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A Short Reflection on the Gospel for Wednesday, the 28th Week in Ordinary Time.
Deacon Douglas McManaman

The Lord said: “Woe to you Pharisees! You pay tithes of mint and of rue and of every garden herb,
but you pay no attention to judgment and to love for God. These you should have done, without overlooking the others. Woe to you Pharisees! You love the seat of honor in synagogues and greetings in marketplaces.  Woe to you! You are like unseen graves over which people unknowingly walk.” Then one of the scholars of the law said to him in reply, “Teacher, by saying this you are insulting us too.” And he said, “Woe also to you scholars of the law! You impose on people burdens hard to carry, but you yourselves do not lift one finger to touch them.”

The good news of the gospel is not a heavy burden, for Christ said it: “Come to me all you who labor and are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest. For my yolk is easy, my burden is light”. We know the gospel has been corrupted when it becomes burdensome. Life itself is filled with burdens, but the gospel is the good news of the kingdom of God, the redemptive presence of God through the power of his reconciling Spirit. Participating in that kingdom (participating in the risen Christ) does not remove life’s burdens, but it does give us the power to carry them with joy and added strength, in order to rise above them.

That kingdom is within you, we are told, (Lk 17, 20-21), and so the joy of participating in that kingdom is to begin today. Joy, however, is very different from pleasure, as Merton so famously pointed out.[1] I spent the first fifteen years of my teaching career making difficult thought easy for my students to grasp. Germain Grisez is one moral philosopher that I spent much time re-formulating, since his work is highly structured, and adolescents need and appreciate structure. One of the more interesting moral principles formulated by Grisez is that “One should not choose on the basis of emotions which bear upon empirical aspects of intelligible goods (or bads) in a way which interferes with a more perfect sharing in the good or avoidance of the bad.” [2] This is not an easy principle to understand, but Grisez explains it thus: “Violating this mode means sacrificing reality to appearance, as is done, typically, by someone more interested in the conscious experience of enjoying a good or avoiding an evil than the reality.” An example of this might be drug use: a person opts for the “feeling” of having his life all together (integration) by getting high, but without the reality of that integration or integrity, which takes time and effort to achieve.

Now, there are certain “empirical aspects” to the liturgy, such as ambiance, lighting, incense, beautiful vestments, colors, the smell of flowers, art, stained glass, choral music, chant, silence, etc. But the intelligible human good pursued and expressed in the liturgy is, or is supposed to be, the good of “religion”, which is, in short, “relationship with God”.  But just as it is possible to be motivated by the “empirical”, that is, the sensual, without a proper interest for the intelligible human good of which the empirical is only an aspect, it is very possible to love the empirical aspects of the liturgy without a corresponding love for all that the liturgy is supposed to represent, namely the love and worship of God and, by extension, the love of neighbour. In other words, it is very possible for a condescending, arrogant, envious, controlling, indifferent, self-centered, narcissistic, misogynistic cleric to “love the liturgy”. 

Pious devotions, orthodoxy (being right), liturgical choreography, the love of vestments, etc., are not the same thing as holiness. The former can and often do amount to sanctimony. But holiness is love, and sacrifice is the language of love, and love bears upon concrete human beings, especially those who struggle, who are burdened by life’s challenges. Love does not separate oneself from the mess of broken human lives, but is a willingness to enter into the sufferings of others for their sake and for Christ’s sake, because love sees beyond the superficial and changeable characteristics of a human person to the very core of the person who may not be able to say “I am a physician”, or “I am a teacher”, or “I am a highly talented musician”, or “I am a writer”, “a renowned actor”, etc., but can say “I am”, along with everyone else. It is in this that a person exists in the image and likeness of God, who revealed Himself to Moses as “I AM”. 

Notes

1. “Never seek rest in pleasure, for you were not created for pleasure; you were created for joy. And if you do not know the difference between pleasure and joy, you have not yet begun to live”.
2. The Way of the Lord Jesus: Christian Moral Principles, Vol. 1. Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1983. P. 214.

