Homily - 28 August 2022 - The Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)

Dear brothers and sisters,

Today King David reminds us that God has made a home for the poor (cf. Psalm 68:11). Looking around the world today - and since the time David composed these lines - the cynic, seeing so many poor and homeless among us, might well ask where this home is. But this very question fails to understand the ways of the Lord, which are very much unlike our own (cf. Isaiah 55:8).

We should first consider who it is who is poor, that is, of whom did David speak when he spoke of the poor? They are the widows and the orphans, the forsaken and the imprisoned, those who recognize their dependence on others (cf. Psalm 68:6-7). Yet we know the Lord’s mercy is not reserved only for these four particular groups because in the Book of Sirach we are instructed to “humble [ourselves] the more, the greater you are, and you will find favor with God” (Sirach 3:17-18). The humble, then, can also be counted among the poor, among the poor in spirit because “the kingdom of heaven is [theirs]” (Matthew 5:3).

To be poor isn't, in and of itself, sufficient to enter into the home made by the Lord. It is the humble who find favor with God and it is quite possible to be poor and yet arrogant, just as it is possible to be rich and yet humble. Certainly each of us can be humble, each of us can recognize our dependence on the Lord, each of us can find favor with God; if this is so, each of us can also receive a home from the Lord. How, then, do we become humble?  How do we receive this home?

Saint Francis of Assisi can serve as our guide and a ready model to follow because he spent so much time in prayer before the Crucifix of San Damiano seeking the Lord's direction for his life. Il Poverello composed this simple prayer: "Most high, glorious God, enlighten the darkness of my heart, and give me, Lord, a correct faith, a certain hope, a perfect charity, sense and knowledge, so that I may carry out Your holy and true command."[1] In these simple and yet profound words, Saint Francis reveals the humility of his heart. He recognizes that he is a sinner who does not have all of the answers and who is need of conversion; in short, he acknowledged he is dependent on the Lord.

It was his experience before the Cross that allowed Saint Francis to recognize that, as he said, "…what a man is before God, that he is and nothing more," a maxim he never tired of repeating to all who would listen.[2] Are we willing to hear his words? Are we willing to acknowledge that we, too, are only what we are before God and nothing more? Are we willing to acknowledge that we are dependent entirely on him?

We spend so much of our lives telling ourselves that we are more important, more talented, more gifted than we really are. In the end, we run the risk of believing our delusions of grandeur and of thinking the world simply cannot go on without us. In stark contrast to this, Saint Francis shows us the way of authentic humility, the way of looking at ourselves without deceit. In one of his admonitions, he boldly proclaimed:

Be conscious, O man, of the wondrous state in which the Lord God has placed you and formed you to the image of His beloved Son according to the body, and to His likeness according to the spirit. And [yet] all the creatures under heaven, each according to its nature, serve, know, and obey their Creator better than you. And even the demons did not crucify Him, but you together with them have crucified Him and crucify Him even now by delighting in vices and sins.[3]

We cringe at these words because we do not want to acknowledge "that nothing belongs to us except our vices and sins.”[4] Standing before God, beholding his glory, gazing upon his holiness, and seeing the loveliness of his face, how can we not see our own sinfulness and the fact that we are not always very lovely? 

All of this Saint Francis saw in the image of Crucified Love, but he also saw something more: he saw the depths of the Lord's mercy for all who embrace a life of penance and embark on the journey of conversion. Of these disciples, Saint Francis said, "we have nothing else to do except to follow the will of the Lord and to please him."[5] The way of humility is found in the following of this path that Saint Francis trod so very well, "to follow the teaching and the footprints of our Lord Jesus Christ."[6]

Now that we have seen the way to become humble, to become poor, we can ask what home the Lord has made for the poor. Some light can be shed on this question by looking to the example of the Lord, who said of himself: “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head” (Matthew 8:20). Given his lack of concern for a home of his own, it would seem odd for him "who was a poor man and a transient and lived on alms" to be overly concerned about homes for others.[7] What, then, does the Psalmist mean?  Where – or, better, what – is this home for the poor?

