Homily for Sunday, 10 September 2023– Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

Readings of the day: Ezekiel 33:7-9; Psalm 95: 1-2, 6-7, 8-9; Romans 13:8-10; Matthew 18:15-20

When I served in Colombia as a postulant with the Basilians, we observed community spiritual practices that go way back in the Church and in religious orders, but which I found especially difficult: Culp and monitions. Culp is when you meet with a fellow member of the community (a postulant, seminarian, or priest) and tell him and ask his forgiveness for an offense you have committed, usually some wrong against the good of the community in the religious house. Monitions is when somebody in the local community confronts another about an offense he has committed.

It is not that I found culp easy: I could certainly think, without much difficulty, of a few ways in which I have tried and am still trying to live religious life better, be a better brother to the Basilians with whom I live; simply be a better human being. But, compared to culp, I sincerely disliked the practice in monitions of having to think of something of which to accuse one of my brother Basilians in the house. What if the offense of which I accused another made me look like a great hypocrite? Surely I am guilty of many things greater than the little offense of which I am accusing my brother, right? And I am not, by nature, confrontational.

I think this is healthy; I do not think I (or we) should go out of our way to reveal and confront the wrongs of others. If they are serious enough—like, real sins—they tend to reveal themselves quickly and widely in our social settings. And, contrary to the claim I hear occasionally that, because of increased secularization or other factors, our societies have “lost a sense of sin,” I think (maybe this is influenced by my experience of religious community life) that our societies, as secularized as they are, have increased in their sense of the social effects of evil, what we call sin, over its effects on the individual. This increase in awareness of “social sin” and its effects has been especially rapid in the last few generations, our lifetimes. I would like to know our thoughts on this.

But, I think, few of us enjoy confronting another person or a group, even if they are behaving in a truly wrong or sinful way. Nobody wants to be revealed as a great hypocrite for exposing the sins of others that may pale in comparison to the gravity of our own wrongs. Yet this is precisely the ministry God gives to the prophet in today’s reading from the Book of Ezekiel.

God has set Ezekiel as “a watchman for the house of Israel.” If Ezekiel refuses not only to confront a fellow Israelite who has sinned, but “to warn the wicked to turn from their ways,” he will meet the same end that they will. Ezekiel, like those who act wickedly, “will die in their iniquity.”

God asks quite the unenviable task of Ezekiel. Like most if not all the Old Testament prophets, I imagine that Ezekiel simply wanted to live a good life and go about his business without troubling anybody. Last week we heard from Jeremiah, another prophet who has a different vision for his life before God calls him to be a prophet to Israel. And when God calls Jeremiah to be a prophet, Jeremiah immediately wants to back out, but feels compelled—“enticed” is the word Jeremiah uses—to continue in the ministry to which God has called him, even though this has made him “a laughingstock” to his fellow Israelites.

So this is a common theme in the prophetic writings of the Old Testament: God insists on calling the prophets to a thankless ministry; the prophets’ reluctance to accept God’s call does not exempt them from it. In our Gospels, Jesus and his disciples are heirs to this same tradition of ancient Israel, the Jewish people. Jesus and his disciples, now we, are heirs to the same prophetic ministry as people like Ezekiel or Jeremiah exercised. So, what is this prophetic ministry? What does it look like for us to exercise it?

Inheriting the tradition and the ministry of the Old Testament prophets, of Jesus and his first disciples does not mean minding our own business, or even going about living our best lives as individuals when clearly evil exists and people do wrong in our world. Even if we are unsure if another’s actions are wrong or sinful enough to merit our intervention or confrontation—this was my problem with monitions—Jesus’ teaching and God’s call to Ezekiel say to us that it is not enough that we should simply mind our own business.

The greatest good not only of individuals but of the whole community—the “common good”—must be first and foremost when somebody has done wrong in a way that might have compromised the good of the community. Remember the beginning of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, before the Beatitudes in the same Gospel of Matthew from which we hear today. Jesus’ first teaching in Matthew in fulfillment of “the Law and the prophets” is: “When somebody wrongs you, first go and be reconciled with your brother or sister, and then offer your gift at the altar.”

That first teaching of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, “First be reconciled,” conditions Jesus’ teaching in today’s Gospel reading about what to do when a brother or sister, a sharer in our faith, a member of our Church wrongs us. “First be reconciled,” or, as Jesus says today, “Go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone.”

