A BRUISED REED HE WILL NOT BREAK."

Homily for July 21^st, 2018. Matthew 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. He took Josephine with him when he returned to Italy in 1885. There Josephine heard about a master who was unlike any other: not only just and kind, but one who actually 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 Pope St. Pius X. In 1893 she entered the Italian Canossian 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 St. John Paul II in 2000.

Asked once, "What would you do, if you were to meet your captors?" Josephine 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 Sister today.” Because the Church has declared her a saint, we can pray: “St. Josephine Bakhita, Pray for us.”  

"IT IS MERCY I DESIRE, NOT SACRIFICE."

Homily for July 20^th, 2018: Matthew 12:1-8.

          “Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day,” is the third of the Ten Commandments. We find the Commandments twice in the Old Testament: in the 20^th chapter of Exodus, and in the 5^th chapter of Deuteronomy. Both versions say that we keep the Sabbath holy by refraining from work. Exodus says that the Sabbath rest commemorates God resting on the seventh day after creating the world and everything in it in the previous six days. Deuteronomy doesn’t mention God resting; but it spells out in greater detail what Exodus says more briefly: that the Sabbath rest is for all, domestic animals as well as humans, masters and slaves alike: “for you were once slaves in Egypt.”

          By Jesus’ day the rabbis had developed a list of 39 kinds of work that were forbidden on the Sabbath. Harvesting crops and preparation of food were both on the list. So when the Pharisees, who were among Jesus’ most severe critics, saw his disciples picking off heads of grain as they walked through a wheat field on the way to the synagogue on a Sabbath day and eating the grain to satisfy their hunger, they pounced quickly. “That’s forbidden!” the Pharisees say.

          Jesus defends his disciples by citing an incident in the Old Testament regarding the bread offered to God in the Temple each Sabbath. After a week it was eaten by the priests and replaced with fresh bread. Others were forbidden to eat it. Yet once, when the great King David was hungry, he and his companions ate the bread themselves.

          Jesus never abrogated any of God’s laws. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus says that he came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it (cf. Mt. 5:17). But he made charity the highest law of all. That is why he healed on the Sabbath, for instance. And that is why Pope Francis, celebrating the Mass of the Lord’s Supper in a prison on the first Holy Thursday after his election disregarded the liturgical law which says that only the feet of baptized men should be washed, in order to wash also the feet of some Muslim women. The highest law of all is charity. Or as Jesus said, quoting the prophet Hosea: “It is mercy I desire not sacrifice.”

"TAKE MY YOKE UPON YOU."

Homily for July 19^th, 2018: Matthew 11:28-30.

          “Take my yoke upon you,” Jesus says. In Jesus’ day yokes were in daily use. Carved out of wood to fit over the shoulders, they had arms extending out about a foot or more on either side, with a ring on each end supporting a rope or chain from which the person using the yoke could hang a bucket or other container. This made it possible to transport with relative ease loads too large or heavy to be carried by hand.

          It was crucial that yoke fit the shoulders of the person using it. Otherwise the yoke would chafe and the person attempting to use it would soon throw it off. “My yoke is easy,” Jesus says, “and my burden light.” There is an unspoken IF there. The yoke and burden Jesus offers us are easy and light only if we accept them. If we chafe against the yoke and try to throw it off, then it is not easy; and the burden which it supports is heavy and definitely not light.

          To help us accept the yoke Jesus says: “Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.” Meekness and humility do not come to us easily or without prolonged effort and many failures. We must be lifelong learners. Our teacher is the best there is. He understands our difficulties. He is not interested in how often we stumble and fall. He is interested in one thing only: how often, with his help, we get up again, and continue the journey.

          Our teacher’s name is Jesus Christ.    

THINGS REVEALED TO MEREST CHILDREN

Homily for July 18^th, 2018: Matthew 11: 25-27.

          Jesus breaks out in a spontaneous hymn of praise: “Father, Lord of heaven and earth, to you I offer praise; for what you have hidden from the learned and the clever, you have revealed them to the merest children.” The learned and the clever are those who fail to respond to Jesus, because they feel no need for God. Jesus’ disciples are “the merest children.” Their hearts and minds are open to the Lord.

          Who are the learned and the clever today? They teach in our elite universities; they run the great foundations, with names like Ford, Rockefeller, and Gates. They dominate Hollywood and the media. With few exceptions they consider the killing of unborn children whose birth might be an inconvenience to be a wonderful advance in humanity’s ascent from ignorance and superstition to enlightenment and freedom. They charge those of us who consider abortion for any reason a crime and a grave sin with waging a “war on women.” If there is a war, it is not on women. It is a war on selfish, irresponsible men, who put the pursuit of personal pleasure at the center of their lives and take no responsibility for the consequences of their behavior apart from offering the woman they have used a supposed cheap fix which will leave her with months, years, and in not a few cases decades of regret and guilt.

