Homily: Saturday, 3rd Week of Lent

Readings: Hos 6:1-6; Ps 51; Lk 18:9-14

When we look over the broad scope of these 40 days of Lenten readings, perhaps the most common theme is repentance. Today's Responsorial Psalm (Psalm 51) is certainly an example of this. 

But the next most common theme is the call to humility. I suppose that makes good sense because I’ve always considered humility as the pre-requisite virtue, without which no other virtue can stand. After all, if we don’t possess a humble heart there’s only one other possibility: pride. And we all know where pride leads us. Just as humility is the foundation stone of the virtuous life, pride is the foundation stone of the sinful life.

Humility, you see, is nothing less than an acceptance of reality. Humility is the awareness that we are the creatures and God is the Creator. But more than that, humility is the joyful realization that God created you and me, each one of us, in individual acts of love. Humility is the shock of recognition, our breathtaking grasp that this love is supremely manifested in God’s humbling of Himself to become one of us, and give up His life for us. Indeed, can anything be more humbling than an awareness of our poverty before God? True humility also helps us avoid the ephemeral piety condemned in our first reading from Hosea:

"...like morning mist, like the dew that disappears early" [Hos 6:4].

Pride, of course, takes God out of the picture. It must. Pride, you see, is the inordinate love of self, the love of self above all else. How can one be filled with pride, then, and accept the greatness of God, a greatness far beyond our comprehension? In a very real sense, the prideful person substitutes himself for God, placing himself and his needs and wants above God and everyone else. If you are prideful, how can you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself? [Mt 22:36-40] You can't.

Just consider today’s Gospel passage from Luke. It’s one of those clear, straightforward passages, a parable that exposes pride for what it really is, while at the same time allowing us to grasp the path to true humility.

First of all, Luke tells us to whom Jesus addressed this parable:  

“…to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else” [Lk 18:9].

In other words, to an audience of the prideful.

It’s also interesting that Jesus’ cast of characters includes only two men: a Pharisee and a tax collector. Jesus often castigated the one and the people despised the other. The Pharisee, while seemingly at prayer, took up a position of prominence. But note that he prays not to God but, as Jesus tells us, “…spoke this prayer to himself” [Lk 18:11]. And how does he begin this prayer offered to himself? “Oh, God…” Yes, indeed, as only the prideful can, he substitutes himself for God, even in prayer. He goes on to thank himself for being so much better than the rest of humanity, revealing a heart devoid of humility. And he especially scorns that sinful tax collector who stands far behind him praying humbly with head bowed.

Both the Pharisee and the tax collector are spiritually impoverished, but only one of them realizes it. The Pharisee’s pride prevents him from recognizing the truth about himself, while the tax collector’s humility leads him to a recognition of this truth. Listen again to His prayer:

“O God, be merciful to me a sinner” [Lk 18:13].

With these few words he acknowledges his total dependence on God and willingly exposes his true condition to the only one who can heal him.

Jesus also reminds us that only God knows our hearts, that we should resist making judgments based on our personal biases. Because of his humble prayer, the widely despised tax collector “goes home justified” while the esteemed and self-exalted Pharisee must still be humbled.

The Eastern Church has long encouraged praying a version of the tax collector’s prayer, revealed in a wonderful little book, The Way of the Pilgrim.

Called the “Jesus Prayer,” and prayed throughout the day to the very rhythm of the body’s breathing, it too is simple:

“Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

Although prayed by the humble, I can think of fewer prayers more exalting.

Maybe we should all try that throughout the day for the remainder of Lent.

 

Homily: Feast of St. Matthew

Readings:  Ephesians 4:1-7, 11-13; Psalm 19; Matthew 9:9-13

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Calling Matthew to be an apostle, Jesus picked one of the unlikeliest of men. Matthew -- called Levi by Mark and Luke -- was a tax collector who probably worked for Herod Antipas, collecting taxes and customs duties. It was lucrative work, and rife with corruption.

