient world. The courageous crusader for justice has become a Nobody. The story does not end there, however. As we shall hear in the coming days, God still has something for the failed liberator to do.

LOSING OUR LIVES FOR CHRIST

Mt. 10:34-11:1.

“Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it,” Jesus tells us in today’s gospel. How do we do that? Let me give you two examples. Here is a mother with 3 children, all under six. Their needs keep her busy all day and well into the night. “Sometimes I’d just like to close the door on them and walk away,” she says. “But of course I can’t,” she adds. And she doesn’t. She is losing her life for Christ’s sake—for the sake of Him who tells us in the 25^th chapter of Matthew’s gospel: “Inasmuch as you do it for the least of my brothers and sisters, you do it for me.” In serving the needs of her 3 little ones, she finds a life filled with joy – the special joy that young children bring to a mother who, with her husband, has given these little ones the gift of life.

My second example is taken from the life I know best: that of priests. There are two kinds of priests: the sheets-to-alb priest, who lies abed as long as he can and reaches the sacristy just in time to throw on his vestments before he goes to the altar. And there is the other kind of priest. He is up early, an hour at least before Mass, so that he can spend time waiting in silence on the Lord before he ascends the altar steps. Which of these two do you suppose finds priesthood a rat race? And which of the two finds priesthood a life filled with joy? Clearly it is the one who rises early. He is like the busy mother with her three little ones. Like her, he is losing his life for Christ’s sake. And like her, he finds life: a life so joyful that he would not trade it for anything.

What is comes down to is this. There are two kinds of people: takers, and givers. Which are you? If you choose to be a taker, I can promise you one thing. You’ll never get enough. It is the givers who experience a measure of joy that only the Lord God can give.