Homily: 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

        When I moved into the rectory 4 years ago for my pastoral year (just like Seminarian Dan), I was soon given the nickname of “The Butler.” This is because I was constantly answering the door, cleaning up, setting the table for guests, serving food and drinks and other various and sundry tasks. The other day, when I walked into the room, someone said “Hey, it’s the Butler." Fr. Bill corrected them and said “That’s Fr. Butler now.” Often times transitions into new roles can be really difficult. Ezekiel speaks of bringing a message to a people whose hearts were hardened and our Lord Himself experienced this in the Gospel passage today.

  “A prophet is not without honor except in his native place.” Meaning, everyone respects a messenger of God, except those to whom he or she is familiar. The job of a prophet is never easy. Nevertheless, we are all called to be prophets of sorts in our own lives. This isn't an easy calling, though it is not an impossible calling. We can meet the greatest resistance from our own families and friends, and that sort of rejection can destroy our zeal if we let it. But we must remember that despite our apparent weaknesses, God and do great work. 

  St. Paul speaks directly to this reality in his letter to the Corinthians. Now, the community at Corinth to whom Paul was writing, was an especially difficult community. If you ready the letters to the Corinthians, they never seem to get it. Despite Paul’s efforts, those in Corinth were constantly fighting amongst themselves and getting into trouble. So Paul understood what it was like to try to share a message with a people who would reject it. He speaks of this “thorn in the flesh” that the Lord placed upon him. We do not know exactly what this “thorn” was, but part of it may have simply been the great difficulties he encountered with the church at Corinth. Similarly, we may feel like the Lord is not listening to us when we plead for help; when we are really struggling to live out our Christian life and share the Gospel message with those closest to us. However, we must remember that God writes straight with crooked lines. Sometimes, he allows to experience difficulties and appear as weak, in order that we may be reminded of our complete dependency on Him and the Grace He bestows upon us. 

  So how do we develop the proper attitude and disposition in those times of difficulties? Well, we can turn to the Psalm we heard today (Psalm 123). The psalmist presents a completely dfferent attitude than we here in the other readings. It is an attitude of humility and trust. The psalmist writes:

To you I lift up my eyes

who are enthroned in heaven—

as the eyes of servants

are on the hands of their masters.

As the eyes of a maid 

are on the hands of her mistress,

so are our eyes on the Lord, our God,

till he have pity on us.

     This is the disposition we must adopt when we encounter struggles in our lives. Especially when we feel overcome and powerless in the face of conflict. We must place our trust in the Lord. He really does love us and cares for us. St. John of the Cross, the great mystic of …experienced the difficulties of living a live of missionary discipleship and summed it up beautifully, so I leave you with His words:

     “Though the path is plain and smooth for [those] of good will, [those] who [walk] it will not travel far, and will do so only with difficulty, if [they do] not have good feet: that is: courage and a persevering spirit.”

Homily : 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

     Well, here we are. The first weekend you are all subjected to me as your new Parochial Vicar. Trust me, the feeling of terror is mutual. I asked Fr. Terry as he was leaving: “When do you stop waking up and and thinking ‘Holy Cannoli, I’m a priest!’?” He answered: “I don’t know. I’ll let you know when it happens.” So my request to all of you is that you pray for me as I begin my ministry here at St. Pius. I couldn’t be more blessed than to be placed here with you all and with such a fantastic mentor like Fr. Bill (the older one, that is). 

  It is proof that Murphy’s Law is true, that my first weekend to preach for you all would follow such a major decision made by the Supreme Court. I read the statements put out by both the USCCB and our own bishop, Kevin Rhoades, in regards to the decision to alter the definition of marriage at the national level. I encourage you all to read those statements. They are both rather short and I was pleasantly surprised when reading them, for both stress the need to not only stand up for our beliefs about the natural law and reasonable order of creation, but they also remind us all of the need to have loving compassion on all those who disagree with our beliefs.

So many people in our society are hurting and struggling, overcome by pain and confusion about life in general. I’m sure we can all think of a friend or family member, or anyone we know and love who this decision will greatly effect. Unfortunately sometimes these same people are used by others to push for us to realign parts of our societal structures, which further confuses and deconstructs the world as God created it to be. After all, things always work better when they are doing and acting as they were made to do and act. Consider, a chair doesn’t make a very good table and a table doesn’t make a very good chair. While this example is trite, the truth behind it holds true in all aspects of life. When we decide for ourselves to try to alter that reality, our actions ultimately mess things up even more, and cause greater divisions, and push the more vulnerable to the outskirts of society. 

In the gospel passage we just heard, Jesus carries out two miraculous healings. Both of which thwart and go against the norms established by the society of His time. First the woman with the hemorrhage; she would have been excluded from certain aspects of the community due to her ritual impurity. Second, the young girl who had died and was even more drastically separated from the community. Both are healed through Jesus, but these healings are nuanced in different ways. The first woman is healed through her faith and her own initiative. She took the risk to touch Jesus’ clothing, which went completely against the established norms. The second girl is healed by Jesus and through his power alone, with no initiative shown on her part. So we can see the need to realize the ultimate power of God in solving the problems of the world own his own with no help from us, but also the need to realize that we do have an active role in the health of our society. For we are called to be witnesses to the truth, and not be afraid to, in compassion and love always of course, promote and share the Gospel message of truth with others. 

  So ultimately, we are called to do three things: 

1. GO OUT / REACH OUT in loving compassion to those on the fringes of society who will become even more marginalized and thrust into a category and in a certain way exploited to push the agendas of others. 
2. HAVE COURAGE to stand up for the truth not only about marriage, but about the dignity of all persons, especially our children and young people who are growing up in these troubled times. 
3. TRUST in the power of God, and do not despair over decisions made by mere humans. He is in charge, He made the world and all things in it except sin. Yet he died on the cross to conquer sin and death. So we know the end of the story, Good will triumph over evil.

  Our Lord himself said “I have told you this so that you might have peace in me. In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world.” (Jn 16:33)