Homily for Tuesday, 2 September 2014– Ferial

Tuesday of the 22nd week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 1 Corinthians 2:10b-16; Psalm 145:8-9, 10-11, 12-13ab, 13cd-14; Luke 4:31-37

“What is there about his word?” the people in the synagogue of Capernaum ask of Jesus in the Gospel reading we hear today. Our Gospel reading says that Jesus “spoke with authority.” But what is the authority with which Jesus spoke? From whom was the authority with which Jesus spoke?

The too-easy (yet nevertheless correct) answer to this question about the source of Jesus’ authority is that it is from God. Jesus is God as much as he is human, and so it is not surprising that his teaching would have stirred his hearers as much as it did. And what was the authority shown by Jesus that Sabbath day in the Synagogue, when he taught the people and then cast the demon out of a man “without doing him any harm”? It was authority manifest as compassion; as love; as healing.

“What is there about his word?” It is the word of God. Indeed, it is spoken with the authority of God. It is a compassionate authority; a loving authority; a healing authority. But there is more to Jesus’ authority than just these features. I think this is what St. Paul means when he says to the Corinthians in our first reading, “We have the mind of Christ.”

We have been given the authority of Christ; an authority to be exercised as compassion; as love; as healing and unifying relationships in our Church, in our families, in our communities, and in our world. “We have the mind of Christ.” We have “the Spirit who is from God” who gives us the authority to act as Christ acted; to speak as Christ spoke.

This authority; this mind; this Spirit of Christ; the Holy Spirit “from God” moves in this parish community of St. Kateri in so many ways. It moves us to generosity. It moves us to small but significant daily acts of kindness. It moves us to care for the sick; the aged; the poor; the unemployed and underemployed; the homeless; those who have lost loved ones; those who are new to our community. It moves us to deepened faith; to joy. It moves us to worship as one faith community.

Not all in our world; in our communities; even in our families will accept or understand this Spirit; the authority with which we have been gifted as Christians as “from God.” Even when our example is most Christ-like; compassionate; loving; healing, there will be many who will dismiss it as “foolishness.”

But there will be enough people, in our world today as in the time of St. Paul or of Christ himself, who will ask, “What is there about his [or her] word?”

“What is it,” then, “about [our] word”; our authority as sisters and brothers in Christ? Insofar as we live this authority that “is from God,” we will continue to show to our world an authority manifest as compassion; as love; as healing and unifying; an authority lived joyfully that says to our world: We are inspired by the Spirit of God. “We have the mind of Christ.”