Homily: 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle C
A few years before I entered the seminary, 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 in which I was
raised. 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.”
Recently I visited one of our homebound parishioners. When I arrived, he asked almost immediately
if I would hear his confession. He said
that he couldn’t really think of any specific sins that he had committed, but
that he realized that it had been a long time since he last went to confession;
and, acknowledging that God could call him home soon, he didn’t want to have to
explain to God why his short memory or weak conscience kept him from receiving His
mercy. “I try to be good,” he was
basically saying, “but I know that I’m not perfect.” “You know what,” I thought, “he gets
it.” This is the humility that Jesus is
talking about: the humility that, although he couldn’t accuse himself of any
particular sin, nonetheless still acknowledged his 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 Saint Mary Cathedral: Lafayette,
IN – October 27th, 2019
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