Homily for Tuesday, 3 September 2019– Memorial of St. Gregory the Great

Readings of the day: 1 Thessalonians 5:1-6, 9-11; Psalm 27:1, 4, 13-14; Luke 4:31-37

Tuesday of the 22nd Week in Ordinary Time

This homily was given at St. James Church, Vernon, BC, Canada.

Luke’s Gospel says today that the people of Capernaum, where Jesus taught “on the Sabbath,” “were astounded at his teaching because he spoke with authority.” How did Jesus speak “with authority,” and what would it mean for us to speak and act “with authority” after Jesus’ example?

Our Gospel gives us some indication of ways in which Jesus “spoke with authority.” Today, we hear how Jesus healed a man with an unclean spirit in the same synagogue at Capernaum. Simply by placing this scene on the Sabbath in a synagogue, Luke is relating that Jesus had a sizeable audience for his teaching. A few years ago, during a pilgrimage I was on to the Holy Land, our group visited Capernaum. For the time, Capernaum would have been a sizeable community for a population centre other than Jerusalem in Roman Palestine, a town of about 1 500 people built around fishing on the Sea of Galilee. And its synagogue from Jesus’ time, now an archaeological site, is an imposing structure with its Greco-Roman columns. I easily imagine this space having been full that day for Jesus’ teaching and healing of the man with the unclean spirit. Jesus’ reputation as somebody who not only spoke well but backed up his teaching and preaching with actions like this miraculous healing would have spread quickly from a place like Capernaum.

But speaking well or powerfully is not necessarily enough for somebody to be regarded as authoritative, at least in a good way. Might we say that actions that show power, even in the presence of large crowds, are not in themselves enough to constitute authority?

Can many of us not think of a long list of world leaders and dictators who have spoken and acted with power, even people who were considered “authoritative” in their time? But there is a difference between authority and tyranny. Gregory the Great, the sixth-century pope whose feast we celebrate today, made this distinction between authority and tyranny, even within the Church. Gregory said, “No one does more harm in the Church than he who has title or rank of holiness and acts perversely.”

The rightful exercise of authority is never about me; it is about God. Authority empowers another and empowers our Church as a communion of faith with God’s grace. This is what Jesus did on that Sabbath in the synagogue in Capernaum and what Jesus continues to do through us today.

And it begins with our baptism: By baptism we all, not only ordained members of the Church, are given the power and the responsibility in Christ to speak and act with authority; to speak and act in a way that channels God’s grace to one another; to speak and act in a way that reconciles and forgives sin; to speak and act in a way that brings us to salvation together.

Homily for Friday, 4 August 2017– Memorial of St. John Vianney

Friday of the 17th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Leviticus 23:1, 4-11, 15-16, 27, 34b-37; Psalm 81:3-4, 5-6, 10-11ab; Matthew 13:54-58

What is authority, and how do we gain authority?

As the journey home to the land promised them continues for the people of Israel under Moses, we make the transition from Exodus to Leviticus today in the daily readings at Mass. But the authority Moses has in leading the people of Israel continues. It is an authority based on trust and reciprocal love between the people and Moses.

The kind of love and trust that builds between Moses and the people of Israel was the love and trust that the saint we celebrate today, John Vianney, enjoyed with the people he served in the tiny French village of Ars. John Vianney was known for his long hours hearing confessions. He was a devoted pastor, or “Curé” of Ars, in the tumultuous years after the French Revolution. Not long after John Vianney’s arrival in Ars, the humble parish priest began to draw travelers from long distances who would seek his spiritual guidance. St. John Vianney’s authority, like that of Moses, was based on love and building trust between himself and the people he served.

Jesus is not so fortunate insofar as building trust with the people he taught. Matthew’s Gospel says today that Jesus had arrived “in his hometown” and had begun “to teach the people in their synagogue.” Instead of recognizing Jesus’ authority; that he is the Son of God, the people of Nazareth question his authority: “Where did this man get this wisdom and these deeds of power? Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary” and “his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas”?