Homily for the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Deacon Douglas McManaman

The gospel for today, the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, compares the kingdom of God to a king who gives a wedding banquet for his son, a feast of rich foods and choice wines. And so we can believe that heaven is going to be one great eternal party. However, the kingdom of God, Christ tells us, is within you (Lk 17, 21). It is here, it has been established in Christ’s death and resurrection, a kingdom that grows and develops throughout history, and so the party is meant to begin now. And we know it is a party that serves wine, because Christ’s first miracle was at the wedding of Cana where they ran out of wine, so Jesus changed gallons of dirty water into the finest wine, which, according to the twenty fifth chapter of Isaiah, is really an announcement that the Messiah has come and is here to achieve a complete victory over death. 

But wine is a symbol of joy; for Psalm 104 tells us that “God created wine to cheer the heart of man”. And so although heaven is going to be an eternal state of unimaginable joy, the very fact that the kingdom of heaven is “within you” means that this life is meant to be the beginnings of that state of supernatural joy. 

Everyone is invited to this feast, the good and the bad alike–not just the good. The invitation, therefore, does not depend on being a person of great moral nobility. The worst of the worst are invited. The problem, of course, is that not everyone accepts the invitation. Some people are just not interested. They make light of it. They have better things to do, matters of business, establishing the economic conditions for a successful and pleasant life, etc. In the first century, the religious leaders, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, represent those who refuse the invitation, while the tax collectors, prostitutes, the rejects, the liturgically unclean, sinners, etc., represent those who were brought in–the latter accepted the invitation to the joyful celebration; the former did not. In other words, the ragamuffins believed Jesus, while the religious elite refused to do so. But this is precisely the will of his Father. Jesus said: “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day” (Jn 6, 40).

But the question is this: “What did Jesus do that required faith?” The answer is that he forgave sins–which in many ways is a claim to divinity. If you recall the paralytic who was lowered through the roof on a stretcher. Jesus said to him: “Child, your sins are forgiven”. But the scribes reacted. They said: “He is blaspheming. Who but God alone can forgive sins?” And it is indeed true, only God can forgive sins. But Jesus also forgave the woman caught in adultery, as well as the woman in Simon the Pharisee’s house who anointed Jesus’ feet with expensive ointment. And of course, his death on the cross is a sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins. St. Paul said: “God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us”. What did the woman caught in adultery do to merit forgiveness? Nothing. What did Lazarus or the twelve year old girl do to merit being raised from the dead. Nothing. 

In other words, our redemption, our invitation to the eternal wedding banquet, did not come after we got our act together. No, Christ’s death and resurrection took place while we were still a mess. And the world is still a mess. Our lives are still a mess. But the good news is that “cleaning up our act” is not a condition for our presence at the party. What all this points to is the utter generosity of divine grace. Our debt has been cancelled. Why? Not on account of anything we did. The only requirement on our part is a trusting faith. 

The good news of the gospel brings joy, not sadness. It is not a heavy burden. It is light and easy, as Christ said: “Come to me all you who labor and are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest. For my yoke is easy, my burden is light”. We know the gospel has been corrupted when it becomes heavy and burdensome. Life itself is often heavily burdensome, and although the gospel may not remove such burdens, it does bring light, life and strength to our lives so that we may be victorious over those burdens and difficulties. As a volunteer chaplain in a hospital, I will tell you that there is a profoundly significant difference between those who have faith in Christ and those who do not. When I encounter patients with genuine faith, they are joyful, even in the midst of their suffering. They smile, they are grateful, they don’t complain, they are gracious, kind, and thoughtful, which is already a witness to victory over their sickness. Sickness has not defeated them. But those who lack that faith, a light has gone out, and their eyes do not radiate joy. 

But imagine this: Imagine committing a very serious felony, and you’ve been charged, and you are most certainly going to be convicted and sent to prison for the rest of your life, because you cannot by any means pay the debt that your crime has created. And you’ve been waiting a long time behind bars for your trial date. Then one day you receive a visit from the Prosecutor. All charges have been dropped. The prison bars are now open. You are free to go.  

