Homily for Thursday, 4 June 2015– Ferial

Thursday of the 9th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Tobit 6:10-11, 7:1bcde,  9-17, 8:4-9a; Psalm 128:1-2, 3, 4-5; Mark 12:28-34

If you were able to pray for anything you could imagine, for what would you pray?

Our Gospel reading today, from Mark, centers on the most important of Jewish prayers. It is called “Shema” in Hebrew for its first words, “Shema Yisrael”: Hear, O Israel, the LORD is God and the LORD is one. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” To this commandment to love God with our entire being Jesus joins the commandment, also from the Jewish Law, to love our neighbor, one another, with our entire being, too.

We can understand these commandments, as Jesus recites them to the scribe, just as they are, as commandments. But they are also a prayer. Jesus invites the scribe, who is already “not far from the Kingdom of God,” to deepen his ownership of this prayer, the Shema, for himself. Love God and neighbor with your entire being. To pray this will help us better to practice it. Hear, O Israel, the LORD is God and the LORD is one. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength… Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Our first reading, from Tobit, is actually a collection of several prayers. The angel Raphael leads Tobiah to the home of Raguel. There, Tobiah asks to marry Raguel’s daughter Sarah. Our reading gives us some prior background to Tobiah’s request to marry Sarah. Raguel’s daughter Sarah has been married seven previous times and, each time, her husband has died on the night of the wedding. And so we can understand if Raguel, not to mention Raguel’s wife, Edna, Sarah and, perhaps most of all, Tobias, were afraid of the same happening to Tobias!

And so how do Raguel, Edna, Sarah, and Tobias overcome their fear? They pray. After giving Tobiah the macabre history of Sarah’s seven previous husbands, he prays for Tobiah and Sarah: “She is yours today and ever after. And tonight, son, may the Lord of heaven prosper you both. May he grant you mercy and peace.” Edna prays over Sarah, “May the Lord grant you joy in place of your grief.”

And then we hear the most  magnificent prayer of all in our first reading: The prayer of Tobiah and Sarah for each other. They acknowledge God’s will in creation for woman and man; for marriage, that they be each other’s “love and support.” “Call down your mercy on me and on her, and allow us to live together to a happy old age.”

Tobiah and Sarah, Raguel, and Edna could have prayed for anybody; for anything, and they choose to pray for a happy marriage for Tobiah and Sarah, one that pleases God and is based on love of one another. This strange reading is also meaningful to me because part of it, the prayer of Tobiah and Sarah we hear, was the first reading chosen by my sister Deanna and brother-in-law Tyler for their wedding.

The scribe in Mark’s Gospel, too, could have prayed for anything; anybody, yet Jesus invites him to pray that he might deepen his love of God and neighbor. For what or for whom are we invited to pray?

Homily for Friday, 13 March 2015‒ Friday of the Third Week of Lent

Readings of the day: Hosea 14:2-10; Psalm 81:6c-8a, 8bc-9, 10-11ab, 14, 17; Mark 12:28-34

“Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength… You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Of the six hundred thirteen commandments in the Law and the Prophets (the bulk of our Old Testament), Jesus cites these two as the two greatest. They would have been very familiar to Jews of Jesus’ time: The first “greatest commandment,” about loving God with our whole being, is the Jewish Shema, named after the Hebrew word that begins this prayer: “Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Ehad” (“Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God; the LORD is One”). This prayer is in our Book of Deuteronomy, and is still prayed by observant Jews every morning and night to this day.  The second “greatest commandment” of Jesus, on love of neighbor,” is found in Leviticus. And so the scribe who asks Jesus in our Gospel reading “Which is the first of all the commandments?” would not at all have been surprised at Jesus’ answer.

 

But when we hear something that is familiar to us, like a prayer or a wise saying, how do we hear it? How many of us know the phrase, “familiarity breeds contempt”? This phrase may apply to the scribe in Mark’s Gospel who asks Jesus what the greatest commandment is, perhaps to test him. The scribe’s arrogance is shown by his reply to Jesus when Jesus has given the two greatest commandments. The scribe says, “‘Well said, teacher. You are right in saying’ love God with your whole being and love your neighbor.” Of course Jesus is right! And at the end of our Gospel reading, caught in their contempt for Jesus, “no one dared to ask him any more questions.”

And yet there is another way to hear a familiar word or saying or phrase. This way is to hear it, each time, with ears newly attuned and hearts renewed by the wisdom of what we are hearing.

For how many of us is there a saying that remains meaningful to us, no matter how many times we hear it? At our morning prayer, we remember our brother Basilians on their anniversary of death. Often we remember, with fondness and usually with humor, sayings of some especially quotable Basilians. A few days ago we remembered Fr. David Heath, author of many gems: “There’s no free lunch.” “I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor. Rich is better”…

Many of us remember Fr. Peter Etlinger here at St. Kateri. He would caution anyone who yearned for the “good old days”: “I was there. They weren’t that good.”

Familiarity does not need to breed contempt or arrogance. Jesus invites us to make the commandments he gives us anew today so familiar to us that they become how we act and who we are: “Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength” And “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”