Tax collectors set rates at whatever they thought the market would bear, paid the government a prearranged amount, and kept the rest for themselves. There were no poor tax collectors in the Roman Empire…and they were universally despised. Not only were they usually corrupt, but they also worked, either directly or indirectly, for the hated Romans, pagans who had subjugated the Jews.

By selecting a tax collector as an apostle, as one of His key disciples, Jesus must have caused quite an uproar, particularly among the Pharisees. The Pharisees scrupulously avoided the company of those they considered sinners and certainly wouldn’t sit down for a meal in one of their homes. That Jesus would actually accept Matthew’s dinner invitation and share a meal with tax collectors and sinners shocked their sensibilities.

But even more unlikely than the call of Jesus was Matthew’s readiness to accept that call. Why would Matthew leave everything, including his friends and occupation and fortune, to follow Jesus? Quite simply, he was touched by the grace of God. For that’s what Jesus’ call to discipleship is. God calls all Christians through Baptism, but He also extends, to whomever He chooses, a further calling. The special grace of this call allowed Matthew to give up the good life and follow Jesus.

Matthew saw in Jesus the hope of true friendship and peace with God. He saw in Jesus a wealth far beyond the material wealth he had accumulated and would have continued to accumulate.

Notice, though, Matthew doesn’t take the initiative, and neither do you or I. It’s Jesus who calls, and, like Matthew, we each respond to that call with an individual, personal decision. God calls, but He never insists.

Matthew could easily have said, “Not today, Lord, tomorrow. First, I have to put my accounts in order. I’m really not ready right now.” But this excuse and any other excuse are merely signs of selfishness and fear. And “tomorrow” – there are many tomorrows – and all run the risk of being too late.

Like the other apostles, Matthew was called in the midst of the ordinary circumstances of his life -- like Peter, Andrew, James, and John, he was called while at work. If you think about it, even St. Paul was called while at work. It might have been the work of persecution, but it was nevertheless the work he, as a Pharisee, honestly believed he was supposed to do. An interesting detail, isn’t it? We don’t normally think of God’s call coming to us while we are at work in our secular jobs, or even in our retirement. And yet that’s exactly what Jesus did, and continues to do. 

"Follow me," he calls to each of us.

Too often we compartmentalize our lives, separating our religious from our secular lives. But being a Christian, a disciple of Christ, isn’t part-time. It must permeate and overflow into every aspect of our lives -- because only then can we effectively share His message with others.

That’s why we must guard against the attitudes of the Pharisees, who were so critical of Jesus’ associating with sinners. For we’re all sinners, but Our Lord still calls us. He came to redeem us all, not just a select few. It’s dangerous to ignore this truth. If we don’t recognize our own sinfulness, our own need for redemption and forgiveness, we’re close the door to God’s saving grace.

And don’t be scandalized by the sins of others, since without God’s grace, we’re each capable of committing the worst of sins. Neither should you become depressed over your failings. Just look at the apostles: a collection of weak, sinful men that Jesus turned into saints. Their grace was their willingness to recognize their sinfulness and repent. Indeed, recognition that we are sinners is the only correct attitude for us to have in the presence of God.

Yes, we can learn much from Matthew. He’s really an apostle for all of us.

The sinner who became a saint.

The man who heard God’s call and responded immediately.

The one who was lost, until Jesus found him.

Jesus reached out to Matthew, and Matthew went on to reach out to the world as an Evangelist, and, through his Gospel, to all of us until the end of time.

Video: Homily for Saturday, 3rd Week of Lent

The lovely Krysten, our parish IT genius, apparently discovered another recorded homily, one I preached at morning Mass a few weeks ago, on Saturday, 30 March 2019. She sent me the video file, so I uploaded it to YouTube and embedded it in this post (below). The text of this homily can be read here: Homily: Saturday, 3rd Week of Lent.

Homily: Mass and Healing Service -- 10 Macrh 2018

I was once again honored to be asked to preach at this special Mass on Saturday, March 10. Several times during the year we celebrate a Mass which is followed by a healing service. Saturday's Mass drew several hundred people. Most remained afterwards to join one of the many prayer teams located throughout the church. It was a wonderful morning, a morning enlightened by the hope and deep faith of those who took part, seeking God's healing presence in their lives and the lives of others. It was a morning of physical, emotional, and spiritual healing.

