Homily for the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
3 February 2013
My
brothers and sisters, we all want to be accepted; we all want to be loved.
However, our Gospel today points out to us a message that we hear all too
often, but may not implement well in our lives:
To follow Christ is to not enter a pain-free or
trouble-free life, but is, rather, to freely accept an overwhelming challenge
that will bring us ridicule, yet doing so because we know that God will protect
us.
Yes,
it’s hard to live out the Gospel message, even for a priest. It’s difficult
because we don’t want to take the risk; we don’t always want to do what’s right,
but, rather, what’s easy.
And
this is the antithesis of the Gospel.
Jesus
sat among the people who know Him well, who watched Him grow up. And yet, in
the moment when He had to speak the truth, He did. And He did so knowing –
because He is God – how the people of Nazareth would react. Jesus did not shy
away from the mission He was given by the Father nor the message He had to
preach.
But
He’s God, and we’re not.
That’s
where our First Reading from Jeremiah comes into play: The Lord has formed us
in our mothers’ wombs, and He knows us better than we know ourselves. And so,
when the task at hand is to bring the Gospel to others, He will protect us from
harm. We should not be afraid to live the Gospel or to proclaim it.
We
must have the fortitude of Christ when proclaiming to our families and friends that
cohabitation before marriage is wrong; that abortion, euthanasia,
assisted-suicide and the like destroy not only the life of an innocent, but the
dignity of the human person; that the use of artificial contraception destroys
the sanctity of marriage and the intimacy found in it; that marriage is only
between one man and one woman, and cannot be changed because God did not create
us all equal in this way, and we are to be reminded that not all people are
called to marriage; that we must stay away and abhor all images that defile the
human person, making her or him simply into an image to satisfy our carnal
pleasure, for all people are created in the image and likeness of God – the image
of love, and that love must be expressed properly, underlying that dignity that
is inherent to our creation.
This is the message
that we must bring to the world. And the world will hate us for it. It will try
to push us over the edge of the cliff to silence us, just as the people of
Nazareth tried to do with Jesus.
Yet
we proclaim the Gospel message, we say all these things because we love. We
just heard Saint Paul reminding us in his First Letter to the Corinthians of
what love is. And it is all these things because God is love, and having been
made in that image and likeness, we must uphold the Gospel ideal of love . . .
and that is a message that our culture and society hate because it focuses on
the “other” and not on “me”.
We
proclaim the Gospel message in love because, as Saint Paul reminds us, love “does
not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.” And so, when we shy
away from proclaiming the Gospel because we don’t want to offend someone, or it’s
too difficult or embarrassing for us, we allow the wrongdoing to overshadow the
love we inherently have for other people. We also do not allow the Lord to give
us the grace – and the protection –
He promises us when we submit to His will. Does this mean that we will do this
perfectly every time? No. But by trusting in the Lord, we give ourselves a more
secure footing against those trying to push us off the cliff.
Yes,
we all want to be accepted by others. But the only acceptance that we need is
the embrace given to us by God. Yes, the Gospel is very difficult to live out and
proclaim at times. But the best way to be faith-filled people is to embrace the
Cross as Christ did, and, with joy, laugh in the face of all who want to
destroy us, for the Cross is the ultimate sign of victory.
And
it is a victory for all who trust that the Lord will deliver them.
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Enjoy the journey . . .
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