And somehow, in a way that you cannot yet understand, the harm your crime caused others has been transformed such that your victims come out victorious, fully restored and of radiant beauty. You don’t understand how that’s possible, but you are assured that is the case. Think of the joy that would be yours, after living in deep darkness caused by anxiety and dread. It would very much be comparable to opening a bottle of the best wine and drinking till your hearts content. 

Those who refuse the invitation can be compared to a felon who refuses to believe the charges have been dropped and the prison bars have been opened, and so he stays put, sits right there in the prison cell and doesn’t move. He does not celebrate, because he doesn’t believe he’s been freed. In fact, it is probably more true to say that he doesn’t really believe he’s a prisoner; he doesn’t know how miserable his life is now and much better it could be. He certainly does not believe he’s won the lottery. In his mind the gospel is a fairytale.

But that’s our situation. We have been liberated and an inexhaustible treasure is ours for the taking. To believe that, however, is one of the most difficult things for human beings to believe. Accepting the reality of such a crazy deal is not easy at all. It just seems too good to be true.

Now, it was Jewish custom in the first century for a wealthy host to provide festal garments for the guests invited to the feast. Because the invitation went out to everyone on the streets, good and bad alike, no one was expected to own a royal wedding garment. Therefore, the man in this parable who was without a royal garment did not lack resources. He simply rejected the king’s provided clothing in favor of his own. Now the clue to what this means is in the sixty fourth chapter of Isaiah: “We have all become like something unclean, all our just deeds are like polluted rags”. In other words, the man without a festal garment represents the person who relies on his own works, which are like polluted rags. But as St. Paul says: we are not saved by our works, we are saved by grace through faith: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so no one may boast” (Eph 2, 8 ff).

However, faith does give rise to genuinely good works. Paul continues: “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

There are works that come from grace through faith, and works that don’t come through a living faith, but come from ourselves. This is the person who refuses to wear the garment of grace offered by the king. Instead, he does things his way and for his sake. He relies on his own works to achieve all that he has set out to achieve in his life. This is a life lived not in a spirit of trust in God, but a life that is lived only on the basis of oneself.  

There is a serious difference between a life lived in the spirit of faith and trust that I have been loved and forgiven by God, not spurned and forgotten. When I know through faith that I have been forgiven by God and that Christ died for me, my actions from that point onwards are acts of gratitude and they are rooted in the real desire to love him back. But without that faith, without receiving and wearing the wedding garment of Christ’s supernatural grace, my works are not the expression of gratitude nor are they rooted in a longing to love him back for his generosity to me. The result is that my life is lived completely on a horizontal plane–there is no vertical element in my life. I am not moved to pray, nor do I see the world from God’s point of view.  

But it is a living faith that allows me to believe I am loved by God and freed from the prison bars of death, and that renders you and me able to love Christ; for those who are forgiven much, love much, as Jesus said to Simon the Pharisee. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little. And then I begin to see the world differently. I will begin to see Christ in everything, like Irish poet John Donne who could say that “I see his blood upon the rose and his face in every flower, his crown of thorns in every thorn, and his cross is every tree”.* Above all, however, we see the face of Christ in the suffering faces of our neighbor. 

And that’s what evangelization is primarily. We know that unless we love others, pay attention to them, visit them, feed and clothe them, they are not going to know that they are loved and that they have importance, but that is what we want above all when we are genuinely transformed by the love that God has for us personally. That’s how we proclaim the good news of our salvation. 

So our faith is not about having the right answers. It’s not about apologetics, defending the faith, rather, it’s about “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, sick and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.” What these verses reveal is that the hungry, the poor, the sick, and imprisoned–hence, even the guilty–have someone joined to them, such that when I relate to them I relate to that someone, and of course that someone is God the Son. In his Incarnation, he has joined himself to every human person, good and bad alike. 

Proclaiming the good news, or evangelization, is really about making the world aware of that mysterious and hidden presence in each one, and we do that only if we can first see and then respond to that hidden presence in each person. 

