Homily for Friday, 1 August 2014– Memorial of St. Alphonsus Liguori

Friday of the 17th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Jeremiah 26:1-9; Psalm 69:5, 8-10, 14; Matthew 13:54-58

What is zeal? This is a word we do not hear often, and yet in our Responsorial Psalm today we hear: “Zeal for your house consumes me.”

How many of us recognize this and other parts of our Psalm today, especially from references to this Psalm in the New Testament. “Zeal for your house consumes me.” This is the verse that Jesus’ disciples remember in John’s Gospel after Jesus overturns the money changers’ tables. Other verses from this Psalm are used in Jesus’ Passion: “Those outnumber the hairs of my head who hate me without cause… The insults of those who blaspheme you fall upon me… O God, in your great kindness, answer me.”

But this verse about “zeal for [God’s] house” stands out for me today. What does it mean to be zealous for God’s house. The prophet Jeremiah risks his life because of his zeal for God’s house. The central message of his prophecy is that, unless the people of Israel of his time return to faithfulness to God; to covenant relationship with God that involves attention to both social justice and right worship, the temple, the very center of Israel’s worship, would be destroyed and the people exiled. Of course, the people did not listen to Jeremiah, the temple was destroyed, and Israel and Judah were invaded and the people exiled.

Jesus, too, has zeal for God’s house, and again the people he teaches “in their synagogue” do not listen to him. They dismiss him as merely “the carpenter’s son.” So what good is zeal for God’s house; what good is prophecy, speaking for God, if it brings only scorn and possibly death?

Even today, cannot zeal have a bad connotation: Someone is “zealous” in the sense of being prudish or moralistic. This is not the kind of zeal shown by either Jesus or Jeremiah, and yet we are called to the same zeal for God’s house as Jesus or Jeremiah showed; zeal that risks being unpopular from time to time; standing for something that is right even when it is counter-cultural.

Zeal does not need to mean preaching so-called “fire and brimstone.” The saint we celebrate today, St. Alphonsus Liguori, founder of the Redemptorist order, is an example of one who was zealous for God’s house in that he preached not a punishing God but a God who is merciful; the God of “great love” that the author of our Psalm today knew. This went against the culture of St. Alphonsus’ day; a culture that understood God as harsh and condemning of sinners; that understood receiving communion at Mass as being only for those totally without sin. St. Alphonsus taught that our response to sin; God’s response to our sin is one of mercy and of forgiveness (while of course not condoning sin). St. Alphonsus is the patron saint of both confessors and moral theologians for this reason. He is also known as one of the greatest teachers or Doctors of the Church; as “the Zealous Doctor.”

What is zeal, and how are we called to be zealous? St. Alphonsus Liguori, like Jeremiah and our Lord Jesus before him, shows us what it means to be zealous for God’s house; a zealous prophet of God’s mercy.

Homily for Thursday, 31 July 2014– Memorial of St. Ignatius of Loyola

Thursday of the 17th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Jeremiah 18:1-6; Psalm 146:1b-2, 3-4, 5-6ab; Matthew 13:47-53

What are the treasures that await us in God’s “storeroom”? Jesus ends a long series of parables in the Gospel of Matthew with these words that we hear today: “Every scribe who has been instructed in the Kingdom of heaven is like the head of a household who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old.” And so I wonder what “the new and the old” treasures in this storeroom are that benefit the “scribe… instructed in the Kingdom of heaven”; the treasures God gives us help us on the way to salvation. What does Jesus mean by this saying in Matthew’s Gospel?

How many of us have gone to a store only to find that what we are looking for; something we need is not on the shelves? We ask the clerk, who says, “there may be one of those in the back room.” The clerk finds and brings out the last of the old stock. Or how many of us see an advertisement for something new, and so we go and buy it? In terms that have nothing to do with our faith, then, many of us have benefited from storerooms with old and new stock.

In terms of our Christian faith, the saying of Jesus in today’s Gospel reading about treasures “new and…old” makes me think of St. Augustine’s reflection on his own conversion in his Confessions. St. Augustine exclaims in prayer to God: “Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new… You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after you. I tasted you, and I feel but hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours.”

Augustine sensed God’s beauty; the treasure that is relationship with God, both “so old and so new” and this made him desire more of this relationship with God. I think that this is at the heart of what Jesus means when he speaks in today’s Gospel reading of “the head of a household who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old.”

Do we not all desire to be with God? Do we not all desire salvation; the “Kingdom of heaven.” We desire not ordinary objects, however much we need or want these, both the old and the new from a store, but we desire God himself. Once we have experienced relationship with God, we desire more; deeper and stronger relationship. This is love; the love of God with which God made us to love God and one another. And so we might pray in words like those of St. Augustine for the treasures of God’s storeroom; treasures both new and old; for God to strengthen our relationships with him and with one another and to lead us to eternal life.

“Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new… You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after you. I tasted you, and I feel but hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours.”

Homily for Wednesday, 30 July 2014– Ferial

Wednesday of the 17th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Jeremiah 15:10, 16-21; Psalm 59:2-3, 4, 10-11, 17, 18; Matthew 13:44-46

Which are some of the most dangerous jobs we can think of? Our firefighters and police officers work in situations that can become dangerous. Just this week, I was relating a story from my first time serving as a Basilian in Colombia, traveling through high passes in the Andes on a bus trip over roads with hairpin turns built into cliff faces. I would not want the job these bus drivers have! As we near the hundredth anniversary of the beginning of World War I, we might remember those who serve in areas of armed conflict; those who are in harm’s way; peacekeepers and peacemakers.

This past week in the Democrat and Chronicle, there was a story of a baker who keeps his shop open in Gaza, risking his own life amid the bombardments there to feed both Israelis and Palestinians; donating loaves of bread to those who cannot afford to buy them. This baker has an extremely dangerous job, and yet I find his selfless courage in facing the distinct possibility of death astounding.

Now, how many of us might consider being a prophet as one of the most dangerous jobs possible? We hear today how Jeremiah accepts God’s call to be a prophet to the people of Israel, and so finds himself in a line of work that puts him in constant danger of being cursed, hated, hurt, or even killed. Nevertheless, Jeremiah finds joy in knowing that he is doing the work to which God has called him. He says, in the hymn that makes up our first reading today: “When I found your words, I devoured them; they became my joy and the happiness of my heart.”

And yet Jeremiah expresses fear. He knows that to be a prophet will probably lead to his death, and so he laments to God. But, as with any good lament in Scripture, Jeremiah only complains of the danger in which prophecy has put him because he trusts in God. In one breath, he laments even being born: “Woe to me, mother, that you gave me birth!” How is it, God, that you have called me to be your prophet when I could have sought a much less dangerous job; one that was not a risk to my life? And then, in another breath, Jeremiah speaks of his deep trust in God: “Though they fight against you, they shall not prevail, for I am with you to deliver and rescue you, says the LORD.”

How deep is our trust in God, when our lives are not as imperiled as Jeremiah’s was and as the lives of many prophets and missionaries for our faith still are today?

The prophet Jeremiah is for us a model of courage; a model of trust in God even when his life is at risk. Let us be mindful today of all whose work is especially dangerous; those who face this danger with selflessness; with courage; with trust in God.

Homily for Monday, 28 July 2014– Ferial

Monday of the 17th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Jeremiah 13:1-11; Responsorial Canticle: Deuteronomy 32:18-19, 20, 21; Matthew 13:31-35

How many of us have ever heard sayings like, “Don’t worry about the small stuff”? Jesus’ parables in our Gospel reading are all about the “small stuff.” On the one hand, Jesus invites us by his parable of the mustard seed to be concerned with the small details; with the small but nevertheless significant contributions we make to building God’s kingdom.

Jesus compares “the kingdom of heaven” to “a mustard seed… the smallest of all the seeds” that blossoms into a magnificent plant on which the “birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches.” What are our small seeds that we contribute to building God’s kingdom on earth? Are they small acts or words of kindness? Are they a smile toward somebody who needs her or his spirit lifted? Is our tiny seed a word of welcome to a visitor to our parish community or someone who joins us for Mass from another of the churches within our parish?

On the other hand, while our small acts of kindness are important toward the building of God’s kingdom, Jesus calls us by his parable of the yeast not to overestimate what we contribute. The building of the kingdom of heaven still requires a large measure of God’s grace and (usually) only a small measure of our good works; just a pinch of yeast for the three measures of wheat flour for the batch to turn out correctly.

God’s grace and our good works, each in their proper proportions, that is, a large part of divine grace for every small part of our good works, are both necessary for building the kingdom of heaven. We cannot neglect that we need the grace of God and yet we are called not to neglect the small but significant role our good works play in bringing the kingdom of heaven on earth to its fullness.

If we neglect either our need for God’s grace or the small but significant contribution our good works; our kindness; our welcome; our acts of mercy toward one another make toward building the kingdom of heaven on earth, as our Responsorial Canticle says, we forget “God who gave [us] birth”; God who made us for himself; God who made us co-creators with him of the kingdom of heaven. Those who forget either our need for God’s grace or for our good works become, in the stark and somewhat disgusting image provided by Jeremiah in our first reading, like a rotten loincloth.

Thankfully, I cannot think of anyone, here or anytime or anywhere in my experience, who would merit such a disgusting comparison! And so our readings today should give us hope. I have seen, and we see it among ourselves here in our parish community, how we are a “mustard seed” people; a people that is yeast to the “three measures of wheat flour” that is God’s grace. We are a people who knows our need for God’s grace as well as our small but significant role to play in bringing the Kingdom of heaven on earth to its fullness.