Homily for Tuesday, 9 July 2019

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

Optional Memorial of St. Augustine Zhao-Rong and Companions, Martyrs

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

Is anybody here a fan of sports like wrestling, martial arts, or the maybe-not-so-new-anymore phenomenon of mixed martial arts? I must confess that, although I enjoy all forms of wrestling in venues like the Olympics, I have never been a fan of these kinds of sports as commercial products.

Yet today the Book of Genesis introduces us to Jacob the Wrestler, or maybe Jacob the Kickboxer or Jacob the Mixed Martial Artist. In one corner, we have Jacob the Decisive Underdog, whom none of the bookkeepers are giving much of a chance. In the other corner, we have the Undisputed Heavyweight (but Mysteriously Weightless-at-the-Same-Time) Creator-Champion of the World… God.

One would have expected this bout to go less than one round, but from the opening bell Jacob miraculously stays in the match. As expected, Jacob takes a beating from God (or the mysterious man who represents God in the ring against Jacob; nobody is really sure), but this match continues on and on. Jacob and God wrestle all night long, “until daybreak.” God injures Jacob’s hip, but Jacob still will not give up. Finally, the referee signals the end of this epic match, and announces the unanimous winner, barely able to believe the judges’ decision: “The winner of the Fight of the Centuries is… Jacob”!

Not only has Jacob defeated God (or God’s “mystery man”), on an injured hip to boot, but because of this win Jacob receives a new name from his opponent, God himself. Jacob is to be known as Israel, which means literally, “One who contends (or wrestles) with God”: “For you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed,” God says to Israel, the man whose victory named and built a nation.

This match results in Jacob gaining a new name, Israel, but God (or his mystery man in the fight, whoever he is) never reveals his name. This is maybe just as well; Israel is content to receive a blessing, and to have escaped this all-night barn burner with his life. In recognition of Jacob’s unprecedented emergence alive from a “face to face” bout with God, the place of the match is renamed Peniel, which is a play-on-words on “face to face” in Hebrew.

What does all this mean for us today, though? In one sense, Jacob-Israel was the first to encounter God “face to face” and to have survived, but he would not be the last. We believe as Christians that we have had the ultimate “face to face” encounter with God in Jesus Christ and, thankfully, we did not even need to fight him. Unlike Jacob-Israel, we did not sustain even an injured hip. Instead, Jesus chose freely to encounter us in our weight class; in the limitations of our human flesh. Jesus chose freely to bear our injuries; our sin; our death on the cross so that we might be saved; so that we, too, may yet contend “with God and with humans” and live to fight another day. Because of God, and God’s Son Jesus Christ, we, like Jacob-Israel, have a chance to be, for the ages, heavyweight champions of the world.

Homily for Monday, 8 July 2019

Readings of the day: Genesis 28:11-22a; Psalm 91:1-2, 3-4, 14-15ab; Matthew 9:18-26

Monday of the 14th week in Ordinary Time

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

Might many of us have difficulty thinking, if we want to think at all, about Lent from the midst of Ordinary Time in which we are presently? Yet do we remember what the minister says to us when we receive ashes on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday? Usually at this point we hear, “Repent and believe in the Good News.” But an older tradition, which some may still use in administering the ashes, is to say, “Remember that you are dust and unto dust you shall return.”

These words spoken by the minister of the ashes on Ash Wednesday hearkens back to Genesis 3, when God says to Adam, who has just eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, “Remember that you are dust and unto dust you shall return.”

Our first reading today, also from Genesis, gives us another perspective on what it means for us to be dust. In the context of God’s words to Adam after Adam has committed the first human sin, “Remember that you are dust and unto dust you shall return” has a gloomy sense to it. Is to consider ourselves dust, more broadly, not a somewhat gloomy, underappreciated view of our dignity as human beings?

Unlike Adam, in today’s reading from much farther on in Genesis, Jacob has not sinned. In fact, he has received a vision, communication of the height of love between God and humankind, represented by “the angels of God… ascending and descending upon” a ladder stretching between heaven and earth.

Despite not having sinned and despite having received this magnificent vision of the communication of divine love between God and us, God still goes on to remind Jacob that not only he but his descendants are and “shall be like the dust of the earth.” Why would God identify Jacob and his descendants with something as gloomy as dust?

