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Homily:
6th Sunday of Easter – Cycle A
In the six years that I spent in the seminary, I spent a
good number of hours participating in various workshops and presentations
focused on formation for living a life of chaste celibacy. This, so that I would not so much see
celibacy as a discipline to be endured, but rather a life-giving choice: a
“gift of love”, if you will, that directly connects to and supports my calling
to the ministerial priesthood. This is
because it is assumed that the promise not to get married (and, thus, to live a
chaste single life) is a very difficult one to keep for a man who, for the rest
of his life, will often find himself living alone in a parish rectory; and so
the seminary wants to be sure that the men who will be ordained priests are
equipped with the tools that they need to live this lifestyle well.
Fr. Ron Knott was one of only a couple of diocesan priests
on the formation staff at the seminary and what he brought to our formation was
a treasury of lessons born out of practical experience gained through nearly 40
years of priestly ministry. He used to
love to tell us: “Don’t worry about priesthood.
The first 40 years are the hardest, the rest is smooth sailing.” But he was the first one to tell us as
seminarians: “You know, people think that the hardest promise that a priest
makes is the promise of celibacy. After
nearly 40 years of priesthood, I can tell you that the hardest promise isn’t
celibacy, but rather obedience.” He
claimed that a higher percentage of conflicts that a priest will experience in
his priestly vocation will come out of his promise of obedience to his bishop, rather
than his promise of celibacy.
Part of this, he argues, is that there is a widespread
misunderstanding of what obedience means.
The common definition that many of us might give to obedience is “being
subservient to the will of another” (or something along that vein). In this definition, obedience seems negative
as it is often associated with one person’s domination over another
person. Slaves and other servants are
“obedient” to their masters, just as good children are “obedient” to their
parents, grandparents, teachers, etc.
The word obedience, however, comes from the Latin verb oboedire, which translates literally to
mean “to listen towards” something.
Thus, obedience, for it to be true, always involves a relationship
between the one who responds and the one who speaks. This is an affectionate relationship, since
one would not “listen towards” someone or something that he or she didn’t think
had concern for him or her in return.
Thus, true obedience involves a level of intimacy between the one who responds
and the one who speaks. To put it
another way, obedience, if it is true, is really an act of love.
Jesus, of course, understands this correct definition. In our Gospel reading today, he says: “If you
love me, you will keep [that is, obey]
my commandments.” Here Jesus is directly
linking love with obedience. And as we
heard throughout the rest of this passage, Jesus reveals to us that love,
expressed through obedience, initiates a cycle of love between the disciple,
Jesus, and the Father, in the Holy Spirit, that gives the believer filiation
(that is, sonship) with God. In other
words, love, expressed through obedience to Jesus’ commands, initiates the
believer into nothing less than the dynamic life of the Holy Trinity. (I’ll bet you never thought obedience was so
powerful, did you?)
Well, OK, Father, if obedience is love, then why is it so
hard? Well, perhaps it’s because we
haven’t correctly understood love, either.
The love that we speak of here is so much more than affection (that is,
good feelings for another person). Rather,
the love we are talking about here is the willing of the good (that is,
happiness) for another: even if there is no reward (and, perhaps, even
suffering) for yourself. Obedience,
therefore, often involves self-sacrifice.
(Just ask any of our military veterans here if obedience to their
superiors ever involved self-sacrifice… this is why we honor our fallen
veterans with a special holiday this weekend.)
This component of self-sacrifice is why we often view it as being
slave-like. We think, “I have to give up
what I want in order for that other person to get what he or she wants.” But didn’t Jesus say “No one has greater love
than this; to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”? Obedience, therefore, willfully given, is
really an act of love; and most especially when it involves some sacrifice of
one’s self.
My brothers and sisters, obedience is easy when it begins
with the relationship. A turning point
for me in my understanding of obedience came when I was preparing to be
ordained a deacon (which happens a year before being ordained a priest). I was on retreat and had been given a copy of
the ordination rite so as to meditate on what it was that I was about to
do. Included in the rite is an
instruction to the candidates for ordination that the bishop may give in place
of the homily. In this instruction, the
first words that the bishop says are: “My sons…” I knew right then and there that my promise
of obedience to him (and to his successors) was not a promise of servitude, but
a promise of sonship. And just as a son
will obey his father because he loves him and he knows that his father would
never ask something of him that wasn’t ultimately for his own good, I knew I
could promise to obey my bishop, because he looks on me as his son.
Our Holy Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, whom we honor
this month, knew this quite well, also.
When the angel Gabriel came to her with the message that she would bear
God’s Son, she made herself obedient to him: not as a slave who fears
retribution, but as a daughter who trusted completely in God the Father’s love
for her. Even though it would be
revealed to her that her “yes” to be the Mother of God would involve great
suffering for her, she never failed to obey what God asked of her through
loving and following her Son. For this
she has been glorified in heaven and for us she has become a model of true
obedience.
My brothers and sisters, the reason that we went through
six weeks of Lent (anyone here remember Lent?... I know, it was sooo long ago!); the reason that we went
through six weeks of Lent was to restore our relationship with God the Father
in Christ Jesus, and thus our obedience to him.
And the reason that we are going through seven weeks of Easter is
bolster our hope in him: the hope that in our baptism and by our obedience to
him we have been initiated into this cycle of love, which is the Holy Trinity,
and thus can live our lives as if the promise we wait for—that is, the full
coming of God’s Kingdom—has already been fulfilled. Therefore, let us live this mystery by being
obedient to Jesus’ commandments to love God and one another and by always being
ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks for a reason for our hope (even
when that means that we may suffer for doing good); because the promise of new
life in the Spirit—the resurrected Body and Blood of Jesus—is here with us at
this altar.
Given at All Saints Parish:
Logansport, IN – May 25th, 2014
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