Homily: Saturday 4th Week of Lent

With the closing of our parish church due to COVID-19, we are now recording Masses and posting them on the parish website. It's a bit odd with only the priest and deacon, but odder still to preach to a large, but very empty, church. 

I was ill for several week -- just a nasty, lingering cold -- and so did not participate in the recordings. Now healthy, I assisted and preached at a couple of our recorded Masses this past week -- one for today and another for next Monday, March 30. 

You can access a recorded video of each daily Mass on our parish website. Here's the link:

https://sumtercatholic.org/homilies/

My homily for Saturday, March 28, follows: 
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Readings: Jer 11:18-20; Ps 7; Jn 7:40-53

"Never before has anyone spoken like this man" [Jn 7:46].

Hearing those words in the Gospel brought to mind a 45-year-old memory. At the time I was teaching at the Naval Academy in Annapolis when we were blessed by a visit by Archbishop Fulton Sheen who would preach at Sunday Mass. Actually, he preached, not only at morning Mass, but also during later the Protestant Service, both held in the large Naval Academy chapel. 

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Preaching

Diane and I heard him at Mass, but Diane also went to the Protestant service, wanting to listen to him again. As you might expect he preached a bit longer to the Protestants, more accustomed to long sermons. When he concluded, an elderly woman sitting behind Diane said to her husband, “My! I don’t think anyone’s preached like that in this church before.” Yes, I suspect that Catholic preacher surprised her – just as Jesus surprised the Temple guard in the Gospel: 

"Never before has anyone spoken like this man"

We’ve all done it, haven’t we – prejudged others before we know them, before we listen to them? So often we arrogantly dismiss others simply because they don’t measure up to our preconceived notions of importance – a kind of snobbishness. But then, in the sudden shock of recognition, we realize the error is rooted in us, not in the other.

We’re all a bit like the Pharisees who, knowing little about Jesus, dismissed Him as a nobody, but a dangerous nobody, a threat to their own authority. Without having heard Jesus speak, without listening to His words, they rejected the Word of God. This is exactly what Nicodemus tried to tell them:

"Does our law condemn a man before it first hears him and finds out what he is doing?" [Jn 7:51]

Nicodemus, too, was a Pharisee, but he had taken the time to listen to Jesus, to question Him, to see if He spoke the truth. And it was Nicodemus who first heard Jesus proclaim those words of redemption:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” [Jn 3:16].

Sadly, though, too many Pharisees were simply snobs. You can almost hear them, can’t you? This Jesus? He’s from Galilee, a nobody from nowhere. How did the Apostle Nathaniel put it?

“Can anything good come from Nazareth?” [Jn 1:46] 

Even a soon to be Apostle can be a bit of a snob.
But isn’t it interesting that so many of the people who encountered Jesus, even the Temple guards, who’d been sent to arrest Him, actually listened to Him and realized they'd heard the truth.

"Never before has anyone spoken like this man."

What a remarkably courageous thing to say, knowing how much the chief priests and the Pharisees, despised Jesus.

Temple Guards: "Never before..."

What about us? Do we have the courage to speak out for our faith, to proclaim Jesus as Lord when He is under attack, as He is in our world today? 

The world really hasn’t changed all that much, has it? We’re divided today, just as the people of Jerusalem were divided 2,000 years ago. The prophet Jeremiah encountered the same kind of division centuries earlier, when all the important folks plotted against him, just as their successors would plot against Jesus.

Our country, too, seems so divided, but in the midst of this current crisis the Church calls us to reject division, to come together, to unite in faith and not be consumed by fear. We live in an imperfect world and our response to its imperfections must always be driven by faith.

The Greek word for the devil in the New Testament is diabolos, usually translated as “the slanderer.” But the word’s two roots literally mean “to throw apart” or to “scatter.” And that’s exactly who Satan is; he is the scatterer. He scatters. He tries to tear us apart, while Jesus does exactly the opposite: He unites. 

As Christians, then, we must always strive to do Christ’s saving work, and never to divide or scatter.

Dear friends, as we move through these last days of Lent, Jesus continues to call us to conversion: to repent and trust in His mercy, to love God with all our being, to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, to speak always as Jesus spoke, in the language of the Father’s love. 

We have to choose because God never forces Himself on us. He simply looks on us with love and lets us make the choice.

Open your heart to Jesus today. Turn to Him in prayer. Let His Holy Spirit deepen your faith and fill you with the humility and repentance God asks of you.

And, brothers and sisters, through it all, fear not, for Jesus is Emmanuel. He is “God with us” and promised us:

“I am with you always, until the end of the age.” [Mt 28:20]