King David hints at our answer when he sings, “The father of orphans and the defender of widows is God in his holy dwelling” (Psalm 68:6). In the mind of David, God’s dwelling is his Temple in Jerusalem, for in another Psalm, he sang, “I rejoiced when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.’ And now our feet are standing within your gates, Jerusalem” (Psalm 122:1-2). Yet the Temple in Jerusalem can only be an image, a foreshadowing, of the true dwelling place of God because the Son of Man declared with great solemnity, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19). Saint John explains these words of the Lord when he says, “But he was speaking about the temple of his body” (John 2:21). So, then, the home for the poor made by the Lord is not the Temple, but is Christ himself. How can this be? How do the poor enter this home, and what do they find therein?

The son of David, King Solomon, hints at the entry into this hidden home when he sings of a dove who makes its home in the clefts of a rock: “My dove in the clefts of the rock, in the secret recesses of the cave, let me see your face, let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely” (Song of Songs 2:14). As the dove makes its home in the openings of the cliffs, so we are called to make our home in the openings in the Lord’s body. What do I mean? 

When the Risen Lord showed himself to the Apostle Thomas, he said to him, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving but believe” (John 20:27). The Savior was not simply inviting Thomas to curiously examine the holes of the nails, to verify their existence in some scientific, disinterested way, but to enter into them, to make his home in them and to find in them the peace that only the Lord can give (cf. John 14:27). 

Reflecting on this encounter between the Master and his Apostle, Saint Anthony of Padua, offered four reasons why the Lord revealed his wounds to the Apostles:

First, to show that he had truly risen, and to take away from us all doubtfulness. Second, so that the dove (the Church or the faithful soul) might build her nest in his wounds, as in the clefts of the rock, and hide from the eyes of the hawk that schemes to catch her. Third, to print the signs of his Passion as seals upon our hearts. Fourth, to ask us to share in sufferings, and never again to crucify him with the nails of sin.[8]

Like that dove, Saint Francis so greatly desired to make his home in the Lord's wounds, in the poignant and constant reminders of the depths of his love for us, that two years before he died he asked two favors from the Lord:

…the first is that during my life I may feel in my soul and in my body, as much as possible, that pain which You, dear Jesus, sustained in the hour of Your most bitter passion. The second is that I may feel in my heart, as much as possible, that excessive love with which You, O Son of God, were inflamed in willingly enduring such suffering for us sinners.[9]

So it was that he received the grace of the Stigmata; so fully had he entered into the wounds of his Lord and made in them his home that he became the image of Christ, both in his body and in his spirit.

Each of us is called by the Lord to imitate Saint Francis in this way; we, too, are invited not simply to inspect the wounds of the Savior, but to plunge ourselves into them.  Jesus says to us, “Come, feel my wounds, for my mercy is tangible. Come, see the wound in my side from where my love flowed out for you, for my mercy is visible. Come, take shelter within my wounds and let my love and mercy wash over you and surround you and give you peace.” We can have confidence that the home made by the Lord for the poor is found in His wounds because King David also sang to God, “Blessed the man who finds refuge in you, in their hearts are pilgrim roads” (Psalm 84:6).

Dear friends, as we seek to enter into the mystery of the Lord’s love for us with great humility, following after Saint Francis, let us strive to heed these words of The Poverello: “Therefore, hold back nothing of yourselves for yourselves so that He Who gives Himself totally to you may receive you totally.”[10] In this way, may we live in humility and so find favor with God in the home he has prepared for us. Amen.

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[1] Saint Francis of Assisi, The Prayer Before the Crucifix. In Francis and Clare: The Complete Writings. Regis J. Armstrong, et al, eds. (Mahwah, New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1982), 103-104.

[2] Saint Francis of Assisi, Admonitions, XIX.1-2. In ibid., 33.

[3] Ibid., V.1-3. In ibid., 29.

[4] Saint Francis of Assisi, The Earlier Rule, XVII.7. In ibid., 123.

[5] Ibid., XXII,9. In ibid., 127.

[6] Ibid., I.1 In ibid., 109.

[7] Ibid., IX.5. In ibid., 117.