And, by “go and point out the fault,” Jesus is not saying that we should point out another’s fault, even a serious one, in a nasty or vindictive way. In this first step of how to act when another person wrongs us, I hear almost a presumption on Jesus’ or Matthew’s part that, most of the time, this step will suffice to bring the person who has committed the wrong to remorse and penance. How many times has this happened to us: We are about to say to somebody, in the most forgiving and empathetic tone we can muster (please pray for the graces of forgiveness and empathy in these situations!), “What you did or said really hurt me”? And, before we are even able to say something like that, the person says, “I’m sorry. I did or said something very hurtful and wrong.” This has happened to me many times. And it is most humbling when a person to whom I am closest—a friend, maybe even a family member or a brother Basilian—asks (in fact, anticipates) my forgiveness in this way. Just as often, this happens when I go into an encounter of reconciliation with such a person thinking I was in the wrong; that I said or did something to irritate that person and provoke a harsh response.

Forgiveness, communal and individual, must rule these encounters, Jesus says, for any wrong not to weigh down and destroy the community of faith. Maybe we tend (I am not sure about any of us, but I speak for myself) to think of Jesus’ promise at the end of today’s Gospel reading in the context of the Eucharist, the Mass, or other communal prayer: “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”

It is perfectly right for us to interpret Jesus’ promise in this way: Jesus is with us in this celebration, where there are “two or three,” or however many “gathered in [his] name.” But even with respect to the Eucharist, what is the first thing we do after the opening sign of the cross as a community, “gathered in [Jesus’] name”? As a community present together, we ask one another’s forgiveness. We pray a Penitential Act! Sisters and brothers, we are enacting the steps of today’s Gospel, our prophetic ministry after the likes of Ezekiel, every time we gather for Mass! That is quite remarkable, if you ask me.

And if encountering a brother or sister who has wronged us (or if we have wronged somebody) one-on-one in a spirit of reconciliation and forgiveness does not work, Jesus says, then bring witnesses: “Take one or two others along with you.” Those “one or two others” can be a check or balance if we are unsure whether the wrong of another really merits further action, if it has really hurt the good of the community. If it is a wrong worth pursuing further action and the enlisting of witnesses to forgiveness does not work, only then is it permissible to treat the person who has done wrong “as a Gentile and a tax collector,” Jesus says. And, even when it is necessary (on rare occasions this will happen!) to cast somebody out of the community—I think of the formal Church penalty of excommunication—the goal of such a penalty, of such exclusion must always be to remedy the break, the hurt caused by the sin. Even in this most extraordinary step, the goal must not be a vindictive, final exclusion, lacking hope for reconciliation.

When we seek first to forgive, Jesus is there among us. When we “first [are] reconciled,” alone with another who has wronged us or one whom we have wronged, and then with “one or two others” and then with the whole Church as witnesses, Jesus is there among us. When forgiveness and penance reign, we build a truly prophetic community of faith in which nobody is forever excluded “as a Gentile or a tax collector.” This last step becomes unnecessary when we are truly accountable not only for our own moral conduct or that of our brothers and sisters, but for how readily we forgive and are reconciled with one another. That, Jesus says, is at the heart of our identity as a Christian community of faith, the Church.

Homily for Wednesday, 14 June 2017– Ferial

Wednesday of the 10th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 2 Corinthians 3:4-11; Psalm 99:5, 6, 7, 8, 9; Matthew 5:17-19

What might we make of the contrast between how the law is understood in our first reading today, from St. Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, and in our Gospel, from Matthew?

St. Paul speaks of the law‒ as in Matthew’s Gospel, in 2 Corinthians St. Paul is referring to the Law of Moses or laws of the Jewish faith, much of which has influenced our Christian faith and law‒ or “the letter” in rather dark terms. St. Paul calls “the letter” of the Jewish, then Judeo-Christian, law “the ministry of death, carved on letters on stone.” He contrasts this written-on-stone letter of the law with the “ministry of the Spirit” or “ministry of righteousness.”

Near the beginning of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount that spans three full chapters of Matthew’s Gospel, five through seven, we hear Jesus affirm the law in much more positive terms than St. Paul seems to do in 2 Corinthians. Jesus has “come not to abolish but to fulfill” the law, he says. “Not the smallest letter or part of a letter will pass from the law,” which would suggest that, in spite of St. Paul’s view of the law, there are at least elements, if not all of the law that are worth holding onto and obeying.

