For this week’s homily, please play the video below:
By Orlando Hernandez
This Thursday’s Gospel continues with the extremely challenging statements that our Lord pronounces in the Sermon on the Mount:
“I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, ‘You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgement.’ But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgement, and whoever says to his brother, ‘Raqa,’ will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna. Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift.” (Mt 5: 20-24)
Our faith and religion is the great gift of God, but we can spoil this gift if we use it as an excuse to feel that we are “better” than our neighbor. Even prayer and piety can unfortunately be used as a cover for inhumane behavior. Our Lord points out the dangerous practices of self-righteousness that can lead to the escalation of conflict which condemns us not only to the loss of love of neighbor, but even to the total disregard for the sanctity of human life, whether through unfettered anger, cold calculation, or simple indifference. We find ourselves imprisoned by hate and guilt: “Your opponent will hand you over to the judge, and the judge will hand you over to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison.” (Mt 5: 25)
Abraham Lincoln’s famous quote explores this sad situation when he talks about the two sides in the Civil War: “Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God,and each invokes His aid against the other.” I imagine those prayers and see them as ferocious darts, adding to the countless wounds of our Jesus on the Cross. What is right and what is wrong? Why is there so much divisiveness in our country, in our world? Is our real “opponent” happily leading us in chains to the Judge? Are we already in a hopeless Gehenna, where truth and mercy are incinerated along with God’s goal of human unity within His loving embrace?
My conservative son complains that those on “the left” are merely hypocrites, calling themselves compassionate while they approve of the killing of unborn life. This kind-hearted couple, my friends, who were influential in my conversion, now call themselves “Buddhists.” After decades of being zealous Pentecostals, they now feel betrayed by their fellow fundamentalists, who support so many things that they consider divisive and cruel.
Lincoln goes on to say in his speech, “With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds…” How do we begin to do this? How can I gauge what is “the right as God gives us to see?” How can I hold fast to love, to tolerance, to acceptance of so many people who seem so difficult to me? Only in prayer, in faithful surrender to the love of God can I find the way out of Gehenna, to defeat the real “opponent”, the accuser, the divider. Only God can give me the strength.
But oh, sometimes I feel totally bound up by these negative aggressive thoughts. My loving wife sees me there with that disturbed look she knows so well, and tells me, “Snap out of it! Look around!” Out of concern for me she got me this challenging checklist by Richard Rohr OFM, that she got at her last retreat. It sounds a lot like the Sermon on the Mount. And it is titled “What Might A Joyful Spirit Be?” Joyfulness seems to be the only way out of the prison, and this joy is the Grace that only communion with Jesus can give. Here are some examples, which can be fruitful conduits to prayer:
“ When you do not need to be right.
When you no longer need to compete–not even in your own head.
When you do not need to analyze or judge things as in or out, positive or negative, black or white.
When you can follow the intelligent lead of your heart.
When you are curious and interested, not suspicious and interrogating.
When you do not brood over injuries.
When you do not need to humiliate, critique, or defeat those who have hurt you- not even in your mind.
When you can let go of obsessive or negative thoughts.
When you do not divide and always condemn one side or group.
When you can find truth on both sides.
When you can critique and also detach from the critique.
When you can wait, listen, and learn.
When you can admit it was wrong and change.
When you can actually love without counting the cost.
When you can live satisfied without resolution or closure.
When you can find God in all things.”
Amen.
Orlando Hernández
Passionist Garden, Jamaica , New York
I can’t imagine a pilgrimage any time of year without remembering Saint Paul of the Cross, Founder of the Congregation of the Passionists (1694-1775). He once talked of the beauty of communing with Nature. I am certain he was not simply writing for himself but to you and me , as well, when he wrote this:
“Listen to the sermon preached by the flowers,
the trees, the shrubs, the sky and the whole world.
Notice how they preached to you a sermon full of love,
of praise of God, and how they invite you to glorify
the sublimity of that Sovereign Artist
Who has given them being.”
Just simply, listen!
