Homily - The Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time - 30 September 2018

The Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

Dear brothers and sisters,

Moments ago, we asked Almighty God to make us worthy, by the gift of his grace, to be found “heirs to the treasures of heaven” (Collect). What are these treasures of heaven?

When we think of treasure, we often think of the storehouses of kings and the mountains of wealth accumulated by dragons. The treasures of heaven, however, cannot consist in these works of precious metals and jewels because Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). Moreover, he also warned us, saying, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal” (Matthew 6:19). If we attempt to store up such treasures for ourselves, we have no way to know when a band of dwarves might be overcome with the dragon sickness and rob us of our hoard, or when we might ourselves fall prey to the dragon sickness and we come to be possessed by the things we seek to possess. What, then, are the treasures of heaven?

We can find some glimpse of the treasures of heaven in the example of the Blessed Virgin Mary. After she and Saint Joseph lost the Boy Jesus in the Temple in Jerusalem and after they found him again, the Evangelist Saint Luke tells us that Mary “kept all these things in her heart” (Luke 2:51). Other translations tell us she “pondered” or “treasured” all these things in heart. But what sort of things did she keep in her heart? Surely, she kept the words of her Holy Child and of Saint Simeon and Saint Anna in her heart. The treasures of heaven, then, are the words and deeds of Jesus, indeed, his very person. Is he not himself the “pearl of great price” for which a wise merchant “goes and sells all that he has and buys it” (Matthew 13:46)? Is it not the Lord Jesus who is that “treasure buried in a field, which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys the field” to acquire that treasure (Matthew 13:44)? How, then, can you and I find this treasure? How can you and I have the joy of obtaining the treasure of Jesus?

Yesterday, the Holy Father Pope Francis indicated one important way for us to do so. The Press Office of the Holy See announced that

the Holy Father has decided to invite all the faithful, of all the world, to pray the Holy Rosary every day, during the entire Marian month of October, and thus to join in communion and in penitence, as the people of God, in asking the Holy Mother of God and Saint Michael [the] Archangel to protect the Church from the devil, who always seeks to separate us from God and from each other.[1]

In doing so, Pope Francis has also asked us to conclude the recitation of the rosary in the month of October with the ancient invocation to the Blessed Virgin: “We fly to your protection, O Holy Mother of God. Do not despise our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O Glorious and Blessed Virgin.” He has also asked that we follow this invocation with the Prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel. 

Lamentably, the Holy Rosary has fallen into disuse in recent decades, with many Catholics no longer even knowing the basics of how to pray this time-honored and beloved prayer of the Church. Forty-five years ago, Pope John Paul I suggested a few reasons why many Catholics no longer pray the rosary:

They say: ‘It is an infantile prayer, superstitious and unworthy of adult Christians.’ Or else: ‘It is a prayer that is robotic, one that ultimately comes down to a cold, monotonous and boring repetition of Hail Marys.’ Or else again: ‘It is a custom from a bygone age. Today we can do better: reading the Bible, for example, which is to the Rosary what fine flour is to bran.’[2]

Before he addressed these criticisms, Pope John Paul I rightly said, “the crisis of the rosary is not the main issue. What takes precedence today is the crisis of prayer in general. People are wholly taken up by their material interests, they think very little of their souls. Noise has gradually invaded our existence.” Not much has changed these past few decades.

At its heart, the rosary is prayer in a simple form. It is not an childish form of a prayer, but one that springs from the heart of a heart. John Paul I put it this way, in very moving and honest words:

Personally speaking, when I talk to God and the Blessed Virgin alone, I prefer to feel like a child rather than an adult. The mitre, the skullcap, the ring disappear; I send the adult off for a walk and even the bishop with all his grave and ponderous dignity, so that I might abandon myself to God, even if it be for a short half hour, I prefer to be what I am in reality, with all my wretchedness and any merits I might have. To feel the child I once was being reborn from the depths of my being, the child who wants to laugh, chatter, to love the Lord, who sometimes feels the need to cry so that he may obtain forgiveness – all this helps me to pray. The Rosary, a simple and easy prayer, also helps me to become a child again, and I am not ashamed of it.[3]

If this is the case, why do so many Catholics today have difficulty praying the rosary? It might be because they do not to adopt the lack of control so characteristic of children.