And so which is it: Is the law something to be cast aside as “the ministry of death” or “of condemnation,” or something that is life-giving and to be maintained and obeyed?

I think we risk making a serious mistake if we try to or think we need to choose one of these perspectives on the law over the other. We miss the point of both St. Paul and Jesus if we understand law (whether of our faith or secular law, that of the state) as something to be disregarded as limiting our freedom or, worse yet, dealing us “death” or “condemnation,” or as something life-giving and requiring blind obedience for its own sake.

What, then, is the common point St. Paul and Jesus make in our readings we hear today? I suggest that St. Paul’s and Jesus’ common point is that the law is good, but only if it points us to something‒ or, better yet, somebody, that is, God‒ greater than and more “glorious,” in St. Paul’s words, than itself.

Obedience to law, religious or secular (even the word “obedience” is from the same Latin root for listening attentively), does not mean a kind of slavishness to “the good old days” when all seemed morally, liturgically,  or otherwise certain; when there were clear rules governing what we, especially as good Catholics, ought and ought not to do without exception. The reality is that “the good old days” never existed and never will exist or, as my Basilian brother of blessed memory here at St. Kateri, Fr. Peter Etlinger, once said, “Don’t tell me about the ‘good old days.’ I was there; they weren’t so good”!

Neither is the law a means to strike at and divide ourselves from those who, as we see them, differ or disagree with us on various matters, or even who behave less morally than we do. Instead, only if we understand and live law as a kind of light on our path to God, to salvation, will it be “fulfilled,” as Jesus says, and will it become, as St. Paul says, “the ministry of the Spirit” who always exceeds our written letter; our expectations; our imagination.

Homily for Friday, 19 June 2015– Ferial

Friday of the 11th week in Ordinary Time

Optional Memorial of St. Romuald, Abbot

Readings of the day: 2 Corinthians 11:18, 21-30;  Psalm 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7; Matthew 6:19-23

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth,” Jesus says, “but store up treasures in heaven… For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.” So what or who is our greatest treasure? Where do we find our greatest treasure; the person or thing that attracts us most deeply, from the heart?

I am going to anticipate, since we are all here for Mass, many of us daily, that Christ, really present in the Eucharist, is our greatest treasure. But something is curious when we say that Christ in the Eucharist is our greatest treasure. What is it? What is curious to say and believe this is that we take something created, ordinary bread and wine (although, yes, this bread and wine mysteriously becomes for us the body and blood; the real presence of Christ), to be our greatest treasure. Does this not go against what Jesus asks us not to do in Matthew’s Gospel, which is to “store up for” ourselves “treasures on earth” and not in heaven?

Yes and no. Yes in the sense that in our Eucharist ordinary bread and wine; ordinary things of creation become our greatest treasure. But no, we do not go against Jesus’ teaching to “store up… treasures in heaven” and not “on earth” in the sense that, in our Eucharist, we are not making something created a god. Instead, God; Jesus Christ makes his home within what is created, just as he has made his home among us in human flesh, and so transforms this creation (bread and wine; us) to be Christ’s presence in our world. This is God’s work, not ours first.

This, I think, is at the heart of Jesus’ saying: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth… but store up treasures in heaven… For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.” Do not make created things or people into gods, but value and, yes, treasure creation. How do we do this?

At one extreme, we see greed for earthly treasures: Some hoard the world’s resources at the expense of many poor. At another extreme, some interpret Jesus’ words against storing up “treasures on earth” as permission not to care for creation: “The end of creation; of our universe will happen sooner or later, so why protect our earth; our environment”?

Both these extremes are wrong. Jesus invites us to treasure creation not as a god but as God’s gift. At every Mass we express that we treasure creation as God’s gift: “Blessed are you God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received the bread” and “the wine we offer you…”

I am just beginning to read Pope Francis’ newest letter to all Catholics on care for our environment, Laudato si‒ “Praise be.” Pope Francis makes the same point: Treasure creation insofar as it directs us to our greatest “treasure in heaven.” Value rightly “the spiritual treasures bestowed by God upon the Church,” Pope Francis says, “not dissociated from the body or from nature or from worldly realities, but lived in and with them, in communion with all that surrounds us.”

“Praise be to you… Lord,” for creation; for our Eucharist especially, which directs us to you, our creator; our treasure “in heaven,” where our heart is.

