Monday of the 22nd Week in Ordinary Time
Readings of the day: Jeremiah 1:17-19; Psalm 71:1-2, 3-4a, 5-6. 15ab, 17; Mark 6:17-29
This homily was given at Anglin House, Cardinal Flahiff Basilian Centre, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Readings of the day: Jeremiah 1:17-19; Psalm 71:1-2, 3-4a, 5-6. 15ab, 17; Mark 6:17-29
This homily was given at Anglin House, Cardinal Flahiff Basilian Centre, Toronto, ON, Canada.
What would have been the response of John the Baptist’s and of Jesus’ disciples to the news of John’s death at the hands of Herod? I imagine John’s and Jesus’ disciples as having been heartbroken and probably afraid. John’s beheading would have been a great blow to the earliest Church, second only in devastation to Jesus’ own death.
Might we not imagine John’s and Jesus’ disciples thinking about abandoning their lives as disciples out of fear; wanting to return to their former livelihoods; wondering whether their own deaths at the hands of the authorities of their time and place were at hand? This was certainly the case for these same disciples after Jesus’ death. But, had the disciples of John the Baptist and of Jesus fled after John was killed, their story and ours as Christians would have ended there. And even though most of Jesus’ disciples fled after his death, they reassembled, even if in fear at first, to witness to Jesus’ resurrection and to take up the Christian mission with the strength of the Holy Spirit.
These first disciples’ story; our Christian story continues because these first disciples, of John and then of Jesus, did not give into fear. They accepted their own vulnerability, the finiteness of their own earthly lives, their sin and their need for God’s mercy and forgiveness. The disciples’ example is in marked contrast to that of Herod, who would not accept his own vulnerability and finiteness of his rule or his life. He would not accept John’s speaking truth to Herod’s wrongful marriage to his brother’s wife Herodias, beyond a superficial level of liking “to listen to” John. Herod’s lack of acceptance of vulnerability and of truth led him to commit murder.
John the Baptist’s and Jesus’ disciples’ example of acceptance of vulnerability and of their need for God is an invitation to us to follow suit. Our world gives us many reasons to be afraid. Over this summer, while I have taught in Edmonton and so far travelled here to Toronto, I have been asked many times about the response in France to several terrorist attacks: Those in Paris last November; the killing of Fr. Jacques Hamel in July while he was presiding at Mass near Rouen; the Bastille Day attack in Nice… I have been encouraged that many French have not retreated in fear after these attacks; they have back out on the café terraces, living as French people do, within days of these awful events.
This is not to say that the French, nor we nor anybody, are or should be completely without fear. But may we not allow our fear, our vulnerability, even our sin to break us. May what could break us instead be what brings us together and brings us closer to God, after the example of the disciples of John the Baptist and of Jesus, and of John and Jesus themselves.
Might we not imagine John’s and Jesus’ disciples thinking about abandoning their lives as disciples out of fear; wanting to return to their former livelihoods; wondering whether their own deaths at the hands of the authorities of their time and place were at hand? This was certainly the case for these same disciples after Jesus’ death. But, had the disciples of John the Baptist and of Jesus fled after John was killed, their story and ours as Christians would have ended there. And even though most of Jesus’ disciples fled after his death, they reassembled, even if in fear at first, to witness to Jesus’ resurrection and to take up the Christian mission with the strength of the Holy Spirit.
These first disciples’ story; our Christian story continues because these first disciples, of John and then of Jesus, did not give into fear. They accepted their own vulnerability, the finiteness of their own earthly lives, their sin and their need for God’s mercy and forgiveness. The disciples’ example is in marked contrast to that of Herod, who would not accept his own vulnerability and finiteness of his rule or his life. He would not accept John’s speaking truth to Herod’s wrongful marriage to his brother’s wife Herodias, beyond a superficial level of liking “to listen to” John. Herod’s lack of acceptance of vulnerability and of truth led him to commit murder.
John the Baptist’s and Jesus’ disciples’ example of acceptance of vulnerability and of their need for God is an invitation to us to follow suit. Our world gives us many reasons to be afraid. Over this summer, while I have taught in Edmonton and so far travelled here to Toronto, I have been asked many times about the response in France to several terrorist attacks: Those in Paris last November; the killing of Fr. Jacques Hamel in July while he was presiding at Mass near Rouen; the Bastille Day attack in Nice… I have been encouraged that many French have not retreated in fear after these attacks; they have back out on the café terraces, living as French people do, within days of these awful events.
This is not to say that the French, nor we nor anybody, are or should be completely without fear. But may we not allow our fear, our vulnerability, even our sin to break us. May what could break us instead be what brings us together and brings us closer to God, after the example of the disciples of John the Baptist and of Jesus, and of John and Jesus themselves.
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