Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Homily)
July 04, 2021 7:00 am · Sergio Muñoz Fita
Beginning this weekend, I want to begin another series of homilies, which will run through the end of August. I have taken the readings of the Sunday Masses and looked for a thread that is especially present in them. When the homily deals with the readings of a particular day, sometimes the overall perspective, the structure, the relationship between the messages from one Sunday to the next Sunday is lost. When all the readings are read at the same time, one may lose details, but one captures the ideas that are most reiterated or predominant in them.
I have been praying about this topic for several weeks now and I have decided to focus on two aspects: the world's rejection of Christ and his disciples, and the Holy Eucharist. If I had to give a title to this series of homilies, I would use the words that Simeon used to describe to Mary, Jesus' mission on earth: "a sign of contradiction".
Let us look, for example, at today's readings. In Ezekiel's prophecy, God accuses his people of having rejected him. The Lord calls Israel a rebellious, hard-hearted people who have rebelled against him. In the second reading, St. Paul said that he is content in the midst of insults, suffering, and persecution. That is to say, he takes it for granted that his message will meet with opposition from many, some who will even do violence to him, and in fact, he himself will end up martyred by the sword in Rome. Finally, today's Gospel is the sad story of Christ who on his return to Nazareth is rejected by his own people, who despise him for being the "carpenter". The sacred text tells us that Jesus was surprised by their lack of faith.
In the first reading, the message of Yahweh through the prophet is rejected. In the second reading, the Apostle's message is rejected. In today’s Gospel, Christ himself is rejected. Rejection, rejection, rejection. History repeats itself without interruption even to this day. You may recall that last Sunday, the Holy Gospel recounted the miracles of the healing of the hemorrhagic woman and the resurrection of Jairus' daughter. St. Mark told us that such wonders happened when Jesus arrived by boat from the other shore of Lake Galilee. What had happened on the other shore? Jesus had been rejected by the foreigners. "They begged him to go away from there," says the evangelist (Mk 5:17). Jesus returns to Jewish territory because the foreigners had driven him away. This Sunday, however, the message is not the rejection by foreigners, but the rejection by his own people, his neighbors, his own family.
We are going to speak about this topic because I think it is very important. As I said, it will be a recurrent theme in the coming weeks. In today's world, we could use this analogy: the "foreigners" are those who do not call themselves Christians and the family of Jesus and his people are the Church. Christ is rejected by both without distinction. It is true that the Lord will find love in some of his disciples, but for the most part, Jesus will be rejected. As St. John writes at the beginning of his Gospel: "He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him." (Jn 1:11)
Our Master was and is a "sign of contradiction". Fidelity to the teaching of the Church in today's world is paid for with scorn, humiliation, disparagement, attacks, caricaturing, mockery, and opposition - even on the part of many believers. The sign of our condition as disciples of the Crucified One is love, and the sign of our fidelity to that condition is the rejection of the world. In other words, we, like Jesus, are either peaceful "signs of contradiction" ready for martyrial fidelity, or we are not Christians. Either we embrace and accept our destiny to suffer persecution for the sake of the Gospel and the Church, or we become, in the words of St. Paul, "enemies of the cross of Christ". (Phil 3:18)
The homilies in this series will end with two prayers, to be said by those who have the heart and courage to pray them with truth. If you do not agree, if they seem to you an exaggeration, or if they frighten you, or if you do not want to live them, it is better not to say them. Simply listen to them. They were written by St. Ignatius of Loyola and St. Francis of Assisi. I have learned them in Spanish and Italian, and for years I have been saying them every day. They express not what we are, but what we want to become.
The first, from St. Ignatius, is this: “in order to imitate and be more actually like Christ our Lord, I want and choose poverty with Christ poor rather than riches, opprobrium with Christ replete with it rather than honors; and to desire to be rated as worthless and a fool for Christ, Who first was held as such, rather than wise or prudent in this world.”
The words of St. Francis are: “May the fiery and honey-sweet power of your love, O Lord, wean me from all things under heaven, so that I may die for love of your love, who deigned to die for love of my love.”
May the Lord grant us the grace of union with Him in the mystery of His rejection by the world so that we may one day be eternally welcomed into the eternal kingdom of Paradise.