Homily for Thursday, 18 June 2015– Ferial

Thursday of the 11th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 2 Corinthians 11:1-11;  Psalm 111:1b-2, 3-4, 7-8; Matthew 6:7-15

Have you ever encountered somebody who has said or done something foolish? Could it have been the person who made an unconvincing argument or the person who inattentively cut ahead of you in line or in traffic (I am guilty as charged on this count!)?

The Corinthians addressed by our first reading had encountered somebody they thought was foolish: Paul of Tarsus. Might we be asking, “Why be so irreverent and critical toward a great saint and apostle like St. Paul?” I love St. Paul, one of my favorite saints in Scripture, but in his second Letter to the Corinthians St. Paul even admits his own foolishness. He says to the Corinthians, “Brothers and sisters, if only you would put up with a little foolishness from me”!

What could possibly have made the great St. Paul appear foolish, at least in the Corinthians’ eyes? St. Paul admits that he is not the most gifted speaker. He admits that he is not like the philosophers in Corinth and other large pagan cities of the time who drew students to themselves and could command a fee for their teaching. “I preached the Gospel to you without charge,” St. Paul says to the Corinthians. But neither being “untrained in” speaking nor teaching “without charge” at the time would have made St. Paul appear foolish, even to the many arrogant Corinthians.

No, St. Paul is considered foolish by many Corinthians because he is in love. And we know that love is irrational; foolish even at times… St. Paul loves the Corinthians; loves and lives by the Gospel he is preaching, the Gospel of Christ crucified and risen. St. Paul is in love with the true Christ behind the Gospel message of our faith, and so the Corinthians label him as foolish!

And who is the true Christ whom St. Paul preaches in Corinth? The true Christ is the Christ of our Gospel reading; the Christ who invites us not to “babble like the pagans” but to trust in our “Father who knows what [we] need before [we] ask him.”

“Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” What kind of prayer is this, Jesus, in today’s world in which many do not revere God’s name; do not even know or want to know God; do not revere God in creation or in the dignity of all human life?

“Give us this day our daily bread.” What kind of prayer is this amid individualism that will not admit when we are in need; that we need God; Christ’s real presence in the “daily bread” of our Eucharist?

“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive… and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” But can we not simply deny evil and sin;  deny our need for forgiveness; our need to forgive others if only for our own peace, as many do? 

What kind of prayer is this? This is a prayer of the foolish! Yet Jesus has made himself so foolish out of love for us that he died for us! And if Christ is a fool out of love, then he invites us to be fools for him, because we love as he loves us.

Homily for Thursday, 11 June 2015‒ Memorial of St. Barnabas

Thursday of the 10th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Acts 11:21b-26, 13:1-3; Psalm 98:1, 2-3ab, 3cd-4, 5-6; Matthew 5:20-26

Who was St. Barnabas, whose feast we celebrate today? What made St. Barnabas the apostle, the effective teacher of our faith, and the trusted partner to St. Paul that he was?

Our Scriptures give us little information about St. Barnabas, but is the short description we hear in Acts, in our first reading today, of Barnabas not key to understanding something about who Barnabas was? St. Barnabas is described as “a good man, filled with the Holy Spirit and faith.”

Because St. Barnabas was “a good man, filled with the Holy Spirit and faith,” the people he served, first in Antioch, gained confidence in him and his teaching. For the same reason, St. Barnabas was able to find Saul (later St. Paul) in Tarsus and bring him to Antioch to serve with him there. Because Barnabas was “a good man, filled with the Holy Spirit and faith,” he was able to surround himself with an important cast of “prophets and teachers” to help him to evangelize and encourage the people in Antioch. For St. Barnabas, his work was not about him, but about Christ and his Gospel.

Can we not imagine St. Barnabas as a person who took to heart and practiced Jesus’ message of reconciliation of which we hear in today’s Gospel reading, from Matthew? If Barnabas ever became angry (we can imagine that he did), can we not imagine him seeking reconciliation with the people with whom he was angry? Jesus does not say in Matthew’s Gospel that anger itself is sinful. But if we put up barriers to reconciliation; if our anger leads to gossip; to labeling and demeaning those with whom we are angry, this Jesus says is sinful. Figuratively (and with some exaggeration for effect), this deliberate failure to seek reconciliation is what Jesus considers to be like murder.

