Homily for Monday, 6 October 2014– Ferial

Monday of the 27th week in Ordinary Time

Optional Memorial of St. Bruno

Readings of the day: Galatians 1:6-12; Psalm 111:1b-2, 7-8, 9, 10c; Luke 10:25-37

Are we not familiar with the centerpiece of the Jewish Law of the Old Testament: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself”? Thanks to Jesus or, in the case of Luke’s Gospel the “scholar of the Law” who answers his own question as to which law is central to inheriting “eternal life,” this law is also the centerpiece of our own Christian way of life. “Do this and you will live,” Jesus says to the lawyer.

But how deeply do we understand and put into practice what this law of love of God and of neighbor, and Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan that follows it, invite us to live out?

Do not most of us center Jesus’ parable today on the Samaritan who rescues the man robbed and left for dead on the Jerusalem-Jericho road? There is nothing wrong with this interpretation. After all, this parable is called the parable of the Good Samaritan. It is easy to assume that the Samaritan is the main character in this story.

But what if we were to place ourselves in this story as another character, say, the person robbed, beaten, and left for dead on his way “from Jerusalem to Jericho”? The priest and the Levite pass by without helping the wounded man on the side of the road. Were they concerned about ritual purity under the Jewish law or simply too busy; inattentive? Either way, Jesus does not fault them for failing to help the wounded man.

Yes, the Samaritan does stop to help the man. He becomes the unlikely hero of the parable by bandaging the man, pouring “oil and wine over his wounds,” and taking him “on his own animal” to an inn to recuperate. But what about the wounded man: Is he not also an example of living the law of loving God and neighbor as self?

The wounded man could well have refused the help of the Samaritan, hated enemy to Jews at the time. The Jerusalem-Jericho road was well-traveled. Without doubt someone else, probably Jewish, would have been along to help him, with concern for ritual purity being minor at best; an aside to this story. This is how a Jewish hearer of Jesus’ time would have heard this parable.

The surprise in this parable is less that a Samaritan, the enemy, helps than that the wounded (presumably Jewish) man would accept the Samaritan’s help. He, too, is an example (I say this parable’s main example) of love of neighbor as self, and so he shows love of God by accepting the care of the Samaritan.

How well do we humbly accept the help; the kindness; the love of others, especially those with whom we might have trouble getting along? Do we love in a way that makes ourselves vulnerable; without questioning whether the other has ulterior motives in being kind to us? From the wounded man’s perspective, this may be at the core of Jesus’ teaching: “Do this and you will live.”

Homily for Sunday, 5 October 2014

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Isaiah 5:1-7; Psalm 80:9, 12, 13-14, 15-16, 19-20; Philippians 4:6-9; Matthew 21:33-43

Here we are, back in the vineyard again. Have we not heard this story before? All is designed by the vineyard owner to bear abundant fruit, but somehow everything goes wrong; the vineyard produces no fruit, or the tenants act violently toward servants sent to tend the vineyard.

I like to think of today’s readings and those of the two Sundays before this as a kind of Biblical wine tour. Who here has been to a vineyard or on a wine tour, and so perhaps can relate? Over these three Sundays, we have heard from Matthew’s Gospel three vineyard parables: First, the owner who hires the late arrivals at the same daily wage as those who arrived at the beginning of the work day. Second, we hear of two sons, one who says he will not work in his father’s vineyard but later goes and the other who agrees to work in the vineyard but then does not go.

Today Matthew takes us to our third stop on our vineyard tour. Imagine our delight at how the owner of this vineyard has done everything necessary to ensure a fruitful harvest. The “landowner” has “planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it,” to protect it from the weather, “dug a wine press in it” to collect and process the grapes at harvest time, “and built a tower” for security.

Despite the vineyard owner’s care for his vines and for those who work for him, when he goes “on a journey” everything goes wrong. The tenants to whom the vineyard owner has rented the vineyard beat and kill the servants sent to work in the vineyard. They even kill the landlord’s own son, so deep is the wickedness of these tenants.