My homily was supposed to be available as a video, but a technical glitch resulted in a video with no associated audio. No great loss, unless you actually wanted to hear it. But for those few who might want to read it, I have included the entire homily below:
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Saturday 3rd Week of Lent
Readings: Hos 6:1-6; PS 51; Lk 18:9-14

Good morning, everyone...and praise God - praise Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As always, it's wonderful to see so many here this morning, all of you open to God's healing presence. And we praise God too for this.

After the parish mission conducted a few weeks ago by Father Kevin, several people suggested that I might emulate that good Redemptorist priest by adding a bit of levity to my homilies. So I thought the following story just might do the trick.

Of course, most of us here today are old enough to remember the gasoline shortage back in the early 70s and the problems that resulted.

At the very peak of that shortage two nuns were driving the convent station wagon along a state highway when they ran out of gas. One turned to the other and said, "Sister, you're so much younger, would you mind walking back to that gas station we just passed and seeing if you can get some gas?" The younger sister replied, "I'll be happy to do so," and left.

When she got to the station, she posed her problem to the harried attendant who just shook his head and said, "Sister, I'd love to help you, but the problem is we've run out of gas cans. But, you know, there's a pile of junk and debris behind the station. Why don't you go back there and see if you can find a suitable container? If you do, I'll give you some gas."

She agrees and pokes her way through the pile, but all she can find is an old bedpan. She wipes the dust out of it and takes it to the attendant. He fills it with regular and she carries it back to the car.

As she's pouring the gas into the tank, two Methodist ministers drive by, and one says to the other, "By God, there's faith for you."

Coming together here this morning perhaps this little story will remind us of the angel's words to Mary: "...for nothing will be impossible for God."

And especially today, smack dab in the middle of Lent, it's fitting that we should focus on God's will and His power and His love as we turn to our Lord in need of healing, every kind of healing: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.

Remember those words of Jesus you heard on Ash Wednesday? "Repent and believe in the Gospel." This, too, is a call to healing, for repentance is the first step on the path to spiritual healing.

Our readings today certainly turn us in that direction, don't they? How wonderful, how providential that God's Word proclaimed here today touches on faith, and healing, and repentance, and prayer, and humility, and hope. Could we ask for anything more fitting today as we - and, brothers and sisters, that's all of us, for we are all in need of healing - as we turn prayerfully to our loving, merciful God?

I've long been a big fan of Pope St. John Paul II, largely because of his message of hope, a message he never ceased preaching. It was a message that inevitably began with the words of the Gospel, words Jesus expressed to so many: "Be not afraid."

If the heart of the Christian is to be filled with the hope God desires for us, it must first expel all fear.

"Be not afraid!" [Mt 14:27, et al.]

We fear so much, don't we? We fear that over which we have no control. We fear the known and the unknown in our lives. We even fear ourselves. Indeed, fear creeps into our hearts like a thief, trying to steal all hope, all faith. And yet, as St. John Paul reminded us, we should have no fear because, quite simply, we have been redeemed by God. Listen to his words:

"The power of Christ's Cross and Resurrection is greater than any evil which man could fear."

That power, you see, gives us hope, for only hope, the great theological virtue, this divine gift -- only hope drives fear from our hearts.

But hope does something else, something greater still. My mother used to say: "Hope moves us; it moves us to faith."  She was quite the theologian when it came to such practical matters. I think that stemmed from her vocation as an RN, a nurse forced to confront the practical issues of life and death. And, in truth, theology should always be practical. It should always help us navigate the path to salvation. Otherwise it's just an academic exercise.

Anyway, getting back to hope - that's what repentance is. It's a sign, an image, of hope. The very fact that we can repent of our sinfulness means that we hope for forgiveness. Indeed, it is our hope that calls us to repentance.