But I imagine saints like Barnabas as examples of reconciliation; of patience; of kindness to their early Christian communities. Barnabas was “a good man, filled with the Holy Spirit and faith.” This is what made St. Barnabas an authentic Apostle of Christ in whom the people he served trusted.

To what extent is the same true of us? To what extent are we “good [people], filled with the Holy Spirit and faith”? We do not celebrate St. Barnabas and the many saints like him because they are unattainable ideals of what the lives of Christians could or should be. No, we celebrate St. Barnabas because, with God’s grace, we are all invited to be like him: “Good” and “filled with the Holy Spirit and faith.” We are all called to holiness; to show this holiness to the world by the way we live, in small ways, minute-by-minute; day-by-day. And we are called to seek mercy; reconciliation with God and one another for when we fail to meet this divine calling.

We can be (and many of us are) just like St. Barnabas in this way. Not all of us are apostles like St. Barnabas or great teachers, or prophets. Yet to the extent we live by kindness; forgiveness; reconciliation; patience; joy, the world will take notice. And our God will certainly recognize us as authentic people of Christ; people who are “good” and “filled with the Holy Spirit and with faith.”

Homily for Thursday, 12 June 2014– Ferial

Thursday of the 10th week in Ordinary Time 

Readings of the day: 1 Kings 18:41-46; Psalm 65:10, 11, 12-13; Matthew 5:20-26

How many of us have ever been angry with another person? I suspect that most of us, at one time or another, have been angry with another person, often someone we love dearly.

Anger, especially when it is against someone close to us, can be distressing; can weigh on our consciences. How many of us, after having been angry with someone, have thought: Did my anger go too far? In my anger, did I fail to recognize the dignity of the person against whom I am angry? Am I holding a grudge or behaving in a passive-aggressive way? Were my angry words and actions sinful? Maybe I should seek reconciliation with the person with whom I am angry; maybe apologize if I were in the wrong. I may want to receive the sacrament of reconciliation (which is always a good idea, especially if we have not celebrated this beautiful sacrament in some time)…

Jesus says in our Gospel reading today, part of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel, “Whoever is angry with his brother” or sister “will be liable to judgment.” Jesus does not say that being angry is itself sinful; only that anger may lead us to sin if we hold onto it and do not seek reconciliation with the one with whom we are angry.

Jesus goes on to say in today’s Gospel reading: “If you… recall that your brother [or sister] has anything against you… go first and be reconciled with your brother [or sister], and then come and offer your gift.”

Anger itself, then, is not a sin. We know of instances in our Gospels in which Jesus himself got angry. But the way in which deal with our anger insofar as whether we seek reconciliation or not with those with whom we are angry may or may not be sinful.

I find it especially remarkable in the Gospel reading we hear today that Jesus asks us to be pro-active in seeking reconciliation with those with whom we are angry. Let us hear Jesus’ words again: “If you… recall that your brother [or sister] has anything against you… go first and be reconciled with your brother” or sister. Go first; do not wait for the other person to make the first move toward communication; toward reconciliation. Instead of thinking primarily of what we have against our brother or our sister, Jesus asks us first to think of what our brother or sister may have against us; for what we are called to express sorrow and to seek repentance. Anything short of this is an excuse; is a barrier to reconciliation and may well be a near occasion of sin.

Have we ever been angry with another person? I suspect that most of us would answer “yes” to this question. We are human; anger is part of being human. Jesus himself got angry. But how many of us have pro-actively sought reconciliation with someone who has made us angry or when we have angered another? This is what Jesus invites in our Gospel us to reflect upon and to put into action: Go first and be reconciled.

Homily for Sunday, 23 February 2014

7th Sunday in Ordinary Time 

Homily preached at St. Basil's Church, Toronto, ON, Canada  

Readings of the day: Leviticus 19:1-2, 17-18; Psalm 103:1-2, 3-4, 8, 10, 12-13; 1 Corinthians 3:16-23; Matthew 5:38-48 

If you were to identify a positive attribute about yourself, what would it be? Are you a person of deep faith; cheerful; generous; hard-working; intelligent; creative; artistic; an attentive listener; an articulate speaker, for example?

How, then, would you describe God? Perhaps our readings today can help us to answer this question. Does anyone remember the words used to describe God in today’s readings? We hear “holy” used to describe God in our first reading, from Leviticus. The Psalm includes “kind… merciful… gracious… slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” among terms that describe God. Jesus says in our Gospel reading that God our “heavenly Father is perfect,” and he invites us to “be perfect” as our God is perfect.

