Homily for Wednesday, 9 August 2017– Ferial

Wednesday of the 18th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Numbers 13:1-2, 25, 14:1, 26a-29a, 34-35; Psalm 106:6-7ab, 13-14, 21-22, 23; Matthew 15:21-28

Is it possible, on the one hand, for the quality of our relationship with God, whether our fundamental relationship toward God is one of trust or one of fear, to affect our relationships with God’s creation; with one another? On the other hand, is the opposite also possible, when the quality of our relationships with creation; with one another are reflected in the quality of our relationship with God?

Our readings today, from Numbers and the Gospel of Matthew, suggest a connection between our relationships with the created world, with one another, and with God. In the Book of Numbers, we hear of the final preparation stages for the people of Israel to return home to the land God has promised them. Through Moses, God sends spies into “the land of Canaan” to scout the land the people of Israel are to settle. After forty days of scouting Canaan, the spies return and report on their spy mission to “Moses and Aaron and all the congregation of the Israelites in the land of Paran.” Their report is mixed: Canaan is prosperous, flowing with “milk and honey.” And yet the scouts doubt the ability of the people of Israel to conquer both the land and the people of Canaan. The people of Canaan “are stronger than we,” the scouts report, “to ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.” The land of Canaan itself “is a land that devours its inhabitants.”

Indirectly, the scouts’ lack of confidence that the people of Israel could settle successfully in Canaan shows their lack of trust in God, who had promised this land to them. Their default relationship with God is one of fear. And so God’s promise, the inheritance of the land of Canaan, will be for the next generation. Because of the scouts’ lack of trust in God, shown by their unfavourable report about the land of Canaan and its people, their generation is left to perish in the desert.

Contrast the fear and lack of trust of the Israelites under Moses, of the scouts to Canaan in Numbers, with the boldness of the Canaanite woman (a pagan, not even a Jew!) who asks Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel to heal her daughter. The Canaanite woman would have had every reason to fear or doubt Jesus’ ability to heal her daughter of the demon. Jesus’ disciples try to send her away because she continues to pester them. Even Jesus does not seem too keen on helping the woman. Jesus’ first priority, he says to the woman, is to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Jesus even seems, to our ears, harsh with the Canaanite woman (what this meant in Jesus’ time, if different from its meaning today, is difficult to say), likening her and her non-Israelite people to “dogs.”

Nevertheless, the Canaanite woman is not deterred. She even plays along with Jesus’ seemingly derogatory reference to her people. The Canaanite woman shows bold trust in Jesus’ ability to heal her daughter, trust that is clearly from God and that she reflects back to God in a kind of gift exchange. Jesus must acknowledge her deep trust in him and so in God, which is greater than that of most of his own people: “Great is your faith”!

Great is the faith of those people who show their trust in God by acknowledging and trusting God’s handiwork in creation and in our relationships with one another.   

Homily for Tuesday, 11 July 2017– Memorial of St. Benedict

Readings of the day: Genesis 32:23-33; Psalm 17:1b, 2-3, 6-7ab, 8b, 15; Matthew 9:32-38

Tuesday of the 14th week in Ordinary Time

Is there anybody here who has ever wrestled or who enjoys wrestling? I must admit that wrestling is not my favourite sport. Yet today we hear in our readings the continued story of Jacob. We hear about Jesus’ confrontation with the mute man with a demon, and we celebrate this feast day of St. Benedict of Nursia, the sixth-century abbot whose Rule is the basis for life in many religious orders to this day. Jacob, Jesus, and Benedict were all expert wrestlers.

Of course, they were not wrestlers in the sense of the sport we are familiar with today. They are wrestlers in a spiritual sense, at least in the case of Jesus and St. Benedict. But do we not have to admit that each were involved in some epic wrestling matches? Even if we, like Jacob, were quite confident in our wrestling abilities, how many of us would dare to wrestle with God? Talk about a heavyweight class matchup! I wonder what our best chance would be against an opponent as powerful as God. Would we opt for Greco-Roman wrestling, or maybe freestyle? Or maybe we might try oil wrestling, which I understand is the national sport of Turkey, or beach wrestling (yes, this is actually a type of wrestling)? In any case, I do not think many of us would stand much of a chance in a wrestling match against God!

But Jacob holds his own. This wrestling match goes on all night, “until daybreak.” And then, in the upset for the ages, Jacob actually wins his match against God, disguised as a man in our reading from Genesis. Sure, Jacob ends up with a dislocated hip, but this is not bad for somebody who has just emerged from an all-night wrestling match against God! Jacob gets a blessing from God after his victory. We know that God is a good sport; even if he dislocates your hip, he will give you a blessing, especially if you ask as Jacob did. Jacob also gets a new name, Israel, which, Genesis tells us, means one who has wrestled or “striven with God.” And in memory of Jacob’s unprecedented victory, his having “seen God face to face” and lived, the people of Israel no longer eat “the thigh muscle that is on the hip socket” of animals.

Jesus’ wrestling match with the mute demoniac is described more briefly in Matthew’s Gospel than Jacob’s match with God is in Genesis. But it is as much or more of a classic match as that of Jacob. In fact, this match between God and demonic forces, against Satan himself, is still going on. God has promised us that he will win this match.

