Homilies

Because it’s not always easy to do God’s will, rather than our own, God has given us resources to help us. He has given us each other by whom we can be inspired and encouraged. He has given us the Eucharist, his Body and Blood, to nourish and strengthen us to make our choices as spiritually mature human beings.

Feeling powerless against the times and events of the world? We can begin with taking care of those closest to us. These readings invite us not to underestimate the power of small everyday acts of kindness. If we begin with taking care of those closest to us, we can trust that our light will break forth like the dawn. When we do this we will “live rightly and change the times” as Saint Augustine prophetically taught in his sermon 311.

Not many of you are “movers and shakers” … people of power followed constantly by the press to hear what you think or what you will do. For sure, not many of you come from the upper classes, those higher reaches of society where supposedly the “best people” dwell. But that means nothing. What means something is that you are among those who have been called to be with God for all eternity. God wants silly old you, to show the worldly wise that their wisdom is worthless if they take it too seriously. God wants powerless old you, as weak as you are, to show those who pride themselves on their strength that a human is nothing if not supported by God.

God is seeking us even when we are not seeking him. Augustine admits that we are just a small portion of God’s creation carrying about the signs of our mortality. But we are not left out of the possibility of an encounter and communion with God. Some may be called in the way Simon and Andrew were called -as if waiting to be touched in their own deep faithful disposition- while many others are questioning, struggling to see and hear, to comprehend the mystery of themselves and God. Augustine was one of them. That is why he insisted that we ought to seek, knock on the door and call upon the Lord.

And Isaiah spends decades at the thankless task of calling Israel to return to the Lord. Then God says to Isaiah, “One more thing. It is too little for you to be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and restore the survivors of Israel. I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.” God tells Isaiah that all along He has been planning something more for the prophet, that one day Isaiah’s words will be heard far beyond the borders of Israel. We are the fulfillment of that prophecy. We hear his words – we, who live in a land Isaiah never knew existed, at a time in history he could never have imagined.

Jesus in his preaching made it very clear that we cannot make his message of universal salvation real for us unless we love God and love each other. But we cannot love what we will not understand. Jesus came to save all humans but all humans will not necessarily be saved… mostly because we continue to treat some of our brothers and sisters as discards of the human species, not worthy of our attention much less our love.