Today’s learned and clever look down with patronizing scorn, disbelief, and hatred on those who insist that life is precious at every stage: in the womb, but also in old age, when Grandma’s mind has gone ahead of her, and her meaningful life is over. When we contend that marriage is the union of one man and one woman; and that re-defining marriage is an injustice to children, who have a right to a father and a mother, they denounce us as bigots, homophobes, and enemies of equality.

          Who, on the other hand, are today’s merest children? We are! We pray in this Mass that our merciful and loving Lord may keep us always so: aware that God cannot be mocked; that when we violate his laws, we always pay a price; yes, and aware too that we can never make it on our own; that we are dependent every day, every hour, and every minute on the One who came to show us what the invisible God is like; who always walks with us on the journey of life; and who is waiting for each one of us at the end of the road – to welcome us home!

 

"THEY DID NOT REPENT."

Homily for July 17^th, 2018: Matthew 11:20-24.

          A priest was waiting in line to have his car filled with gas just before a long holiday weekend. The attendant worked quickly, but there were many cars ahead of him at the service station. Finally, the attendant motioned him toward a vacant pump. "Sorry about the delay. Father,” the young man said. “It seems as if everyone waits until the last minute to get ready for a long trip.@ The priest chuckled, "I know what you mean. It's the same in my line of work."

          There’s name for that. We call it procrastination. This is what Jesus is talking about in the gospel reading we have just heard. Matthew starts by telling us: “Jesus began to reproach the towns where most of his mighty deeds had been done, since they had not repented.” We can assume that the mighty deeds Matthew refers to were his healing miracles, but also his powerful proclamation of God’s merciful love.

          Those powerful deeds called for a response. Jesus rebukes the people in the towns where he had preached and healed because there had been no response. “They had not repented,” Matthew says.  Repentance means “turning around:” forsaking evil and turning to good. The reaction to his mighty deeds had been no more than a complacent, “Oh, that’s interesting.”

Jesus rebukes those who had refused to respond to him by reminding them of towns mentioned in the Old Testament which had been destroyed because of their refusal to repent of their evil ways and turn toward goodness. If only they had repented, they would be standing today, Jesus says.

          Procrastinating is so easy, and so common that probably all of us are guilty of it in some measure. “I’ll take care of that tomorrow,” we tell ourselves. Will we? We think we have time. One day, however, the time we’re counting on will end. Our stay here on earth will be over, and God will call us home, to meet him face to face. What will that encounter be like? Will it be a joyful meeting with a familiar and dearly loved friend? Or will we be meeting a stranger, before whom we shrink in fear? The Lord allows us to decide beforehand what that encounter will be like.

It is the most important decision we shall ever have.

                                                                                                                  

 

         

NOT PEACE BUT DIVISION

Homily for July 16^th, 2018: Matthew 10:34-11:1.

I have come, Jesus tells us in today’s gospel, not for peace but for division – even in the same family. We encounter these divisions daily in our society today.

We hear many voices reminding us that in today’s dangerous world we need a strong military defense. We hear less about the need to repair our moral defenses. All the military might in the world will not save our country, however, or any country, if the moral fabric of our national life is rotten. Examples of this rot are not difficult to find:

Schools that are awash in a sea of drugs, physical and general lawlessness; where parents are willing to drive their children many miles to attend better schools; and where many who would like to be teachers instead of wardens are quitting in disgust. Lying, cheating, and taking unfair advantage of others at every level: in business, government, in labor unions, and in the so-called learned professions. A retired lawyer said to me recently: “When I was admitted to the bar, you could take another lawyer’s word for it. Now you had better get it in writing.”

The indiscriminate and legal killing of unborn children in our country, because their birth might be an inconvenience. There are now a million and a half abortions a year in our country. That is one tiny human life snuffed out every twenty seconds of every hour, day and night, day in and day out.

          Those examples are just the tip of the iceberg – only a small part of the evidence of moral sickness in our society. There are, thank God, also many beautiful signs of moral health, especially in the idealism and willingness to sacrifice of many of our young people. But all this good evidence cannot cancel out the bad. A moment’s reflection discloses part, at least, of the reason for this moral sickness: placing private gain ahead of public good; seeking happiness through getting rather than through giving.

          Pointing out such examples of social rot is called unpatriotic, or silenced with the simplistic slogan: “America – love it or leave it.” Anyone who has experienced that kind of hostility knows what Jesus means when he says in today’s gospel: “Do you think I have come to establish peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.” The price of following Jesus Christ is high. How could it be otherwise, when the One we follow found that the price of his discipleship was death; but beyond death – for Jesus as also for us if we are trying to build our lives on him – eternal life.