Those who have grown fond of the passing of beads through the fingers know that “the Rosary does not require any special preparation, and the petitioner does not need to generate thoughts of which he is not capable at the moment or at any other time. Rather, he steps into a well-ordered world, meets familiar images, and finds roads that lead to the essential.”[4] Of itself, the rosary “has no goal but a depth. To linger in it has great compensations.”[5] Too many people overlook this simple fact:

The Rosary is a prayer of lingering. One must take one’s time for it, putting the necessary time at its disposal, not only externally but internally. One who wants to pray it rightly must put away those things that press upon him and become for a time purposeless and quiet. This is necessary, whether he has thirty or ten minutes at his disposal. Neither should he attempt too much. It is not necessary to ramble through the whole Rosary; it is better to say only one or two decades, and to say them right.[6]

It is through the rosary that we sit at the feet of our Blessed Mother and learn in her school of love.

Within her quiet school, Mary teaches us “to contemplate the beauty on the face of Christ and to experience the depths of his love.”[7] She shows us how to ponder the treasures of Jesus’ words and deeds and to acquire them for ourselves. This is why Pope Saint John Paul II said the rosary “belongs among the finest and most praiseworthy traditions of Christian contemplation.”[8]

To look upon the Face of God is the deepest longing of every human heart and the prayerful recitation of the rosary can help prepare us to look upon so great a treasure. It is through the rosary that we learn

To look upon the face of Christ, to recognize its mystery amid the daily events and the sufferings of his human life, and then to grasp the divine splendor definitively revealed in the Risen Lord, seated in glory at the right hand of the Father: this is the task of every follower of Christ and therefore the task of each one of us. In contemplating Christ’s face we become open to receiving the mystery of Trinitarian life, experiencing anew the love of the Father and delighting in the joy of the Holy Spirit.[9]

Let us, then, both as individuals and as families, pray the rosary each day of October. May Holy Mary show us the face of her beloved Son and teach us to imitate him in all things. Following her example and turning our gaze away from the enticements of the Enemy and toward Christ, may we become heirs of the treasures of heaven. Amen.

---

[1] “Pope Francis invites the faithful to pray the Rosary in October,” Vatican News, 29 September 2018.

[2] Pope John Paul I, Homily, 7 October 1973.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Romano Guardini, The Rosary of Our Lady (Manchester, New Hampshire: Sophia Institute Press, 1998), 44.

[5] Ibid., 45.

[6] Ibid., 58.

[7] Pope Saint John Paul II, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, 1.

[8] Ibid., 5.

[9] Ibid., 9.

Bishop calls the faithful to wield the rosary against Boko Haram

Saint Pio of Pietrelcina (d. 1968), more commonly known simply as Padre Pio, once said, "The rosary is the weapon for these times."

The rosary may seem an odd weapon to take up, but we have seen it powerfully yielded by the faithful leading up to the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 when the rosary's power was demonstrated. Perhaps this is why Blessed Pope Pius IX (d. 1878) said, "Give me an army praying the rosary and I will conquer the world." It may be time to take up this holy weapon against the forces of Boko Haram - which is allied with the Islamic State - in Nigeria, Chad, and Cameroon.

His Excellency the Most Reverend Oliver Dashe Doeme, Bishop of Maiduguri, believes the Lord Jesus has told him to lead his faithful in taking up the weapon of the rosary:

“Towards the end of last year I was in my chapel before the Blessed Sacrament… praying the rosary, and then suddenly the Lord appeared,” Bishop Dashe told CNA April 18.

In the vision, the prelate said, Jesus didn’t say anything at first, but extended a sword toward him, and he in turn reached out for it.

“As soon as I received the sword, it turned into a rosary,” the bishop said, adding that Jesus then told him three times: “Boko Haram is gone.”

“I didn’t need any prophet to give me the explanation,” he said. “It was clear that with the rosary we would be able to expel Boko Haram.”

The bishop said he didn’t want to tell anyone, but “felt that the Holy Spirit was pushing him to do so” [more].

As a result of the devastation wrought by Boko Haram, Bishop Dashe's flock is now less than half of what it was in 2009 (down to between 50-60,000 from 125,000), when Boko Haram began terrorizing the northeastern part of Nigeria.

