Sunday 18 (A) – 2005: Prioritizing Jesus

(Fond Farewell to St. Matthew’s)

Jesus needed space and time to mourn the death of John the Baptist. Although they do not seem to have had much contact, Jesus clearly had great love and admiration for this third cousin of his. Indeed, he looked to him as a prophetic sign of what would happen to himself. John’s execution made Jesus realize with ever greater certainty that his crucifixion was approaching.

So it is no surprise that Jesus would try to get away to what today’s Gospel twice calls a “lonely place”, to be by himself with his apostles. He needed to grieve and to consider more deeply the meaning of John’s violent end in the light of his own mission. For John’s mission was really part of his own.

The crowds, too, must have felt John’s death and understood that he was directing them to Jesus. It is no surprise, then, that they would seek Jesus out, even in that lonely place. So, when Jesus gets there, he discovers that it is no longer a lonely place: it is filled with the “lost sheep of the House of Israel”, looking to him as their new Shepherd.

By how Jesus reacted when he saw them, one can almost sense from the Gospel what Jesus was thinking. He must have seen that their presence was the work of the Father’s hand; their presence brought home to Jesus the deeper meaning of his own death.

The message is clear: his death will not end in loneliness, but in the gathering around him of humanity. However bitter the cup he was to drink, its sweet result would be that he would draw all people to himself. They would come to him, as sheep to their shepherd, for healing and for food, that is, for life.

Although he would experience the abandonment by God on the Cross, yet that very suffering would not end in eternal solitude, but in the gathering around him of sick, broken and hungry humanity. This humanity would be his people, his heritage, his glory, his very own mystical body.

From the perspective of his divinity, Jesus would perhaps have thought back centuries to the time when another people came to him in another lonely place, the desert of Sinai, where he fed them with manna.

It might also have thought ahead to that last Supper he would celebrate with his twelve apostles, the seed of the new Israel, and give them, not manna, but his own body and blood as their food of life.

This may explain why, in that lonely place, he then fed the crowd with bread, a sign to them that he is the Yahweh of their manna, and that, in the new covenant, he would be their Bread of Life. This gift of himself would be at no cost to us. This love he gives would be eternally faithful, from which nothing could separate those who truly accepted him.

Jesus heals and feeds the bodies of this crowd who come to him. But these are only glimpses of the real healing and the real food he will give them: the healing of their souls and the life of their souls. By virtue of that death and resurrection he was to undergo, he would heal them, not only of disease, but of sin and of mortality. He would give them the bread and drink, not for the satisfaction of a few hours, but for eternity.

And how does he now give those same gifts of soul-healing to us, we who have gathered in this “lonely place” around his Cross in the unbloody sacrifice of the Mass? Is not every church that lonely place in the middle of the city or the country represented in today’s Gospel and in Gethsemane and Calvary? Surely, it is obvious how Jesus heals and feeds us here? By the sacraments of confession and of holy communion.

To receive these sacraments frequently, faithfully and worthily is, so to speak, to give comfort to Jesus crucified, for through them we show that his sacrifice was not in vain. By receiving them, we do not leave him alone, mourning not only the death of the Baptist, but our death, too.

Not to receive and practice these sacraments with great eagerness and devotion is like allowing Jesus to arrive at that lonely place, not to an exultant and welcoming crowd, but to a landscape littered with corpses.

If we remain obstinately untouchable in our self-righteous and cold distance from the Lord of confession and of communion, we only increase the pain of his mourning.

Having said that, it has also to be said that the Church does not oblige us to receive holy communion more than once a year. Nor does she oblige us to go to confession at all, unless we are conscious of having committed a grave or mortal sin. In this last instance, she also only obliges us to go to confession once a year, unless, of course, we wish to receive holy communion. In that case we should go to confession before receiving holy communion.

Of course, these obligations are the very least, the absolute minimum required of us. But do we really want to live our lives before Jesus in minimal terms? Do we want the flame of our love for him simply to be a smoldering wick and not a burning furnace? Was his love for us an absolute minimum, or was it not an unspeakable, incomprehensible, mind-blowing, heart-exploding, mega-magnificent, boundless, unconditional maximum?

What is it in life that we consider so precious that we will only give the Lord a passing nod or receive his sacraments of life only if we are obliged? Is he not worthy of all the precious tenderness and uncontrollable passion of our hearts? Does he not ask of us that we love him with all our heart, all our mind, all our strength, above all things and people, in all things and people?

Would that we poor souls might get this wisdom! Then our confessionals and our communion queues would be jam-packed with passionate lovers of Christ, anxious to hear those words, “I absolve you from all your sins” and “The Body of Christ.”

In the Gospels, the crowds around Jesus were such that they were in danger of trampling on him and crushing him. Today, we seem to approach him with Victorian reserve and with the curiosity of the random museum visitor.

The Christ who stepped down from the boat in today’s Gospel and had pity on the crowd, is no less present and no less piteous today. He needs our fire to set the world on fire. He needs our hearts to show his heart to the world. Christ is the only real priority for the true Christian, and from it, all others will flow and find their meaning and authenticity.

Have the courage, take the risk, make bold to put him first in all things and your life, in this world and in the next, will find true fulfillment and eternal peace.

_______________

As some of you may already know, I no longer have the freedom I used to have to come and be with you at this 10.00 Latin Mass. Between Annunciation parish, where I now reside, and Georgetown University, where I am soon to begin teaching, my commitments preclude the possibility of continuing here. And so, at least in the meantime, I must bid you all a fond farewell.

The beauty of this house of God, the solemnity of the ritual, the inspiring liturgical music, both sung and played and, not least, the warm and lively faith and friendship of all of you, God’s people, will make this brief experience quite unforgettable.

Although I do not know many of you in any personal depth, the Lord has given me the privilege, as a priest, to stand spiritually at the deepest part of all of you, since there is nothing deeper or more intimate than that place where the loving God engages the souls of his beloved children.

Through word and sacrament, a priest is admitted to that place, that sacred place. It is this gift which fills him with joy and with wonder for what the Lord does for his people. It is this gift which both expresses and deepens a priest’s own gifts both as man and, above all, as bearer of the unique and merciful priesthood of Jesus Christ.

A priest witnesses God working to create an ever deeper communion between the baptized; that is, he witnesses and is an instrument of the deep and silent breathing into the hearts of the faithful of the eternal life of God.

Thank you for allowing me to be a priest with you and for you, and know that I cannot but carry you with me as the Lord guides my steps along another path. I want to thank especially your pastor, Msgr. Ron Jameson, for offering me Eucharistic hospitality over these three years or so, and for being patient with my long vowels and longer homilies! May God reward him for his outstanding hard work and priestly fraternity.

For fear of omission, I will not mention anyone else by name, although you will forgive me if I single out all those involved in the music ministry. If music is the homeland of the soul, as Pope Paul VI said, then you have made me feel very much at home!

Finally, I am sure I have caused some of you moments of confusion, uncertainty and perhaps even hurt by my way or my content of speaking. That has never been my intention, but good intentions to not always produce good fruit. While it would be wrong of me to apologize for speaking Christ’s truth, I do apologize to you, whether present or absent, if I have not spoken it with his love, and for that I ask your forgiveness and your prayers.

In the words of St. Benedict, let us press ahead preferring absolutely nothing to the love of Christ. And, in the words of St. Ignatius of Loyola, my great mentor and heavenly friend (whose feast falls on this day), may we all live and act “ad maiorem Dei gloriam” and, therefore, for our own and for one another’s salvation.