Oct. 3, 2010: 27th Sunday Ordinary (C)

Click to hear audio homily

Most of our parents have second jobs after a long day of regular work. After 9 to 5 work, after fighting the fatigue from the traffic, they arrive at the door of their home to find more work. It's the hungry kids clamoring for attention, or it's the not so perfect yard that our spouse has been reminding us to take care of. We can identify with the servant in the Gospel today. After a long day of work in the field, plowing or tending the sheep, the servant comes home expecting to wash up and eat dinner. But he finds back at home, more work awaits him. His master is expecting him to prepare dinner, serve him, and only then does the servant gets to crash and rest. And like that servant, we usually get no thanks for going the extra mile. Should the Master be grateful to the servant for doing what was commanded of him?

As a child I was always amazed at the amount of work that my mom did. She would travel to a far away  farmers market and bring back bags and bags of fresh produce, fruits, and fish for the family. I wondered how she carried all those goods all by herself. As I got older I learned that she paid a dear price for it with her back pain. I would often see her grimace and pause as she tried to go up the stairs, coming out of the subway. I often had to push her from behind to get her up. Many times she would cry with pain after she came back from the farmers market. The great lesson that I learned as a child was that my mom sacrificed for us kids, tirelessly, disregarding her fatigue and pain. Such sacrifice moved this little child with a desire to return my gratitude with my love.

Suffering with purpose, for the purpose of love, has a way of penetrating our hearts and move us to return gratitude with our own love. How many of us can remember so vividly the sacrifice that our mom or dad made for us? When I'm at funerals, the children of the deceased usually get up to give a short word about their parents. Inevitably, they choke up when they begin to say, "My mom sacrificed for us always..." All these thoughts came to me as I was praying early this week in the church. The early morning sunlight was shining on the crucifix, and I asked Jesus a question, "Lord, some churches have removed your body from the cross and some have even removed the cross altogether from their church. They say we should really focus on your resurrection. Why do you ask us to place your crucifixion on the Cross so prominently in our church?" And the Lord spoke, "Paul, I not only sacrificed myself on the Cross 2,000 years ago, I sacrifice for you and all My children every moment of your day. I hang on the Cross to remind you that I bear your sufferings, your doubts, and your sins at this very moment until you die." Then he flooded my mind with memories of my mom grimacing with pain--bearing her cross--to feed my sister and me. If I did not see all the suffering that my mom went through just to put dinner on the table, I can become ungrateful and begin to complain out of ingratitude. "We're having rice and fish again?" I can easily become self-absorbed, caring only for our own comfort, and thinking only about what others can provide for me.

Imagine what can happen to me as a priest. If I stop realizing that Jesus is suffering daily for me, that everyone in the pews is making a great sacrifice of prayer and a sacrifice of their hard-earned money in the collections, I can easily become complacent and self-seeking, looking only for comfort. I may spend more time thinking about how I can work less, how I can just get by doing very little. Then when you see me on the altar, you'll easily spot such a priest, a man who preaches self-sacrifice and service, yet lives a life of a hypocrite, seeking a worry-free life of comfort. It can easily happen to a priest; it can easily happen to those who work in the Church; and it can easily happen to every single one of us in the pews.

Why does Jesus hang on the Cross everyday? After Jesus washed the feet of his disciples at the Last Supper, he said, "Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me 'teacher' and 'master,' and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another's feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do. Amen, amen, I say to you, no slave is greater than his master nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you understand this, blessed are you if you do it." (John 13:12-17)