TRUSTING FAITH

August 11th, 2013; 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C.

Wisdom 18:6-9; Hebrews 11:1-2, 8-19; Luke 12:32-48.  
AIM: To deepen the hearers’ faith.


“Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.”  This definition of faith in our second reading is unusual for the Bible. The Bible is not fond of definitions. It prefers .examples.

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"GOD LOVES A CHEERFUL GIVER"

Homily for August 10th, 2013: 2 Cor. 9:6-10.

          “God loves a cheerful giver,” Paul writes in today’s first reading. Paul wrote his letters in Greek. And the Greek word which Paul uses for cheerful is hilarios. That’s where we get our English word “hilarious.” If we wanted to translate Paul’s words literally, therefore, we would say: “God loves a hilarious giver.” Why? Because that is how God gives: not sparingly, not grudgingly, “without sadness or compulsion” (as Paul writes), but with overflowing joy.

“There is more happiness in giving than in giving than in receiving,” Jesus says (Acts 20:35). Those words, incidentally, are the only saying of Jesus that is preserved outside the gospels. Paul speaks them to representatives of the Christian community at Ephesus, telling them to remember a saying that they were already familiar with from the oral teaching of Paul and other apostles. The New Testament did not yet exist: it hadn’t been written. But already the Church was teaching the faith, and telling people what Jesus had said and done. That is the answer to people who say they have a religion of “the Bible only.” The Church’s faith is older than the Bible – older, at least, than the New Testament.

People who have never experienced the joy of giving that Jesus speaks about are poor, no matter how large their bank accounts, investments, or other possessions. As a help to finding this joy, consider this. God does not need anything. He is, the theologians say, “sufficient unto himself.” Hence anything we give to God – or to people in need, or to good causes – comes back to us. But it comes back to us changed, and enlarged. The bread and wine we offer in the Mass come back to us transformed into the Body and Blood of God’s divine Son. The same is true with all our gifts. That is why Paul writes: “Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully” There are people here who have already experienced that. They experience the joy of living with open hearts, and open hands. If you’re not yet one of them, the Lord is inviting you to join our happy company – today!                

 

A MODERN MARTYR

Homily for August 9th, 2013: 2 Cor. 9:6-10.

On an August evening in 1921 a brilliant 30-year-old Jewish woman in Germany who had long since abandoned religious belief was staying overnight with some Catholic friends who apologized that they had a previous evening engagement. Among their books their guest found the autobiography of the Spanish Carmelite, St. Teresa of Avilla. She read it through overnight and declared the next morning: “That is the truth.” She was baptized on New Year’s Day 1922. The woman’s name was Edith Stein, the saint whom we commemorate today.

          In October 1933, Edith Stein, by then well known in German university circles as a brilliant philosopher, but now excluded from academic employment by the Nazi racial laws, entered the Carmelite convent in Cologne. She took the name Teresa Benedicta a Cruce: “Teresa blessed by the cross.”  On the night of November 9/10, 1938, the Nazis instigated the notorious “Kristallnacht”, smashing Jewish shop-windows all over Germany, and torching synagogues. At the news Edith Stein, who, like St. Paul, never abandoned her identification with her own people, felt herself “paralyzed with pain.” Shortly thereafter, to avoid imperiling her fellow Sisters, she moved to a Carmelite convent in Holland. 

          At the end of July 1942 the Nazis, having invaded Holland, retaliated for the public protest of the Dutch bishops against the persecution of Jews by rounding up all Dutch Jews who had received Catholic baptism, Sister Teresa Benedicta among them, and shipped them like cattle to Auschwitz. Upon arrival they went straight to the gas chamber. The date: August 9, 1942.

          After the war Edith Stein’s Sisters put up a memorial tablet in the Cologne Carmel with the inscription: “She died as a martyr for her people and her faith.” Bl. Pope John Paul II confirmed these words on October 11, 1998, when he enrolled Edith Stein in the church’s official list of saints, with the title “martyr.” With thanksgiving therefore, we pray in this Mass:

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross – Pray for us.

"YOU ARE PETER"

Homily for August 8^th: Matt 16:13-24.

          “You are Peter,” the Lord says. Peter’s original name was Simon. In Jesus’ language, Aramaic, the name Peter was identical with the word for rock. In reality Peter was anything but rock-like. He was quick to proclaim undying loyalty to the Lord whom he loved; yet, as we know, quick to deny him three times on that evening when Jesus was on trial for his life in a nearby room. So the new name the Lord gave Simon -- Peter, the Rock --was ironic. It was something like calling a 350-pound heavy-weight “Slim.”

          As long as Peter thought he was strong; as long as he could boast that though all the others might desert Jesus, he would remain faithful — he was unfit for leadership. He had to become aware of his own weakness. He had to be convinced that without a power greater than his own he could do nothing. Then, and only then, could Jesus use him. 

          We tend to think of Peter as weak before Jesus’ resurrection, but strong afterwards, when on Pentecost the Holy Spirit came down on Peter and his fellow apostles in tongues of fire, and in a rushing mighty wind. Pope Benedict XVI liked to remind us that something of Peter’s old weakness remained with him to the end.

