Homily: 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle A
Dear Sisters and friends, as we journey through these weeks of Ordinary Time, we are challenged to grow in our discipleship of Jesus. In previous weeks, we have been encouraged to behold Jesus, the Lamb of God, in the different moments and encounters of our daily lives, to see in the Word of God both a record of God’s promises to us and the evidence of their fulfillment, and to be lowly and pure so that we might be blessed to recognize God’s presence among us. This week, I believe that the Mass moves us to remember that we have been given a mission to evangelize, and what that evangelization looks like. And so, let’s dive in to see how it reveals this to us.
Bishop Robert Barron, a great evangelizer himself, often speaks of the difficulties of trying to proclaim Jesus in a world that has lost much of its religious sense. What he means by that is this: that since, in western culture, people have lost a sense of who God is—or that God even exists—to approach them with a proclamation of Jesus is ineffective, since they wouldn’t have a context in which to place him and thus accept him. To counter this, Bishop Barron often proposes introducing people to what are called the “transcendentals”: that is, truth, beauty, and goodness. These, he argues, are things, not specifically religious, that anyone can experience, and which can lead them to acknowledge realities that are beyond themselves (that is, realities that “transcend” their own). When someone is able to do this, Bishop Barron argues, then they can be introduced to the idea of God and of our need for a savior, who is Jesus. Okay, that said, let’s look at these transcendentals.
Truth, Bishop Barron argues, is a difficult one to begin with. This is because our culture is so rife with relativism—that is, the idea that truth is relative to the person who perceives it—that even when presented with a universal truth, a person might not be open to experiencing its transcendent quality. Beauty, he says, is a similarly challenging mode of evangelizing. This for a couple of reasons: first because to truly encounter beauty one has to “raise his/her eyes” above the world. In western culture, so rife with images that speak to our passions and our primal urges, it’s hard to pull our eyes away to see something that is truly beautiful in and of itself. Second, because the idea of beauty has also been subject to relativism. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” the saying goes. But this is not true. Transcendent beauty is something that has an objective quality. You might say that Saint Patrick’s church here in Kokomo, or our cathedral church in Lafayette, does not appeal to your taste in regard to style, but you’d be wrong if you said that it wasn’t beautiful.
This leaves us with goodness. This, Bishop Barron argues, is where we have the most opportunity. This is because many in western culture still believe that we have a responsibility to care for those who are less fortunate than us: that is, to do good for others. Therefore, when folks see Christians serving the poor—especially if it is poor Christians serving the poor—they more readily recognize that there is something valuable in goodness and, thus, will be open to knowing what it is that motivates us to service; which, then, is our chance to share the Gospel. This third transcendental as a means of evangelization is exactly what our scriptures point towards today.
In the first reading from the prophet Isaiah, we hear the Lord telling the Israelites how it is that they will be restored to God’s good graces and begin again to fulfill their purpose as God’s people, which is to be a light drawing people from every nation towards God. And what does he say? He says, “share your bread with the hungry, shelter the oppressed and the homeless; clothe the naked when you see them, and don’t turn your back on your own.” Still further he says, “remove from your midst oppression, false accusation and malicious speech... bestow your bread on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted...” In other words, “Do good and avoid evil and the light that you have been given will shine brightly in the world, drawing people into my kingdom.” Friends, if you read through the Old Testament, you’ll see that every time that the Israelites get in trouble with God it is because they have failed to be the light of God’s goodness in the world, thus turning people away from God, instead of towards him.
Then in the Gospel reading we hear Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount sharing with us the metaphors of salt and light. “You are the salt of the earth”, he says to his disciples, meaning that they are meant to take what is good in the world and enhance it. “You are the light of the world”, he also tells them, echoing the purpose that God gave to the Israelite people to be a light to all peoples so that they might turn to God. He continues, saying, “Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.” There it is, once again: by displaying goodness to others, others will, in turn, discover and glorify God. ///
Not included with today’s first reading, but implied by our Lord in his sermon, are the consequences for not evangelizing. The result of evangelizing, of course, is that things get better: for the kingdom of God will grow and the brotherhood of mankind, united to God through Jesus, will bring peace and harmony to the world. The consequence of not evangelizing, however, is not that things stay the same, but rather that they get worse. As Jesus says, salt that loses its taste is good for nothing but to be thrown out. When it is thrown out and trampled underfoot, it makes the ground sterile: that is, unable to support plant growth. A burning flame (which is what Jesus means when he says, “light”, by the way) that is hidden by a basket will not keep burning, but rather will burn out after it consumes all of the oxygen under the basket. In both instances, when the thing is not used for its good end, it doesn’t keep things status quo, but rather make things worse.
And so, my friends, it does, indeed, seem that our Mass today is encouraging us to consider our mission as disciples to evangelize and to do so through goodness: that is, by doing good so as to enhance the inherent goodness in the world and to be a light that draws men and women to know God, who is goodness himself, and, thus, to glorify him.
My dear Sisters… I imagine that you’re probably thinking to yourselves, “Gee, Father, this has been a really great homily so far, but how does this apply to us, who have taken this vow of enclosure?” I’m glad you asked that, because I was asking myself the very same question. As a matter of fact, when I first thought of proclaiming this Gospel to you and about what I might preach, I thought I was going to have to chastise you for taking your light and hiding it under the bushel basket of these monastery walls! I mean, I knew that wasn’t true, but I had to fight that thought away, so that I could let the goodness that is your way of life speak to me and illuminate me as to how your life is salt and light for the world.
Soon, I heard the word that brought the light: mystery. Sisters, your life is a confusing mystery in the modern world. On the surface, it makes no sense. And that’s exactly the point. Cardinal Emmanuel Suhard, Archbishop of Paris from 1940 to 1949, famously once said: Every Christian… must be a witness. To be a witness consists in being a living mystery. It means to live in such a way that one’s life would not make sense if God did not exist.” Sisters, if God didn’t exist, your lives would make no sense, and to the world it would look like you did, indeed, place your light under a bushel basket. But God does exist. Therefore, what you’ve done by isolating yourselves in this monastery is you’ve hyper-consentrated that light, so that, by being a living mystery to the world, it can shine to the farthest ends of the world and beyond, into the spiritual realm. Just think about the oil or fuel lantern with the wick adjustment: when the wick is “up”, the light spreads across the exposed surface of the wick and provides adequate, but dull light; but when you move the wick down, almost below the surface, the light concentrates towards the end of the wick and it becomes exceedingly bright, shining light much farther than before. Sisters, the goodness of your lives–lived authentically and with devotion–is a light by being a mystery: an infrared light, if you will: an invisible, yet piercing light that permeates the world. And our gospel message today is a call to each of you to continue to be that light in the world.
And so, dear Sisters and friends, let us all commit ourselves to spend time this week to consider once again how God has called us to evangelize through good deeds in our daily lives and to seek to live out this call in ever more authentic ways; so that we might become more fervent disciples of Christ, and so that God’s kingdom of harmony and peace might be realized in its fullness here and now.
Given at the Monastery of the Poor Clares: Kokomo, IN – February 8th, 2026
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