[8] Saint Anthony of Padua, Sermon for the First Sunday After Easter, 8.

[9] Saint Francis of Assisi, in The Little Flowers of St. Francis, 190-191.

[10] Saint Francis of Assisi, A Letter to the Entire Order, 29. In Francis and Clare, 58.

Is it terrible being a priest?

Holy Mother Church places before us today the virtue of humility. In the first reading, she has hear these words from one of the wisdom books: "My child, conduct your affairs with humility" (Sirach 3:17).

In the second reading, we hear not of entering into the presence of the Lord, but of approaching (cf. Hebrews 12:18, 22). It is the humble man who approaches the presence of one greater than himself and the proud man who simply walks into the presence of another.

In the verse accompanying the Alleluia, Jesus tells us, "take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart" (Matthew 11:29). In the Gospel, Jesus warns us that "everyone who exalts himself will be humbled" (Luke 14:11).

To live in humility is really quite simple; all one must do is look honestly at one's life and at the course of human history. Such an honest assessment cannot but remind us of our sinfulness and our failures. With such a knowledge, one cannot think too highly of oneself. This is why the confessional is the best teacher of humility, both for the penitent who confesses his or sins and for the priest who hears and absolves the sins confessed.

A good many people do not yet fully understand this and so think the confession of sins is something to be dreaded and even avoided. Even the great J.R.R. Tolkien, himself a devout Catholic, thought "it must be terrible to be a priest!" In one of his letters to his son, he wrote these words:

A small knowledge of history depresses one with the sense of the everlasting mass and weight of human iniquity: old, old, dreary, endless repetitive unchanging incurable wickedness. All towns, all villages, all habitations of men - sinks! And at the same time one knows that there is always good: much more hidden, much less clearly discerned, seldom breaking out into recognizable, visible, beauties of word or deed or face - not even when in fact sanctity, far greater than the visible advertised wickedness, is really there. But I fear in the individual lives of all but a few, the balance is debit - we do so little that is positive good, even if we negatively avoid what is actively evil. It must be terrible to be a priest! (Letter to Christopher Tolkien, 14 May 1944).

Let me say here that it is far from terrible being a priest! Listening to the confession of sins, even of sins confessed by the same penitent over and over again again is not dreary; rather, it is a sign of great humility and of a desire for holiness.

When he spoke with a group of First Communicants some years ago, His Holiness Pope-emeritus Benedict XVI answered a question from the children about the confession of repetitive sins:

It is true: our sins are always the same, but we clean our homes, our rooms, at least once a week, even if the dirt is always the same; in order to live in cleanliness, in order to start again. Otherwise, the dirt might not be seen but it builds up. Something similar can be said about the soul, for me myself: if I never go to confession, my soul is neglected and in the end I am always pleased with myself and no longer understand that I must always work hard to improve, that I must make progress. And this cleansing of the soul which Jesus gives us in the Sacrament of Confession helps us to make our consciences more alert, more open, and hence, it also helps us to mature spiritually and as human persons.

Whenever a penitent enters the confessional and confesses his or her sins with humility, he or she leaves the confessional exalted by the Lord and filled with his joy and peace. When a priest hears confessions conscious of his configuration to Christ Jesus, our humble and eternal High Priest, who, too, leaves the confessional exalted by the same Lord and filled with his joy and peace.

Since my return to these United States of America on 21 June 2016 (since which date no one has walked into me or even come close to walking into me), I have had the great privilege of hearing confessions in a number of different circumstances, from retreats for high school students and married couples (two separate retreats) to the course of ordinary parish ministry.

While studying in Rome, I only the opportunity to hear confessions on a very occasional basis and it is good to hear them again. I have always found absolving the sins of Christ's faithful to be not a terrible experience as The Professor supposed, but one that fills me with humble gratitude for being used by the Lord Jesus as an instrument of his merciful love.

Whenever we receive absolution for our sins after a humble and sincere confession, we "rejoice and exult before God" and are "glad and rejoice" (Psalm 68:4). When we humble ourselves, the Lord exalts us; I therefore encourage you not to let your pride keep you from confessing yours sins.

