Homily for Tuesday, 25 July 2017‒ Feast of St. James

Tuesday of the 16th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 2 Corinthians 4:7-15; Psalm 126:1bc-2ab, 2cd-3, 4-5, 6; Matthew 20:20-28

Would most if not all of us not think that, for this Feast of St. James, one of Jesus’ closest friends and most important of his twelve Apostles, a reading more flattering toward this great Apostle might have been chosen? After all, there are Gospel readings that cast St. James in a better light than the one we have heard this morning. The Transfiguration is first on my mind, or even Jesus’ choice of the Apostles in which, after Jesus calls Peter and Andrew, before he calls anybody else to be his Apostles, he calls James and John, “the sons of Zebedee.”

We hear today of the favour asked of Jesus by “the mother of the sons of Zebedee,” for her sons. Matthew’s Gospel says that she kneels before Jesus only to ask him for this strange favour: “Declare that these two sons of mine will sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.”

Understandably, the other Apostles feel slighted by James’ and John’s mother’s request for their sons that they be seated in God’s kingdom, one at Jesus’ right and the other at his left. But is it not curious that the other ten Apostles become angry not at James’ and John’s mother who asks for special treatment for her sons, but at James and John themselves? Maybe this is because the Apostles appreciated how difficult it would have been to be the mother of an Apostle. By experience with my own parents, I know how great (and often difficult) a vocation in itself it can be to be the parent of a seminarian or a priest today, or the mother or father of a married person, for that matter. But imagine being the mother of an Apostle!

An Apostle in Jesus’ time was not a calling with great job security. In fact it was almost a death sentence, if we consider that Jesus’ Apostles, except for John, are traditionally said to have been martyred, with St. James the first martyr among them. And so we might empathize somewhat better with James’ and John’s mother’s request for them.

To this request, though, Jesus responds in the only way he is able: “To sit at my right hand and at my left, this is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.” If anything, today’s Gospel reading exposes a frequent and age-old temptation in our world and in our Church not to serve before being served, but to look first to our own security, our own comfort, and our own ambition.

Knowing this temptation in James and John; in his other Apostles; in us, Jesus warns them quite harshly: “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them,” but “it will not be so among you.” Regrettably, this has been so over the more than two thousand years of Christian history, more often than we would like to admit.

To be an Apostle; to be a Christian, living up to the call of our Baptism, is to imitate Jesus in striving to serve before being served; in giving of our lives in service toward one another. This imitation of our Lord, as St. James and his fellow Apostles knew all too well, is only possible with God’s grace.

Homily for Wednesday, 22 July 2015– Memorial of St. Mary Magdalene

Wednesday of the 16th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Exodus 16:1-5, 9-15; Psalm 63:2, 3-4, 5-6, 8-9; John 20:1-2, 11-18

What do the people of Israel fleeing Egypt led by Moses and Aaron have in common with Mary Magdalene? The people of Israel in our first reading, like Mary Magdalene in John’s Gospel, want to hold onto something; onto what is safe; secure; certain, even if what is safe, secure, or certain is not best for them.

The people of Israel under Moses and Aaron have become seasoned complainers. They even begin to say that they would have been better off enslaved by the Egyptians than traveling through the desert hungry led by Moses and Aaron! God has mercy on these people who complain at some point on their journey back to Israel about nearly everything, it would seem. Here God promises them: “In the evening twilight you will eat flesh, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread.”

But the flesh they are given to eat is gamey quail. And the bread that falls upon the camp in the morning is “like dew”; hardly what the people of Israel were expecting. And so they ask: “What is this (in Hebrew, “Manna?”, the question that gives this strange dew-like substance its name)?

God, I believe, tries to move the people of Israel away from dependence on safety; security; certainty and toward a deeper trust that God, through Moses and Aaron, is leading them home to freedom. The same is true of Mary Magdalene in our Gospel reading. Of course who among us could fault Mary Magdalene for her sorrow at Jesus’ crucifixion and death?

Still, Jesus’ first words to Mary Magdalene are, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for”? Added to the horror of Jesus’ crucifixion and death; to the lack of certainty (and likely safety and security) Mary feels, somebody appears to have taken away Jesus’ body. Could we understand if Mary Magdalene’s first thought were anything but that Jesus could have risen from the dead? This would have been highly unlikely.

And yet there Jesus is, calling her by name, “Mary”! Mary immediately recognizes Jesus’ voice. Her sorrow and confusion give way to joy as she exclaims: “Rabbouni”!

But Jesus says to Mary, “Stop holding onto me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am going to my Father and your Father; to your God and my God.” Jesus is asking Mary amid this flood of emotions she must have been feeling to deepen her trust in God: “Stop holding onto me”; onto safety; security; certainty. When has God invited us in our lives to do the same?

Mary Magdalene, without doubt, heeded Jesus’ invitation to “go to [Jesus’] brothers” with the message that he had risen. If not, she would not be known as “the Apostle to the Apostles” as she is. We would not be here to worship Jesus Christ who died and rose again for us; who invites us from time to time to let go of our need for safety; security; certainty for a greater good. This greater good that God promises us is our salvation, if we follow Mary Magdalene in trusting Jesus: “I am going to my Father and your Father; to my God and your God.”