Homily for Tuesday, 20 June 2017– Ferial

Tuesday of the 11th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 2 Corinthians 8:1-9; Psalm 146:2, 5-6ab, 6c-7, 8-9a; Matthew 5:43-48

Is there anybody here who is comfortable speaking about money, especially asking other people to give generously of their hard-earned money, even to worthy causes? I cannot speak for our other priests and staff of St. Kateri; I am only able to speak for myself. But I sense that, whenever we need to ask for added money contributions from St. Kateri parishioners, this is not one of the things we feel most comfortable doing, mostly because we recognize how generous so many of us already are.

In this part of 2 Corinthians from which we hear today, St. Paul is speaking of a collection that was taken up from the other Christian communities of the world to send to the church in Jerusalem, which was extremely poor at the time. St. Paul, like many if not all of us today, felt some unease at having to ask the other Christian communities for money to support Jerusalem.

Yet St. Paul speaks to the Christians of Corinth, a very wealthy church at the time, of the spontaneous generosity of another church, that of Macedonia, toward Jerusalem. Macedonia was neither extremely rich nor extremely poor, although it had its significant challenges and even “a severe test of affliction” from time to time. Despite not having much excess wealth, the Macedonian church begs Paul and his companions “insistently for the favor of taking part” in the collection to help Jerusalem.

My sisters and brothers of St. Kateri, I wonder if we here are more like the Macedonians and less like the Corinthians of St. Paul’s time. There are quite wealthy people, and some quite poor people, in our parish. But most of us are neither extremely wealthy nor extremely poor. We here at mainly “middle class” St. Kateri, as in “middle class” Macedonia of St. Paul’s time, have an opportunity here; a calling here to generosity with the resources we have.

And by resources, I do not mean only money or material wealth. Amid St. Paul’s appeal to Corinth to be like Macedonia, except much wealthier, in supporting Jerusalem, he also sends them Titus, whose mission it was to direct the Jerusalem relief effort; the collection in Corinth. I imagine Titus’ mission in Corinth was a difficult one, unless (and I imagine not) he was the type of person who was comfortable asking people for money.

In a few weeks, we at St. Kateri will welcome a new Parochial Vicar, Fr. Michael, in place of Fr. Morgan who is beloved of many people here, and rightly so. Might Fr. Michael be like St. Kateri’s latest Titus? Not only are we invited to be generous with our material resources, but also with our welcome of a new voice; a new (to us here) priest; a new way of preaching and living the Word of God, and so forth. As the Macedonians were generous toward Jerusalem in a way that was an example to other Christian communities, and as St. Paul called the Corinthians to receive Titus with generosity and love as he was entrusted with a difficult message and mission to them, may we ever be an example to everybody around us, to other parishes, of generosity and love, by “the grace of God.”