PRAYING FOR THE VICTIMS OF INJUSTICE

Homily for August 2^nd, 2014: Matthew 14:1-12.

          Herod had thrown John the Baptist into prison, today’s gospel tells us, “on account of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip.” Herod divorced his first wife, in order to marry the wife of his still living brother Philip, a woman named Herodias. No wonder that John denounced Herod. He had divorced his wife in order to marry his still married sister-in-law. This earned John the Baptist the hatred of two people, both equally unscrupulous: Herod and Herodias.

          Herodias sees her chance for revenge at a drunken party hosted by her second husband, Herod. Aroused by the dance of Herodias’ daughter – unnamed here, but celebrated in literature and in a well known opera as Salome – Herod promises the girl, under oath, that he will give her anything she asks for, up to half of his kingdom. Not knowing how to respond, the girl consults her mother, who tells her to ask for the head of John the Baptist, who was even then languishing in Herod’s prison.

          Aghast at the girl’s request, but unwilling to violate his oath, made before so many witnesses, Herod orders John’s immediate execution, without judge, jury, or trial. It is hard to conceive of something more cruel and unjust than the squalid story our gospel reports.

          Is that all just long ago and far away? Don’t you believe it! The media report similar outrages all the time: In Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq with a 1600-year-old Christian community, Moslem terrorists have told all Christians to leave at once or be killed. They lose their houses, clothes and other possessions, including cars. A few months ago a young married woman in the Sudan was sentenced to 100 lashes and then (if she was still alive) to be hanged because she refused to renounce her Christian faith. Her very young son was with her in prison, where she gave birth to another child, with her feet still shackled. Released due to international protests, she was arrested again at the airport the next day when she tried to eave the country, but allowed to flee to the American embassy, where she stayed for a month. After the Italian government succeeded in getting her released, she was flown to Rome with her husband and two small children. There Pope Francis received them and thanked the young woman for her bravery in refusing to renounce her faith. They arrived in this country just days ago.

          How could we better respond to the atrocity reported in today’s gospel than to pray in this Mass for the many victims of injustice and terror in the world today?

"IS HE NOT THE CARPENTER'S SON?"

Homily for August 1^st, 2014: 2013: Matthew: 13:54-58.

There’s a 19^th century hymn, little known to Catholics, which goes like this:

          I think when I read that sweet story of old,

          When Jesus was here among men,

          How he called little children as lambs to the fold:

          I should like to have been with them then.

It’s a nice sentiment. But it hardly corresponds to the historical reality. Most of the people who encountered Jesus found him quite ordinary. “Is he not the carpenter’s son?” they ask in today’s gospel reading. “Where did this man get all this?” And Matthew, the gospel writer adds: “They took offense at him.”  

That remains true today. People encounter Jesus today not in his human body but through his mystical body, the Church – through us, who in baptism were made eyes, ears, hands, feet, and voice for Jesus Christ. He has no other.     

The Catholic Church is human, as Jesus was human. Most of the time it is ordinary, as Jesus was ordinary. It can be remote, as Jesus was sometimes remote. It can be weak, as Jesus seemed weak to his contemporaries when he refused to use the divine power he manifested in his miracles to avoid crucifixion.

Hidden behind this ordinariness and remoteness and weakness, however, is all the power of God; all the compassion of his Son Jesus; and all the strength of his Holy Spirit, who came in fiery tongues on the first Pentecost to kindle a fire that is still burning; and to sweep people off their feet with a rushing mighty wind that is still blowing.

Most of Jesus’ contemporaries took offense at him. Or as another translation of our gospel reading has it, “They found him too much for them.”

What about you?   

"THEY ALL ATE AND WERE SATISFIED."

18^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A. Is. 55:1-3; Mt. 14:13-21.

AIM: To show that our deepest longings are satisfied only by Jesus Christ.        

