Homily for Tuesday, 18 November 2014– Ferial

Tuesday of the 33rd week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Revelation 3:1-6, 14-22; Psalm 15:2-3a, 3bc-4ab, 5; Luke 19:1-10

How many of us have heard how important it is to be mindful of the company we keep? If we associate with people with bad reputations, we may ourselves be judged as disreputable or, worse, we might acquire the bad habits of disreputable people with whom we associate.

Apparently Jesus never got this memo. Here, in today’s Gospel reading, Jesus invites himself to the home of Zacchaeus, a tax collector. Immediately the crowds begin “to grumble, saying, ‘He has gone to stay at the house of a sinner.’”

Luke’s Gospel goes into great detail to describe the ridiculousness of this encounter between Zacchaeus and Jesus. Zacchaeus is “short in stature,” and so he climbs “a sycamore tree” in a loose-fitting tunic “in order to see Jesus.” Imagine this scene! And then, implausibly, Zacchaeus offers to “give half [his] possessions… to the poor” and to pay back what he has stolen as a tax collector. But the crowds do not complain about how ridiculous all this makes Zacchaeus appear. No, they complain about Jesus’ going to eat at the house of this “sinner.”

Now, will anybody here complain that Jesus has gone to eat at the house of sinners? After all, Jesus has come here, to be with us in this house; a house of sinners, each and every one of us, for this feast; this Eucharistic celebration. I think we would be hard-pressed to hear anyone here complain about Jesus joining us here and now; joining us to eat in this house of sinners; making it a house of God. But so he has.

Jesus does not seem to understand the rule about minding one’s company. He associates with sinners; with Zacchaeus; with us. If we examine our hearts; our consciences, we will find that we have probably all sinned. Even more than damaging our relationships with God and one another, sin makes us look ridiculous; about as ridiculous as a little man climbing a sycamore tree in a loose-fitting tunic!

But we are fortunate that Jesus is bold enough to keep company like us; to live among us as human, to die, to rise, and to return in glory for us, all redeemed sinners.

Jesus recognizes the dignity behind the ridiculous Zacchaeus; that “this man, too, is a son of Abraham.” Behind our ridiculousness; our sin, Jesus recognizes that we, too, are daughters and sons “of Abraham”; daughters and sons of God; created and loved by God, even when we are up a sycamore tree (figuratively) in a loose-fitting tunic! Jesus is here now to clothe us with God’s love and mercy, “to seek and to save what was lost”; to bring “salvation…to this house.”

We are fortunate that Jesus keeps company like us; that Jesus is here to eat with us; in fact to give himself as food for our celebration in this house of redeemed sinners.

Homily for Friday, 1 August 2014– Memorial of St. Alphonsus Liguori

Friday of the 17th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Jeremiah 26:1-9; Psalm 69:5, 8-10, 14; Matthew 13:54-58

What is zeal? This is a word we do not hear often, and yet in our Responsorial Psalm today we hear: “Zeal for your house consumes me.”

How many of us recognize this and other parts of our Psalm today, especially from references to this Psalm in the New Testament. “Zeal for your house consumes me.” This is the verse that Jesus’ disciples remember in John’s Gospel after Jesus overturns the money changers’ tables. Other verses from this Psalm are used in Jesus’ Passion: “Those outnumber the hairs of my head who hate me without cause… The insults of those who blaspheme you fall upon me… O God, in your great kindness, answer me.”

But this verse about “zeal for [God’s] house” stands out for me today. What does it mean to be zealous for God’s house. The prophet Jeremiah risks his life because of his zeal for God’s house. The central message of his prophecy is that, unless the people of Israel of his time return to faithfulness to God; to covenant relationship with God that involves attention to both social justice and right worship, the temple, the very center of Israel’s worship, would be destroyed and the people exiled. Of course, the people did not listen to Jeremiah, the temple was destroyed, and Israel and Judah were invaded and the people exiled.

Jesus, too, has zeal for God’s house, and again the people he teaches “in their synagogue” do not listen to him. They dismiss him as merely “the carpenter’s son.” So what good is zeal for God’s house; what good is prophecy, speaking for God, if it brings only scorn and possibly death?

Even today, cannot zeal have a bad connotation: Someone is “zealous” in the sense of being prudish or moralistic. This is not the kind of zeal shown by either Jesus or Jeremiah, and yet we are called to the same zeal for God’s house as Jesus or Jeremiah showed; zeal that risks being unpopular from time to time; standing for something that is right even when it is counter-cultural.

Zeal does not need to mean preaching so-called “fire and brimstone.” The saint we celebrate today, St. Alphonsus Liguori, founder of the Redemptorist order, is an example of one who was zealous for God’s house in that he preached not a punishing God but a God who is merciful; the God of “great love” that the author of our Psalm today knew. This went against the culture of St. Alphonsus’ day; a culture that understood God as harsh and condemning of sinners; that understood receiving communion at Mass as being only for those totally without sin. St. Alphonsus taught that our response to sin; God’s response to our sin is one of mercy and of forgiveness (while of course not condoning sin). St. Alphonsus is the patron saint of both confessors and moral theologians for this reason. He is also known as one of the greatest teachers or Doctors of the Church; as “the Zealous Doctor.”

What is zeal, and how are we called to be zealous? St. Alphonsus Liguori, like Jeremiah and our Lord Jesus before him, shows us what it means to be zealous for God’s house; a zealous prophet of God’s mercy.