Homily for Tuesday, 8 June 2021– Ferial

Readings of the day: 2 Corinthians 1:18-22; Psalm 119:129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 135; Matthew 5:13-16

Tuesday of the 10th week in Ordinary Time

Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium devotes an entire chapter—a short chapter of only four articles, but still a full chapter—to what it calls “the universal call to holiness.”

And, although today’s Gospel never uses the term “universal call to holiness,” I think Matthew communicates a similar idea to “the universal call to holiness” through Jesus’ comparatively pithy metaphors of salt and light. Holiness, and every Christian’s call to holiness, is twofold: First, God calls each of us to strive for personal holiness. Second, as we strive for and attain personal holiness, God calls us to encourage one another toward the same holiness.

So what does this have to do with salt and light? Salt preserves and adds flavour to food. If we are “salt of the earth,” somehow we are preserving and building up one another in ways of holiness and our imitation of Christ as the ultimate example to us of personal holiness. Salt not only adds its own flavour to food, but it can also draw out flavours that are naturally in the food already. So it is when we recognize particular traits of holiness, or talent especially for service to others’ well-being, and encourage other people—encourage ourselves, as members of a local religious community—to exercise those traits or talents.

Light may correspond more closely to our own striving for personal holiness. Jesus says, “You are the light of the world… Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” If we are to be salt, that is, if we are to recognize and encourage others to draw out their gifts, talents, traits of particular, holiness, then we first are invited to be light, that is, to recognize and exercise our own gifts God has given us as a way to holiness.

To be “light of the world”; to display our light “on the lampstand” is not to be boastful of our own holiness or strengths. After all, our holiness; our talents; our particular gifts and strengths are from God. In a homily for Epiphany a few years ago, Pope Francis began with a reference to St. Ambrose of Milan’s Hexameron, or commentary on Genesis’ six days of creation. St. Ambrose compares us, the Church, to the moon. Our light is not our own, but we reflect the light of God as the moon reflects the sun’s light. But neither is the moon “ashamed” to be merely the reflector of sunlight; the light of the sun gives the moon its particular beauty, which every other object and living being observes. Besides, we would blind ourselves if we were to look directly at the sun. Likewise, when we perceive the beauty of God, we are usually perceiving it as reflected through something or somebody. Our holiness depends on how good we are as “reflectors” of God.

Lumen Gentium 41 invites us as Christians to “walk unhesitatingly according to [our] own personal gifts and duties in the path of the living faith, which arouses hope and works though charity.” In other words, be salt that preserves others and draws out of others particular gifts of holiness from God. At the same time, be light; be “reflectors” of God’s light, not so much that others will say “look at us,” but “look at God” because of the beauty of God that is evident in the holiness of God’s faithful.

Homily for Tuesday, 12 July 2016– Ferial

Tuesday of the 15th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Isaiah 7:1-9; Psalm 48:2-3a, 3b-4, 5-6, 7-8; Matthew 11:20-24

This homily was given at the chapel of Kateri House Women's Residence of St. Joseph's College, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada.

How many of us have been faced with situations of extreme sorrow or devastation, or know somebody who has faced a situation like this with seemingly superhuman courage and faith? Maybe the situation was the loss of a home or employment, or other economic hardship. Maybe it was the serious illness or death of a family member or other loved one. Maybe, closer to the situation of today’s reading from the prophet Isaiah, some of us know people who have been forced to leave their homelands because of war or persecution.

Please pardon my loose Charles Dickens reference here, but today we are presented in our readings with the tale of three cities. The two towns in our Gospel reading from Matthew, Chorazin and Bethsaida, do not remain courageous and faithful and so are chastised by Jesus. And in one city, Jerusalem, in Isaiah, at least a few, a “faithful remnant,” face one invasion after another by neighbouring nations, and then deportation and exile, with great courage and faith in God.

I am not sure anybody really knows why Jesus scolds Chorazin and Bethsaida, two tiny fishing villages of his time, so harshly in Matthew’s Gospel. Nobody knows what circumstances they may have been facing that led them to turn away from Jesus and his message. All we have today as witness to this event is a small plaque next to the ruins of Chorazin (this according to a humorous story by my brother Basilian priest, Fr. Thomas Rosica of Salt and Light Television in Toronto, of whom some of us may have heard). The plaque reads, “Welcome to Chorazin. This is the village that Jesus cursed.”

Jerusalem of Isaiah’s time is faced with the weak leadership of Ahaz, the king of Judah, roughly the southernmost third of Israel including Jerusalem. Instead of trusting in the one God of Israel, our God, Ahaz had made alliances with neighbouring nations, including agreements to allow worship of their gods in Judah, in an attempt to stave off Judah’s invasion and destruction. We know that ultimately Judah and the rest of Israel are invaded and overtaken anyway.

But Isaiah gives us, in the name of one of his sons, Shear-jashub, meaning “a remnant shall return,” a clue of how this time of invasion, deportation, and exile will end. “A remnant shall return.” Most of Israel’s exiles would become comfortable in exile and never return home. Yet a small group would return to rebuild Jerusalem and Israel.

This remnant would need the prophet Isaiah’s encouragement to face the devastating destruction of their homeland once they had returned. Isaiah encourages this remnant people by pleading with them: “Take heed, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint… Stand firm in faith” because this awful situation is temporary. Before God “it shall not stand.”

