The
Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)
Dear brothers and sisters,
Just a few moments ago, we prayed to
God asking for the grace to “discern what is right, and by your guidance do it.”[1]
This honest prayer seems to take its inspiration from the words of Saint Paul
when he says, “although our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being
renewed day by day” (II Corinthians 4:16). What does it mean for the outer self
to be wasting away?
The first answer – and perhaps the
most literal – is that each of us is journeying toward death, toward that
unknown hour when we will be called from this life to stand before the judgment
seat of God. Our inner self is being renewed by God’s grace and mercy even as
our outer self is wasting away so we might be well disposed to see the Lord
face to Face. It is for this reason that Saint Augustine teaches us that
The
renewal of humankind, begun in the sacred bath of baptism, proceeds gradually
and is accomplished more quickly in some individuals and more slowly in others.
But many are in progress toward the new life if we consider the matter
carefully and without prejudice.[2]
In this assessment of the renewal
of humanity, Saint Augustine, of course, is right.
Some of us discern the Lord’s will
without difficultly, but willingly refuse to follow it. Others of us discern
the Lord’s will without difficulty, and grudgingly follow it. Still others of
us discern the Lord’s will without difficulty and gladly embrace it. Others,
yet, discern the Lord’s will only with great difficulty and follow it with
greater difficulty still. Why is this the case? The answer may be concealed
within the passage we heard from the Book of Genesis.
When our first parents realized
they were naked, they hid themselves when God called out to them (cf. Genesis 3:10). Saint Augustine calls this decision to hide from God “a wretched error,
as if a naked man, as God had made him, could be displeasing to him. It is a
distinguishing mark of error that whatever anyone finds personally displeasing
he imagines is displeasing to God as well.”[3] There
is, however, something much more profound behind this decision to hide from God
than a simple shame of the physical body.
Before
[Adam] was naked of any dissimulation [i.e., concealing under a false pretense]
and clothed with the divine light. From this light he turned away and turned
toward himself. This is the meaning of his having eaten from that tree. He saw
his nakedness, and it was displeasing to himself because he did not have
anything of his own.
This turning away from the light of
God’s Face and turning toward ourselves is indeed the greatest of human errors,
and one in which our contemporary society excels. The more we attempt to grab
what we do not have and to hide from the light of God, the less able we are to
discern his will and do it. And the less we follow his will for us, the less
happy we will be. This is a simple fact of life.
The great saints have shown us time
and again, down through the centuries, the way to happiness. Rather than growing
despondent because they had nothing of their own, they chose not to hide from
God but instead to bask in his light. They were able to discern the Lord’s tender
love for them precisely when they realized they were naked in the sense that
they had nothing of their own; everything we have, they knew, is a gift from God.
They accepted as a blessing what others saw as a limitation; they turned outward
from themselves and toward the Lord to discern his will and they followed it in
love.
Over the past number of weeks,
several of you have, at different times and in different situations, asked what
my vision for this parish is. If you think back to my first Sunday among you as
your Pastor, you might remember me speaking these words:
When
a new pastor arrives in a parish, many of the parishioners wonder what program
he will enact. The only program, if you will, which I hope to enact is to help
you prepare to see the face of Christ more clearly, to help you draw near to
him and bask in the light of his face, a light which can transform us and make
us like himself. I hope to help you seek the Lord not in curiosity, but in
love, to not only hear his voice speaking in the quiet of our hearts, but to
see his face and become witnesses of his majesty and to take your places within
the Father’s house.[4]
This remains my goal, my vision,
for this parish and I have every confidence it can be attained because “we have
a dwelling not made with hands, eternal in heaven” that is waiting for us, if
we remain faithful to Christ (II Corinthians 5:1). Indeed, the purpose of a
parish is to help each of us discern the Lord’s will and do it, so as to enter
into the eternal life promised to the faithful in the waters of Baptism. In
these waters, we are bound together to help each other turn, not toward
ourselves, but toward the Lord, to let the Lord’s light shine upon us.
When Bishop Paprocki formally installed
me as your Pastor ten days after I spoke those words to you, he reminded us all
that priests “need the help and cooperation of all parishioners. To be able to
put into practice the mission of Jesus,” he said, “we need to be part of a team
supporting each other.”[5] We
have to be on the same team to help each other discern the Lord’s will for us
and do it, both as individuals and as a parish.
To this end, I have asked the
members of the Pastoral Council and the Finance Council to visit with each adult
member of the parish for what might be called one-to-one conversations. The purpose
of these conversations is simple: to build a relationship between individuals
and the parish, to discover interests, to provide clarity, and to obtain information.
In other words, the goal with these conversations is to find out – if I might put
it a bit crassly – what you like about the parish, what can be improved, what
you would like to see the parish doing, and how you might like to help the
parish. While you are not required to participate in these conversations (some
of you might now be thinking, “He is out of his mind” [Mark 3:21]), I certainly
hope you will welcome the opportunity to visit with a fellow parishioner, to share
your dreams for this parish, and to help us discern the Lord’s will for us.
Our goal is to visit with each
adult parishioner, both active and inactive, for about thirty minutes. Last
week, the council members each received a list of five parishioners to try to
visit with over the course of the next six weeks. Once this first round is
completed, they will gather together again with me to share a sense of what
they heard. They will then go out to the other active parishioners and, once
every active parishioner has been heard, they will try to visit our inactive
parishioners. All of this is a way we can help each other progress toward the
new life of Christ Jesus, to turn away from ourselves and towards him. Let us,
then, help each other discern the Lord’s will and do it, so that, as his
brothers and sisters who have done his will, we might together behold the
loveliness of his Face in the Father’s house (cf. Mark 3:35; John 14:2-3).
Amen.
[1] Collect for the Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Roman Missal.
[2] Saint Augustine of Hippo, The Way of Life of the Catholic Church,
1.35.80.
[3] Saint Augustine of Hippo, Two Books on Genesis Against the Manichaeans,
2.16.24.
[4] Reverend Daren J. Zehnle, Homily for theFeast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, 6 August 2017.
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