 

*I See His Blood Upon the Rose
by Joseph Mary Plunkett

 

I see his blood upon the rose

And in the stars the glory of his eyes,

His body gleams amid eternal snows,

His tears fall from the skies.

I see his face in every flower;

The thunder and the singing of the birds

Are but his voice—and carven by his power

Rocks are his written words.

All pathways by his feet are worn,

His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea,

His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn,

His cross is every tree.

 

Deacon Douglas McManaman

Each year, a number of my students studying to be teachers wonder about how best to deal with the issue of Residential schools and the Church’s involvement with them. Let me say two things here. First, don’t hide it. Bring it out in the open. This is precisely what is so unique about the Jewish people and the Hebrew Scriptures. When you read the Old Testament, which is the history of the Jewish people, the sins of the patriarchs and kings are completely out in the open. There is no attempt to hide such rotten behaviour on the part of Israel’s patriarchs and leaders, from the sins of Abraham, the lying of Rebecca, the indifference of Esau who sells his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of stew, the sons of Jacob who out of jealousy threw Joseph down a well and lied to their father about it, the sin of David who committed adultery and murdered in order to cover it up, the great king Solomon who ended up with 700 wives and 300 concubines, the book of Judges and the infidelity of Israel, to the murder of the prophet Zechariah and Uriah, etc. The bible is not about glorifying Israel, but about glorifying the steadfast love (hesed) and fidelity of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And if you study the history of the Catholic Church, you’ll see enough sin and stupidity to send chills up and down your spine. 

Some people, however, like to hide all that and present a very sanitized and harmonious history that is simply not true to the facts. We are a sinful people; every day we pray: “…forgive us of our sins and we forgive those who sinned against us”. So, it is important not to hide these sins, unless of course we are under the mistaken impression that Catholicism is about us, the Church, and not Christ. We cooperated with the Canadian government in the oppression of the Indigenous peoples of Canada. We don’t make excuses for that. The Catholic faith is not at all about us; much less is it about the clergy or the hierarchy. It’s all about Christ. The Church is his body, and he knew right from the beginning that the twelve would betray him. He said to Peter: “…this very night before the cock crows, you will deny me three times”. He knew Judas would betray him, but chose him as one of the twelve nonetheless. When we gloss over the sins of the Church, we set our students up for disillusionment in the future, because eventually they will discover the humanness of the Church. Pope Francis warned not to put clergy on pedestals, but we continue to do so all the same.  

The next point I’d like to make is that it is certainly true and tragic that the Canadian government decided to remove indigenous children from their homes and send them to the Residential schools, and it is true that certain Catholic religious orders, like the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, cooperated with the Canadian government in this unjust usurpation of parental rights, but it is important to realize that doing so was a violation of the Church’s very own principles (the principle of subsidiarity), and although hindsight is 20/20, the religious orders should have known better. In fact, the Church as a whole should have known better, for she knows that it is parents, not the Federal government, who are the primary educators of their children. And so Catholics today need to be very careful about jumping on the government bandwagon and cooperating with government initiatives that are contrary to the express teachings of the Church, especially on the basis of her teaching on human dignity, the rights of immigrants, and so on. The Church has a fundamental obligation to Christ, not to a government bureaucracy whose authority is subordinate to the divine law. That is why it is so important for Catholic parents and Catholic educators to know the faith, to study it, study its principles, and know well the Church’s understanding of the human person. Governments clash with one another because they have a radically different understanding of the human person, and this is true within democracies, like Canada. In a nation like ours, although certain parties embrace the principle of democratic rule, some parties do tend towards a more totalitarian view of the relationship between the individual and the state as a whole, and so we need to watch for that. It is also true that some parties tend towards a more extreme libertarian view of the human person, which is also problematic in many ways. 

God is the unutterable mystery (Gk: myein: to be shut or closed). He is hidden, but present. No one can offer God advice or hold him accountable for the way things are in life. God’s ways are not our ways. 

