Homily for Thursday, 13 November 2014– Memorial of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini

Thursday of the 32nd Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Philemon 7-20; Psalm 146:7, 8-9a, 9 bc-10; Luke 17:20-25

Who among us has ever searched high and low for something that we have left in an obvious place, only not to be able to find it? After much wasted time and frustration, how many of us have reacted with annoyance at ourselves for not having found the object sooner? “It was right there in the open. How did I not see it?” we might ask ourselves.

This has happened to me on a few occasions. Perhaps we are searching for our keys; our wallets; our phones; pens and pencils; a book; our Bibles or missalettes… But what if we were searching for the Kingdom of God?

The Pharisees in today’s Gospel reading from Luke are searching for the Kingdom of God, but they cannot find it. Jesus says to the Pharisees, “The days will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it.” And yet, before this, Jesus says to them, “Behold, the Kingdom of God is among you.”

The Pharisees search high and low, but they cannot find the Kingdom of God that is right out in the open, present before them and before us. Have any of us had a similar experience to theirs?

Jesus warns his disciples not to “run in pursuit” of those who say, “‘Look, there he is,’ or ‘Look, here he is.’”; there is the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is here now. Do Jesus’ words of caution remind any of us of some evangelists on television who misquote or proof-text Scripture to induce fear in their hearers that the world could end anytime? We may be reminded of the stereotypical preacher on a street corner holding a sign, “The end is near”!

But there are more subtle ways in which we can miss the presence of the Kingdom of God among us here and now. Jesus ends our Gospel reading today with a startling reminder: “So will the Son of Man be in his day. But first he must suffer greatly and be rejected by this generation.”

Who are the people who “suffer greatly and [are] rejected by [our] generation”? Who are the people who share in the Passion; the Cross of Christ today; who are nevertheless signs to us of the Kingdom of God breaking through their suffering?

Today we celebrate the feast day of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, the first naturalized American citizen to be canonized a saint. Mother Cabrini was an immigrant herself, from Italy. She educated, clothed, and sheltered orphans; the poor; immigrants of her time; people who had been “rejected by [her] generation” as Jesus was by his.

This nation has known Mother Cabrini’s example. Sadly, it still knows many poor; many immigrants and refugees who are not welcome; who suffer as Christ suffered for us; who are in a special way a sign of the Kingdom of God; the face of Christ to us. The Kingdom of God is here now before us, if we dare to search for it where it is, out in the open.