And please let this be a plug for our Parish Mission! It's like a "big-tent revival" that other Christian communities celebrate. Attending a parish mission turned me on this journey to priesthood. God can use this mission to turn you towards his perfect plan for your life, too!
November 10-14, 2013 at All Saints Parish in Logansport.
Evening sessions begin at 6:30 p.m., Sunday through Thursday.
Daytime sessions begin at 12:30 p.m., Monday through Thursday.
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Homily: 30th
Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle C
About
ten and a half years ago, I had hit what I would call a “personal
low-point”. Things in my life seemed to
me to be unraveling. I had been working
as an engineer for a few years and was very disappointed in the way my career
was already shaping up. I had also just
been through the disastrous breakup of a relationship that had lasted nearly
three years (with the disastrous part being completely my fault). On top of that, I found myself questioning
the faith I was raised in. Basically,
the foundation rocks of my future—career, marriage, religious faith and
practice—seemed to be crumbling in front of me and I was in crisis.
By
God’s grace, in the midst of all of this, I was moved to participate in the
mission my parish was having. At that
mission I came to recognize that the things that I thought were the rock
foundation of my future were really just sand, because I had ignored God’s
commandments and was building them of my own accord. I felt ashamed and for the first time in my
life truly knew what it meant to ask for God’s mercy.
From
that point on, however, I began to build.
I tried to learn more about my faith and began to study the Bible and
the Catechism. I began to attend Mass
daily and started to get very involved in my parish. I made many positive friendships with people
who helped support my desire to live virtuously and, two years later, I was
feeling pretty good about myself.
At
that time I also met a wonderful young woman and we began to date. I was so excited about this relationship
because I felt that it was the first time that I was truly dating according to
God’s plan and not my own. The only
problem was that I had started to become complacent and self-assured in the
daily practice of my faith. So much so,
that I started to exhibit some self-righteousness. This woman who I was dating began to see
through that and when she called me out on it I was shocked, then angry that
she had done so, but then, once again, I found myself ashamed and in desperate
need of God’s mercy.
And
so, for me, I find a lot to relate to in the Pharisee from today’s Gospel
reading. He had mastered all of the
regulations in the Law of Moses, which was no small feat! The Law contains over 600 regulations and,
just to be sure that they never encroached even on those, the Pharisees added
their own “safeguard” regulations on top of them. Thus, to master all of these laws, one had to
be very disciplined and conscientious.
His problem, however, was that he let all of that get to his head and
his self-assuredness became self-righteousness.
And so we see in the Gospel reading how he came before God not to lay
his work before God’s judgment, but rather to crown himself with a crown of
righteousness.
I
relate to him because I feel like I had been acting similar to him. I was following all of God’s commandments and
often found myself judging myself righteous in comparison to others. I boasted of always “striving to do God’s
will” even though I was not actually prayerfully discerning what God was
calling me to do. I knew that I wasn’t
perfect, but I had become complacent in being “better than most”.
Nonetheless,
I also find a lot to relate to in the tax collector. On top of being a job that other Jews would
despise him for doing, the job itself didn’t pay a salary; and so the only way
that he could earn money would be to tack on fees to each transaction. Well, he quickly realized that he could make
a lot of money doing that and so he began to tack on exorbitant fees that were
inconsistent with the taxes being paid, which he knew to be unjust. Thus, he knew that he wasn’t perfect and so
it was clear to him that only the mercy of God could earn him any semblance of
righteousness. Therefore he came before
God in the Temple
I
relate to him because both at the beginning and at the end of this time that I
have been describing, I found myself in a similar state: recognizing my own
failure to be righteous and thus turning to God to beg for his mercy. In the first instance, I could accuse
myself. In the second, however, I needed
another to accuse me. In both I either
saw or came to see that I needed God’s mercy in order to earn any semblance of
righteousness.
“Ok,
so I’m a little confused, Father. Are
you saying we should or shouldn’t strive for righteousness? because it sounds
like you just said that the better thing is to remember our need for God’s
mercy, but that when we are achieving righteousness we’re apt to forget
it.” Yes, we still need to strive for
righteousness; and no needing to constantly remember our need for God’s mercy
is no excuse for continuing to commit your favorite sins (useful, perhaps, but not
a good idea). What we need to do is
follow Saint Paul’s example, who was righteous in every way according to the
Law, following all of the Lord’s commandments, yet who never counted it to be
more than rubbish compared to what God’s mercy could do (and did do) in him. Or how about Pope Francis, who when asked by
a reporter to describe himself replied firstly, “I am a sinner whom the Lord
has looked upon.” Yes, my brothers and
sisters, we must strive for righteousness, for it is what God has made us for. But we must also acknowledge our inability to
crown ourselves: that is, that we, too, are indeed “sinners whom the Lord has
looked upon.”
Just
this past week I was visiting one of our homebound parishioners. When I arrived she asked almost immediately
if I would hear her confession. She said
that she couldn’t really think of any specific sins that she had committed, but
that she realized that it had been a long time since she last went to
confession; and, acknowledging that God could call her home soon, she didn’t
want to have to explain to God why her short memory or weak conscience kept her
from receiving his mercy. “I try to be
good,” she was basically saying, “but I know that I’m not perfect.” “You know what,” I thought, “she gets
it.” This is the humility that Jesus is
talking about: the humility that, although she couldn’t accuse herself of any
particular sin, nonetheless still acknowledged her need for God’s mercy.
My
brothers and sisters, we are all constantly in need of God’s mercy. Let us, then, humble ourselves here today before
the one who alone can exult us.
Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport , IN
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