Homily for Monday, 10 November 2014– Memorial of St. Leo the Great

Monday of the 32nd Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Titus 1:1-9; Psalm 24:1b-2, 3-4ab, 5-6; Luke 17:1-6

What are essential qualities of a disciple of Jesus Christ; of a leader of disciples of Jesus Christ; a leader of the Church?

St. Paul lists several qualities for which Titus is to look in leaders of the Church. Our first reading is a kind of checklist of “must have” qualities of presbyters, the elders of a Christian community; people similar to our priests and experienced and faithful laypeople today. St. Paul presents a similar checklist of “must have” and “must not have” qualities of bishops.

I admit that this beginning of the Letter to Titus is a challenging message for me as a priest to hear. It is a good examination of conscience for me.

Our Gospel reading today from Luke asks only one thing, not only of leaders in the Church but for all of us disciples of Jesus Christ: Forgive one another, repeatedly if necessary. “If [somebody] wrongs you seven times in one day and returns to you seven times saying, ‘I am sorry,’ you should forgive him” or her.

Somehow I feel that this one essential quality of a Christian disciple, being forgiving, is the most difficult to live up to. I would prefer to be able to consult a checklist of qualities of a priest as in the Letter to Titus! Is it not even more difficult to forgive someone who has wronged us when the sincerity of their repentance is questionable? Is forgiveness not more difficult when the person who has wronged us is close to us: a friend; a co-worker; a parishioner; a priest; a family member?

In the confessional and beyond, I hear of many sins. But most distressing for me to hear is not sins that people have committed (sins can be absolved) but, on a few occasions, a lack of forgiveness. The “millstone… around” the necks of many faithful to which Jesus refers in our Gospel reading may be just this: A lack of forgiveness toward those who have wronged us; often toward ourselves.

Let me say this: If you have a millstone; if you are suffering because of sin for which you need to forgive yourself or another; if you have been dragging your millstone along for weeks, months, or years, I want your millstone! I want to start a collection of our millstones so that, by the grace and mercy of God and through the ministry of the Church I and my brother priests can absolve them; destroy these millstones; grant forgiveness; relieve suffering.

I ask one more thing of all of us here: Prayer. Pray for me; for my brother priests; for deacons; for Bishop Matano, Bishop Emeritus Clark, and their brother bishops together with Pope Francis and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. Pray for all leaders of our Church. Pray for one another, so that together we can be the most effective ministers of God’s forgiveness possible. Let us unburden one another of our millstones. The forgiveness our Gospel asks of us may be the most essential of all qualities of a leader of the Church and of any disciple of Jesus Christ.