          An ancient legend tells us that toward the end of his life Peter escaped from the jail where the Roman Emperor had imprisoned him and fled from Rome under cover of night. Outside the city, he saw in the darkness the figure of a man walking toward him. When the figure got close, he recognized that it was Jesus.

Where are you going, Lord?” Peter asked” “I’m going to Rome to be crucified again,” Jesus replied. Filled with shame, Peter turned around and re-entered the city. When they led him out the next day to nail him to a cross, Peter demanded that they crucify him upside down.   

The story helps us understand why we pray for Peter’s successor, the Pope, in every Mass. He is an ordinary weak sinner like every one of us. We pray that the Lord will strengthen in him the rock on which Jesus built his Church: Peter’s faith. 

“WOMAN, GREAT IS YOUR FAITH”

Homily for August 7^th. Matt. 15:21-28

          “Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David!” the Gentile woman in today’s gospel calls out. “My daughter is tormented by a demon.” In Jesus’ day people thought illness of any kind, whether physical or mental, was the work of demons. Though not a member of Jesus’ own people, the woman addresses him with a Jewish title: “Son of David.”

          Jesus gives no response. His disciples are annoyed. “Send her away,” they demand. Jesus responds by giving the reason for his silence: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” The woman refuses to give up. Bowing low in homage, she says: “Lord, help me.” Jesus’ response seems sharp: “It is not right to take the food of children and throw it to the dogs.”

          This begins a contest of wits: answering one saying with another. Such contests were common in Jesus’ day. “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.” Two things stand out in her words: the acknowledgement that, as a Gentile, she has no claim of Jesus; and her refusal to take no for an answer.

          This impresses Jesus and causes him to state what motivates her persistence: her faith. “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” This is one of a number of places in the gospels when Jesus admires in outsiders a faith he seeks in vain from his own people.

In the passage that we heard last week, in which Jesus’ own townspeople dismiss him as “the son of the carpenter,” the gospel writer tells us that “he did not work many mighty deeds there because of their lack of faith” (Matt: 13:58). This Gentile woman had that faith. It is trusting faith that opens us up to the saving and healing power of God, as the sunshine opens up the petals of flowers to the life giving dew and rain. What better prayer could we offer in this Mass, then, than that of the man in Mark’s gospel who said to Jesus: “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!” (Mk 9:24).

JESUS' TRANSFIGURATION

Homily for August 6th: The Transfiguration: 2 Pet. 1:16-19; Luke 9.28b-36.

          The mysterious event which we celebrate today, called the Transfiguration, happened in time, yet gave a glimpse, however brief, into eternity. For a moment, before the descent of the cloud, the three friends of Jesus see their friend and Master transformed beyond anything they could have imagined. It was as if his humanity had no limits.

“We were eyewitnesses of his majesty,” Peter writes in our second reading.” The Transfiguration is a manifestation of Christ’s divinity, for a moment breaking through the veil of his humanity. But it is more. It also shows us our potential to become divine.  

          If the goal of the spiritual life is to grow in likeness to God, then the more we progress, the more we participate in God’s own life. When our journey reaches its end, and we have been stripped of all the obstacles to holiness, God’s life will become our life, and we shall be one with God. Then our earthly pilgrimage beneath an often overcast sky will yield to the uninterrupted vision of God’s glory. We too shall shine with an unearthly light — the light that shines from the face of Jesus Christ: our Master, our Savior, our Redeemer — but also our passionate lover, and our best friend. We shall have reached our true homeland, the heavenly city which (as we read in Revelation) needs neither sun nor moon, “for the glory of God gives it light, and the lamp is the Lamb” (Rev. 21.23).

          Now, however, is the time not for seeing, but for hearing. We listen for the Father’s voice and heed his command, as he speaks to us the words first uttered to those three friends of Jesus on the mountain two thousand years ago:

          “This is my beloved Son, on whom my favor rests. Listen to him.”

"THEY ALL ATE AND WERE SATISFIED"

Homily for August 5^th: Matt. 14:13-21.

          As sun starts to sink and the shadows lengthen, Jesus’ disciples approach him with an urgent request. “This is a deserted place and it is already late; dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages and buy some food for themselves.”

          Jesus’ response surprises us: “There is no need for them to go away; give them some food yourselves.” He was having fun with them – teasing them. Jesus knew perfectly well what he was going to do.

          Not realizing this, the disciples point out that what Jesus has asked them to do is impossible: “Five loaves and two fish are all we have here.” To which Jesus responds simply: “Bring them to me.”

          When the disciples have done this, Jesus looks up to heaven, blesses these hopelessly inadequate supplies, and gives them to the disciples to distribute to the crowd. “They all ate and were satisfied,” Matthew tells us, adding: “and they picked up the fragments left over – twelve wicker baskets full.” But of course: there were twelve men doing the distribution.

          What does this tell us? Two things. First, when we entrust our pitifully inadequate resources to the Lord, they are inadequate no longer. Second, when the Lord gives, he gives not only abundantly, but super-abundantly. We come repeatedly not because the Lord limits his gifts, but because our ability to receive them is limited.

