Monday, March 5, 2018

Monday of the Third Week in Lent

(II Kings 5:1-15ab; Luke 4:24-30)

The first two and a half weeks of Lent deal with penance to make up for our sins.  We emphasized the need for prayer, fasting, and works of charity to overcome our egotistical desires.  The third week of Lent opens another perspective.  Now we have to ask ourselves if we are giving proper testimony to Jesus.  Today’s readings confirm Jesus as a prophet.  Do we see him in that way?

Naaman almost missed his opportunity for being cured of leprosy.  He wanted to dismiss the advice of the prophet Elisha who told him to just wash in the Jordan River.  Fortunately, his servants were able to convince him that he had little to lose by complying with the prophet’s order.  In the gospel passage the people of Nazareth do not have such good advice available.  They reject Jesus’ claim of being appointed by God to bring comfort to the oppressed.  Indeed, they are about to kill him for claiming to be a prophet.

Placing faith in Jesus is a risky venture.  We may not lose our lives or our fortunes, just the consideration of being “one of the guys.”  Accepting Jesus as a prophet means to stand with him by visiting the sick or greeting a child with a severe deformity.  It may also mean objecting to a slander that someone makes or questioning the standing opinion that is based on hearsay.  Former Vice-President Joe Biden speaks favorably of rival Jesse Helms when both men were in the Senate.  He says that they were able to accomplish much for their country because they refused to denigrate each other as some of their political allies would have had them do. 

Friday, February 5, 2010

Memorial of St. Agatha, virgin and martyr

(Sirach 47:2-11; Mark 6:14-29)

The word enigma comes from a Greek word meaning riddle. An enigma is more than what meets the eye. Or, we might say, an enigma confounds the eye. To some people Senator Jesse Helms was an enigma. He seemed to oppose attempts by government to assist the needy, yet he and his wife adopted a child with a severe physical challenge. In the first half of the narratives of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus appears to observers as enigmatic. He works wonders like the prophet Elijah. He confronts hypocrites like Amos or other prophets. He announces the kingdom of God like John the Baptist. Demons know his true identity, but it is elusive to other humans.

Haunted by guilt, Herod Antipas supposes that Jesus must be the reincarnation of the Baptist whose head he capriciously had chopped off. A few chapters later in this gospel Peter will correctly name Jesus as the Messiah, but no one will understand what that term means until he dies on the cross. Then the Roman centurion, an objective witness, will proclaim Jesus the “son of God” after observing his innocence and faithfulness lived out to the last breath. On the third day Jesus will rise from the dead so that all doubts may clear away. Jesus is no longer an enigma but, indeed, the most sterling truth for one to grasp in life.

Homilette for Monday, October 6, 2008

Monday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time

(Luke 10:25-37)

Commentators on Scripture note that the priest and the Levite who ignore the dying victim have some reasons to pass him by. As we might not offer help to a man standing beside a car with hood open out of wariness for a trap so too the priest and Levite might fear that the apparent victim is actually a decoy. Also, the Jewish clergy may be traveling on the other side of the road because they are on the way to Jerusalem to participate in Temple sacrifice. Handling a corpse would have prohibited the men from performing their professional services.

Still their lack of response to a person likely in desperate need is hardly commendable, much less worthy of eternal life. Entering God’s kingdom requires that we go out of our way to assist others. It happens the moment that our love as eros, seeking our own benefit, melts into love as agape, striving for the good of the other as unrelated to our own. To be sure, there is a connection between the two ways of loving. Human love always begins with eros, which is not necessarily selfish. God’s grace, however, transforms it into His unique and supreme way of caring.

Joe Biden’s story during the vice-presidential debate the other night may help us appreciate this parable. Biden remarked how as a young senator the Majority Leader Mike Mansfield corrected him for criticizing conservative senator Jesse Helms as an awful person. Mansfield told Biden that Helms and his wife had adopted a child with cerebral palsy, a deed indicating goodness. Biden’s lesson was to never judge a person’s motives; one may only judge the person’s actions. The priest and the Levite perhaps passed by the injured man for some plausible reason. But the situation called for a rescue effort, which, from all we know, they failed to provide. The Samaritan, on the other hand, showed himself to be worthy of eternal life by responding heroically to the urgent need.