The 17th century French philosopher Blaise Pascal said that most of us spend our lives seeking diversions in a desperate attempt to avoid the hard and simple questions: who am I? What  is the purpose of my life? What does God want of me?

These hard and simple questions have hard and simple answers. "Who am I?" I am a beloved, adopted son or daughter of the God, who gave his all for me. I am because of him. "What is the purpose of my life?" He created me, predestined me, redeemed and sanctified me, so that I could be with  him forever in eternity, sharing his glory and praising his name. "What does God want of me?" He calls me to love him and others in response to his gratuitous love for me. Simple, right? But in reality we struggle with each of these answers. Because of our sinful tendencies it is hard for us to accept that God could love us and it is hard for us to love God in the way he deserves. But hard doesn't mean impossible. Each day we need to remind ourselves of our true identity, our true purpose and destiny and our true way of life. If we never lose sight of our goal--union with God--we can more readily move in that direction. As a proverb says: The journey of a mile begins with the first step.

 

Homily: Fourteenth Sunday Year C

 

Reading 1: To a people who are returning to Jerusalem from their exile in Babylon, their initial reaction is disheartening. The city is in total destruction. It would be the feeling you would have if you came back home to find that your home has burned to the ground. You would not be in a state of joy but sadness.

 

Yet God says to the people to rejoice and exult and not to mourn. Why? God was going to restore the city to an even greater glory than it formerly enjoyed.  We know that God fulfilled his promise. Not only the city but the Temple was restored and became more beautiful than before.

 

This Jerusalem is a symbol of both the Church and of the heavenly Kingdom that we are called to be a part of. The old Jerusalem was a symbol of the Old Covenant and the old people of God. The Church is the New Jerusalem established by Christ through his death and resurrection. We are the new people of God chosen by him to live in the new Kingdom. But the Church is a foreshadowing of the final and eternal Jerusalem. It is where God’s elect will live in eternal glory with him.

 

The key is that God is doing something that is beyond us, but it is for us. “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you.” In God we find our security and comfort.

 

Reading 2: Paul was confronting those who came to the Galatians after him and said the people must first be circumcised before being baptized. This left the impression that following the Mosaic Law would save a person and not baptism. Paul insisted that it was the death and resurrection of Jesus which has brought eternal salvation.

 

It is baptism not circumcision that saves us, once we enter into that mystery of Jesus’ death and resurrection. That is why Paul glorified in the cross. Again, it is the work of God and not of human being which brings salvation.

 

For us baptism is the sign of the new Covenant and of the new people. As we sign ourselves with the sign of the cross we are reminding ourselves that we bear the marks of Jesus. By his wounds we have been saved and made a new people. We wear a cross, we place the cross in our homes so that we can remind ourselves of and embrace what God has done for us.

 

Gospel: The most important statement in the reading is the last: Rejoice that your names are written in the book of life. After all is said and done, after our life comes to an end, what matters is doing the will of God and being in the will of God, so that we may be with him forever in glory.

 

Jesus had sent the seventy-two disciples to proclaim the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick. Some people responded, others did not. The most important thing was not the response of people, but the disciples doing the will of God. Yes, they saw the power of God in their ministry, but that was not the primary reason they were sent. Did they do what they were sent to do?

 

The same mission has been given to us who have been baptized and confirmed. We have a prophetic mission, namely, to spread the word of God and to share the message of truth, which is God’s love in the gift of salvation, manifested through and in the name of Jesus.

 

The urgency is greater today than it was in the day of Jesus. It is not results that will make the difference, but our faithful response to God’s call to each of us in our own state of life. While the disciples focused on the effects of their ministry, Jesus focused on the obedience to the plan of God for them. What do we focus on?

 

K. Chesterton once said, “A saint only means a man who really knows that he is a sinner.

"St. Anselm, the great medieval theologian who is often unfairly blamed for the cruel theology of satisfaction, was eminently clear on this score. We sinners are like diamonds that have fallen into the muck. Made in the image of God, we have soiled ourselves through violence and hatred. God, claimed Anselm, could have simply pronounced a word of forgiveness from heaven, but this would not have solved the problem. It would not have restored the diamonds to their original brilliance. Instead, in his passion to reestablish the beauty of creation, God came down into the muck of sin and death, brought the diamonds up, and then restored their brilliance."

How great is our God that he would allow us to know that we are sinners, who are called to be saints! How great is our God, who knew we couldn't make the transition without his grace of salvation! How great is our God, who pours out his love upon us so that we can remain in his love! Isn't this the difference between being a sinner and a saint? A sinner is not loving God in response to his love. A saint, knows he is unworthy, but chooses to love God in response to his love. A saint is a struggling sinner. Be the saint you are meant to be!

 Fourteenth Sunday Gospel C

At that time the Lord appointed seventy-two others whom he sent ahead of him in pairs to every town and place he intended to visit. 

· These seventy-two are disciples other than the twelve apostles who also are sent on mission. This number is significant because in the Old Testament Moses chose seventy men upon whom God poured out his Spirit and they prophesied. But there were two others who remained in the camp and they too received the same outpouring of the Spirit and manifested the same gift of prophesy.

He said to them, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest. 

· Notice he said to pray for more laborers. Is anything different today? The harvest is just as ripe today and the need for more workers in the vineyard of the Lord is equally as great. So what are we suppose to do? Are we?