By this point in Jesus’ public ministry, it would seem by Jesus’ remark that “prophets are not without honour except in their own country and in their own house” that he had enjoyed popularity and even genuine love from the people he had encountered before his return home. It is difficult to say why Jesus would have been received so poorly in his hometown after having had prior success; having established himself as a teaching authority in Israel. Perhaps the people of Nazareth were jealous of Jesus’ authority. Perhaps they were simply too familiar with Jesus and not willing to accept that a son of their hometown could be God. Perhaps that any human being could be God was too much of a stretch for the people’s Jewish faith already.

Whatever the reason Jesus was not accepted in Nazareth, I have found that my experience has been closer to that of John Vianney than to that of Our Lord. It has not been my experience to be derided; to have my authority questioned especially here in the city where I grew up. And so I find it somewhat difficult to relate to the events of today’s Gospel.

And yet, to return to the questions of what authority is and how we gain it, let me ask for your prayers on this feast of St. John Vianney, patron of priests, that any authority I exercise or any priest exercises through the ordained priesthood may, first, be a reflection of Jesus’ authority; God’s authority that sustains the world and our Church with loving kindness. And second, may any authority I or any priest; any minister of our Church exercises serve the authority we are all given through Baptism before any other sacrament, to be the presence of Christ we receive and celebrate here to our world.

Homily for Monday, 15 December 2014– Ferial

Monday of the 3rd Week in Advent

Readings of the day: Numbers 24:2-7, 15-17a; Psalm 25:4-5ab, 6, 7bc, 8-9; Matthew 21:23-27

“The chief priests and elders” in the temple ask Jesus in today’s Gospel reading, “By what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you this authority”?

I imagine that we know the answer to these questions that the religious leaders of Jesus’ time asked him. I imagine that “the chief priests and elders of the people” knew the answers to their own questions, too. What is the nature of Jesus’ authority? Who gave Jesus the authority he has?

Authority can be frightening. Can we not think of people in positions of authority in society and in the Church who have abused their authority? The word “authoritarian” often carries a negative connotation. But Jesus’ authority is not a domineering, abusive, or self-absorbed kind of authority. So what is Jesus’ kind of authority?

Jesus’ authority is a priestly authority, as the perfect mediator of the sacred, God, to all creation, since he is both God and human. Jesus’ authority is a prophetic authority, preaching a truth that raises the poor, those of low social status, and the oppressed to their full dignity as daughters and sons of God. At the same time, Jesus’ prophetic authority exposes and destroys the false authority of those who dominate, oppress, or abuse. Jesus’ authority is a royal authority; the authority of a servant-leader; an authority willing to empty himself on a cross for our salvation.

And who is the source of Jesus’ priestly, prophetic, and royal authority? Jesus’ authority is from God. The religious authorities of Jesus’ time knew of claims that Jesus was God, and they were justifiably afraid. Have we not known “authorities” who have claimed or had others claim for them to be like gods? I think of cult leaders, terrorists, and many dictators even in our lifetime. In Jesus’ time the Romans claimed Caesar to be a god.  Can we not then appreciate how “the chief priests and elders of the people” were afraid of this kind of authority?

And yet Jesus’ authority respects and lifts up human dignity. It saves. Anything short of this is not true authority; is not God’s authority.  But is it not also especially remarkable that Jesus has given each of us his own priestly, prophetic, and royal authority through the sacrament of baptism?

If we were to be asked, “By what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you this authority,” how would we answer? How do we show to people around us the authority we have from God; an authority that lifts one another up; an authority for one another’s good; an authority that is kind, gentle, and just?

Many in our world continue to fear our kind of authority, even when we exercise it rightly. And so to live the authority of our Christian baptism takes courage. It takes discernment of where God is present in our lives, inspiring our exercise of authority. Our authority is not our own; it is from God, the author of all life and dignity. And yet we have this gift of authority, a priestly, prophetic, and royal authority; the authority of Jesus Christ the Son of God; authority for one another’s good; authority to lift up the poor and oppressed; authority that saves us.