23rd Sunday After Pentecost @ St. Matthew Church

HOMILY - TWENTY-THIRD SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
NOVEMBER 12, 2017
3:00 PM EXTRAORDINARY FORM (LATIN) MASS

Oh why is heaven built so far,
Oh why is earth set so remote?

I cannot reach the nearest star
That hangs afloat.

Thus begins the four-stanza poem by the Victorian era poet Christina Rosetti, who died six years before the end of the nineteenth century. This poem is titled De Profundis – Latin for "Out of the depths."



Twice in today’s liturgy, the first lines of the De Profundis – more properly Psalm 129 (130) – are intoned: during the Alleluia verse, and in the Offertorio.

Many poets and authors have paraphrased or interpreted this text – more often than not in a spirit of despair … during a period of personal darkness or loss.

Yet today’s Mass texts and readings call us to greater perseverance and increased hope.



The Introit is from Jeremiah 29, a verse often misused and misinterpreted. The gist being that God has banished Israel to captivity in Bablyon for 70 years, and yet the Almighty proclaims that this shall pass. Awkwardly, this verse pops up on graduation cards as a declaration of a bright future. Yet the context here is of a lengthy exile … followed by a return.

In the Epistle, St. Paul gives the Christians in Philipi a choice between the Spirit or the Flesh. One is freedom, one is exile. Yet the world often portrays the license of the Flesh to be a type of freedom. But this is deceptive. True freedom is found in Christ Jesus … in the joy and the victory of heaven. We must be careful not to treat this “vale of tears” as our final destination.



The Gospel from St. Matthew chapter 9, gives us two images of our salvation. In the first, a woman with a hemorrhage is healed by the mere touch of Our Lord. For the ancients, blood was life; and the loss of blood was the loss of life. The disease that plagued this poor soul for twelve years was a slow leaking out of life … a rather graphic image of the loss of grace – when one may ignore its divine benefits and allow it to be depleted by dis-ease … either through sin or neglect.

And in the raising of the young girl, Our Lord shows Himself as Master of both life and death – being first mocked by the mourners, whose disdain turns to amazement at the restoration of life to the dead child.

Out of the depths … Out of the depths … we cry out to God for Salvation … in the midst of our earthly exile God hears our cries … and reaches out with salvation.



No matter ones condition – saint, or sinner – Our Lord Jesus Christ has conquered death, both spiritual and physical. We must never tire of crying out to Him for the graces we need for salvation … for saving … from sin … from the world … from ourselves.

Rosetti’s poem ends:

For I am bound with fleshly bands,
Joy, beauty, lie beyond my scope;

I strain my heart, I stretch my hands,
And catch at hope.

As we approach this altar to receive the Sacred Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, let us call out to Christ to save us. Let us recognize the limitations of our earthly existence, and by the manifold graces of Holy Baptism and all the Sacraments let us “catch at hope.” For it is through perseverance in Faith, Hope, and Charity that we can rise out of the depths … and imitate both Christ and the Saints … to be transformed from the despair of the flesh into the glory of salvation … and eternity … in heaven.

3rd Sunday after Epiphany @ St. Matthew, Flint, MI

HOMILY - THIRD SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY
JANUARY 22, 2017
SUNDAY 3:00 PM EXTRAORDINARY FORM MASS



For those who watched the recent Inauguration, it was refreshing to see six religious leaders offer prayers and readings from Scripture, five of whom represented Christian Churches or ecclesial communities, and four of whom proclaimed the Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
In today's Gospel, we see Christ healing a leper as well as the servant of a Roman official.
The leper was a social outcast. For a leper to approach someone was illegal. Yet Jesus doesn't remind him of the law. For someone to touch a leper made that person unclean. Yet Jesus touches the leper.
Our Lord solves the latter problem by making the leper clean through a miraculous healing. The wrong is righted, not by banishing Jesus to a leper colony for a trial period, but by cleansing the leper of what was then an incurable and eventually terminal illness.
Jesus shows us that God knows no boundaries, nor does God respect our boundaries.
The second healing is done for a Roman official. Again, not someone in favor with the local Jewish authorities. The Romans were the hegemonistic occupying pagan force. Foreign invaders who worshipped false gods. Aliens who desecrated the land by their mere presence, whose armies kept the people at bay, and whose violence was feared.
Yet Jesus does not hesitate to offer to go and heal the man's servant.
He doesn't lecture him on freedom, or local rule. He doesn't demand a withdrawal of forces. Nor does he lecture him on slavery, for this servant was most certainly a slave and not a hired hand.
Jesus is not ashamed of our problems. His mission is to save, to heal, to redeem the individual.
Even with this, the Roman official, perhaps sensitive to the purity law of the Jews, prefers that Jesus not enter his home lest He incur ritual impurity. Here, the foreigner has more faith and respect for the Law than many of those in Israel.
Jesus recognizes his faith, and praises him for it. And in a show of authority for a man of authority, Jesus gives the word to heal the servant.
God knows no boundaries. God is not ashamed of our issues.
God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to save us from our sins. Despite the walls we build, the prejudices we hold, the lines we draw in the sand. God reaches through these, and saves us ... heals us ... redeems us ... from our sins and from the effects of sin in the world.
What is needed from us is the humble word of Faith ... recognizing that God is God and we are not ... not a strident demand ... not a closeted denial of our issues ... but an open, honest recognition of what separates us from God, and the desire for redemption and healing.
As we approach this altar to receive the Sacred Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, let us pray to never be ashamed of Christ – for He is not ashamed of us. He died on the cross for us, for our sins, and for our issues. Not to approve of sin, but to raise us above it. As we receive the Eucharist today, may we reach through our boundaries and touch Christ. May the manifold graces of this sacrament today heal us ... save us ... and redeem us. Not by our power, but through Christ and by the will of God the Father, and the Power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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