Could these be timely words of encouragement for us or for anybody we know who is dealing with extreme sorrow; devastation; even despair? These could be timely words to bring to prayer for all people who especially need our prayers and our encouragement today.

Homily for Tuesday, 1 September 2015– Ferial

Tuesday of the 22nd week in Ordinary Time

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

Do any of us ever find readings like those we hear today a bit frightening? Paul speaks in 1 Thessalonians of inescapable “sudden disaster” that will befall all who are not on their guard. Paul compares the end of time, “the day of the Lord,” to the “labor pains” of “a pregnant woman” in childbirth. And in Luke’s Gospel Jesus contends with “a man” possessed by “the spirit of an unclean demon.”

But our readings today from 1 Thessalonians and Luke do not need to frighten us. How, then, are we invited to respond to God’s Word today?

I imagine St. Paul trying to find a balance between two groups of people: Those who are frightened about what will happen at the end of time, or maybe about being persecuted for their faith, and those who are lulled into indifference by their prosperity, “peace, and security.” We know both types of people today. On the one hand we know the people who continually sound the alarm; those stereotyped by the image of the person on the street corner preaching or holding a sign that says, “The end is near”! Short of this extreme, we know people who are constantly complaining; who live in and on fear; who yearn for “the good old days”; who are convinced of our world’s path to moral destruction. On the other hand, we know of people whose prosperity has lulled them into a false sense of “peace and security.” These people become indifferent to social needs; to our responsibility to meet these needs and to uphold the dignity of human life and creation.

St. Paul is not trying to frighten us, but is inviting us to find a balance; to “stay alert,” neither alarmist nor indifferent but faithfully waiting for our Lord’s return in glory. If we are truly “alert” in our faith, we will not be surprised or frightened by Jesus’ return at the end of time. St. Paul speaks to us with great confidence in our faith: “You are children of the light and children of the day.” And so what is the faithful balance St. Paul asks us to seek? St. Paul says, “Encourage one another and build one another up.” Our common goal; God’s goal for every one of us; for our Church, is our salvation “through our Lord Jesus Christ.” God, through St. Paul, asks us to help one another toward this goal.

“Encourage one another and build one another up.” We hear a similar message to this today from Luke’s Gospel. The people  who hear Jesus teach and witness his healing of the man with a demon are “astonished at his teaching, because he [speaks] with authority.” The people spread “news of” Jesus’ healing “everywhere in the surrounding region.” The next step, for the people of Jesus’ time and for us who spread the Good News of Jesus Christ “everywhere,” is to realize that we are given the same “authority” with which Jesus spoke and acted. So many of us are realizing this already by accompanying those in need; by being a joyful presence to one another; by praying and by worshipping here. We are neither fearful nor indifferent. We are “children of the light and “of the day” building “one another up” toward salvation in Christ together.

Homily for Monday, 8 June 2015– Ferial

Monday of the 10th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 2 Corinthians 1:1-7;  Psalm 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9; Matthew 5:1-12

Have you ever had the need to correct another person, or to speak out or write against a cultural tendency that is wrong or even sinful? If you have ever had to correct; criticize; confront another or a society’s ills, how often do we try to praise the person or society for right actions and tendencies before we offer our criticism?

I imagine St. Paul doing this at the beginning of his Second Letter to the Corinthians, which we hear today as our first reading. 2 Corinthians is often called St. Paul’s “angry letter” or is thought to be the “tearful letter” of which St. Paul speaks in 1 Corinthians. No early Christian community gave St. Paul as much trouble; tried his patience as much as the church of Corinth, in what is now Greece.

What made Corinth so troublesome to St. Paul? Corinth was ideally situated on the Mediterranean; a city with two ports. Because of this Corinth became very wealthy in a short time, at about the same time St. Paul brought the Christian faith there. Many Corinthians thought their city; their culture to be superior, even invincible. Who was this Jesus whom St. Paul preached to challenge their ways of living? Many in Corinth in Paul’s time were smug and involved in all kinds of immorality because their wealth could buy it or buy their way out of trouble.

But today we do not hear St. Paul criticize these Corinthians. Instead, he begins his Second Letter to the Corinthians with a lengthy encouragement of those trying to keep the faith in Jesus Christ that Paul has taught them. St. Paul especially encourages “those who are in any affliction.” He identifies; empathizes with their affliction and also having been encouraged in his moments of affliction; suffering.

What were the sources of “affliction” of the Corinthians whom St. Paul encourages in these first words of his letter to them? Were they external pressures: The threat of persecution under the Roman Empire or anybody opposed to the Christian faith, perhaps? The causes of suffering for faithful Corinthian Christians could also have been internal pressures to conform to the prevailing culture. They could have been pressures toward hoarding of wealth; toward excessive pleasures; toward disregard for the dignity of the human body more than toward faithfulness to Christ and his Gospel.

What are sources of “affliction” in our world; our country; our families today? Who is most in need of our “encouragement”? Could these people often be the same people in need of our firm challenge, even occasional criticism?

Drawing upon St. Paul, could our words of correction; criticism; our “angry” or “tearful letters” and words not more often be preceded by encouragement? To our children and grandchildren who no longer attend Mass: What is drawing them away from regular worship? Do they need criticism, or do they first need somebody from among us to hear them; to encourage them in ways they are living rightly? What are underlying afflictions of those who abuse their bodies with alcohol; drugs; sex? What about the poor among us?

St. Paul’s words to the Corinthians today invite us to be mindful of people who need our encouragement amid their afflictions that we may not even see.