Please pray for them this weekend especially as a they are set to have a very contentious general election. Pray that it is safe and fair!
Blessings on your week!
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Homily:
2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle C
As you all know, I was in Haiti last week with two other
parishioners visiting our sister parish of Our Lady of the Nativity in Terre
Neuve. We had a great trip and I
attribute that to your prayers supporting us every step of the way, so thank
you for your prayers. Fr. Eugene sends
his regards to everyone here and assures us that he, along with his
parishioners, prays for us often. I
would like to share with you a little of what we saw on the trip and perhaps
what it means for us in the light of our celebration here today.
Of course, the situation in Haiti (and, specifically, in
Terre Nueve) is still far from great.
Nonetheless, there does seem to be some improvement. Scott Starr had been on multiple trips
previous to this one and he immediately thought that things looked better in
Terre Neuve than before. My own
observations seemed to reflect that sentiment: most of the kids seem to have
decent clothes on, very few people made signal at us that they were hungry
and needed help, and some of the roads, previously unpaved, had been paved very
nicely.
Even so, there is still plenty of work to do. The school that we helped to build in the
village of Lagon is nearly finished (they are already using it as
they continue the finishing touches).
The chapel/school in Simon, however, is a temporary shack consisting of
a wood frame, corrugated metal roof, and braided palm branch panels and tarps
as walls. It is the most primitive of the
chapels/schools yet it boasts one of the highest student enrollment
numbers. Back in Lagon, their water
supply went dry some time ago. And so they have to walk one hour to the
next village to get water. Multiple
(expensive) attempts to drill a well were unsuccessful in finding water. The books at all the schools are old, being
replaced only when absolutely necessary.
Many are still living in dirt floor homes and cooking over charcoal
fires (inside the homes) with little ventilation. Their roads are impassible except for
motorbikes and the toughest trucks, or on donkey or on foot. Still, the
people are a proud people (in a good way) and they are (for the most part)
determined to make what little they have work for them. This situation, I
would argue, in which there is much that they lack, is a prime situation for
them to discover Jesus.
It’s a truth of human nature that, if you don't feel your
need—that is, if you don’t recognize that you are missing something—then you
won't be able to tell that your need has been fulfilled. These folks in
Haiti have a lot of needs—needs that they can't necessarily fulfill on their
own—and so already they look instinctually for another who can help them
fulfill their needs. This, in a very real way, is the true state of
fallen Man: One who lacks something fundamental, but does not have the means to
recover it. Thus, the field in Haiti is fertile for the Gospel to be
planted: the Gospel that says, “Do not be concerned about what you lack today;
your Father in heaven knows all of your needs and he is holding you in the palm
of his hand.” The Gospel that proclaims that God sent His Son Jesus to
restore us to His friendship so that now, if we remain in Him, He will remain
in us and will provide us with our needs until the day that he brings the
fulfillment of our restoration and all that we once lacked will be restored.
This is the situation of the Gospel today. At the wedding feast (already an eschatological
image, that is, an image of the end time), the host runs out of wine. In John's Gospel, ordinary terms always have
symbolic meaning; and so running out of wine is not just an embarrassing problem
for the host of the party, but rather it is a symbol of the disappearance of
grace. Bishop Robert Barron reminds us that, “wine and the intoxication
that it produces are invocative of the divine life: that power which elevates
both body and soul. Therefore, to speak
of wine running out is to lament the disappearance of grace—of our
connection to the divine life. The
wedding guests had not yet become aware of the lack of wine and so they don't
know that they need to look for another: thus, they don't yet recognize who
Jesus is. But Mary, taking on a role
that is prophetic, sees the situation and, already knowing who her Son is,
immediately seeks him out to plead for resolution. (Mary, we see, is already acting as our
mother.)
