11th. Sunday of Year
B
(Ezekiel 17:22-24; 2 Corinthians 5:6-10; Mark
4:26-34)
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ. Preparing this homily I found it rather
difficult to understand our reading from St. Paul; therefore I will present you
with the two verses that precede it taken from another translation, not quite so
literally accurate perhaps, but certainly more understandable:
While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and
sigh, but it’s not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe
us. Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be
swallowed up by life. God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee
He has given us His Holy Spirit.
(NLT)
Now we can take up our prescribed reading with a greater
measure of preparedness:
So we are always courageous, although we know that while
we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not
by sight. Yet we are courageous, and we
would rather leave the body and go home to the Lord. Therefore, we aspire to please Him, whether we
are at home or away. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ,
so that each one may receive recompense, according to what he did in the body,
whether good or evil.
‘We are courageous’ repeated twice does sound somewhat
bumptious and perhaps that is part of the reason why several other modern
translations prefer to say, ‘We are confident’; nevertheless, I think that both
are right, for though we are most certainly called to have confidence, trust, in
the Spirit, nevertheless, we are also, on the basis of such confidence, likewise
called to show ourselves to be courageous, able and willing to ‘fight the good
fight’ in order to resolutely follow the teachings and unhesitatingly walk in
the way of the Lord despite the awareness of our own weakness and the mockery,
opposition, or even, alas, the bloody persecution of the world around
us.
In our first reading from the prophet Ezekiel there was
a beautiful metaphor of someone climbing right to the very crest of a choice
cedar and finally stretching with his fingers to separate out and pluck a most delicate and promising
growth:
I will take from the crest of the cedar, from its
topmost branches tear off, a tender
shoot.
Thus the prophet foreshadowed God’s sublime
millennia-long nourishment and formation of Israel, the cedar of His planting;
and on its crest -- the Holy Virgin Mary of Nazareth alone and unique as the
summit of Israel’s response to such divine nurturing – first of all, lovingly
revealing the sublime beauty and tender promise of that unique sprout which only
she could bear, before taking it to himself.
Concerning that Shoot of the Virgin, Ezekiel goes on to
say:
The tender shoot shall put forth branches and bear fruit
and become a magnificent cedar. Birds
of every kind shall dwell beneath it in the shade of its
boughs.
Our Blessed Lord’s two parables confirm this
appreciation of today’s readings since they also -- speaking this time of the
Kingdom of God which He inaugurated in His own very self – use the same imagery
of fruitful maturity, unobservable to human scrutiny, yet ultimately giving
shelter and succour to those in need:
It springs up and becomes the largest of plants putting
forth large branches, so that the birds of the sky can dwell in its
shade.
All our readings today are thus seen to form a very
closely related group -- one might say a family -- from which even the psalm is not to be left
out because it speaks so very well of the ‘courage’ and ‘confidence’ proclaimed
by St. Paul:
The just shall bear fruit even in old age; vigorous and
sturdy shall they be; declaring how just is the Lord, my Rock, in Whom there is
no wrong.
Here, therefore, we can now with profit turn to St.
Paul’s letter to the Romans (15:12) where he speaks of the ‘tender shoot’ of our
readings as being the ‘Root of Jesse’ of which the prophet Isaiah
said:
The Root of Jesse shall come, raised up to rule the
Gentiles, in Him shall the Gentiles hope.
Which is Paul’s adaptation of Jesus’ own description of
the Kingdom of God:
It is like a mustard seed that, when it is sown in the
ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on the earth. But once it is sown, it
springs up and becomes the largest of plants and puts forth large branches,
so that the birds of the sky can dwell
in its shade.
And so, dear People of God, after a series of feasts and
solemnities each with distinct and
striking emphases, it is most ‘homely’ and satisfying to peacefully celebrate an
‘ordinary’ Sunday which puts before us, with items chosen from her Scriptures
‘old and new’, something of the wholesome unity of Mother Church, and something
of the calm strength and beauty of ‘ordinary’ Catholicism: a Catholicism to
quietly savour and admire, as one appreciates a daily companion, cherishes a
constant hope, and finds strength and peaceful joy in what is ordinary and
fundamental.
Today, people are not sufficiently aware, I believe,
that a very large proportion of mankind’s troubles, be they criminal or
personal, arise from sinful humanity’s inability to appreciate and accept, let
alone find peaceful fulfillment in, the ‘ordinary’. The young hate boredom and crave the
excitement of ‘highs’. Those of
middle-age need distractions to occupy their minds and prevent
self-introspection, lest the time on their hands turns to thoughts of missed
opportunities, stirs embers of regret, or what is much worse, lets memories
presumed long-forgotten come close to the surface once again: memories of
responsibilities incurred or friends failed.
Too many of those who are old, however, just worry about the past, the present, and
the future; or else they while-away the time still allotted them in reveries
about the good old days no longer available to them.
People of God, there is no true happiness or fulfilment
without a true appreciation of and gratitude for the ordinary in life:
especially for us Catholics and Christians who proclaim the enduring goodness of
God in all that He ordains for our development into children of His, destined to
partake of the wedding feast He is preparing for all those His Son brings with
Him.
And what could be more ordinary and homely concerning
the spiritual life of all devout Catholics than those words of St. Paul in our
second reading:
Therefore, we
aspire to please Him, whether we are at home or away.
We aspire to please Him, that is, even though we are not
yet at home with the Lord in heaven, even though we walk by
faith, not by sight.
We aspire to please Him: how simple that sounds! Just right for an ‘ordinary’ Sunday reading
and homily … no burdensome thinking required, no great obligations to be
accepted, we are encouraged simply to try to please Him, Jesus our Lord and
Saviour. And yet, such simplicity does
not in any way threaten the richness of your Sunday spiritual food; because in
order to ‘please Him’ we need to know Him, know what He wants, or even what He
prefers …. Just as you take pride in knowing the likings and possible
preferences of your family and the guests who may be gathered around your Sunday
table.
We walk by faith, not by
sight: how clear that
sounds also, not frightening in any way!
And yet by walking in that way you are dying to yourself for love of Him!
There is no greater spirituality than that!!
People of God, thank you for reading, following, me
carefully. Please, try to enjoy your
Sunday, and ask God to help you appreciate His daily, ordinary, gifts … not
forgetting His gift of everyday time … for they all ultimately express the same
undying love for you that led Him to give up His Son – alone -- for you, so as
to be able to lift Him up for you all those thousands of Sundays
ago.