          We Americans live in one of the richest societies on earth. More people in this land have access to more of the good things of life than, perhaps, any other people anywhere. Even those whom we reckon to be living beneath the poverty level would still be considered well off by millions of truly impoverished people in today’s Third World. The people who show up at our rectory door, on an almost daily basis, looking for food or financial help, all have cell phones.

          Amid this material abundance for so many, however, are people truly satisfied? A glance at the morning’s headlines or at the daily TV news provides plenty of evidence that many are not. Why? Because it is never enough to satisfy our physical hunger if our spiritual hunger remains unfed. 

          “Why spend your money for what is not bread; your wages for what fails to satisfy?” God asks in our first reading from the prophet Isaiah. Isn’t that what many of the glossy ads on TV and in the magazines are urging us to do?  Promising happiness if only we’ll buy their product or service? Let’s be fair: much advertising is useful. If I’m looking for a pair of lightweight trousers for the brutal heat of a St. Louis summer, and I see an ad telling me about a sale on men’s summer clothing, I’ll hurry in to get what I need. The ad has served me well. 

          Too often, however, advertising is designed to kindle our desire for things we never knew we needed till we saw the ad. After we have parted with our money, we find that an inner emptiness remains. How can we get rid of that? How can we satisfy the deepest hunger of all: our spiritual hunger? In our first reading Isaiah gives us God’s answer to that haunting question: “Heed me, and you shall eat well. ... Come to me heedfully, listen, that you may have life.” 

          Jesus knew that deep inner hunger which only God can satisfy. At the beginning of today’s gospel reading he has just received the terrible news that his cousin, John the Baptist, has been executed in Herod’s prison. Jesus knows that he must get away from the crowds, to be alone with his heavenly Father. He withdraws in a boat “to a deserted place by himself.” 

          But the people will not leave Jesus alone. Discovering his destination, they get there ahead of him. Upon disembarking, Jesus sees a “vast crowd.” What has brought them there? Some, surely, are attracted by Jesus’ wonderfully simple yet vivid way of speaking. Others may hope to witness his healing power, or to experience it themselves. Beyond such fully understandable reasons, however, there is another: somehow the very ordinary people in that vast crowd sense in this man, Jesus, someone who has the answer to life’s greatest problems; a man who comes from another world — from God. 

          Jesus’ heart goes out to these people. He realizes, Matthew tells us in a previous passage, that they are “like sheep without a shepherd, harassed and helpless” (Mt. 9:36, NEB). By the time Jesus has healed many sick people in the crowd, it is evening. His disciples want to send the people away to the neighboring villages to get provisions. With what must have been at least the trace of a smile, Jesus challenges them to provide food. His disciples are aghast. “Five loaves and two fish are all we have here,” they respond. 

          Why didn’t Jesus use his miraculous powers to provide food on his own?  He wanted to teach his disciples a lesson. In telling them, “give them some food yourselves,” Jesus wanted the disciples to learn to trust not in their own resources, but in his power. What the disciples have to give is pitifully inadequate. When those meager resources are entrusted to Jesus, however, they are transformed beyond imagining. When every person in the vast crowd has eaten to the full, each of the Twelve is still able to fill his basket with leftovers. This detail too teaches a lesson: when Jesus gives, he gives not just abundantly, but superabundantly.

          This story, recounted six times over in the four gospels, shows us who Jesus Christ is, and what he does for us. Jesus is the story’s central figure, the giver of God’s gifts in abundance. To distribute his bounty, he relies on his friends. What they have to give is totally inadequate. They are entirely dependent on Jesus. The story continues today — in every Mass. We who are called to distribute the Lord’s gifts to his people wear special clothes: not the uniform of masters, but the livery of servants, whose task it is to pass round the dishes and to see that everyone is fed: from the Lord’s two tables, of the word and of the sacrament. 