JUNE 10 SUN TENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Gn 3:9-15/2 Cor 4:13—5:1/Mk 3:20-35 (89)
11 Mon Saint Barnabas, Apostle
Memorial
Acts 11:21b-26; 13:1-3 (580)/Mt 5:1-12 (359)
12 Tue Blessed Lorenzo Salvi, Passionist
1 Kgs 17:7-16/Mt 5:13-16 (360)
13 Wed Saint Anthony of Padua, Priest and Doctor of the Church
Memorial
1 Kgs 18:20-39/Mt 5:17-19 (361)
14 Thu Weekday
1 Kgs 18:41-46/Mt 5:20-26 (362)
15 Fri Weekday
1 Kgs 19:9a, 11-16/Mt 5:27-32 (363)
16 Sat Weekday
[BVM]
1 Kgs 19:19-21/Mt 5:33-37 (364)
Our first readings this week and next are from the Book of Kings–the story of Elijah, the prophet, who challenges Ahab the King of Israel and his notorious wife Jezebel. Elijah is a powerful prophet, one of the greatest of the prophets, who raises people from the dead and brings fire from heaven on his enemies, yet he left no writings; we know him mainly from the life he led.
In the First Book of Kings, Elijah is on the run most of the time, Ahab and his wife in pursuit. We follow him from water hole to water hole, hiding in mountain caves and isolated wadis in the desert, with scarcely enough to eat.
A difficult, humbling flight. Elijah appears in an icon hand to his head, wondering if he will make it, even as a raven hovers behind him bringing bread for the day. He makes it through a desperate drought, thanks to a poor widow who helps him out.
The powerful prophet is helpless, but God keep him going. And Elijah learns from experience how to see, so he sees God’s redeeming presence in a tiny far-off cloud and the whisper of a wind that says God is here.
Three holy people are remembered this week. St. Barnabas, a companion of Paul, is remembered on Monday. The Passionists remember Blessed Lorenzo Salvi on Tuesday, and the popular St. Anthony of Padua is remembered on Wednesday.
The Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus falls on the Friday after the Feast of Corpus Christi because the Eucharist comes from the loving heart of Jesus.
Devotion to the Sacred Heart has influenced generations of Catholics. I think today of the beautiful church of the Sacred Heart in Springfield, Mass, where Father Theodore Foley, the saintly Passionist whose cause for canonization was recently introduced, grew up. That church surely had a profound influence on him.
The devotion was strong in the pre-Vatican II church, but is it as strong today? I ask that question because as I listened on the internet to a short segment on church music from Vatican Radio featuring popular hymns to the Sacred Heart I realized you don’t hear them much in church today.
The devotion, however, has a long history and is deep significance. Here’s an excerpt from St. Bonaventure for today’s Office of Readings on the heart of Jesus:
“Take thought now, you who are redeemed, and consider how great and worthy is he who hangs on the cross for you. His death brings the dead to life, but at his passing heaven and earth are plunged into mourning and hard rocks are split asunder.
By divine decree, one of the soldiers opened his sacred side with a lance. This was done so that the Church might be formed from the side of Christ as he slept the sleep of death on the cross, and so that the Scripture might be fulfilled: ‘They shall look on him whom they pierced’.
“The blood and water which poured out at that moment were the price of our salvation. Flowing from the secret abyss of our Lord’s heart as from a fountain, this stream gave the sacraments of the Church the power to confer the life of grace, while for those already living in Christ it became a spring of living water welling up to life everlasting.”
“Sweet Savior, bless us ere we go
thy words into our minds instill
and make our lukewarm hearts aglow
with lowly love and fervent will.
Through life’s long day and death’s dark night,
O gentle Jesus be our light.”
Andrei Rublev, “The Trinity”, ca. 1411
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for…”
—Hebrews 11:1
Out on Interstate 80 in New Jersey, about 70 miles from Manhattan, is a little amusement park for young children. It’s called The Land of Make Believe. And it is located in the small town of Hope.
I’ve never been to the park before, although I’ve traveled through Hope many times.
Those 70 miles got me thinking:
Without a belief in Heaven, Hell loses it’s significance.
And a life without hope makes Hell very real.
———
Jesus came to make our lives joyful and full of purpose.
After all, He told us that “the kingdom of God is within”, and that “the kingdom of heaven is at hand”.
From such eternal optimism, which is most certainly and profoundly true, I can see how a temptation may arise. The temptation of…
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In the coming “day of God…the heavens will be dissolved in flames and the elements melted by fire.” (2 Peter 3, 12-15) That’s a strong picture of the last days in the 2nd Letter of Peter we read today at Mass. Commentators say it’s the only place in the New Testament that predicts the world ending in fire.
