Sunday, September 8, 2013

Homily: 23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time - Silence as a remedy to worldly distraction

Since my first year in seminary, at the end of august, my seminary classmates and I, who are now priests, have taken a week or two vacation up in the Algonquin Highlands in Ontario, about four hours north of Toronto.  We canoe a little bit, we swim, we don’t really fish much, we really just enjoy the quiet of the wilderness, good food, and good fellowship.  Two weeks without cellphone, internet, television, is a perfect way to get ready for the busy-ness of the school year, when parish life really begins to kick into high-gear. 

And it usually takes a day or two to adjust from going the busy, loud world to the quiet of nature.  That first day and a half, it really feels kind of strange, not having something to do.  But then things begin to settle, we settle into the quiet, and then you really begin to notice the beautiful surroundings: lapping of the lake, the gentle breeze.  It’s a wonderful atmosphere for good prayer and reflection and spiritual reading.

What does this have to do with our readings this weekend?  Well, we need moments, to quiet down and recharge and to focus on what really matters.  That is the purpose of our upcoming parish retreat in October.  This is why we observe every week a day of rest, the Sabbath day, to become quiet and to focus on what really matters.

The Catholic Philosopher Svoren Kierkegaard said that the present state of the world and the whole of life [with so much noise and busy-ness] diseased. And If he were a doctor he would prescribe as a remedy for this disease, “silence”

From the book of wisdom, we hear about our human condition, “For the corruptible body burdens the soul and the earthen shelter weighs down the mind that has many concerns.” 

We know all to well about the many concerns which weigh down upon us don’t we? Our health, job, family obligation.  And our culture certainly doesn’t help things when it drums into us over and over that we are not happy until we have the next toy, the perfect house, the perfect car, the perfect family, the perfect job. It’s not a coincidence how our faith can sometimes take second-place to all of these worldly pursuits and distractions.

But for Christians we need those moments every day where we remember that our first loyalty, our first pursuit, are not the things and riches and pleasures of this world, but God, heaven.

And Jesus explains what exactly discipleship means, in the Gospel this weekend. 

But Jesus, turns to this large crowd and offers one of the most challenging teachings in the Gospel.

“If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” 

What’s he saying here?  No pursuit, no object, no relationship is to be more important than following Jesus faithfully.  Our deepest identity is Christian, our deepest loyalty is to Christ.  If we are ever caught in a dilemma, caught between what Jesus expects of us and what the world wants from us, we must choose Christ. 

A very powerful story from the life of the saints is that of St. Francis of Assisi.  Francis was the son of a rich merchant and after a deep conversion desires to hand everything over to the Lord.  So he starts giving his possessions away to the poor.  Francis’ father demanded that he stop.  But the words of today’s Gospel resonated in Francis’ heart, “anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple”.  Dragged into the town square before the whole town and even the bishop, he renounced his inheritance, he even gave up the clothes he was wearing, and walked naked out of the town.

St. Thomas Aquinas had a similar story.  His parents had big plans for him, but Thomas wanted to join the Dominican order to preach and teach the Gospel.  His parents literally locked him in a tower for a year, even paying beautiful women to visit him, to coax him to get married.  But he resisted, even what his parents wanted for him, the expectations of his parents, knowing that he had a deeper call to follow the Lord in a unique way.  And he did, he joined the Dominicans and became the greatest theologian in history and a saint.
And all of those worldly things: toys, relationships, associations must be hated to the extend that they hinder us from being faithful to Jesus.  Not even family can be our ultimate concern.  Spouse and children are to be cherished, but not more than being faithful to God.

In this day and age, a great danger can be for parents to make their children so central to their own happiness that their relationship becomes disordered.  It’s disordered for parents to try to relive their own childhood or find meaning by living vicariously through their children, and also for parents to let the kids run the show, giving in to any and all of their children’s requests because they want to appear as “the cool parent” or “fun parent”.  Parents do well in instilling modesty and self-discipline. 

Family is to be cherished, but again, not more than being faithful to God.  Yet, here’s the good news: when we are faithful, when we follow the commandments and the teachings of the Church, then, as faithful disciples, we become the people God made me to be.  We become the loving, charitable, generous, joyful people God made us to be.

C.S. Lewis, great Christian apologist said, “You cannot love your fellow man fully until you love 
God…When I have learned to love God better than I love my wife, then I will love my wife as God does.”  
Our love for one another, can only be as strong as our love and faithfulness to God.

We do well, as St. Augustine said, to love God first and everything else, only for the sake of God. 
Everything we do in life must be done to glorify God.  Jesus himself taught us, “Seek first the kingdom of God”.  And he’s not just speaking generally.  Every day, in every choice, seek to glorify God.  It’s impossible to do, if all we have is busy-ness and distraction, so every day we need quiet time for serious prayer, reflection, scripture study. 

The remedy for so many of our ills, so much of our anxiety, so much of our dis-ease, can be found, as Kierkegaard said, in the silence where we can encounter the Lord in prayer, and seek his will, and fall in love with Him above all else.  How much of the violence and anger and tension in the world would dissipate if we put down the cell-phones, turned off the internet, and television, and video games for an extra half-hour every day, and read the bible, prayed the rosary, reflected on our life in light of scripture and the teaching of the Church.


The cost of discipleship is our whole life, our whole self.  May the Holy Spirit assist us in being rid of all that keeps us from giving our whole self to God and encourage us in many good works this week for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

No comments:

Post a Comment