Are you small enough?

I know, I know... I spent nearly a month in Italy and not a word about it, but I have no problem dropping another homily on you all... Let's just say that it's been a whirlwind getting back in to the swing of things.  Soon... I hope.  For now, this is what I have.

Peace!

Homily for Thursday of the 5th week of Ordinary Time.  Given in the Saint Thomas Aquinas Chapel at Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology, February 9th, 2012.
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(See Mark 7:24-30)

          One of the seemingly sinister things about cancer is that oftentimes the person who has it doesn’t know that he or she is sick until it is almost too late.  The one who doesn’t realize that he or she has cancer finds no reason to seek healing.  Once a person discovers the affliction, however, and acknowledges just how sick he or she is, he or she often wastes no time seeking out the most highly-reputed physician around, hoping to find a cure.

          In our Gospel readings this week, we see both sides of this story being played out in relation to Jesus, the divine physician.  In Genesaret, the sick begged to be carried out into the market places and laid in the streets just so that they might have a chance to touch the tassel of Jesus’ cloak and perhaps be healed.  These, of course, were those who sicknesses had manifested themselves outwardly, thus driving them to recognize their need for Christ and his healing.  On the other hand, we saw how the Pharisees had failed to recognize any need for Christ and his healing, relying instead on blind adherence to the letter of the Law even though a spiritual cancer was silently destroying them on the inside.

          While the Syrophoenician woman in today’s Gospel approaches Jesus seeking healing for her daughter, who was afflicted by an evil spirit, we see that it isn’t until she acknowledges her own spiritual depravity, that is, her own exclusion from the chosen people and her lack of any claim to Jesus’ help, that Jesus is moved to respond.  It’s as if her humility was so unexpected that it moved Jesus to pity and made him bend to her request.

          St. Terese of Liseux has said that if it seems as if God is ignoring us it’s not because we’re too small for him to take notice, but rather that we haven’t become small enough to move him to respond.  So often we come before Him seeking help for others who seemingly are more afflicted than we are.  Yet, we fail to acknowledge our own depravity—that is, our own need for Christ’s healing—when we approach him.  We need only to approach him from a place of truth, however, a place in which we acknowledge our brokenness and constant need for his mercy, in order to find him “defeated” also by our humility and moved to act on our behalf.

          And so as we approach this altar of grace today, may the acknowledgement of our “smallness” before God lead us to find his healing mercy, both in our lives and in the lives of those for whom we pray.