          The early Christian community loved this story so much that we find it told six times over, with variations, in the four gospels. The reason is clear. It reminded Jesus’ friends of what he does in the Eucharist. We offer him a little bread and wine – and these modest gifts come back to us transformed into his Body and Blood: all his goodness, all his love, all his compassion, patience, and purity. And when have him, we have everything!  

THE RICH FOOL

Homily for August 4th

THE RICH FOOL

18^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C.  Ecclesiastes 1:2; 2:21-23; Colossians 3:1-5, 9-11; Luke 12:13-21.

AIM: To move the hearers to deeper conversion.

AWhat profit comes to a man from all the toil and anxiety of heart with which he has labored ...? All his days sorrow and grief ... even at night his mind is not at rest. This also is vanity.@ Is that good news? Hardly. The book from which those words in our first reading are taken, Ecclesiastes, has as its constantly repeated refrain the words: AVanity of vanities! All things are vanity!@ Ecclesiastes has been called the most cynical book in the Bible. It contains the bad news that we need to hear to prepare us for the good news brought to us by Jesus Christ.

The bad news is that life is indeed empty B Avanity,@ as Ecclesiastes calls it B if we organize our lives apart from God. The rich fool in the gospel did that. He made the mistake, which is always fatal, of assuming that possessions and money can guarantee security and happiness. Organizing his life without reference to God, he assumes that his destiny is entirely in his own hands. He never realized that life is not a possession. It is a trust. The man is shocked to discover, just when he thinks he has achieved total security, that life is God=s to give, and God=s to take away. Then, when it is too late, he discovers that the bad news of Ecclesiastes is true. Life lived without reference to God is nothing but sorrow and grief, emptiness and vanity. Jesus= comment is simple and direct: AThus it will be for all who store up treasure for themselves but are not rich in what matters to God.@

Being Arich in what matters to God@ means realizing that there is something more important than getting B and that is giving. The World War II British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill B not an especially religious man B said once: AWe make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.@ Being Arich in what matters to God@ means remembering that the things we think we own are not absolute possessions. They are gifts that have been entrusted to us for a limited time. Few of us have a century. One day we shall have to give an account of how we have administered this trust. Being Arich in the sight of God@ also means, therefore, organizing our lives not around ourselves, but around the One to whom shall one day have to give our accounting for all he has entrusted to us B and that is God.

The rich fool in Jesus= story did the opposite. He organized his life around his own desires and pleasures. Is there someone here who has done that?  Probably not.  Your presence here at Sunday Mass shows that God does have a place in your life.  The question Jesus= story poses for most of us, therefore, is not: ADoes God have a place in my life?@ The question for us is: AWhat place does God have in my life? Is he at the center? Or have I pushed God out toward the fringe of my life?@   

Catholics who push God out to the fringe of their lives prefer a distant relationship with the Lord. Choosing always to come late to Mass and to hurry away early, they treat God in a way they would be ashamed to treat someone they truly loved, or whose good opinion they valued. If they come to confession at all, the only sin they can think of is how many times they missed Mass. They overlook other serious sins: meanness to those with whom they live and work; hard-heartedness to people who need their help or sympathy; gossip and tale-bearing that tear people down and destroy their good names; spending lavishly on themselves and then tossing God a cheap tip from the loose change that is left over B while complaining that church and charities are unrealistic in their financial demands, and that all we ever hear about in church is money. For such Catholics religion is really a kind of heavenly life insurance policy on which they grudgingly pay premiums, on the principle that you never know when you might need it B and it=s too dangerous to be without it. If your religion is anything like that, you have discovered long since that it brings you no joy.

Let me tell you why. A God who is on the fringe of life will always be a threat to you. He will always be trying to move into the center. If you want your religion to be a source of joy rather than of sadness, something that lifts you up instead of weighing you down, then you must put God at the center of your life. 

Paul writes about such a God-centered life in our second reading.  Addressing adult converts, he says that when they emerged from the waters of Baptism, AYou were raised with Christ.@ The new life given to us in Baptism is meant to be centered not on ourselves but on God. It gives first place not to getting, but to giving. That means, Paul says, that we must Aseek what is above, where Christ is seated on the right hand of God. Think of what is above, not what is on earth.@ 

More than one person here in this church today knows from personal experience what Paul is talking about in that second reading. God can never be a threat to you. He will never try to encroach on a part of your life which you have reserved yourself. Because there are no fenced off corners in your life, where God is not allowed. For you God is at the center, not on the fringe. 

People who put God at the center of their lives have a religion not of law, but of love: a faith that is a source of joy in good times, and of strength in times of suffering and trial. Paul writes of such people: AYou have died@ B died, he means, to self-centeredness B Aand your life is hidden with Christ in God.@ Such people live their lives not merely with reference to God. They live their lives for God. As a consequence they experience what Paul calls in his letter to the Philippians Athe peace of God that passes all understanding,@ as (4:7). 

Do you want that peace? Do you want a faith that fills you with joy? Which of us does not? To have that peace and joy you must do just one thing. You must allow God to move from the fringe of your life to the center. When you do that, then some other words of Paul from our second reading come true for you: AWhen Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with him in glory.@