Homily: 3rd Week of Lent - Monday - How Ordinary!

Naaman, the Syrian army commander, afflicted with leprosy.  He was appalled at the suggestion that, to cure his leprosy, he ought to bathe in the Jordan River.  That river?  It’s so ordinary!

Jesus, after forty days in the desert, comes to his home town and is rejected by its citizens.  They knew him as a young boy.  They saw him working with Joseph in his carpenter’s shop.  He would come to synagogue.  They were filled with fury when he began to teach with authority?  How could He be a prophet, how could God be at work in Him!  God couldn’t possibly be that close!

Naaman wanted healing on his terms.  The people of Jesus’ home town wanted God on their terms.  One of the great difficulties that the very earliest Christians had was convincing their neighbors, accustomed to great religious spectacles, that baptism—just being washed with water—really did bring with it the promise of living forever.  “Washing in water?  Just ordinary water?” 

I’ve also talked to Catholics whose family members have fallen away from the Church and have fallen into to some pretty deadly sins.  They looked at me with surprise and doubt when I suggested they pray a rosary for their children every day.  A rosary, how ordinary!  I’ve talked to self-proclaimed Catholics who don’t go to Mass because it’s boring and ordinary. 

Pray, fast, and give alms.  The Lenten practices sound so ordinary.  What can fasting really do for me anyway, besides maybe help me lose a few pounds?  What can giving a little extra to charity do anyway…there’s so much suffering in the world?  And prayer?  I say my morning prayers, I come to Mass, what could more prayer actually do for me?

When you pray, fast, and give alms this Lent and recall the reasons that you are doing these things, out of love for God and desire to unite your suffering with him and to be free from selfishness, those ordinary actions have extraordinary value. 

At this point in Lent you may be starting to be disillusioned with your Lenten penances, they might seem so ordinary now.  But I urge you to persevere, God is working through those Lenten practices.  He will bring about great conversion including your own, if you let him.  For the glory of God and salvation of souls.