Go on your way; behold, I am sending you like lambs among wolves.  

· Besides asking them to pray, he also indicated that they were to do the work themselves. Is your call rooted in baptism and confirmation any different?  How are you responding?

Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals; and greet no one along the way.  

· There is a sense of urgency and dependency. Do you have the same sense? Look around your family. How many truly are on fire for God? Look around at the people you associate with at work or other places. Is their faith alive? What do you think God may be saying to you?

Into whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this household.’ If a peaceful person lives there, your peace will rest on him; but if not, it will return to you. Stay in the same house and eat and drink what is offered to you, for the laborer deserves his payment.  Do not move about from one house to another. 

· The focus of not moving from house to house was to avoid the appearance that they were looking for the best accommodations and meals. The proclamation of the message of salvation was more important than their comfort or well being.

Whatever town you enter and they welcome you, eat what is set before you, cure the sick in it and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God is at hand for you.’ 

· Here is the key to their missionary thrust: speak the truth and confirm it with signs and wonders. This was the same process Jesus used. To make sure that the people would believe the message he proclaimed, Jesus would follow it with some confirmation or use a sign or wonder and then give a teaching, so that the teaching would be better received.

· The sign and wonder were essential in the ministry of Jesus. Should it be less for us? If Jesus sets the pattern for us, should we not follow his plan?

Whatever town you enter and they do not receive you, go out into the streets and say, ‘The dust of your town that clings to our feet, even that we shake off against you.’ Yet know this: the kingdom of God is at hand.  I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Sodom on that day than for that town.” 

· It was not the task of the disciples to make the people respond to their message, but just to proclaim the message with confirmation. The burden of acceptance was on those who heard. Sometimes we think that we have to make people act on the message we share with them rather than just be faithful to the call God gave us and leave the response up to the hearer.

The seventy-two returned rejoicing, and said, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us because of your name.”  

· Not only did they do signs and wonders, they also saw signs and wonders that God revealed.

Jesus said, “I have observed Satan fall like lightning from the sky.  Behold, I have given you the power to ‘tread upon serpents’ and scorpions and upon the full force of the enemy and nothing will harm you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice because your names are written in heaven.”

 “As Jesus got into a boat, his disciples followed him. Suddenly a violent storm came up on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by waves; but he was asleep. They came and woke him, saying, ‘Lord, save us! We are perishing!’ He said to them, ‘Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?’ Then he got up, rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was great calm.”

We are like the disciples, in the midst of the various storms in our lives, we become self-focus, rather than remain focused on Jesus. Their going to Jesus was not concern for him but for themselves. Fear rather than faith was in charge. As long as Jesus is with us, nothing can separate us from him, as long as we keep our eyes and heart on him.  Whether or not he removes the personal storm of the moment is not the question. But whether  or not we place our lives in his will for us is the question. In the midst of our storms, he is with us. Learn to trust in him and remain in peace with him. Storms come and go. Jesus remains.

 

"And yet you hear people complaining about this present day and age because things were so much better in former times. I wonder what would happen if they could be taken back to the days of their ancestors—would we not still hear them complaining? You may think past ages were good, but it is only because you are not living in them.

 

How then can you think that past ages were better than your own? From the time of that first Adam to the time of his descendants today, man’s lot has been labor and sweat, thorns and thistles. Have we forgotten the flood and the calamitous times of famine and war whose history has been recorded precisely in order to keep us from complaining to God on account of our own times? Just think what those past ages were like! Is there one of us who does not shudder to hear or read of them? Far from justifying complaints about our own time, they teach us how much we have to be thankful for." (Anonymous)

It is easier in each age to complain about how terrible things are. We are like the Israelites during their forty year journey, they kept looking back at the good old days they had in Egypt. As a result they couldn't enjoy the present moment they were in nor could they be open to the future promise that God had made of a Promised Land. Longing for the past is like Lot's wife, frozen in time. Being in the present moment is a gift from God for us to be thankful as we await the fullness of his gifts to us in the future that will be the now present. The past we do not have, nor will it ever return. The future is not yet, nor can we hasten it. The grace of the present moment is given to us to enjoy and to get the most out of it. As they say: "Learn to smell the roses of the present moment."

 

St. Augustine gives the meaning of the feast of the Sacred Heart: “Let us return to the heart that we may find Him”  Pope Benedict XVI once said: “This Heart consists, not of self-preservation, but of self-abandonment. It saves the world by opening itself out. The crushing overturn of the opened Heart is the very content of the Easter mystery. The heart does save indeed; but it saves by giving itself away utterly. In the Heart of Jesus, therefore, we are face to face with the center of Christianity. In this Heart everything is said concerning that truly new overturn that takes place in the New Covenant. This Heart calls out to our heart. It invites us to forsake our vain attempts at self-preservation and to find, in an imitation of his love – in our giving ourselves away to him and with him – that fullness of love which alone is eternity and which alone sustains the world.”

As we celebrate the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we are called to give thanks to him who has loved us unconditionally and totally. At the same time, we are called to respond to his gratuitous, divine love with our limited, human love. As he emptied himself, giving his all, we are called to empty ourselves in love to him and to others. Impossible? Not for one who truly knows how to love and who makes love the center of one's life.