But only one word is used in our readings today to describe both us and God. Does anyone remember what word this is? We and God, as well as “God’s temple” that we are according to Paul in our second reading, are holy. Now for the difficult question: What does it mean for both God and us to be holy?

Holiness is not primarily a description of actions we do but of who we are. We are holy‒ all of us have been created as holy by God‒ and, from our being holy, we are capable of doing actions in keeping with our holiness. Let me take this thought a step further: Based on our holiness with which God has created us, we have a responsibility to act in a manner that is holy.

There are two main ways to approach our responsibility to “be holy as “the LORD [our] God [is] holy” or any other responsibility: We can carry out our responsibility reluctantly, by doing the bare minimum for which we are responsible, or we can freely and creatively go beyond our minimal obligations.

In truth, we would not be gathered here to worship God were we not fundamentally holy. Likewise, the first hearers of Leviticus, of St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, and of Matthew’s Gospel had a sense of God’s and their own holiness and the responsibility‒ or covenant‒ to which their holiness called them. It would have been no surprise, then, for Leviticus to say, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself” or that Jesus would make this commandment, along with loving God, central to following him; to living as he lived; to living as holy people live.

Jesus takes for granted that we, God’s people, are holy, and he invites and challenges us in today’s Gospel reading to act more fully in keeping with our holiness.

And so “you have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’” If someone is to be harmed or shamed in a dispute, at least have laws in place that lessen the harm or shame that can be caused another person legally. But Jesus says to us, “Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.” In other words, do not harm or shame another person by our words and actions at all; the other person, even if she or he does evil or is disagreeable, is holy as we are all holy.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But Jesus says to us, “Love your enemies.” If we have enemies at all, Jesus says, we are not yet conscious enough that the person we call “enemy”; the person we hate, fear, or shun; the person who holds different political views or a different vision of Church from us is as holy as we are all holy.

To recognize our own holiness is easy compared to recognizing the holiness of others. Yet Jesus calls us to this responsibility of our faith in him: to recognize the holiness of others, especially those we less immediately view as holy.

“This is too much to ask; too idealistic; impossible,” some said in Jesus’ time and some continue to say in our time. Jesus does not deny that love for enemy and for neighbour alike is difficult. This, I think, is part of what Jesus means by “go… the second mile… Give your cloak as well” as your coat. But if, on the one hand, we dismiss Jesus’ invitation to Christian responsibility to recognize others’ holiness as we do our own, or if we accept it only reluctantly, we are defeated already.

On the other hand, if we freely and creatively accept our responsibility, with the help of God’s grace, to love in a way that recognizes the holiness of all people, especially those whose holiness is not readily apparent, Jesus promises us that our joy will be greater than if we were to continue to live in a world of us versus the other; neighbour versus enemy.

The free and creative acceptance of our invitation from Jesus; our responsibility as Christians to recognize others’ and our own holiness is possible. I have seen this in action right here at St. Basil’s Church. When I was here at St. Basil’s as a children’s sacramental catechist and assisted with the Children’s Liturgy of the Word and RCIA, I was constantly inspired by ways in which you show that we are a people that is holy as God is holy. Children and adults alike would often relate to me the joy with which they serve other people.

Some of us minister to the sick. Others ensure that the homeless are fed and sheltered. Others lead devotional and prayer groups. Still others work in peer support or resolution of conflict, building peace in our parish; our schools; our workplaces; our community; our homes; our world. Many people here are engaged in a great variety of ministries; some less visibly and regularly, others more so.

We have it in us to “be holy” as God is “holy.” God has created every one of us as holy. With holiness comes responsibility, and with living our responsibility to recognize and to show forth God’s and our holiness in acts of service comes great joy. Jesus promises us this joy, and we are already living and active witnesses to Jesus’ promise.

Homily for Sunday, 16 February 2014

6th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Sirach 15:15-20; Psalm 119:1-2, 4-5, 17-18, 33-34; 1 Corinthians 2:6-10; Matthew 5:17-37

A “Peanuts” cartoon by Charles Schultz shows Charlie Brown waiting in front of a pretty girl in line at the school cafeteria. Charlie Brown asks the girl if she wants to go ahead of him in line. She politely says no. Charlie confides in her: “I’m always sort of nervous around pretty girls.”