          This gathering of the Lord’s people — like every Mass anywhere — is the continuation of what Jesus did in the upper room at the Last Supper the night before he died. It is also the continuation of that lakeside meal when a vast throng was fed by Jesus from pitifully inadequate resources. Here, and here alone, is the satisfaction of our deepest hunger. Here the beautiful words of our first reading are fulfilled: 

          “All you who are thirsty, come to the water!

          You who have no money, come, receive grain, and eat;

          come without paying and without cost, drink wine and milk!”

          Here we, the joyful people of God, repeat with a full heart the words of our responsorial psalm:

          “The hand of the Lord feeds us; he answers all our needs.”

THE POTTER'S WHEEL, THE DRAGNET

Homily for July 31^st, 2014: Jeremiah 18:1-6; Matthew 13:47-53.

          “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, says the Lord.”

So speaks God in our first reading to his people of old, through the prophet Jeremiah. The words are timeless. The Lord is speaking them to us, right now. The things we experience, as we travel life’s way, are shaping us, as the potter shapes the lump of wet clay on his swiftly turning wheel. A litany of thanksgiving which I learned at age twelve, included thanksgiving “for hardships, rebuffs, humiliations, disappointments, failures – which remind me of my need of you.” Those things are painful. But they are one way that God shapes us into the people he wants us to be. In a long life I have known great success, but also great and painful failure. I have learned more from my failures than I ever learned from success. We should thank God not only for success, but also for our failures. We all have them.

          Our gospel reading contained a different symbol: the dragnet cast into the sea, which collects everything in its path. In Matthew’s gospel it immediately follows the parable of the weeds among the wheat, which we heard last Saturday. Both parables have a similar message. Jesus’ first hearers would easily have understood that message. They were familiar with dietary laws, which separated unclean foods from those they were permitted to eat. Sea creatures without fins or scales were unclean, and hence inedible. So once the net is brought ashore, there must be a selection. The clean fish are put into buckets and taken to market. Everything else is thrown away. “Thus it will be at the end of the age,” Jesus tells us. “The angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace.” In the other parable they do the same with the weeds among the wheat.

          God is not mocked, Jesus is telling us. The power of evil, of which we see signs daily in the morning headlines, and on the evening news on TV, is temporary. In the end, goodness will triumph, and evil will be burned up in the flames of God’s justice. That too is the gospel. That is the good news.     

"THAT YOUR JOY MAY BE COMPLETE."

Homily for July 30^th, 2014: Matthew 13:44-46.

          The day laborer who unexpectedly finds in his employer’s field a buried treasure that can change his life is living at the subsistence level. The merchant searching for fine pearls is rich. Despite this great difference between them, the two are in other respects alike. Both are surprised by their unexpected discovery and filled with joy.

          The two are alike in another respect as well. Obtaining the treasure each has found will cost each one all that he has. The closing sentence of the parable says this explicitly when it tells us that the merchant “goes and sells all that he has” in order to possess the treasure he has discovered.

          “God’s kingdom is like that,” Jesus is saying. Neither of these two men thinks for a minute of the sacrifice he is making. Both think only of the joy of their new possession. Both know that the great treasure they have discovered is worth many times over what they are paying to possess it. 

          Must we pay a price to be faithful disciples of Jesus Christ? Of course.  And yes, sometimes that price is high. But when we think only of the cost of discipleship, we make our religion grim and forbidding. In these two linked parables Jesus is emphasizing not the cost, but joy at the infinitely greater reward that the Lord gives to all who are willing to sacrifice all for him. 

          Jesus came to bring us that joy. “All this I tell you,” he says in John’s gospel, “that my joy may be yours, and that your joy may be complete.” (Jn. 15:11).

"MARY HAS CHOSEN THE BETTER PART."

Homily for July 29^th, 2014: Luke 10:38-42.

It seems terribly unfair, doesn=t it? Even a child can see that it is not right to sit making pleasant conversation with a guest while leaving your sister all alone in the kitchen. Before tackling this difficulty it is worth noting that this is one of many instances in the gospels which show Jesus rejecting the second-class status of women in his society. In his day women were supposed to stay out of sight and appear only to wait on the men.

