Homily: Mass and Healing Service -- Saturday 1st Week of Lent

This morning our parish celebrated Mass followed by a healing service. I was privileged to preach the homily, which I have posted below.
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Readings: Dt 26:16-19; Ps 119; Mt 5:43-48  
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"So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect" [Mt 5:48]. 

So...how y'all doing on that? How's that perfection thing going? Let me guess. 

You not only love all your enemies but you've convinced them all to love you. Right? Well, maybe not.

Well, then, how about persecution? Oh, yeah, nobody's really persecuting you, at least not yet, but you can hardly wait, so you can pray for them. Right?

Sounds like you're probably doing about as well as I am, which isn't so great.

I'm afraid too often we're a little like the Israelites in our first reading when God asked them to "walk in His ways." And then what did they do? Why they walked in their own ways...kinda like us.

Yes, Jesus tells us to "be perfect just as your heavenly Father is perfect" and God told the Israelites to "Be holy, for I, the LORD your God, am holy" [Lv 19:2] Pretty much the same thing, aren't they?

And so how do we do it? How do we make ourselves perfect? How do we become holy?

The truth is - and this is one of those absolute truths - we can't, at least not on our own. We need God's help, and lots of it. Mainly because that pesky humanity of ours keeps getting in the way. Love my enemies? It's really a lot easier to hate them isn't it? And pray for persecutors? We won't even go there. 

Let me share a little experience with you.

As a Navy pilot during the war in Vietnam, I flew search and rescue helicopters. We were stationed aboard ships in the Tonkin Gulf and our job was to pick up pilots who had been shot down, or for some other reason found themselves without an airplane.

We were lightly armed with a .30 caliber machine gun mounted in the cabin door, and some small arms -- not a lot of protection. Anyway, we tried very hard not to be detected. We just wanted to pick up survivors, and get away as quickly as possible. On the few occasions an aircrew actually used these weapons, I don't think they ever hit anybody.  I suppose they made us feel safer though.

The enemy, of course, were the communists of North Vietnam and the Viet Cong. As my POW friends will attest, they were not nice people. As my many Marine friends discovered when they liberated the ancient city of Hue, the communists tortured and murdered upwards of 6,000 men, women, and children during their month-long occupation.

Yes, indeed, they were an easy enemy to hate. But hating them troubled me because I had read the Sermon on the Mount and knew what Jesus had commanded us to do. And so one day I paid a visit to the Catholic chaplain and asked him how we could reconcile the command to love our enemies with this conflict in which we were engaged. I'll always remember that conversation.

I won't go into our rather lengthy discussion on the just war doctrine. That's a subject for another time. But I will tell you what he had to say about enemies and hatred and love and forgiveness.

He began by saying that if our enemies are those we hate, we have ceased being Christians. As disciples of Jesus Christ we are to hate no one. But if our enemies are those who hate us, then we will always have enemies.

Jesus, after all, had many enemies, simply because He did the Father's will. He loved, especially those despised by the world. And He also spoke the truth even when it upset people.

Our enemies decide how they will treat us. We decide only to love them or to hate them. You see, love and hate are not emotions. They're decisions. Jesus calls us to love regardless of the evil others do. And He calls to exclude no one from our love.

These are hard words for us, aren't they? Hard indeed...until we come face to face with the Cross, and we hear His words:

"Father, forgive them, they know not what they do" [Lk 23:34].

It's there, on the Cross, where we encounter Divine Mercy: God's perfect love, a love that demands forgiveness.

And, notice, Jesus doesn't say, "Father, forgive them, because they're a bunch of miserable sinners." No, He instead mitigates their guilt: "they know not what they do." Father, they don't know who I am; they don't understand your law; they don't realize the evil in what they do. Forgive them.

Brothers and sisters, the world will never run out of objects for our love or our hatred, especially today when enemies abound. To take that first step toward the perfection Jesus wills for us, we must forgive. We can do nothing else to those we are called to love. If we refuse to forgive, we refuse to love.

If we hope to become the people Moses spoke of in our first reading, "a people sacred to the LORD" [Dt 26:19], we must live up to God's expectations for us, we who were created in His image and likeness.

And so He calls each of us to view this life as a pilgrimage of love, one in which we seek out others, finding Jesus Christ in each person we meet, and letting them recognize Jesus in us. Let God be the one who judges His creations. We need only love...even our persecutors.

Now, what does all this have to do with healing?

Do you remember the movie, "Dead Man Walking"? It was about the execution of a condemned murderer named Robert Willie. But one person you won't see in the movie is Debbie Morris. She was the one victim of Robert Willie who miraculously survived her horrific ordeal.

After Willie's execution, she said, "Justice didn't do a thing to heal me. Forgiveness did."

Yes, it's easy to hate and scream for justice, for man's justice, but it never brings healing. It never brings the closure the world promises. Only forgiveness does that. Only forgiveness heals.

Have you noticed that Jesus often turned first to the soul before He healed the body? Remember that paralyzed man who was lowered through a hole in the roof by his friends? It's really a remarkable healing [See Mt 9:1-8].

First of all, the paralytic never says a word. His friends take him to Jesus, and they go to extremes to get him there. But Jesus, seemingly ignoring the man's infirmity, says:

"Courage, child, your sins are forgiven" [Mt 9:2].

You see, it's the state of the man's soul that troubles Jesus; it is his sins that demand His attention. And it is his soul that Jesus heals. Indeed, Jesus seems to cure the man's paralysis almost as an afterthought, as a means to convince skeptical scribes of His authority to forgive sins. He then heals the body as well: 

"Rise, pick up your stretcher, and go home" [Mt 9:6].

And, unlike so many healed by Jesus, he actually obeys and simply goes home. How about you and me? Do we want to experience the healing power of Jesus' blessing? Then just obey. How did Jesus put it?

"Blessed are those who hear the word of God and obey it" [Lk 11:28].

You're here today for healing? Me too. Join the crowd, because healing is something we all need. So let me leave you with a few thoughts:

First, Look up and pray. Tell God everything, openly and honestly and humbly. You can ask Him for anything. 

Our God is the God of miracles, the God of great wonders, and He can be trusted. His answer may not come right away or in the form you want or expect, but God will answer. 

Is your prayer that of the adult who tries to make a deal with God, or do you come to Jesus as a needy child seeking His saving grace? 

Second, look back and remember what God has done in the past for you and others. 

Yes, God wants us to tell Him our troubles, our sorrows, and needs, but so often we fail to praise Him and thank Him for His goodness, for all He has done for us. In the words of the psalmist:

"I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your miracles" [Ps 77:12].

Then, look forward. A few hours before she died my mother said something remarkable to me: "For the faithful, everything is a gift from God, everything... even this illness. It has taught me so very much."

What might you learn? What does God want from you? What do you know He will do because His ways are perfect?

Finally, look again. Turn your eyes away from the world and look again at your life, but with eyes of faith.

Remind yourself again that He is the God of great wonders and can be trusted.

And know that God loves you, this unique unrepeatable you, with a love beyond your imagining, beyond your hopes and dreams. 

Come to Him today, for His healing touch, and taste the goodness of the Lord.