27th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Readings of the day: Habakkuk 1:2-3, 2:2-4; Psalm 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9; 2 Timothy 1:6-8, 13-14; Luke 17:5-10
Has the
newspaper or other news media ever tried your patience? It has certainly tried
mine from time to time. We can read through the news of just the past week: A
chase near the U.S. Capitol in Washington ending in a woman’s shooting; the
federal government “shutdown”; periodic incidents of violence right here on the
streets of Rochester, and so on…
As much as to
keep informed of current events is important and can even help us to understand
our faith in a broader world context, “bad” news can diminish our patience.
This is as true for us as it was for people in Biblical times.
Faced with bad
news upon bad news while he awaits a vision from God, the Old Testament prophet
Habakkuk complains to God: “How long, O LORD? I cry for help, but you do not
listen.” Israel is being invaded; its people about to be sent into exile in
Babylon. Israel’s people themselves cannot agree on a response to this
situation, and yet God does “not intervene” in their “misery.”
The news is no
better in the time of the Second Letter to Timothy, whose author writes of
“hardship” experienced “for the Gospel.” It was likely amid this context of hardship
and persecution of the earliest Christians that the “Apostles said to the Lord”
in today’s Gospel reading, “Increase our faith.”
In all our
readings, we hear of misery; persecution; bad news, and its wearying effect on
the people. And yet, in each of these readings, we hear an appeal to be patient
and to trust in God.
The LORD’s
answer to Habakkuk’s complaint is that “the vision” he is seeking, and life and
deliverance for the people of Israel, “will surely come, [and] will not be late.”
The Second
Letter to Timothy promises God’s own strength to the patient, the loving, and
the self-controlled. It adds a reminder to us to “stir into flame” that gift of
divine strength by the bold proclamation of the Gospel by lived example.
Jesus reminds us
in our Gospel reading to be patient with ourselves as a community of faith;
that even faith that begins as insignificant, like a tiny mustard seed, will
grow in time if we trust God enough to help us to allow our faith to grow.
Patience, faith,
and trust in God again go hand in hand in our Responsorial Psalm. The Psalmist
pleads, “If today you hear God’s voice, harden not your hearts.”
Today we hear
God’s voice proclaimed through the Word and through the Eucharist. We are not a
people of hardened hearts, but we are a people called to patience and to trust
in God.
In good times
and especially in the face of hardship or any kind of bad news in current
events or in our lives, let us pray also that God will increase our patience
and trust in him, and so, as the disciples ask of Jesus in our Gospel today,
“increase our faith.”
On the whole I don't think there is anything wrong with this homily. I seems to me like a very standard straightforward homily that follows a few basic steps: Summarize the readings, connect their message and come to some kind of conclusion. I think if you visit any parish on an average Sunday you will get the same type of homily, obviously with greater degrees of success in any of the steps depending on the priest/deacon delivering the message.
ReplyDeleteThat said I think the critique that one tends to hear from 'average' parishioners or perhaps more aptly, disaffected Catholics who are either going to Church out of habit (but don't really care) or those who have stopped going because they don't see the importance or relevance of going to Church anymore. I unfortunately think that this type of sermon does little to address disinterest and disaffection. Now to be completely fair that is putting a lot of weight unfairly on your shoulders, I firmly believe that people need to make a greater effort at making their faith active and alive, it can't (and shouldn't) be left to priests/deacons to whip people into a faith frenzy that carries them through life. But I do find this type a sermon unhelpful in that it is pretty bland. I'm not sure I have a solution to this problem... I am after all not a preacher, but if you'll indulge me I'll make a few suggestions. I think there needs to be a greater emphasis on how the readings affect the lives of average people. I know you are getting at this a bit in your reflection on bad news, but to me that still feels like a very abstract ungrounded relationship to a distant God. I would also suggest perhaps issuing some kind of weekly call to action, maybe a concrete suggestion of how people can put their faith into action. And for the record praying should not be the principle part of that call to action. A suggestion might be as simple as a call to do something nice for example "to feed the poor this week I am asking all of you that are able to add $10 to your weekly grocery bill and donate that extra food to the food bank" or "This week as we are all awash in the beautiful deluge of autumn leaves I call on you to be of service to a neighbour and help them rake their leaves." Small stuff to be sure, but like Aristotle I believe that any great drama starts small and builds upon that.
You can also tell them to pray, nothing wrong with that. I just feel like sometimes the emphasis on prayer come at the detriment of action. And if I have understood things correctly Catholicism emphasizes the need for action.