Clearly, in our reading today, this is meant as a compliment, even a blessing of Jacob by God: Jacob’s “offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and… shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south.” In this sense, God’s words to Jacob are more reminiscent of God’s first blessing to Adam and Eve, and God’s command to them to “multiply” and “fill the earth,” than of God’s gloomy reminder to Adam after he has sinned that he is “dust, and unto dust [he] shall return.”

But, even as God blesses Jacob and, by association, blesses us, may we be reminded that we are dust in both senses of the term: We are blessed and even commanded to “spread abroad”; “multiply”; “fill the earth” according to our fundamental God-given human dignity, yet God reminds us at the same time to acknowledge and live our own finiteness and mortality as beings on this earth. God invites us to acknowledge and to live the finiteness of all of creation, and to care for God’s creation accordingly in this life, our transition stage from present finiteness to the infinity of eternal life.

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.

Homilía del martes, 7 de julio, 2015– Feria

Martes de la 14a semana en el tiempo ordinario

Lecturas del día: Génesis 32:23-33;  Salmo 17:1b, 2-3, 6-7ab, 8b, 15; Mateo 9:32-38

Dí esta homilía en la capilla de la Iglesia San Miguel, Parroquia Sta. Frances Xavier Cabrini, Rochester (Nueva York).

This homily was given in the chapel of St. Michael's Church, St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Parish, Rochester, NY.

¿Ha sido momentos en nuestras vidas cuando hemos deseado la certitud? ¿Alguna vez han deseado la certitud en su búsqueda de empleo o (cómo yo en este momento) aplicando para estudiar? ¿Cuantas personas aquí han deseado la certitud sobre su salud o la salud de un querido?

Creo que desear la certitud en nuestras vidas es muy natural. La búsqueda de certitud influye sobre nuestra fe. ¿Cuantas personas aquí se han preguntado, o mejor han rezado para que Dios nos ilumina sobre la buena acción o decisión a tomar en tal situación? ¿Cuantas personas aquí serían consoladas si podriamos saber con certitud que sí, un familiar o otro ser amado que ha muerto ya está en el cielo?

Nuestras lecturas de hoy se tratan de nuestra tendencia de buscar; de desear la certitud. Quedando solo cerca del río Yaboc, Jacob lucha contra “un hombre” que llegamos a saber es enviado por Dios. El hombre anónimo deja Jacob, al punto de amanecer, con una cadera dislocada. He amanecido mal de vez en cuando, ¡pero que manera brusco de dispertar a alguien! El hombre con quien lucha Jacob nunca deja saber a Jacob su nombre. Deja a Jacob en su incertitud.

Pero a pesar de su incertitud Jacob se siente de una manera victorioso. ¿Y porqué Jacob se siente victorioso? Queda herido a la cadera. Y el hombre con quién lucha no le revela su nombre pero cambia el nombre de Jacob a Israel, lo que significa “lucha con Dios.” Pero Jacob dice al fin, “He luchado con Dios cara a cara y he quedado con vida.”

Hay aquí palabras de confianza. No sólo lucha Jacob contra el hombre desconocido, pero lucha contra su propia incertitud. Su lucha es verdaderamente una lucha de fe; una lucha con Dios “cara a cara” a través de qué Dios da vida y fortalezca a Jacob; a “Israel,” el luchador con Dios. Y de la misma manera Dios nos invita a confiar en Él; de desear no siempre la certitud pero a encontrar a Dios en medio de nuestra incertitud; nuestros momentos de debilez de cuerpo, de mente, o de alma.

Jesús nos invita en nuestro Evangelio a la misma confianza que llega a tener Jacob en el libro de Génesis. “La multitud” que siga a Jesús al sitio en donde cura a un demonio acepta su invitación a confiar en Él; en su capacidad de curar y sanar a los enfermos. Podemos imaginar que los fariseos que rechazan a Jesús en el Evangelio de hoy estaban buscando de una manera la certitud. La curación del demonio mudo quién empieza a hablar introduzca cuestiones; incertitud a esta situación: ¿De quién ha recibido Jesús el poder curativo: De Dios o de un demonio? ¡Qué desorden introduzca Jesús a este encenario!

Pero es una desorden que cura; que sana si estamos dispuestos a aceptarlo; a encontrar a Dios en medio del desorden; de nuestra incertitud. Dios no garantiza que será fácil o, cómo Jacob, no vamos a ser heridos de vez en cuando. Pero Dios nos invita y nos prometa que nos dará vida si, sobre todo en medio de la incertitud, buscamos con confianza a encontrar y a luchar con Dios “cara a cara.”