As we read in the book of Isaiah: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways…For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”

God’s plan is too large for us to understand. It is Mystery pure and simple. We have a small part to play in this life, and so we just do our part without needing to understand the whole picture. But, even though God is hidden, He is present, and our prayer is always before Him; for God inspires our prayer. Our prayer is His breath breathing through us. 

God is hidden, but near; He is present, not distant. I won’t even say He is next to us; rather, He is within you, that’s how close He is to you. 

Think of a newborn baby that is carried by her father or mother in a car seat. The baby doesn’t know what’s going on; the baby doesn’t understand the hospital environment, what this institution is, who everyone is, what they do, but the baby is safe in the hands of her father, who carries her in what is required by law to be a new car seat. To that father, the child he’s carrying is everything, the center of his life. And that’s how God the Father looks upon you and me. We are carried by him, and we have His constant and undivided attention. 

Deacon Douglas McManaman

In the parable of the two sons, the one agrees to work in the vineyard but chooses not to in the end, the other refuses to do so but in time chooses to do as his father asked. The meaning of the parable hinges on the answer to the question: What is the will of the father of the two sons? On the surface, the answer is that they work in the vineyard. But what does that mean exactly? Such work is carried out for the sake of making wine, and according to Psalm 104, God made wine to cheer the heart of man. Hence, wine is a symbol of joy. At the wedding feast of Cana, they ran out of wine, which is a borderline disaster for a Jewish wedding. Jesus’ first miracle was to rectify that situation, which says a great deal about Jesus’ attitude towards throwing a good party. In fact, one of the parables compares the kingdom of God to a king who prepares a wedding banquet for his son, a feast of rich foods and the finest wine. Heaven is going to be one large eternal party, and everyone is invited to feast on rich foods and choice wines (Is 25, 6). But as you know from the parable, not everyone accepts the invitation. Most of the invited have what in their minds amounts to more important matters, business, farming, etc, not necessarily evil things, but on the contrary, the pursuit of goods; they are just not interested in the invitation to the banquet. So the servants were ordered to go out into the streets and to gather all they found, bad and good alike, and the hall was filled with guests. 

This world can be divided into two groups: those who accept the invitation, and those who do not but who are set on managing their own lives. In the first century, the religious leaders, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, represent the son who said yes but did not go to work in the vineyard, while the tax collectors, prostitutes, the rejects, the liturgically unclean, represent the son who at first refused but then went to work. But what do tax collectors and prostitutes have to do with wine production? They accepted the invitation to the joyful celebration. In other words, they believed Jesus. And that is precisely the will of the father; for Jesus himself said it: “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day” (Jn 6, 40).

The tax collectors, prostitutes, the outcasts, etc., believed in him. But what did Jesus do that required so much faith? The straightforward answer is that he forgave sins. If you recall the paralytic who was lowered through the roof on a stretcher (Mk 2, 1-12). Jesus said to him: “Child, your sins are forgiven”. But the scribes reacted, saying: “He is blaspheming. Who but God alone can forgive sins?” He then went on to heal the paralytic, which was the evidence that his sins were indeed forgiven, because in the minds of the Jews, sickness, poverty, blindness, paralysis, etc., were signs that a person was forsaken by God and paying either for his own sins or the sins of his ancestors.  

What did the paralytic do to deserve paralysis? Nothing, of course, just as the blind man did nothing to deserve his blindness (Jn 9, 1-4). But what did the paralytic do to deserve the forgiveness of sins? Nothing. What did the woman caught in adultery do to merit forgiveness? Nothing. What did Lazarus or the 12 year old girl do to merit being raised from the dead. Nothing at all. This was all pure gift, and when someone receives an undeserved gift of extremely high value, the result is joy, symbolized by wine, which is produced in a vineyard. 

What all this points to is the utter generosity of divine grace. Christ’s death and resurrection is our redemption, our reconciliation with God the Father. Our debt has been cancelled. Why? Not on account of anything we did. The only requirement on our part is a trusting faith. Jesus said: “Whoever believes in me believes not only in me but also in the one who sent me, and whoever sees me sees the one who sent me. I came into the world as light, so that everyone who believes in me might not remain in darkness” (Jn 12, 44-46).

