Homily for Monday, 15 September 2014– Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows

Monday of the 24th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 1 Corinthians 11:17-26, 33; Psalm 40:7-8a, 8b-9, 10, 17; John 19:25-27

What is the ideal community; the ideal household; the ideal Church? From the moment when, from the Cross, Jesus “said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold, your son” and to “the disciple whom he loved… ‘Behold, your mother,” we have had an example of the ideal community; the ideal household; the ideal Church.

How many of our communities; our households; our families meet this ideal image of community; of household; of Church given us at the Cross of Christ? I suspect, or at least I hope, that not many of our communities; our households; our families are at the level of dysfunction of the Corinthian Church that St. Paul criticizes in our first reading today. Many of us here at St. Kateri are people after “the disciple whom [Jesus] loved”: kind and generous; unnamed and under-recognized and yet true disciples of Jesus Christ in every way.

But are there not still “divisions among” us in our world; in our families; in our Church? These divisions are maybe not to the extent of those among the Corinthians addressed by St. Paul, but we experience divisions nevertheless. We experience broken families; families divided into “factions.” We experience people estranged from the Church. We experience the anguish of parents and grandparents because of the absence of their children and grandchildren from the Church. We experience violence in our streets; war in many regions of our world; poverty, homelessness, and hunger while some hold onto vast riches. These divisions are a great source of sorrow.

In our sorrow at the divisions in our world; our families; our Church, we are united in the suffering of Christ on the Cross. We are united in this way with Mary, Our Lady of Sorrows. And yet, even amid suffering and sorrow in our world and in our own lives, we are invited on this Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows, which follows yesterday’s Feast of the Exultation of the Cross, to remember that this worst suffering possible, that of Christ on the Cross, is what has redeemed us.

Christ did not die to redeem the ideal community; the ideal household; the ideal Church; the ideal world. He died for communities; households; families; the Church; a world that are divided; that are tainted by sin and yet strive for the ideal. Christ died for you and for me.

On this feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, we are called back to the focus of our faith; to the focus of this and every Eucharistic celebration. As St. Paul says to the Corinthians and we hear repeated in our Psalm response and again during our Eucharistic Prayer, we “proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes again.”

In proclaiming “the death of the Lord until he comes again,” we proclaim our redemption by Christ’s cross. At the same time, we seek forgiveness for our divisions; for our sin; for the times when we fail to live up to the ideal image of community; of household; of Church given us by the beloved disciple’s taking of Mary, Our Lady of Sorrows, into his home. And so may we, a repentant; forgiven; redeemed people, renew our focus to “proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes again.”