Jesus’ vineyard parable is like the other vineyard story we hear today from the prophet Isaiah: The vineyard owner in Isaiah’s prophetic love song, God, has done everything to ensure a fruitful harvest, but somehow the vineyard, an image of God’s beloved people Israel, yields only “wild grapes.” But the vineyard in Matthew’s Gospel, unlike the vineyard in Isaiah, has borne fruit. In Jesus’ parable the harvesters; the tenants act violently and unjustly and so fail to make the most of the bountiful harvest of the vineyard. They fail to return to the vineyard owner what is his due from the harvest. In fact, the tenants kill the landowner’s own son!

We know who or what represents whom in Jesus’ parable: As in Isaiah, the landlord, who has done everything to ensure a fruitful harvest in his vineyard, is God. The vineyard is the kingdom of God whose bountiful yield is ready for harvest. The tenants are the religious leaders of Jesus’ time who oppose the coming to full fruition of the kingdom of God. (Let us avoid an anti-Jewish interpretation of this parable; after all today’s parable was originally the teaching of a Jew, Jesus, directed at Jews, the “chief priests and elders.”) The “servants” beaten, killed, and stoned by the tenants are the prophets who had prepared the way for God’s own Son; the son whom the tenants kill in the parable, Jesus himself.

But do we really know who or what represents whom in this parable of the wicked tenants? This parable would be tragic enough if we were mere tourists; if we were simply passers-by on our vineyard tour through Matthew’s Gospel. But we are not mere tourists. We are directly involved in this vineyard parable as it takes place in our own time. Are we the prophetic servants of the Lord of the vineyard, unafraid to speak the truth; to speak for justice and against all forms of violence in our homes, in our communities, and in our world; to speak and act to build God’s kingdom; to reap the harvest of God’s vineyard even at the risk of unpopularity, even hostility against the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Or are we sometimes the tenants who have held back the bounty of the harvest; have held back the kingdom of God from fruition out of weakness; out of selfishness; out of sin? In our consciences we know our answers to these questions. We know where we stand before God.

When I say that we are not merely tourists; that we are directly involved in this vineyard parable of our own time, I do not wish to discourage us. On the one hand, we cannot deny the presence of sin in our world. Sin affects us all, both as individuals and as a society. We need look no farther than our news on television and on paper: Violence in our streets and even in many homes (I speak not only of domestic violence perpetrated by some professional sports figures, although this has received a lot of media attention lately); family and marital discord… A week ago, I celebrated Mass with the people of the House of Mercy. Sadly, poverty, homelessness, abandonment of people with mental and physical disabilities, and racial inequalities continue, even in our city. The power of sin; the example of the wicked tenants in the vineyard is ever-present in our world.

On the other hand (this is why I invite us not to be discouraged), despite this ever-present sin in our world, God perseveres with us; does not give up on us. We are, imperfectly but nevertheless, the people to whom God has entrusted the vineyard “to produce its fruit.” Sinners though we are, God has turned even the tragedy of our sin into victory; into the very source of our redemption. The Cross of Christ, the Son who entered the vineyard only to be killed by the wicked tenants, is our salvation.

We are not mere tourists; we are directly involved in the death of Christ for our sin. But at the same time we are not mere tourists; we are also directly involved in our redemption; our salvation; the building up of God’s kingdom here on earth. God’s response to our sin is perseverance; strength; more mercy; more grace. God’s response is to encourage us to persevere with one another; to love one another; to treat one another with God’s own mercy and grace.

God is the vineyard owner who has done; who will do everything to ensure a fruitful harvest. God continues to give us, in St. Paul’s words to the Philippians in our second reading, “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious”; whatever nourishment the vineyard needs to bear maximum fruit.

Here we are, back in the vineyard again, only not as mere tourists now but as the new tenants entrusted by God to “produce” the vineyard’s “fruit.” To ensure the vineyard remains fruitful, we will require God-like perseverance. We will need God-like strength not to give up on others or ourselves in the face of our weakness; our sin. We will need the support of one another as Church. We will need and we have God’s mercy; God’s grace; everything to ensure a fruitful harvest in this vineyard; this kingdom of God we have been entrusted to tend; to nourish; to grow.

Homily for Saturday, 4 October 2014– Memorial of St. Francis of Assisi

Saturday of the 26th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Galatians 6:14-18; Psalm 16:1b-2a, 5, 7-8, 11; Matthew 11:25-30

When we think of St. Francis of Assisi, what images come to mind? Do we think perhaps of a nature and peace-loving saint who boldly (some in his time would have been less charitable) put aside his family’s wealth; his inheritance to take up a life of simplicity; poverty?

