HOMILIES
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Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time C
July 25, 2010
Jesus makes some bold statements in today’s Gospel. He says that whoever asks will receive, whoever seeks will find, and whoever knocks will get the door opened. Did He really mean that? Shouldn’t He have said, almost everyone? Can He make such an unconditional guarantee? He can. After all, He is all-powerful and all-knowing. Even so, it still seems to be too good to be true. It’s hard to accept these phrases just as they stand. We want to treat them like poetry, to admire their beauty without taking them literally.
Jesus knew that we would be tempted to doubt them. So He reiterated them by giving examples. Would an earthly father worthy of the name torture his children by giving them stones instead of bread or a little balled up scorpion instead of an egg? Of course not. Even though we are, as human beings, selfish sinners, “wicked” as Jesus says, we still try to give good things to those we love. Then we can begin to understand how God, whose love is unhindered by even the slightest selfishness, is even more willing to give good things to us whom He loves without measure.
Just as Jesus answered His disciples’ request to teach them how to pray by giving them the Our Father, the most perfect of all prayers, so He will hear every request we ask of Him and answer it even more generously than we could possibly have hoped.
Yes, those who ask will receive, and those who seek will find, because God is simply too good not to answer every prayer He hears.
Sometimes, however, God does not give us the answer that we want. That when we find out our level of spiritual maturity. A immature Christian will react as if the prayer was not heard at all. He will become angry and resentful at God. In order to justify the anger, he/she may become convinced there is no God. This is fundamentally self-centered.
The only time we doubt that God hears our prayers is when we don’t get what we want right when we want it. If we say a prayer of thanksgiving or praise, for example, we never doubt that God hears it. Uncontrolled frustration at supposedly unanswered prayer is a sign of spiritual immaturity. Most mature Christians accept that God hears and answers every prayer.
If we ask God for something in prayer, God can say one of three things in response:
First, He can say OK and give us what we ask for.
Second, He can simply say no which means that what we are asking for is not good for us. This is still an answer to prayer, and, as every parent knows, sometimes it is the most loving answer of all.
Third, He can say OK, but not now.
Yes, no and not now, these are answers that God can choose from and He always chooses on. Keeping this in mind can, or should, help us from throwing a spiritual temper tantrum when God doesn’t do exactly what we want.
We need to be reminded that we are not God. We need God. We will always need God. Asking, seeking and knocking didn’t go out of style with electricity and computers. God wants us to admit and accept this need. If we do, we allow Him more room to work in our lives.
It is a sign of spiritual maturity to approach God in prayer, persistently and confidently with all our needs. If we aren’t doing it regularly, chances are that we are drifting away from God. Today hear the invitation to come back, to come closer, to keep asking, seeking, knocking.
Today let’s lift up all our prayers from the depths of our hearts. What could warm a Father’s heart more than that?
The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.
Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
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Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time C
July 11, 2010
The parable of the Good Samaritan is so familiar to us that we often see it from only one side. We tend to focus on what is there that we should imitate. Jesus finishes the parable by saying, “Go and do likewise.” In that sense it is a clear explanation of the great commandment, “love your neighbor as yourself.”
But this parable has another dimension. The Good Samaritan is, above all, a picture of Jesus and what Jesus has done for us, for the human family as a whole, and for each of individually. We were like the man left on the side of the road to die. Each of us had been robbed of our original holiness by sin. Our selfishness and sins and the sins of others have seriously wounded our souls. We lay on the side of life’s path in need of Someone to help.
Jesus comes to us like the Good Samaritan. He is the merciful One who heals and restores us with the oil and wine of His grace and sacraments. He is the One who pays for our salvation with His own sacrifice. He gives all that is necessary to the innkeeper which is His Church. And the Church watches over our progress and recovery until Jesus returns. If Jesus commands us to be Good Samaritans to one another, it’s only because He has done the same thing before us.
Jesus continues to be the Good Samaritan for the world. His word and sacraments are the healing ointment for our wounds of selfishness and sin. This is His message and He has communicated this in different ways through the years.