In honor of the day

Saint Peter Chanel - whose memorial we celebrate today - is known as the Proto-martyr of Oceania and the Apostle of the South Seas for his missionary efforts on the island of Futuna.(McNamara has a post on him today).

The night before he died, aware of King Niuliki's orders for him to be killed, Peter said, "It does not matter whether or not I am killed; the religion has taken root on the island; it will not be destroyed by my death, since it comes not from men but from God."

His words are a reminder to us that the world does not rest on our shoulders. All that matters in the end is whether or not the faith remains, whether we have strengthed the faith.

This is, perhaps, something that priests especially must remember. A certain priest may reach a certain segment of the population better than others. A certain priest may have been at a parish for a good length of time and done much good work there, such that priests before him were unable to do. But that priest is not necessary; he is the instrument of the Lord and it matters not whether he lives or dies.

Let each of us ask the Lord this day for the humility of Saint Peter Chanel.

Ponderables from the Poverello

What a man is in the eyes of God, that he is and nothing more.

-St. Francis of Assisi in St. Bonaventure's The Life of St. Francis, 6.1

Ponderables from the Poverello

What a man is in the eyes of God, that he is and nothing more.

Another must read

In the words of Father Robert Barron, don't walk, run, to your nearest bookstore for this one.

Last summer when I left for retreat I brought with me Sr. Ilia Delio's excellent Franciscan Prayer. While on retreat this year I discovered her book, The Humility of God: A Franciscan Perspective.

I was able to read the first couple of chapters last week and I've culled some of the best quotes for you:

As God bends down to love us where we are, we must be open to welcome God in our lives, to embrace this God of humble love and to allow God to live in us in every way. Every breath of life must be the breath of God. This is divinization. The humility of God’s love in some way demands a human response because it is hidden and unobtrusive and quietly sustains life without force or manipulation (11).

How can God be close to you (or you to God) when God seems so far away or not at all? Even better, how can God be close to you when you are totally confused? This is my answer to you: God is a mystery of humble love. It is a mystery that you cannot reason or try to figure out. You must simply live in the mystery (15).

Silence is a language God can speak without being constantly interrupted because God is a mystery of incomprehensible love, and love speaks for itself (17).

Who really knows what happened to Francis [of Assisi] in that church [of San Damiano] or when he was alone at prayer? All we can say is that God bent low to kiss Francis when he least expected it. An unexpected kiss can change one’s life forever (19).

Love is a mystery. When you love someone you know him in a deeper way; yet, the more you know someone the less you truly know him. The more the face of the lover is revealed, the more it is concealed. And so it is with God (20).

If we truly recognized God in poor and humble fragile human flesh, we probably could not bear the weight of the mystery. We would find it overwhelming precisely because of its simplicity. However, this is the mystery of God that Francis perceived (25).

This is a God who loves us so much as to be reckless in love; a God who throws it all away out of love and never tires of loving (25).

Francis understood that God is not remote or distant, a God who has nothing in common with creation. Rather, God is unstoppable goodness – a God who simply can’t wait to give everything away and to love us where we are. God comes to us – that is God’s humility – and we are called to love him in return (30).

…the Father of overflowing love is unstoppable goodness, overflowing into the other, the Son. The turning of the Father toward the Son is the Father’s humility. Humility is not a quality of God, it is the essence of God as love. The Son is the object of the Father’s love and yet loves the Father so completely as to breathe forth love in the Spirit. The Son is the heart of the Trinity and the center between the Father and Spirit, receiving love from the Father and loving with Father in a single breath of love, which is the Spirit (42).

If the lover were to distance himself from the beloved, the beloved would perish from lack of love. So, too, if we emerge out of the loving relationship between the Father and Son, then it is indeed love that has brought us (and continues to bring us) into being. Without the source of love that sustains us, God’s love, we would die (44).
Within that loving embrace of God, our lives are brought into being and sustained in being. As we have been loved into birth, so, too, we are called to mirror God’s love for others so as to birth God anew in creation. For that is how God, the tremendous love of life, delights in his creation (46).

See what I mean?