Jesus' response, however, indicates
what was true about the guests: "it is not yet my hour", he says,
because "the people don't yet recognize that they need me". He
knew that if they didn't recognize their need, that they wouldn't recognize its
fulfillment. Mary, not presuming to know God's will, nonetheless
continues to work in her prophetic role and instructs the servants: "Do whatever
he tells you." She didn't know what, if anything, he would say or do;
but she wanted to be sure that the servants knew to whom they should be
listening. In the end, Jesus works the miracle for them. But it wasn't just a continuation of what they
had lost (as if no lack had ever occurred).
Rather, it was so much better than what they had (and in an abundance!). Thus, Jesus proves that He didn't come only
to bring relief from worldly suffering (that is, the lack of wine), but
rather to restore man to the divine life: which is richer and more abundant
than anything this life can provide. In other words, not only is what was
lacking restored, but it is surpassed in abundance.
Unlike Haiti, we live in a land in which it can be hard to
feel like anything is lacking. Sure,
there's always something out there that we'd prefer to have—a want but
not a real need. But as for
our real needs, there is little that we cannot resolve by our own efforts: although
many are homeless, there is nonetheless an abundance of housing; although many
are hungry, there is nonetheless an abundance of food; although some wear
shoddy clothing, there is an overabundance of clothing that can replace it; and
clean water flows from every faucet for drinking, bathing, and cleaning. And so, are we in danger of not recognizing
Jesus because, it seems, we have everything that we need?
Perhaps yes. Remember that in John's Gospel wine and
the intoxication that it provides are symbols of the divine life: that power
which elevates both body and soul. In this case the result of a lack of
the physical (the wine) would affect the spiritual (the intoxication) and, thus,
the guests would be sad: the loss of the physical leading also to a spiritual
loss. Here we have an abundance of the physical: most of which has little
positive effect on the spiritual. Thus,
the danger for us is that we would chase the physical in search of the
spiritual, instead of recognizing that the spiritual we seek is really the
divine life: the life of grace. Only grace, therefore—which comes to us
from God through Jesus in the Holy Spirit—can provide the
"intoxication" to fulfill our spiritual hunger.
In Haiti they lack of the many modern conveniences that we
enjoy. Yet they have one thing that perhaps is their advantage over us:
for they have an acute awareness that they are unable to resolve their poverty
alone. They know that they have to look
to another. Thus, they are open to the
Gospel and to seeing the power of God work in their lives. Perhaps a point
of reflection for each of us in these next weeks would be to think about all of
the ways in which there was a real lack in your life and you were helpless to
resolve it; and to think about how God, perhaps, intervened to resolve it for
you, making you turn more closely to him.
This type of exercise can keep us from focusing too much on avoiding
physical discomforts and thus numbing ourselves to God's activity in our lives:
God, who promises to provide for our needs.
Another way to do this is to keep ourselves aware of the
needs of others, like those of our brothers and sisters at our Sister Parish in
Haiti (or those back in our home country).
By serving their physical needs (and by going to visit them!), we help
support their spiritual ones. For when
we help them in their physical need, we prove to them the veracity of the
Gospel—that Jesus is the Son of God who has redeemed us and thus made the
divine life available to us and that we, the faithful, have access to the
divine life when we are united to Him as members of His Body—and we proclaim to
them what God proclaimed to his chosen people through the prophet
Isaiah: "No longer shall people call you 'Forsaken,' or your land
'Desolate,' but you shall be called 'My Delight,' and your land 'Espoused.'"
This is a message that the people want to hear, and a truth that they want to
realize, but it can't be so if God's chosen instruments—you and I—don't help
them to realize this truth by serving their needs. This applies both to
our brothers and sisters in Haiti (or our home country) as well as to our
brothers and sisters here in Cass County.
Perhaps I can close by returning to the image of the
Wedding Feast. As Christians, we believe
the Eucharist is the ultimate wedding feast: the wedding feast of the Lamb,
eternally celebrated in heaven. As we
gather around this table to share in the Lamb’s sacrifice, let us be open to
having our hearts filled abundantly with the grace of the divine life; and thus
be strengthened to go and share that divine life with those around us, both
near and far. Thus will God be glorified
and our joy will be complete.
Given at All Saints Parish:
Logansport, IN – January 16th & 17th, 2016
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