The good news of the gospel does not bring darkness; it brings light. Imagine committing a very serious felony, and you’ve been charged, and you are most certainly going to be convicted and sent to prison for the rest of your life, because you cannot by any means pay the debt that your crime has created. And you’ve been waiting a long time behind bars for your trial to begin. Then one day you receive a visit from the Prosecutor. All charges have been dropped. The prison bars are opened. You are free to go.  And somehow, in a way that you cannot yet understand, the harm your crime caused others has been transformed such that your victims come out victorious, fully restored and of radiant life. You don’t understand how that’s possible, but you are assured that is the case. Think of the joy that would be yours, after living in deep darkness caused by anxiety and dread. It would very much be comparable to opening a bottle of the best wine and drinking till your hearts content. 

But what about you, who committed the crime? Does your life go on without any transformation? Are you just the same person as before? No, you are changed, because you experience great joy, while those who refuse to work in the vineyard can be compared to a felon who refuses to believe the charges have been dropped and the prison bars have been opened, and so he stays put, sits right there in the prison cell and doesn’t move. He does not celebrate, because he doesn’t believe he’s free; he doesn’t believe he’s won the lottery, for that’s simply too good to be true. In his mind this is a fairytale.

But that’s our situation. To believe that, however, is one of the most difficult things for human beings. In my ministry as a Deacon to the sick, I’ve encountered people who were tormented by anxiety, dread, guilt and fear of judgment for things they did in the past, and it is very hard to convince them that their debt has been cancelled. And then, just when I think they’re beginning to get it, they begin to reveal things about themselves. They assure me with great pride that they will never forgive this person or that person in their past, as long as they live, for something he or she did years and years ago. When I discover this, it feels as if I’ve been punched in the face with a boxing glove. It’s the parable of the unforgiving debtor all over again. I just finished assuring you that this debt hanging over your head, that has been causing you dreadful worry and fear of judgment, has been cancelled, that the prison bars have been opened and that you just won the lottery, and yet you are now telling me that you are going to keep this relative of yours forever in his or her own prison of guilt and regret, without end, for something he did in a moment of weakness when he was was barely a teenager? Is that what I’m hearing? 

And that is precisely why they experience dread and worry in the first place, for they know subconsciously that the amount we measure out will be the amount we receive. How often has Jesus implied that unless we forgive, we won’t be forgiven? And to persist in such unforgiveness means that such a person doesn’t really believe in the good news of his own salvation.

Finally, consider the woman in Simon’s house.  Jesus says to Simon: 

Two people were in debt to a certain creditor; one owed five hundred days’ wages and the other owed fifty. Since they were unable to repay the debt, he forgave it for both. Which of them will love him more?” 

Simon said in reply, “The one, I suppose, whose larger debt was forgiven.” He said to him, “You have judged rightly.” Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? When I entered your house, you did not give me water for my feet, but she has bathed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but she has not ceased kissing my feet since the time I entered. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she anointed my feet with ointment. So I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven; hence, she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” He said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

The others at table said to themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” But he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” 

Notice the order: her sins have been forgiven, hence, she has shown great love. It was not her good acts that saved her, but her faith in his forgiveness, which was followed by love. That is the good news of the gospel in a nutshell. We very often put the cart before the horse by thinking that forgiveness results from the decision to reform our lives, to get our act together. This is false. She loved much because she was forgiven much, and she believed it. The greatest winners in the end were the greatest losers to begin with. Some of us might remember as children getting ready to play baseball, or soccer, or football with neighborhood friends; the two captains would each take turns picking a player, one at a time, to form two teams in the end, and they’d always pick the best players first, leaving the worst players to be chosen last. The strange thing about Jesus is that he picks losers first, not winners, the least, the last, the lost, and it is those who have the privilege of playing on the side that will enjoy an eternal victory.