A Homily for the 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)
["St. Paul" by El Greco]
One of the great gifts of the liturgical reforms that came after the Second Vatican Council is the new Lectionary — the cycle of readings that we use at Mass. Prior to the liturgical reforms, there was just one cycle of readings for each Sunday of the year, and there was just one reading before the Gospel. In the new Lectionary, each of the Synoptic Gospels — Matthew, Mark and Luke — are basically given their own year, with the Gospel of John added in to make up for the shortness of Mark’s Gospel and during special seasons during the year. This year we are reading through the Gospel according to St. Matthew, since we are in the “A-Cycle”. The first reading, from Old Testament, and the Psalm are chosen to fit with the “theme” of the Gospel of a particular Sunday. The second reading, usually from one of the letters of St. Paul, is not selected to fit with the theme of the Gospel. Rather the second reading is more or less continual — picking up in the letter where it was left off in the previous week. This often results in many priests and deacons not preaching much on the Epistles. This is rather unfortunate, because the Epistles of Paul, John, Peter, James and Jude teach us a lot of useful things about being a disciple of Christ Jesus.
As I hope you all know, this year we are celebrating the Jubilee Year of St. Paul, marking the 2000th year of his birth. After speaking with a priest friend of mine, we have decided to try to preach this year mostly from the Letters of St. Paul.
This week we have a selection from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans. This is considered one of St. Paul’s most important letters. He wrote it near the end of his third missionary journey, so after having spent more than 20 years spreading the Good News to the Gentiles in Asia Minor and Greece. Christianity was already well established in Rome, the center of the Roman Empire and the largest metropolis in the world at that time, when St. Paul wrote to them. St. Paul had three main reasons for writing to the Roman Church. First, he wanted to introduce himself because he planned to travel there to Rome. Secondly, the reason he was going to Rome was because he wanted Rome to become the base from which he would begin a new phase of evangelization. He felt that he had already spread the Gospel throughout most of the eastern part of the Roman Empire, and now he was eager to do the same in the western part of the Empire, especially Spain and Gaul. St. Paul was already trying to recruit supporters for this new missionary effort; people and supplies who would travel with him. Lastly, St. Paul was looking to ease a tension that was straining the unity and fellowship in the Roman Christian community.
The Christian community in Rome was strongly associated with the 13 synagogues in Rome, so there was a strong Jewish influence. However, most of the Christians in Rome were of Gentile origin. Apparently there was a lot of boasting between these two groups in the Church in Rome. The Jewish Christians boasted of their being part of the Chosen People spoken of in the Old Testament. The Gentile Christians boasted of being part of the new beloved people of God, the new Israel, since the Jewish people mostly did not accept Christ. Essentially it boiled down to who was the “First Class Christians” and who were the “Second Class Christians.” St. Paul, throughout much of his letter to the Church in Rome, emphasizes that they are all equally chosen by God.
In today’s reading from St. Paul’s Letter to the Roman, he is reminding them that they all receive the salvation through the same sequence: God foreknew, predestined, called, justified, and glorified. God’s divine plan does not change, and none of us are accidents. In His mysterious and wonderful wisdom, God knew that He would be calling each of us for a particular purpose in His divine plan. It is this selection for divine adoption by an eternal decree that we call predestination. Predestination is still something of a mystery to us, but God had revealed two important facts about predestination. First, God is free to act as He chooses, and secondly that we are free to accept or despise the blessings that God offers us. We also know that God, who is love, has not predestined anyone for eternal damnation. So the road that God has called us to travel, whether it was the Jewish road of being part of the Chosen People of the Old Testament, or the Gentile road of preparing to receive God’s revelation after the preparation in reason of the Greek philosophers, might be different, but that difference does not make one group better than another. All are predestined by God, chosen by God, to share in His divine love.
It is important to realize this predestination by God, because then we need to respond to the call that He offers us. Remember, we are free to accept or despise God’s blessings, His grace. If we choose to accept God’s call, then we receive the greatest gift He offers us — justification. Justification is the grace of the Holy Spirit that cleanses us from our sins and communicates to us “the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ” (Catechism of the Catholic Church #1987). The grace of justification not only turns us AWAY from sin, but also turns us TOWARDS Jesus Christ. It is by our faith in Jesus that we are save; it is by being “conformed to the image of his Son, so that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.” It is by our acceptance and dwelling in the grace of justification to the end that will lead to our glorification; our eternal life in heaven.
Where are we in this sequence of salvation? There was an important date for our parish not that long ago. On July 1st we celebrated our third anniversary as a parish. It has been three years since the parishes of Our Lady of Sorrows and St. Anthony were suppressed, and the new Parish of Our Lady of Sorrows-St. Anthony was created. How are we doing in terms of unity of fellowship? Do we see ourselves as being one parish, or are we still like the Christian community in Rome to which St. Paul was writing, with groups of “us” versus “them”? Are you from St. Anthony’s or Our Lady of Sorrows, or are you from the Parish of Our Lady of Sorrows-St. Anthony?
I know that there is still some hurt, and even anger, about the merger, but as St. Paul says at the beginning of today’s selection from his letter to the Romans, “We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” St. Bernard wrote, “Notice that he does not say that things suit our whims but that they work for our good. They serve not caprice but usefulness; not pleasure but salvation; not what we desire but what is good for us” (De fallacia et brevitate vitae, #6).
We must trust in God as our Father, and that all is orchestrated by His lovable will. If we have this optimistic, hopeful attitude, we will overcome every difficulty we meet — even parish merger. We will live the good life of being brothers and sisters of Christ Jesus.