Some years ago, after the Newshour in the evening, I would sometimes turn to the next channel on television to watch Harold Camping, a crusty old evangelist who was predicting the world ending in fire. The world was going to be burnt to a crisp and unless you explicitly professed faith in Jesus Christ you were going to go up in flames too.
Harold even figured out when it was going to happen, 6 PM, May 21, 2011. and if you wrote in he would send you his calculations. People called in with questions, some humorous. “Should I pay my income tax this year?” Some were sad. “My little boy can’t speak yet and profess his belief in Jesus. What about him?” Harold skirted that question.
May 21 came and nothing happened. I thought I was the only one listening to Harold until I noticed advertisements in the buses weeks before for “D Day May 21.” The day after May 21 I mentioned it to some people and one of them said she called her daughter who was driving over the Brooklyn Bridge that day to get off the bridge as soon as she could.
Harold said on a later broadcast he was recalculating the date, but some time later he died.
Harold isn’t the only one predicting an end for our planet. One of our greatest scientists, Stephen Hawkins, said before he died that we should start a colony in outer space soon because the earth is headed for destruction.
There’s a lot of pessimism in our world today. There was pessimism when the 2nd Letter of Peter was written. The apostles Peter and Paul had been viciously put to death. The City of Rome was almost completely destroyed by fire in the 60s. Jerusalem and the Jewish temple were destroyed by fire in the 70s. Christians were being persecuted and killed. I’m sure a lot of them were saying “This is the end.”
In times of pessimism we need to reaffirm God’s love for humanity and creation itself. That’s why Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si is so important. Care for the earth and respect it, he says. God made our world out of love and promises to renew it.
Care for creation in practical ways, the pope says, but keep creation in mind in our prayers, especially the prayer of the Eucharist.
“In the Eucharist all that has been created finds its greatest exaltation.” Jesus became human; he was made flesh and his humanity comes from the earth. In the Eucharist, he takes bread and wine, which come from the earth, to give life to the world. Through “a fragment of matter” he communes with us.
“ Joined to the incarnate Son, present in the Eucharist, the whole cosmos gives thanks to God. Indeed the Eucharist is itself an act of cosmic love: Yes, cosmic! Because even when it is celebrated on the humble altar of a country church, the Eucharist is always in some way celebrated on the altar of the world”.[166]
“Creation is projected towards divinization, towards the holy wedding feast, towards unification with the Creator himself”.[LS 167]
God won’t destroy creation. He loves it and finds it good.
June 3
SUNDAY: THE MOST HOLY BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST (Corpus Christi)
Solemnity
Ex 24:3-8/Heb 9:11-15/Mk 14:12-16, 22-26 (168)
4 Mon Weekday (Ninth Week in Ordinary Time)
2 Pt 1:2-7/Mk 12:1-12 (353)
5 Tue Saint Boniface, Bishop and Martyr
Memorial
2 Pt 3:12-15a, 17-18/Mk 12:13-17 (354)
6 Wed Weekday
[Saint Norbert, Bishop]
2 Tm 1:1-3. 6-12/Mk 12:18-27 (355)
7 Thu Weekday
2 Tm 2:8-15/Mk 12:28-34 (356)
8 Fri THE MOST SACRED HEART OF JESUS
Solemnity
Hos 11:1, 3-4, 8c-9/Eph 3:8-12, 14-19/Jn 19:31-37 (171)
9 Sat The Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Memorial
2 Tm 4:1-8 (358)/Lk 2:41-51 (573)
Three celebrations this week recall the love of Jesus Christ for us, Corpus Christi recalls his love for us in the Eucharist. The Sacred Heart of Jesus recalls his love through the image of his heart. The Immaculate Heart of Mary recalls the love Jesus inspired in the human beings who were close to him: Mary his mother.
In the readings from 2nd Peter we can hear questions about the second coming of Jesus, which certainly arose in the Christians churches after the destruction of Jerusalem and the religious persecutions that followed toward the end of the 1st century. Was this the end times and were new heavens and a new earth coming?
Deepen your faith, the readings say. Always good for us to hear.
St. Boniface was the apostle to the German peoples. Pray for them on his feast.
For this week’s homily, please play the video below:
The Victor's Place 