The Blessed Virgin Mary obtained a victory for the Christian forces against the Muslim forces at the Battle of Lepanto when all signs pointed to a Christian defeat. Let us heed Bishop Dashe's call. Let us take up our rosaries and ask Our Lady to obtain deliverance from Boko Haram.

Paprocki asks Catholics to pray the rosary to turn the tide - and hearts - of jihadists

Blessed Pope Pius IX once said, "Give me an army saying the rosary and I will conquer the world." He was not, of course, speaking of a political or temporal conquest, but a spiritual conquest, a conquest of hearts.

The same Pope referred to the rosary as "a weapon to put demons to flight" and urged Catholics to take up the rosary each day:

If you desire peace in your hearts, in your homes, and in your country, assemble each evening to recite the Rosary. Let not even one day pass without saying it, no matter how burdened you may be with many cares and labors.

The Catholic Gentleman offers several quotes from holy men and women regarding the rosary as, the words of Saint Pio of Pietrelcina, "the 'weapon' for these times."

In his weekly column in the Catholic Times in which he examines "how some define the word 'jihad'," the Most Reverend Thomas John Paprocki, Bishop of the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois, has echoed, in a certain sense, these words of the holy Pope, urging the faithful of his Diocese to take up their rosaries to turn the tide of jihadists:

While it pertains to Muslims to address and renounce such matters of Islamic teaching, I suggest for us Catholics that we turn to our Blessed Mother for her intercession by praying the rosary. Many parishioners pray the rosary together in church before Mass, a practice that I heartily encourage. Prior to the naval battle of Lepanto to repulse the westward expansion into Europe by the Ottoman Turks in the 16th century, Pope St. Pius V called on Catholics to pray the rosary. After the battle was successfully won near the west coast of Greece on Oct. 7, 1571, the pope attributed the victory to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and declared the Feast Day of Our Lady of Victory, which we now observe as Our Lady of the Rosary each year on Oct. 7. Let us pray to the Queen of Peace for her intercession, that the whole world may be led to the peace promised by her son, Jesus, the Prince of Peace [more].

Let us answer Bishop Paprocki's call and ask Our Lady to intercede especially for the Middle East, the land in which she lived and walked and prayed, a land she loves very much.

George: Mary will be there

Throughout the month of October, Holy Mother Church urges us to give special consideration to the Rosary of Our Lady.

As we pray the rosary, through its various repetitions, we are asked, as Pope Benedict XVI reminds us, to "be guided by Mary in this prayer, ancient and ever new, which is especially dear to her because it leads us directly to Jesus, contemplated in his Mysteries of salvation: joyful, luminous, sorrowful and glorious."

Yesterday His Eminence Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I., Archbishop of Chicago e-mailed a brief reflection on the rosary.  He concluded, saying, "So many private apparitions of the Blessed Virgin over the centuries have given us messages about this help, and it is a great comfort to believe that Mary will be there when the soul, the source of life for our body, struggles toward a different form of living.  Mothers give birth; Mary will be there, no matter when or how death comes to each of us."

Cardinal George is presently undergoing chemotherapy treatment for his second bout with cancer.  I ask you, then, remembering his words, to pray the rosary for him.  Ask the Lord to sustain him in his ministry and ask Our Lady to wrap him in her mantle.

To emulate Gabriel

Currently I am in Indianapolis visiting our seminarians at Bishop Simon Brute College Seminary. While they are away at classes I have answered a good bit of e-mail and am working my way through the current issue of Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies.

In it, Susanna Fein has an interesting article titled, "Mary to Veronica: John Audelay's Sequence of Salutations to God-Bearing Women.". She says,

In late-medieval Christianity, Christ's human nature and the saints' proximity were beliefs deeply ingrained in the conceptual world of the faithful."

In our own day, we would do well to recover this conceptual world; it is, after all, reality.

In speaking to the saints, she says,

Such a poem is more than a prayer, however: because utterance of the first Ave allowed Jesus to be made flesh, salutation commemorates a core doctrine of medieval piety. When Gabriel enunciated, "Ave Maria gratis plena" (Hail Mary full of grace), God's Word entered Mary and grew in her womb. The form ( of addressing saints) is therefore modeled on hallowed utterance. Ave. A momentous word, marks the moment of Christ's incarnation and carries salvific import. In an exemplum preached by John Mirk, Mary is said to feel the thrill of her Son playing in her body whenever one utters the Ave phrase, "God is with thee.". Second only to the Paternoster ( Our Father) among all prayers, the Ave Maria is the premiere way to address Mary. To say "Ave" is to emulate Gabriel. Take up your rosary, then, in this month of October and emulate the Archangel.