One was a series of visions to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, a French nun. These visions were the beginning of the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
When Jesus first appeared to Saint Margaret Mary, He stood in front of her and showed her His heart, describing it as a furnace of love. Then He reached out and took her heart in His hand. She saw her heart as if it were a tiny atom. Jesus put it inside His own heart where it caught fire and started to burn with the flames of His love.
On another occasion, He allowed her to look directly at His heart. She wrote later that it was bright as the sun and clear as crystal. Driven into the top of it was a cross. On one side was a deep gash, the wound He got when the soldiers put a spear into His side. And wrapped tightly around the middle of His heart was a ring of thorns. Jesus explained that these thorns were the indifference and ingratitude that He received from the men and women who He loved, for whom He died and for whom He had become the Good Samaritan to the world.
We need Christ. We live in a fallen world. We ourselves are fallen. Christ is our Good Samaritan and only His help can get us back on our feet, keep us there and give us the inner, spiritual strength we all know we need and should have.
The Church reminds us of that today. We should thank the Lord for coming to rescue us, for not walking by like the priest and the Levite, but stopping to help.
Our thanks is best made by reaching out to others who have been robbed and beaten up by the troubles of life in this fallen world. Remember that this week. Jesus says, “Go and do likewise.”
The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.
Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
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Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time C
July 4, 2010
When Jesus appointed seventy-two disciples to work with Him in the mission, the number was important.
When Moses was leading the people of Israel into the Promised Land, God had him appoint seventy elders to receive the same spirit as Moses and become his assistants. Later, the Sanhedrin, the ruling body of Israel, was made up of 71 elders.
The number 72 may have even more meaning since the Book of Genesis described the division of the non-Jewish world into 70 nations. So 72 might reflect those nations, Israel and the Church, the new People of God.
Either way, the Old and the New Testament insist that God chooses coworkers to build His kingdom. And the Lord came not only to announce the Gospel but to set up His Church, the community of disciples, His coworkers, to keep spreading the good news to the ends of the earth until time ends. (“Who is the Church?” “We are!” “Where is the Church?” “Right here!”)
Jesus is saving the world, but not by Himself. He wants to do it with our help. From the pope to the most recently baptized person, we all share the same mission: To help Christ build His kingdom.
And this should be one of our greatest joys. As Pope Benedict said recently,
“I am convinced that there is a great need for the whole Church to rediscover the joy of evangelization, to become a community inspired with missionary zeal to make Jesus better known and loved.” (November 27, 2006)
Jesus longs for our friendship. And friends share their most important tasks, so He shares with us His most important mission: building up the Kingdom, spreading the Gospel, saving souls. He doesn’t want pets, He wants friends and collaborators.
The longing of the heart of Jesus for our friendship and it comes across in the expression He uses at the beginning of the instructions to the 72 disciples. He tells them, “The harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few.” Imagine the emotion behind those words. They express an urgency, a burning desire to reach out to all people who so desperately need direction, meaning and love in their lives, and lead them to the Kingdom. So many needs, so many hearts ready for the Gospel.
The real friends of Jesus, the ones He can count on, know the echo of this love and desire in their own hearts. He longs for each of us to be that kind of friend.
All of us are called to be coworkers but some are called to dedicate themselves in a special way to bringing in this spiritual harvest. When Jesus tells us to “ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest,” He is referring above all to those who have these special vocations, to the men and women God calls to the priesthood and religious life in the Church.
When He tells us to “ask the master of the harvest,” He is telling us to pray for vocations. This is something every one of us can do. Asking God to send vocations to the priesthood, consecrated life and missionary life shows that we care about what Jesus cares about, that we are His coworkers. The more sincere the prayer is, the more effective it will be.
And if it is sincere, it means that we will not only ask God to call others, but we will be generous in responding to whatever He asks us. Blessed Mother Teresa was once speaking to a young man who wanted to do something for Christ. He was sad about all the problems he saw in the world and spoke of his frustration. He told her, “I’m only one person, and the world is in such a mess! What can I do?” She answered, “Pick up a broom.”
We all care about continuing the mission of Christ and building His kingdom, that is why we are here. So during this Mass, and in this week, ask God to send more workers into the harvest. And as soon as we finish the prayer, let’s pick up a broom and get working.
The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.
Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
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