Homily for Thursday, 18 June 2015– Ferial

Thursday of the 11th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 2 Corinthians 11:1-11;  Psalm 111:1b-2, 3-4, 7-8; Matthew 6:7-15

Have you ever encountered somebody who has said or done something foolish? Could it have been the person who made an unconvincing argument or the person who inattentively cut ahead of you in line or in traffic (I am guilty as charged on this count!)?

The Corinthians addressed by our first reading had encountered somebody they thought was foolish: Paul of Tarsus. Might we be asking, “Why be so irreverent and critical toward a great saint and apostle like St. Paul?” I love St. Paul, one of my favorite saints in Scripture, but in his second Letter to the Corinthians St. Paul even admits his own foolishness. He says to the Corinthians, “Brothers and sisters, if only you would put up with a little foolishness from me”!

What could possibly have made the great St. Paul appear foolish, at least in the Corinthians’ eyes? St. Paul admits that he is not the most gifted speaker. He admits that he is not like the philosophers in Corinth and other large pagan cities of the time who drew students to themselves and could command a fee for their teaching. “I preached the Gospel to you without charge,” St. Paul says to the Corinthians. But neither being “untrained in” speaking nor teaching “without charge” at the time would have made St. Paul appear foolish, even to the many arrogant Corinthians.

No, St. Paul is considered foolish by many Corinthians because he is in love. And we know that love is irrational; foolish even at times… St. Paul loves the Corinthians; loves and lives by the Gospel he is preaching, the Gospel of Christ crucified and risen. St. Paul is in love with the true Christ behind the Gospel message of our faith, and so the Corinthians label him as foolish!

And who is the true Christ whom St. Paul preaches in Corinth? The true Christ is the Christ of our Gospel reading; the Christ who invites us not to “babble like the pagans” but to trust in our “Father who knows what [we] need before [we] ask him.”

“Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” What kind of prayer is this, Jesus, in today’s world in which many do not revere God’s name; do not even know or want to know God; do not revere God in creation or in the dignity of all human life?

“Give us this day our daily bread.” What kind of prayer is this amid individualism that will not admit when we are in need; that we need God; Christ’s real presence in the “daily bread” of our Eucharist?

“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive… and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” But can we not simply deny evil and sin;  deny our need for forgiveness; our need to forgive others if only for our own peace, as many do? 

What kind of prayer is this? This is a prayer of the foolish! Yet Jesus has made himself so foolish out of love for us that he died for us! And if Christ is a fool out of love, then he invites us to be fools for him, because we love as he loves us.