Archbishop Lucas: Rosary is a simple contrast to modern culture

A few weeks ago His Excellency the Most Reverend George J. Lucas, Archbishop of Omaha, penned on a piece on the rosary for The Catholic Voice. The text of his article follows, with my
emphases:

During the month of October, the Church invites all of us to take up the prayerful devotion of the rosary. The rosary is a good way to pray at any time of the year, in any circumstance. If you have never been used to praying the rosary, this is a good time to take it up and learn it - it is not burdensome or difficult. You may want to take it up again if you have put it aside for a while.

In any case, I invite you to make use of this age-old Catholic prayer with a renewed consciousness and reflection on the mysteries of God's love for us in Jesus Christ.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, is our spiritual guide through these mysteries. No one in the communion of saints is closer to Jesus than she is. We imagine Mary at prayer when, in the fullness of time, the angel announced to her God's plan for her participation in the salvation of the world.

Although Mary had been prepared for her unique role in God's plan, she had the freedom to accept it or not. God had made her full of grace. She made her life a gift back to God, "Let it be done to me according to your word." The "Word" which shaped Mary's whole being from then on is Jesus, the Son of God.

At the time that Mary put her life in God's hands, she could not have known everything that her gift would mean. She walked by faith through the mysteries of Jesus' birth, life teaching, suffering, death and resurrection. She learned at every step what it meant not only to be the mother of Jesus, but also to be his disciple. At Pentecost, she received the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the midst of the infant Church. Her ongoing fidelity strengthened the apostles to carry out the mission, given to them by the Lord, to bring the Gospel to the ends of the earth.

Mary remains with us in the communion of saints. She is called "Mother of the Church," and that title describes not just an honor, but an active role she plays in the life of the Church in every age. She helps guide us today, as she guided the first followers of Jesus. With Mary, we learn and then live the various aspects of Jesus' saving mission. Having been claimed by Christ in baptism, we learn, as Mary did, how to give ourselves to Him more freely all the time, cooperating with the grace that is God's gift to us.

All of that can seem very abstract. The rosary helps make our journey with Mary through the mysteries of faith more concrete. The rosary is called a "popular" devotion. This is not only because it is prayed by so many. It is a people's devotion. It can be learned and prayed by anyone. It is literally in the hands of the people. It came into wide use in some places when people looked for a way to follow the example of monks who prayed the Liturgy of the Hours at times throughout the day. Most of the faithful would not have had access to books containing, the 150 Psalms, and many would not have been able to read in any case. The rosary provided a means of prayer that was portable and accessible to all.

The beauty and simplicity that attracted people to the rosary centuries ago still draw us to this devotion in our time. The format is a simple contrast to the complexity of modern culture. Whether we pray the rosary alone or in a group, it draws us out of the isolation that our world often encourages. We meet Mary in this prayer, which is clearly offered to God and not to her. She helps us face the particular challenge we may find at the moment in our journey of faith. As Mary learned, we also learn that our saying yes to God must be renewed each day.

We can never know all there is to know about how God loves us in His Son, Jesus Christ. We are never finished, in this life, being conformed freely to Christ. This is a process that Mary herself experienced as she cooperated with grace. She is able and she desires to assist us by her own example and prayers. She is with us as we pray the rosary at home, in the car, while taking a walk, when praying before the Blessed Sacrament. We welcome her into our homes and our lives, as St. John welcomed her after the crucifixion of Jesus.

Catholic bookstores and websites have available simple guides for praying the rosary. There are many helps for meditating on the glorious, joyful, sorrowful and luminous mysteries of our faith. Someone who prays the rosary regularly is always happy to teach it to another.

Whenever anyone asks me to bless a new set of rosary beads, I am happy to do so. I always invite that person to pray a decade for me when they have the chance. I am asking you to do the same during this month of the rosary. I promise to pray for you, too. We know we can count on Mary's prayers as we learn to be more faithful disciples of her son, Jesus Christ.

Her Majesty

Queen of the holy rosary, pray for us.