March 6, 2011: 9th Sunday Ordinary (A)

Click to hear audio homily

This week I gave a tour of the church to our First Grade religion class. In one class I had approximately 25 children, and I asked the kids, "Do you know that God's House is like our own house? Just like a house has someone always living in it, God's House also always has someone living in it even though we don't see them with our eyes. Who do you think lives here always?" A little girl answered, "God!" Another girl answered, "Mary!" A boy answered, "Joseph...my name is Joseph." "That's good," I replied. "Who else," I asked. A girl said, "Angels!" "That's right," I said. "Wherever Jesus is, the entire angels of heaven have to be there. And we have Jesus right here in the Tabernacle. That's why we have the whole church filled with Angels." Then a little girl raised her hand and said, "I have angels! A good angel on my right shoulder and a bad angel on my left!" 

Earlier this week, someone came to the church for an appointment. She is not Catholic so I thought that she would benefit from a tour of the church. We walked together the 14 Stations of the Cross. I pointed out how Jesus carried the Cross on which were our own failures, pains, and sufferings. I told her that just as our sufferings or guilt from sins weigh heavy on our hearts, they caused the cross to be so heavy that Jesus fell three times. I told her that his Mother Mary stood beside him with great sadness, yet with great courage, and that the sight of his mother comforted him. And I told her that Blessed Mother always stands besides us in our sufferings and hardships; she is there for us even when we fall. I took her over to the Tabernacle and asked her to place her hands on the Tabernacle. I told her that inside there lies Our Lord Jesus in his body, soul, and divinity waiting for us to come to him. She said, "Father, the moment I arrived inside the church I felt a strange peace." I said to her, "You have encountered the Prince of Peace, Our Lord Jesus who is literally here in the church."

Over the years people have described to me feelings of the loss of the presence God.  Some even tried to argue that God doesn't exist. In someways we are more likely to believe that the devil exists than that God exists. Mother Teresa offered a deeper insight about the sense of the loss of the presence of God in our world. Mother said, "Forgiveness is the greatest presence of peace. Only when we don't forgive each other, we live in disturbance, live in jealousy, and unhappiness. Like you have love in action, you also have hatred in action. And no one hates God more than the devil. So he puts his hatred for God in action by destroying us, by making us commit sin. It is not a question of how big or small. Sin is always a refusal of God. Devil tempts us not so much to do us harm, as to destroy God in us. His aim is that. It is is hatred toward God. Spiritual poverty is very difficult to remove, that loss of presence of God. Greed for money, honor, and lust have taken place of God in many lives. And that's the greatest poverty."

Blessed Mother's recent message in Medjugorje affirms that same sentiment:

Dear children! My motherly heart suffers tremendously as I look at my children who persistently put what is human before what is of God, at my children who, despite everything that surrounds them and despite all the signs that are sent to them, think that they can walk without my Son. They cannot! They are walking to eternal perdition. That is why I am gathering you, who are ready to open your heart to me, you who are ready to be apostles of my love, to help me; so that by living God’s love you may be an example to those who do not know it. May fasting and prayer give you strength in that... (Medjugorje messages, March 2, 2011)

We hear a similar message from Jesus in our Gospel today: “Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. But it did not collapse; it had been set solidly on rock. And everyone who listens to these words of mine but does not act on them will be like a fool who built his house on sand. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. And it collapsed and was completely ruined."

In each of these messages, we hear that we need Jesus as our Lord and our guide in all that we do. In just a few days, we will begin Lent with Ash Wednesday. It is the perfect time for us to redirect our hearts and minds so that we may grow in our love for Jesus. As we grow in this love, then we will begin to emulate His love to all whom we meet. If you're looking for a way to grow in your relationship with the Lord, then perhaps you can do what I asked the First Graders to do. I gathered them in front of Blessed Mother's statue and asked, "Do you know what I like to do when I first come into the church? I like to come to this statue of Blessed Mother and hold her hand. Why don't you take turns holding her hand?" And they all did just that. My prayer for all of us here is that like those little children we may be docile to Blessed Mother's request to open our hearts to her so that she may lead each of us to a deeper relationship with her son.