Homily for Sunday, 8 July 2018

Sunday of the 14th Week in Ordinary Time


Readings of the day: Ezekiel 2:2-5; Psalm 123:1-2ab, 2cd, 3-4; 2 Corinthians 12:7-10; Mark 6: 1-6

This homily was given at St. Margaret Mary Church,  St. Kateri Tekakwitha Parish, Rochester, NY, USA. 

How many of us have experienced being rejected at one time or another? I do not want to dismiss my experiences of being bullied at school as a child and teenager as insignificant, because this experience continues to play a role in forming the person I have become, and even played a role in my having become a Basilian priest. And yet, the more I think about my experiences of having been accepted or rejected, I realize how fortunate I have been, with some important exceptions, to have been, for the most part, accepted wherever I have been, from my home city of Edmonton, Canada to Paris, France, where I live now for most of the year, and beyond.

Coincidentally, this is the second year in a row I have visited Rochester, and St. Kateri Parish, during the Fourth of July holiday. Some of us who attended or walked with us during the Irondequoit Fourth of July parade may have noticed Fr. Joe Trovato riding in a Chevy Corvair convertible. From where Fr. Joe was in the parade, he was ideally placed to notice and be deeply moved by (as he said to me later that afternoon) how often I was called to either side of the parade route to greet St. Kateri parishioners and families, and often children I have known from St. Kateri School. To be called and welcomed along the Fourth of July parade route is delightful to me, too, although it has become somewhat second nature to me because I know how genuinely welcoming we are here at St. Kateri. And yet to hear from Fr. Joe how much joy seeing this gave him in turn reinforces my joy in and thanksgiving for you; for this parish community of St. Kateri.

I have lost track of the number of times people of St. Kateri have greeted me during my last ten days here with, “Welcome home, Father.” Almost as often, people who have greeted me in this way have then paused and then added something like, “Welcome to one of your many homes, Father”!

Truth be told, I always and will always feel at home here at St. Kateri. I will always feel at home because you, my sisters and brothers of St. Kateri, have made this such a welcoming place, for me and many other people. And, with this, I would like to extend a word of welcome to everybody who may be visiting St. Kateri Parish this weekend and for this Mass.

As I thank you and welcome us together as officially as I can through this act of preaching, though, I cannot help but wonder why Jesus was made to feel so unwelcome, not only in places he visited but in his hometown. In our Gospel reading today from Mark, Jesus laments that “a prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.” We hear that Jesus is unable “to perform any mighty deed” in his hometown, “apart from curing a few sick people,” which is still significant enough that Mark would mention Jesus’ few healings in his hometown.

In Mark’s Gospel especially, this is not the first time and would not be the last when Jesus would be rejected. From the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, his family believes “he is out of his mind.” Today, we hear how Jesus is rejected in his hometown. And then, as Jesus is betrayed, arrested, beaten, mocked, and crucified, his most trusted friends and disciples flee from him. When Jesus is on the cross, “even God seems to have abandoned” him, and so Jesus cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me”?

When I contrast Jesus’ repeated and constant rejection and abandonment to death on a cross alone with the welcome I and so many people receive in a place like St. Kateri Parish, I cannot help but feel horribly for Jesus. Our Lord’s rejection throughout the Gospel of Mark by his family, the people of his hometown, his best friends, and seemingly even God, also reminds me of a 1989 French Canadian film by Denys Arcand called Jésus de Montréal (Jesus of Montreal). In this film, actors stage a Passion play in a church in Montreal. Parishioners of the church become increasingly unhappy about the direction of the play, and so they turn against the actor who plays Jesus, who is the same person who has written the play. The plot parallels the Gospels’ telling of the increasing rejection of Jesus himself.

At the Vincentian Motherhouse’s St. Vincent de Paul Chapel, where I usually go to Mass when I am in Paris, one of the Vincentian brothers, who knows I am Canadian but is either confused about the distance (a five-hour flight) between Montreal and my hometown of Edmonton, or pretends to be confused about Canada’s expanse, for humorous effect, enjoys greeting me after Mass with, “How is Jesus of Montreal today”?

Suffice it to say that I feel precisely the opposite of rejected; precisely the opposite experience of Jesus of Montreal— or Jesus of Nazareth— when I am greeted as generously and joyfully as I am around the world, from Paris to Irondequoit to Edmonton. These greetings are also deeply humbling, especially if we think of other times in our Gospels in which Jesus warns against the pride and vanity that can result from our adulation by the people we serve as Christian disciples. If we are received well, sisters and brothers, may we pray for the grace to serve God’s glory and one another’s well-being before our own. And if we have ever been rejected for our faith and not for our own fault, may we take solace in that Jesus, in becoming fully human like us, has entered into solidarity with our rejection. He has put our rejection to death on the cross with him in order to accept; to receive; to greet us one day into eternal life with him.

And so all this leads me into an important question for us: If Jesus were to appear among us here and now— if Jesus of Nazareth, or at least Jesus of Montreal, were to show himself among us as Jesus of Irondequoit— as Jesus of St. Kateri Parish, how would we receive him? If your greeting, every time I visit St. Kateri, of this humble(d) priest-servant-brother in Christ of yours, is any indication, I have no doubt that you would greet and receive Jesus with your characteristic generous, warm St. Kateri welcome. You would make our beloved Fr. Joe, whether riding in a Corvair in the Fourth of July parade or pausing the Mass as he does so beautifully and often to greet our cooing youngest members of St. Kateri Parish, proud. But, most of all, you would be giving Jesus Christ the welcome befitting our God who became human like and for us; who put himself at the mercy of our welcome in this world to save us.

How well, then, would we receive our Lord, Jesus of Nazareth, if he were Jesus of St. Kateri;

if he were Jesus of the House of Mercy or of St. Joseph’s House of Hospitality, Jesus of Rochester’s poor and those who serve the poor here and everywhere,

If he were Jesus of the U.S.-Mexico border

If he were Jesus of Rochester General, Unity, Strong, or Monroe Community Hospital,

If he were Jesus of the vulnerable elderly and homebound,

If he were Jesus of those not yet born,

If he were Jesus of the crisis pregnancy,

If he were Jesus of the abused,

If he were Jesus of the imprisoned,

If he were Jesus of those affected by war and violence?

For Jesus is all these. Jesus, who lived, who experienced rejection, suffered, died, and rose again, will return again at the end of time and, once again, he will put himself at the mercy of our welcome.