St. Francis loved nature and animals. Based on this characteristic of St. Francis, we have the tradition in many parishes of blessing pets on his feast day. This brings me to my plug for our blessing of pets at St. Kateri: I invite those of us with pets to bring them to this church this afternoon to be blessed on this feast day of St. Francis of Assisi!

St. Francis is a lover of peace; a lover of God’s creation. Possibly the two most renowned prayers of St. Francis are his “Canticle of Creation” or “Canticle of Brother Sun” and his prayer for peace, often called the “Prayer of St. Francis.” But there is more to St. Francis than a lover of peace and of nature. As important as peace and nature (rightly) were to St. Francis of Assisi, there is more to him than love of peace and nature; something more that makes Francis one of the most beloved saints of the Church even now, almost eight hundred years after his death.

I am drawn to the phrase in our reading this morning from St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians in which St. Paul says that nothing has meaning for him except “a new creation.” In this way I think St. Paul and St. Francis of Assisi are similar. St. Francis was famously called in a vision of the crucified Christ to rebuild the San Damiano Church near Assisi. While the church building of San Damiano became in a way “a new creation,” this encounter with Christ crucified changed St. Francis forever. He, more than a building, became “a new creation.”

Yet are we not all called to become “a new creation” after St. Francis of Assisi; after St. Paul? We may not have the ability or the opportunity to build a church or any building. Unlike St. Francis or St. Paul, who may literally have borne “the marks of Jesus” crucified on their bodies, we probably do not. Some of us may be more or less wealthy; not called so much to give up our wealth if we have it, as St. Francis did, but to use it to benefit one another. Some of us are not so nature-inclined.

None of this has meaning so much as our becoming “a new creation” in Jesus Christ. How do we become “a new creation” as God calls us; as St. Paul speaks about in his letter to the Galatians; as St. Francis did by his lived example? With God’s grace we become “a new creation” by our daily small acts of kindness; by our welcoming new members or those who are lost or lonely into our communities; our parish. When we serve selflessly as so many of us already do here at St. Kateri; when we pray and work for peace; when we care for God’s creation we show that we are people of God. We show that we are “a new creation” in Jesus Christ.

Homily for Thursday, 2 October 2014– Memorial of the Guardian Angels

Thursday of the 26th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Job 19:21-27; Psalm 27:7-8a, 8b-9abc, 13-14; Matthew 18:1-5, 10

This second feast of angels in just a few days, that of the Guardian Angels, may again raise in us these kinds of questions: Who are angels? What is the purpose of angels? Are angels real or are they mythical creatures to which some people hold an outdated or childish belief (have any of us been asked this question)? And why do we have two celebrations of angels in the Church just days apart, first the Archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, and then today the Guardian Angels?

The word “angel” means messenger, and so the angels are God’s messengers. We might find Jesus’ reference to angels in our Gospel reading today to be interesting. Jesus responds to his own disciples’ question, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” by placing a child from the crowd among them. The most humble; those who trust God as a child trusts her or his parents are “the greatest in the kingdom of heaven,” Jesus says. But then Jesus leaves his disciples with this saying: children’s “angels in heaven always look on the face of my heavenly Father.”

Are not the angels in this way like two-way messengers for those who trust in God as a child does its parents and all those who care for her or him; for the humble? On the one hand, guardian angels act as messengers from us to God; as intercessors for us to God. On the other hand, these angels reflect God’s glory to us who trust in God. We will pray to God at the beginning of our Eucharistic Prayer today: “For the honor we pay the angelic creatures… redounds to your own surpassing glory, and by their great dignity and splendor you show how infinitely great you are.”

And so these guardian angels; these two-way messengers both show our dignity as God’s creatures before God and reflect to us God’s greatness. Our belief in angels, then, is not some outdated belief. And not only are there the big-name Archangels like Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael for the bigger jobs, but each of us has a guardian angel for the smaller everyday task of bringing our humble prayers to God and showing us God’s greatness and care for us. Jesus asks us to trust in God’s greatness and care for each of us in the way children do; children whose “angels in heaven always look on the face of [our] heavenly Father.”