July 5, 2009: 14th Sunday Ordinary (B)

These past two weeks, I was painfully aware that I was in the Tiger Country. Only minutes after Texas lost to LSU on their last baseball game, I got a text saying, "You have our condolences." And only days later right before I left the city of Independence to come to Our Lady of Mercy in Baton Rouge, I got an icing on the cake. An elderly lady hand made for me a LSU tote bag. I said to myself, "This must be a sign. A call to conversion." It was in 1992 that I entered the University of Texas at Austin for a degree in engineering. 1992 was also the year when I graduated from high school. About 10 years after high school graduation, I got a call from a company that organized high school reunions. I was told that my high school was having the10-year reunion. They asked will I be attending? No. I'm too busy with work at the plant. But I wondered the past few days what it would be like going back for a high school reunion now that I'm a priest 17 years after my high school graduation. Even my career guidance counselor at my high school didn't offer priesthood as an option.

We all have good and lame excuses for not attending our high school reunions. For example, "I gained weight, or I'm not successful enough." My excuse is, "I became a priest, and few people will have cardiac arrest if they see me in my collar." I can just see it--all those dropped jaws. And there will be murmuring, "Wasn't he the same guy who had long hair and weird clothes? Didn't he not even believe in God? How could he be a priest?" This is all reminiscent of today's Gospel.

When a native son of Nazareth showed up in hometown, people were incredulous. "He was just a son of a carpenter. Surely, he can't be performing these miracles." As a result, "he was not able to perform any mighty deed there, apart from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them. [Jesus] was amazed at their lack of faith." (Mk 6:5-6) In my case, if I were to show up at my high school reunion, on one hand there will be folks who do not believe because they will judge me by my past; they'll say, 'he must think this is a costume party.' On the other hand there will be folks whose faith will increase because they believe that God can bring enormous change to a person whom they thought would turn out weird. St. Paul faced the same predicament. In our Second Reading, St. Paul begged the Lord to remove his thorn in the flesh; we don't exactly know what that thorn was. Whatever it was, that thorn was causing St. Paul some anguish. It may have been something internal, for example, memory of his past sins. One sin that stands out is how he was directly responsible for murder of Christians. I'm sure St. Paul was reminded time and time again by Christians, "Weren't you the one who murdered our fellow brothers and sisters?" And how painful that reminder must have been.

Many of us beg Our Lord to remove the memories of our past sins, for they haunt us. St. Paul says, "That I, Paul, might not become too elated [other translations say conceited, proud], because of the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, an angel of Satan, to beat me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me..." (2 Cor 12:7-8) Yet the Lord does not simply remove our painful memories. He leaves them there and says to us, ""My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness." So why does God allow us to remember our past failures and sins? It's a powerful lesson to teach us that without God's help, we are weak and prone to going astray.

Some of us go through conversion experiences like St. Paul or like "Doubting Thomas" (whose feast day we celebrated this past Friday). We know we have changed from inside, but will our spouse, family, and friends see the difference? After powerful retreat experiences, we are ready to evangelize and set afire the world with the fire of the Holy Spirit. Yet, people around us are not convinced that we are changed. Yes, they see us praying the rosary, reading the bible, and going to daily mass. Yet, that's not enough for people who know us to be convinced. People have been hurt by us before, and they want to see tangible evidence that the graces from praying the rosary, scripture reading, and daily mass are transforming us to be kinder, gentler, and more patient person. In other words, as a well known Christian hymn written by a Catholic priest in 1968 says, "They'll know we are Christians by our love." The Extreme Make-Over through conversion not only calls us to change our devotion and prayer-life toward God, it also calls us to let the Holy Spirit spread the fragrance of kindness, gentleness, and patience through the way we speak and treat those around us.