Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Homily)
July 25, 2021 11:00 am · Sergio Muñoz Fita
Today we continue with our series, Sign of Contradiction, talking about the world's rejection of Christ and his disciples in these days. I consider this a reflection that is always necessary and always timely, however, I do not want to give the impression that this is simply an abstract meditation on the Christian life. In fact, every baptized person who identifies with the mystery of Christ crucified is called to participate, to a greater or lesser extent, as a sign of contradiction. How can we fail to recall this Sunday the testimony of St. James the Greater, patron of my country, whose solemnity is celebrated today? The eldest son of Zebedee was the first to give his life for the Lord. For him being a sign of contradiction was not theoretical, but the most determining reality of his life. He was a witness to the light until the end and today we honor his courage, his boldness, and his love for Christ and the Church.
Today I would like to illustrate all that we have been saying about our vocation as signs of contradiction by placing before you the portentous figure of St. Paul. From the first moment of his Christian life, Saul of Tarsus was aware that his conversion would be the beginning of a life marked by persecution and hatred on the part of the enemies of the Risen One. In this Sunday's second reading, the great Apostle to the Gentiles defines himself as a "prisoner for the Lord", and at the end of this same letter to the Ephesians, he describes himself as an ambassador of the Gospel "in the midst of chains". (6:20) Paul wrote this epistle between the years 61 and 63, while he was locked up in the Mamertine prison during his first Roman imprisonment. The courage of this man, for whom life was Christ and death was gain, is admirable. Truly, for him everything was rubbish, so long as he could win his Lord. (Phil 3:8) Imagining St. Paul behind bars invites us also to ask ourselves, what am I willing to lose for my fidelity to Christ and to the Church? My freedom? My good name? My possessions? My health? My life? The Gospel has come down to us through the love, faith and courage of heroes like St. Paul. Do we have a greatness of soul similar to that of those men who risked and lost everything to transmit the Faith to us?
In the last chapter of this same letter, St. Paul warns us of the battle to which we are all called when he says, "Put on the armor of God so that you may be able to stand firm against the tactics of the devil. For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens." (Eph 6:11-12). I imagine St. Paul, as he wrote these words, looking at the Roman praetorian who silently watched him from the corridor of the dungeon. That soldier gave him material for a compelling image of the struggle of the spiritual life, and so the Apostle goes on to say: “Therefore, put on the armor of God, that you may be able to resist on the evil day and, having done everything, to hold your ground. So stand fast with your loins girded in truth, clothed with righteousness as a breastplate, and your feet shod in readiness for the gospel of peace. In all circumstances, hold faith as a shield, to quench all [the] flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” (Eph 13-17) This image already expresses the confrontational character of the Gospel message. St. Paul knew this well when after being stoned in the city of Lystra and dragged out of the city and left for dead, he exhorted his disciples to persevere in the faith, “It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.” (Acts 14:22) He tells us of some of these tribulations in his letter to the Corinthians: “Are they ministers of Christ? (I am talking like an insane person.) I am still more, with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, far worse beatings, and numerous brushes with death. Five times at the hands of the Jews I received forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I passed a night and a day on the deep; on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my own race, dangers from Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers at sea, dangers among false brothers in toil and hardship, through many sleepless nights, through hunger and thirst, through frequent fasting, through cold and exposure. And apart from these things, there is the daily pressure upon me of my anxiety for all the churches. (…) At Damascus, the governor under King Aretas guarded the city of Damascus, in order to seize me but I was lowered in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped his hands." (2 Cor 11:23-33)
We cannot simply listen to this and admire St. Paul. It is these sufferings that have given us the gift of faith. They are, sufferings shared by all those who are disciples of the Lord: “We are fools on Christ’s account, but you are wise in Christ; we are weak, but you are strong; you are held in honor, but we in disrepute. To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clad and roughly treated, we wander about homeless and we toil, working with our own hands. When ridiculed, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we respond gently. We have become like the world’s rubbish, the scum of all, to this very moment." (1 Cor 4:10-13)
Brothers and sisters, I wanted to dwell on St. Paul today so that we can see, written in the Apostle's flesh, what it means to be a sign of contradiction in the world. In him we see the price we must be willing to pay in our fidelity to the Gospel. When he took leave of his brethren in Ephesus, St. Paul said to them words by which we must all measure ourselves: “But now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem. What will happen to me there I do not know, except that in one city after another the holy Spirit has been warning me that imprisonment and hardships await me. Yet I consider life of no importance to me, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to bear witness to the gospel of God’s grace." (Acts 20:22-24)
Let us ask the Lord that we may learn from this "prisoner for the Lord" the grace to honor ourselves by suffering for the name of Christ and the Church. May we respond to evil with good, to sin with holiness, to hatred with love, and to lies with the truth that the Lord has given us and that the Church transmits to us. May we find in the Eucharist, as we have contemplated in the Gospel, as Jesus himself nourishes and strengthens us, the strength to be light in this world and salt of the earth for the salvation of mankind.
Let us conclude today with the two prayers I spoke to you about last week:
“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.” (Saint Ignatius of Loyola)
“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.” (Saint Francis of Assisi).