We see this brought to life in our first reading from Hosea, the last prophet of the Northern Kingdom, a prophet called by God to experience in his own life the same unfaithfulness that God experiences when we turn away from Him. Yes, Hosea's marriage to Gomer became a sign, a crying out against all Israel. And yet, despite his broken heart, Hosea becomes the prophet of love.

As Hosea ransomed Gomer, God will ransom us

He reminds us that the God of creation is in love with His creature, in love with those who draw their very life from Him, in love with those who have nothing to give Him. God's forgiveness, God's mercy is not the result of pity or mere compassion; it's the result of love, a love beyond all human imagining. Hosea pleads to God's people:

"Come, let us return to the Lord. It is he who has rent, but he will heal us; he has struck us, but he will bind our wounds. He will revive us after two days; on the third day he will raise us up, to live in his presence" [Hos 6:1-2].

To heal, to bind, to raise up.

It's in this prophetic prayer of repentance that Hosea calls a rebellious people to conversion, that he calls all of us today to conversion.

It's a prayer of hope...the same hope we encounter in today's Gospel passage from Luke.

Jesus offers a parable. He presents us with two men, a Pharisee and a tax collector, two men who represented polar opposites in the mind of the average 1st century Jew. But Jesus, as He does so often, turns everything upside down.

Jesus contrasts a prideful Pharisee, focused on the meticulous, external fulfillment of the Law, with a tax collector, a public sinner despised by all, and yet driven to repentance by humility, by reality. For that's what humility is. It's the grasp of reality, a true understanding of our relationship with God, an awareness of His goodness and our sinfulness.

The Pharisee and the Tax Collector

Both men approach God in the Temple, and both begin to pray. The first thing we notice is how they pray, that the content of their hearts drives their approach to prayer, and even shows up in their posture.

The Pharisee stands erect, right up front where he can be seen and heard, and not just by God.

And the tax collector? He stands "far off" bent over in humility, beating his breast in repentance.

Not surprisingly, out of those two very different hearts come very different words.

The Pharisee, brimming over with self-congratulatory praise, seems to be praying not to God but to himself. And from his words we come to understand that a heart filled only with itself must despise others. Since the Pharisee believes himself righteous, his heart sees no need for humility, for repentance, for conversion.

He's simply perfect, just the way he is. Yes, such is always the way for those who refuse to accept the fact of their dependence on God.

And then, we hear the simple, humble prayer of the tax collector - "O God, be merciful to me a sinner" [Lk 18:13] - and immediately we recognize it for what it is. It's a prayer of poverty, of spiritual poverty, a prayer that shows us what Jesus meant when He said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" [Mt 5:3].

We see in his words a foreshadowing of the ancient, Eastern Jesus Prayer - "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." - another prayer of reality.

The tax collector, you see, has that firm grasp of reality. "Oh God, be merciful..." He knows who God is, mercy personified. "...to me a sinner." And he knows who he is, simply a sinner. In his prayer he remains himself, and he lets God be Himself. And then he leaves it at that, trusting in God's mercy, trusting in God's forgiveness.

Brothers and sisters, his prayer, too, is a prayer of hope, the kind of hope that brought you here today. If you had no hope of healing, would you be here?

A Healing Community

Are we here, filled with hope, coming together in a healing community, a community dedicated to extending God's love to all in need?

Is this why we're here -- driven by hope and moved to faith, yearning for God's Presence?

Do I throw myself at the feet of our Lord Jesus Christ, and beg for the mercy I know I don't deserve?

Or do I come here, as yet unmoved, and just pleading, "Why me, Lord?" It's a question that smacks a bit of the Pharisee's attitude, isn't it? -- as if in my goodness I don't deserve this misfortune.

I suppose these are the questions we're all faced with today.

Think about your answer as you come forward today to receive our Lord's precious Body and Blood, the gift of His Presence until the end of the age. For Christ's Eucharistic Presence, is also a gift of hope, one that moves us to the faith that heals.

God's Healing Presence in the Eucharist

Be not afraid, brothers and sisters, and just open your heart to God's healing Presence.