Homily for Tuesday, 26 May 2015– Memorial of St. Philip Neri

Tuesday of the 8th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Acts 22:30, 23:6-11; Psalm 60:1-2a, 5, 7-8, 9-10, 11; John 17:20-26

After hearing our Gospel reading today, do any of us feel a bit sorry for Jesus’ disciples? Peter, discouraged, says to Jesus: “We have given up everything and followed you.”

What precedes Peter’s discouragement? Our Gospel reading today, I think, requires some context for us to understand Peter’s reaction and then Jesus’ reply to Peter: “Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up” everything for me and for “the Gospel who will not receive a hundred times more.”

Jesus has encountered a rich young man in Mark’s Gospel just before the reading we hear today. How well do we remember this conversation between the rich young man and Jesus? The rich young man asks Jesus how he might enter eternal life. After all, he has “observed all” God’s commandments “from [his] youth.” Still, Jesus sends him away sad, saying, “You are lacking in one thing. Go, sell what you have and give to the poor… Then come, follow me.”

Jesus does not turn the rich young man away primarily because of his excess wealth. But he lacks something more critical to his salvation than literally giving away his material possessions. What does the rich young man lack? What do Peter and the other disciples also lack? The rich young man, like Peter and the other disciples in today’s Gospel and like us, follow God’s law as faithfully as we can. We are here at Mass earlier than most people are awake, many of us daily. And then so many of us here at St. Kateri go forth from worship here to serve our communities our families by wonderful works of mercy; kindness; generosity of all kinds. I am almost sure that this is all God can ask of us!

Our first reading, from the Book of Sirach, praises people who “keep the law”; the commandments of God. To those who obey God’s commandments, Sirach says, “the LORD will give back… sevenfold.” And our Psalm assures us: “To the upright I will show the saving power of God.” And so to obey God’s law; God’s commandments is excellent and a significant starting point toward eternal life.

But there is more to entering eternal life than following a set of commandments. But what? How many of us know somebody who is almost obsessive about following rules perfectly? This kind of obsession can destroy a person spiritually and perhaps physically and mentally.

God invites us to obey his commandments. And yet, more importantly, God asks us to live God’s law with joy and perhaps a sense of humor. St. Philip Neri, whose feast we celebrate today, is known as a patron saint of humor, which he often directed at himself. A man once asked St. Philip Neri if, as a penance, he should wear a hair shirt. St. Philip allowed him to wear the hair shirt, if only outside his other clothing!

St. Philip Neri shows in episodes like this how to be obedient to God’s law with joy and humor. His example is an echo of the central point of our readings today: Live God’s law; the Gospel of Jesus Christ, not with obsessive perfectionism but with joy, and this will bring us to eternal life.