But God, through Jesus Christ, has asked for our help. We might follow the example of St. Benedict, who saw the Christian life as a participation in a spiritual battle; a wrestling match. The Rule of St. Benedict says, “When you begin a good work, earnestly pray to God to bring it to perfection.” St. Benedict invites us to prayer. Jesus invites us to the harvest, and to pray for more “labourers” to join the harvest. They, along with Jacob, invite us to wrestle with God and with demons. The best part is that, if we accept this invitation to wrestle, we are guaranteed victory.

Homily for Saturday, 28 March 2015‒ Saturday of the Fifth Week of Lent

Readings of the day: Ezekiel 37:21-28; Responsorial Canticle: Jeremiah 31:10, 11-12abcd, 13; John 11:45-56

Who are prophets among us today, those whom we recognize and those whom we do not recognize?

Our Gospel reading today from John presents us with an unlikely prophet: The high priest Caiaphas. How many of us are thinking, “Caiaphas, a prophet, really? Does Caiaphas not contribute to the evil that results in Jesus’ death?”

Indeed Caiaphas contributes to Jesus’ death, but he speaks some of the most prophetic words in John’s Gospel to the Sanhedrin, the governing body of Jewish religious authorities in Jesus’ time. Caiaphas says: “You know nothing, nor do you consider that it is better for you that one man should die instead of the people, so that the whole nation may not perish.” John explains that Caiaphas prophesies Jesus’ death “not only for the nation, but also to gather into one the dispersed children of God.”

Let us put John’s explanation here into historical context: By the time of Jesus, the people of Israel had a long history of failing to listen to prophets. True prophets like Ezekiel, whom we have heard in our first reading today, and Jeremiah, whom we have heard in our Responsorial Canticle, were ignored, persecuted, or even killed for doing exactly what Jesus did: Trying to gather Israel, God’s chosen people, into one nation. Because these true prophets were ignored and prosecuted, the people of Israel suffered periods of exile and occupation by neighboring nations.

Ironically, precisely because most religious authorities ignored and then planned to kill Jesus, Caiaphas’ prophecy that Jesus was the one “to gather into one the dispersed children of God” by his death came true; is still coming true today. We are a people being gathered together under Christ our Lord.

Who are the prophets today who signal our being gathered together as one people; as God’s people? Who are the unrecognized; unheralded prophets among us? Can we think of anybody today who, like the high priest Caiaphas, is disagreeable or even wicked, but who occasionally speaks profound words of truth, even unintentionally: Words that unite; words that examine our motivations; words that might expose some of our own sin; our own need for repentance?

Who are the Caiaphas figures of our time? Does it not take more discernment; more effort on our part to find the grain of truth that a false prophet like Caiaphas speaks, and to live this truth for our own good? This it does, and yet this is the calling to us through the Word of God today: To discern prophecy; to discern truth even from the unlikeliest of sources. The dull, those of weak faith, the disagreeable, and even the wicked are sometimes as much instruments of God as the strong, true, and faithful prophets to do God’s work: To gather us together as one people under Christ our Lord.

Homily for Wednesday, 30 July 2014– Ferial

Wednesday of the 17th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Jeremiah 15:10, 16-21; Psalm 59:2-3, 4, 10-11, 17, 18; Matthew 13:44-46

Which are some of the most dangerous jobs we can think of? Our firefighters and police officers work in situations that can become dangerous. Just this week, I was relating a story from my first time serving as a Basilian in Colombia, traveling through high passes in the Andes on a bus trip over roads with hairpin turns built into cliff faces. I would not want the job these bus drivers have! As we near the hundredth anniversary of the beginning of World War I, we might remember those who serve in areas of armed conflict; those who are in harm’s way; peacekeepers and peacemakers.

This past week in the Democrat and Chronicle, there was a story of a baker who keeps his shop open in Gaza, risking his own life amid the bombardments there to feed both Israelis and Palestinians; donating loaves of bread to those who cannot afford to buy them. This baker has an extremely dangerous job, and yet I find his selfless courage in facing the distinct possibility of death astounding.

Now, how many of us might consider being a prophet as one of the most dangerous jobs possible? We hear today how Jeremiah accepts God’s call to be a prophet to the people of Israel, and so finds himself in a line of work that puts him in constant danger of being cursed, hated, hurt, or even killed. Nevertheless, Jeremiah finds joy in knowing that he is doing the work to which God has called him. He says, in the hymn that makes up our first reading today: “When I found your words, I devoured them; they became my joy and the happiness of my heart.”

And yet Jeremiah expresses fear. He knows that to be a prophet will probably lead to his death, and so he laments to God. But, as with any good lament in Scripture, Jeremiah only complains of the danger in which prophecy has put him because he trusts in God. In one breath, he laments even being born: “Woe to me, mother, that you gave me birth!” How is it, God, that you have called me to be your prophet when I could have sought a much less dangerous job; one that was not a risk to my life? And then, in another breath, Jeremiah speaks of his deep trust in God: “Though they fight against you, they shall not prevail, for I am with you to deliver and rescue you, says the LORD.”

How deep is our trust in God, when our lives are not as imperiled as Jeremiah’s was and as the lives of many prophets and missionaries for our faith still are today?

The prophet Jeremiah is for us a model of courage; a model of trust in God even when his life is at risk. Let us be mindful today of all whose work is especially dangerous; those who face this danger with selflessness; with courage; with trust in God.