The story immediately follows Jesus= parable of the Good Samaritan. In that story Jesus contrasts the behavior of two members of the Jewish clergy, a priest and a Levite, with the behavior of a despised outsider, the Samaritan. Though he lacked the knowledge of God=s law available to the priest and the Levite, the Samaritan fulfilled the law=s spirit better than the legal experts. That parable shows the futility of a religion which has no consequences in daily life.

Today=s story of Mary and Martha turns that lesson around. It shows the futility of active service which, because it is not based on attentive listening to God=s word, and nourished by such listening, becomes mere busyness. When Jesus says to Martha, AYou are anxious and worried about many things,@ he is not criticizing her for performing the duties of hospitality, but for doing so without first attending to his word.

This story does not ask us to choose between being a Mary or a Martha. The true disciple of Jesus must be both. Mark=s gospel tells us that when Jesus called his twelve apostles, he called them for a dual purpose: Ato be with him, and to be sent out to proclaim the message@ (Mk 3:14). Both are important. If we ask, however, which has priority C the relationship or the work C then the answer is clear. Our relationship with the Lord must come first. If we are not willing to spend time with him, sitting at his feet like Mary of Bethany and listening to his words, then all our efforts to do his work are just spinning our wheels. Luke gives us this story to help us see that being with the Lord and listening to his word must be the basis of all we do for him. 

To people without faith, sitting at the Lord=s feet and listening to his words seems a waste of time. We who live by faith, however, know that the Lord loves to have us waste our time on him. Doing so is the best thing we can do with our time. It is the Abetter part@, as Jesus calls it in today=s gospel, which will not be taken from us. Spending time with Jesus Christ, opening our hearts and minds to his words, is the motive and source of all fruitful work for him and for others. Listening to Jesus= words we receive strength to live, as we shall receive also one day courage to die.       

A LOIN CLOTH, MUSTARD SEED, LEAVEN

Homily for July 28^th, 2014: Jeremiah 13:1-11; Matthew 13:31-15.

          We sometimes hear that the Old Testament is about God’s law, the New Testament about his love. Both statements are misleading. The Old Testament speaks often of God’s love. And in the New Testament Jesus says he has come not to abolish God’s law, but to fulfill it (cf. Mt. 5:17).

          Our first reading is what Bible scholars call an “acted parable.” The loin cloth which God tells Jeremiah to wear is an intimate garment. It symbolizes the intimate relationship God wanted to have with the people he chose to be especially his own. After burying it, at God’s command, Jeremiah finds it, years later, rotted. That symbolizes what his people have done through their unfaithfulness to the Lord who chose and loved them.  

          Today’s gospel contains two more parables. The kingdom of God, Jesus says, is “like a mustard seed … the smallest of all seeds.” From tiny beginnings comes a great bush, large enough to shelter birds, who build their nests in its branches.

The kingdom is also, Jesus says, “like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch was leavened.” Do those words reflect a childhood memory: Jesus recalling how he had watched his mother mixing leaven with dough, kneading it, and then setting it in the sun, which caused the dough to rise, so that it could be baked in the oven? We cannot say; but it is entirely possible. The meaning of this parable is similar to that of the mustard seed. From small, seemingly insignificant beginnings, comes growth that no one could have predicted.

Jesus spoke “only in parables,” the gospel says. Why do you suppose Jesus chose parables as his favorite form of teaching? Well, who doesn’t like a good story?  Stories appeal even to young children. But there is another reason why Jesus chose to teach through stories. Because stories are much easier to understand than abstract explanations. In his book, Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict XVI writes: “Every teacher who wants to communicate new knowledge to his listeners naturally makes constant use of example or parable. ... By means of parable he brings something distant within their reach so that, using the parable as a bridge, they can arrive at what was previously unknown.”  

The three parables we have heard today proclaim God’s love – but also our need to respond with love: for him and for others.