The girl responds, “But you must never feel that way. Pretty girls are human, too,” to which Charlie, astounded, exclaims, “You are?!”

Yes, of course, pretty girls are human. All of us are human. But what does it mean to be most fully human? Our readings today speak to us about what it means to be most fully human.

How many of us are thinking or have thought: Yes, Jesus Christ is fully human as well as fully divine? The easy answer to how we are most fully human is to be most like Jesus Christ, but this answer still leaves us with further questions: How is Jesus most fully human, and how are we to emulate him if we, too, are to realize our humanity to its fullest?

Many of us may have heard this: To be human is to be both sacred and social.

Our readings presume that to be human is to be sacred; to be of God and for God. Sirach says in today’s first reading, “If you choose you can keep the commandments… If you trust in God, you too shall live.” Our Responsorial Psalm is a beautiful hymn of praise for God’s law: “Blessed are they who follow the law of the LORD.” St. Paul writes to the Corinthians about a mysterious “wisdom” of God that God has “revealed to us through the Spirit” because God loves us so deeply. Jesus does not “abolish the law or the prophets” that are for our good, but teaches us how “the law and the prophets” are to be interpreted in a way worthy of our sacredness as human beings.

God would not call us to obedience to and reverence for God’s law if we, as human beings, were not sacred; were not created by God; were not loved by God; were not created to love one another; were not created to be with God forever. And yet let us also remember that we are also social beings. If this were not true, God’s commandments and God’s wisdom would mean little to us. We, as human, are social; meant to live in community with one another and in communion with God.

Matthew’s Gospel, and especially the Sermon on the Mount from which our Gospel reading today is drawn, is particularly concerned with what strengthens community; the social aspect of being human. Jesus’ sayings that we hear today‒ “You have heard it said… but I say…”‒ would have resonated only if Jesus’ hearers already had (and have) a strong sense of community; of the human being as social.

To break God’s commandments or to teach that they are unimportant breaks down human community, and so Jesus reminds us that the commandments that God has given to us are to be preserved and obeyed in their integrity. But there is more to living in community than merely keeping commandments and laws to the letter.

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus expands on and intensifies the laws of the Old Testament that are most beneficial to building human community; to our development toward the fullness of our humanity, both sacred and social. Why, though, would Jesus expand on and intensify those laws of which we hear today? Could he not have chosen to teach on less controversial subjects?

I think of what Jesus is doing as promoting moral, spiritual, and social exercise; an exercise of individual and social conscience. The Olympics in Sochi are just underway, for those of us who are interested, so perhaps it is appropriate to speak of exercise. Just as an Olympic athlete enters into competition with her or his natural talents, but trains often to the point of at least physical discomfort to improve upon these skills she or he already has, so Jesus asks us to exercise our natural human inclination to build strong community.

As sacred and social beings, we know innately the wisdom of God’s commandments and that they are for our good: “You shall not kill… You shall not commit adultery… Do not take a false oath.” But how many of us or of people we know, with full intent or not, make occasional exceptions to these laws or minimize their significance?

“You shall not kill.” But if I am extremely angry with another, is it not defensible to let slip a clever insult or curse, or not to forgive that person immediately, or not to communicate with that person for a time, or maybe to be passive-aggressive toward the person with whom we are angry? Surely these actions will not damage human community, will they? The truth is that they do, even if slowly.

“You shall not commit adultery.” This week, the Church in the U.S. has celebrated the Week of Marriage. Do we join in celebrating the dignity of marriage? How often have you and I seen marriage trivialized instead of revered in our society? How often are the pretty girl, or handsome guy, in the cafeteria line, in our social places, or at Mass; our wives or husbands or fiancé(e)s, or our children regarded as human beings to be loved and not things to be used? The former attitude builds human community; the latter destroys it.

“Do not take a false oath.” While this commandment’s meaning might seem obvious, how often have we made exceptions to speaking only the truth; to letting our “‘yes’ mean ‘yes’ and [our] ‘no’ mean ‘no’”?

In a strong human community as we are and of which I have the joy of being a part here at St. Kateri, we heed these and other commandments for the good of our community quite well, I say. But we all need the moral, spiritual, and social exercise that Jesus offers us. The continued strengthening of our human community depends on it. If we accept Jesus’ invitation to exercise, even occasionally to the point of discomfort, we will become more fully human; more like Christ himself.