Homily for the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
7 July 2013
7 July 2013
Those
of you who are around my age or have children around my age may remember the
cartoon show “Ren and Stimpy”. Ren was a Chihuahua who was persistently angry.
Stimpy was his dim-witted friend, more-or-less the eternal optimist. In one
episode, Stimpy becomes sad that Ren is always angry, and creates a helmet for
him to wear, with Stimpy holding the controller, ready to give Ren a dose of
happiness when Stimpy thought he needed it.
It
is from this episode that the song “Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy” came to mind while
reflecting on today’s readings. The happiness that Stimpy is inflicting on Ren
is an artificial happiness, a forced joy. (So much so that Ren can’t take it
anymore, grabs a hammer, and destroys the helmet.) This happiness and joy,
which Stimpy truly wanted to share with Ren, is essentially the antithesis of
the happiness and joy which Isaiah and Jesus present to us today.
Isaiah
presents to us this great promise of authentic joy in our First Reading. Those
who serve the Lord will be able to obtain this joy, and will be able to
recognize the fulfillment of this prophecy when it is fulfilled, for we are the
ones who, in faith, believe in the fulfillment of the Word.
Yet
we know that, ultimately, Jesus is the fulfillment of the Word because He IS
the Word. And when, in the Gospel, he presents to us the promise of having our
names “written in heaven”, we rejoice in knowing the life that awaits us. We
know that this is the true joy and true happiness that we’re all seeking.
But
there’s a catch.
For
us to attain the joy and happiness that is promised to us, we must remember
that, just as with the seventy-two in today’s Gospel, Jesus sends us our on a
mission to proclaim that “the Kingdom of God is at hand”. Our Lord knows that
the mission and ministry is difficult; He knows that He is sending us out as
“lambs among wolves”. For the last number of weeks, we have been listening to
Jesus tell us what it takes to be His disciple. Now He puts us to the test: Do
we want the happiness of the world that is fleeting, or do we desire the joy of
the fullness of the Kingdom? Deep down, of course, we desire the latter.
Unfortunately, due to our human weaknesses, we easily grab for the former.
Blessed
Pope John Paul II, who Pope Francis will canonize later this year, points out
to us:
It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting
for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; He is the beauty to which you
are so attracted; it is He who provoked you with that thirst for fullness that
will not let you settle for compromise; it is He who urges you to shed the
masks of a false life; it is He who reads into your heart your most genuine
choices, the choices that others try to stifle.
It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something
great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow
yourselves to be ground down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves
humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more
human and more fraternal.
Jesus
sends us out on the mission, empowers us for ministry so that we may be able to
bring the happiness and joy of having encountered the Lord to the world. Yes,
that’s a tall order to fill. Yes, we may feel inadequate and unworthy to be
sent on such a mission, to be called to enter into such a ministry. But that is
why we have the graces of the Sacraments to fall back upon – especially the
sacraments of the Eucharist and Reconciliation.
And,
to be honest, none of us will ever be found completely adequate for the task at
hand. That is why we have each other – the members of the Christian community –
for support. And none of us are worthy, but God chooses the lowly and, through
working in and through us, raises us up to glory.
Blessed
Pope John XXIII, who Pope Francis will also canonize later this year,
encourages us with these words:
Consult not your fears, but your hopes and
dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential.
Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is
still possible for you to do.
My
brothers and sisters, we are a joyful people. We are joyful because we have
encountered Jesus Christ in our lives. And through this encounter, we bring the
joy of our faith to others, announcing by our lives that “the Kingdom of God is
at hand.” The gift of our faith is the source of our joy. Pope Francis reminds
us of this in his first encyclical, Lumen
Fidei, which was promulgated and given to the Church this past Friday. Our
Holy Father teaches us:
Faith is born of an encounter with the living God who calls us and
reveals his love, a love which precedes us and upon which we can lean for
security and for building our lives. Transformed by this love, we gain fresh
vision, new eyes to see; we realize that it contains a great promise of
fulfillment, and that a vision of the future opens up before us.
In
the end, we long for the true joy and happiness borne out of a relationship
with Jesus Christ. In that relationship do we see the promise of true joy given
to us by Isaiah and of true fulfillment promised to us by Christ. The world,
those wolves, will present to us a false happiness, a helmet to wear so that,
like Stimpy to Ren, they can push a button to fill us with what they think is
happiness, but is, in reality, a recognition of the true desire for that
encounter with Christ in our lives.
We
gather this day, my friends, to experience the joy of our Lord in the midst of
our broken lives. Yet we continue to recognize the promise of joy that is ours
as we are sent out into the mission and ministry Christ calls us to. And, in
faith and with the gift of faith, we draw others to know the authentic joy of
encountering Christ – a gift of self that is given as we share with the world
our God-given gifts of joy and faith.
Let
us heed the words of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati:
You ask me whether I am in good spirits. How could I not be so? As long
as Faith gives me strength I will always be joyful.
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Enjoy the journey . . .
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