Homily: 5th Sunday of Easter – Cycle C
Friends,
as we continue our journey through this Easter season, we are continually
reminded of the power of the Gospel.
Last week and this week, we heard about Paul and Barnabas and about how,
during their apostolic journeys, they boldly proclaimed the story of Jesus and
how hundreds of thousands of men and women received the gift of faith and
became disciples. Remember that Paul did
not consider himself an eloquent preacher.
Nonetheless, with courage he proclaimed—to the best of his ability and
aided by the Holy Spirit—what he knew to be true in his heart: that Jesus of
Nazareth is the Son of God incarnate and, thus, the Messiah, the One God had
promised to send to redeem his people, Israel, and to manifest his
kingdom. Through this, we are reminded
that the power of the Gospel is not seen so much in the number of conversions
made, but rather in the courage and conviction with which it is proclaimed; and
that the number of conversions is evidence of the courage and conviction with
which the Gospel is proclaimed.
Still
more, during these weeks of Easter we are also reminded of the power of
super-natural love. For example, this
week we read that Paul and Barnabas “returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to
Antioch”. On the surface in the reading,
this doesn’t seem like anything remarkable.
It is remarkable, however, when we note that the last time that Paul and
Barnabas were in Lystra and Iconium the people there tried to kill them for
proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus!
Nonetheless, they returned to these places to continue to proclaim the
Gospel to them. Why? Because they were stubborn? Maybe.
However, I believe that the reason that they returned to those places
was because of the super-natural love of God that was in their hearts. In other words, I believe that God’s love for
the people of Lystra and Iconium was in the hearts of Paul and Barnabas, and
that this impelled them to return and to try again to turn their hearts to
God. The super-natural love of God is so
powerful that it overcame Paul and Barnabas’ instincts to avoid those cities
for their own safety. ///
When
I think about the reasons why we do not evangelize, I am often led to these two
things: 1) we are not convinced enough that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God
incarnate and, thus, the Messiah, the one who has brought salvation to the
world. 2) We do not allow the super-natural love of God to overcome our hearts
and so we give in to fear of the sacrifices that the proclamation of the Gospel
of Jesus will demand of us. When we are
fully convinced of the Gospel of Jesus and, therefore, permit the super-natural
love of God to overcome our hearts, then we find the courage to proclaim the
Gospel of Jesus, in spite of the sacrifice that it may demand of us. If you find that, like me, you are lacking
one or both of these things, please let me offer two suggestions for how to
obtain them.
First,
closeness to Jesus. Closeness to Jesus
is a remedy for the lack of conviction about who he truly is. Think for a moment about the person with whom
you are closest. You know this person
inside and out, right? Therefore, if
anyone ever asked you to tell him or her about this person, you’d be able to do
so in a very convincing way. And if this
person with whom you are close is an exceptionally good person, you might even
be moved to tell others about him/her even when others don’t ask. You tell them simply because you know in your
heart that this person is good and is a model for others to follow.
The
same applies to Jesus. We’ve all been
taught about Jesus. We’ve been taught to
believe that he is the Son of God incarnate and, thus, the Messiah. Perhaps we’ve come to believe this to be true,
to the point that we strive to order our lives according to his teaching. This is all good! If we are not close to him, however, then we
don’t know him; at least not in the way that we know the person with whom we
are closest. Therefore, it is difficult
to speak about him openly and courageously.
When we strive for greater closeness to Jesus, however—which we do in
prayer and in studying/meditating on the Scriptures—we come to know him
intimately, and he makes himself known to us.
From this closeness, we develop the courage to speak about him to others
and to invite them to that same closeness.
Therefore, closeness to Jesus is a remedy for our resistance to
evangelization.
Second
is to see others as God sees them.
Striving to see others as God sees them opens our hearts to be filled
with the love that God has for them.
God’s love is super-natural (that is, goes beyond our nature) and it can
move us to do things beyond our nature: like put ourselves in harm’s way in
order to help bring about the good for others.
If Paul and Barnabas saw the residents of Lystra and Iconium only with
their human eyes, they would never have returned to try to preach the Gospel to
them. Resentment against the residents
would have prevented them from risking their lives again. However, they looked at the residents of
Lystra and Iconium with God’s eyes, and, thus, their hearts to God’s love for
them. Thus, they responded in zeal:
ready to risk their lives again so that these persons, whom God loves, would
not be lost.
We
all have many people in our lives to whom we have been called to proclaim the
Gospel of Jesus. These may be our wives
or husbands, our children, our brothers or sisters, our friends, our coworkers…
the list goes on. Perhaps we’ve tried to
proclaim the Gospel to them and they have rejected the Gospel (which, in some
way, is a rejection of us). Perhaps in
that rejection we decided to turn away from them: to “shake the dust from our
feet” in regards to them. Or, perhaps we
simply decided not to proclaim the Gospel to them anymore. In either case, we find that our natural love
is not strong enough to suffer additional rejections (especially if those could
become violent) and so we decide not to proclaim the Gospel to them anymore.
Consider
now if we decide to open our hearts to God’s super-natural love for them. One great truth that we often forget is that
God loves each of these persons infinitely more than we can ever love
them. Therefore, if we really want to
love one another (and we should, since this is the commandment that Jesus gives
his disciples in the Gospel reading today), then we must strive to see every
person with God’s eyes: that is, as a loving Father who only wants the best for
his children and is willing to sacrifice himself for it. In doing so, our hearts will open to receive
the super-natural love of God for them and, thus, inspire us to continue to
return, in spite of rejection, to proclaim and witness to the Gospel of
Jesus. Therefore, to see others as God
sees them is a remedy for our resistance to evangelization.
Friends,
as we continue our preparation for the celebration of Pentecost and for the
renewal of the Gift of the Holy Spirit within us, let us continue to bask in
the warmth of the joy of the resurrection.
Let us also, however, strive to draw ever closer to Jesus and to see in
each person we encounter someone for whom Jesus suffered and died. Then, let us ask for the Gift of the Holy
Spirit to love them so as to witness to the Gospel of Jesus and, thus, invite
them to faith and to be united to us in Christ.
This is our joyful work of Easter.
This is the joyful work that leads us to the New Jerusalem of which
Saint John wrote: the life of restored harmony in the universe.
May
our worship here today in this Eucharist give God thanks and fill us with the
strength that we need to complete this good work.
Given in Spanish at St. Paul Parish: Marion, IN – May 14th,
2022
Given in Spanish at St. Joseph Parish: Delphi, IN, and Our
Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish: Carmel, IN – May 15th, 2022
No comments:
Post a Comment