Partners in the Passion

 

Deacon Dave · Partners in the Passion

Homily for the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 20, 2025. Scripture: Colossians 1:24-28. Theme: Partners in the Passion 

 Today’s second reading from St. Paul which mentions the role of suffering is a very important one for our times in which there is a growing disregard for the value and dignity of human life. In 1984, Pope St. John Paul II wrote a letter to all Christians called On Human Suffering. In it he emphasized the biblical concept of redemptive suffering, which means that we can share in the saving work of Jesus Christ and find deeper meaning in dealing with pain. The Holy Father reminded us in this letter that the bad news of suffering can be transformed into part of the Good News of Jesus Christ! 

 This is a very important concept to know about in our times in which there is a growing movement to respond to the problem of pain and suffering with the solution of murder or suicide. Of course, to make it sound better its promoters usually qualify it with words like “Physician Assisted” or simply call it “Mercy Killing”. But as William Shakespeare put it, “ a rose by any other name still smells as sweet.” And so, no amount of dressing it up should fool us as to the true horror and inhumanity of this contemporary movement to exterminate the terminally sick and suffering. And let’s not be blind to the fact that it’s already being applied beyond its original intention of eliminating pain and now also includes eliminating the feeble elderly, the mentally ill and the physically disabled. 

 While everyone agrees that pain and suffering are things to be avoided whenever possible, the response of death as the solution is really a response of “practical atheism”. And sadly this godless attitude can be found even among people of faith, including some who attend Mass regularly. It’s called “practical” because while such people might not formally declare atheism as their intellectual belief, they act as though it was. It leads them to deny the existence and dominion of God as the Lord of Life and puts themselves in His place. And so, such people say that if someone experiences suffering without any foreseeable possibility of improvement, then it’s better, even “merciful”, to just end it all. 

 This atheistic way of looking at life sees people as nothing more than animals. There is no room in it for the existence of an immortal spiritual soul in human beings. And so the solution is the same that they would come up with for their pets: just “put them down” when suffering gets to be too much and “put them out of their misery”. But we need to look at those countries which have already enacted this solution of legalized death and see that it easily becomes what many have called a ”slippery slope”. Their experience shows us that while the euthanasia movement begins by appealing to a sense of human compassion, it inevitably goes on to include the selective killing of the aged, the terminally ill, infants born with Down Syndrome (or some other abnormality), and actually ends up including any and all who are judged to be incapable of “living a good quality of life” as the government or some other entity might define it. 

 But the Christian understanding of how to respond to suffering is the polar opposite. We cherish every human life as a precious gift from the Creator. We acknowledge that He alone has the dominion and authority to give life or to take it away. And in the light of the Passion of Christ we have been shown how to deal with the inevitability of pain in a positive, proactive and powerful manner. We call it “redemptive suffering” and we find its Scriptural basis in today’s second reading where St. Paul says: “I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church” (Col. 1:24). 

 Now, many are surprised to hear St. Paul’s words about something “lacking” in the Passion of Christ, for how can anything be lacking in the Lord’s perfect sacrifice on the Cross? Pope St. John Paul II explained it quite simply by first pointing out that Jesus Himself lacked absolutely nothing in His sufferings for us. But then the Holy Father goes on to remind us that Christ intentionally made our participation in His Passion a component of its overall reality. In other words, our suffering is not isolated from the suffering of Jesus. When we are baptized we become members of the Mystical Body of Christ and as such, our sufferings in life become pieces of the “Passion Puzzle”, so to speak. And so this means that the one thing that can be lacking in the Passion of Christ is me! But if I join my sufferings to those of Christ, if I “fill up what is lacking” as St. Paul puts it, then I am making my contribution to the Passion and my suffering takes on a spiritual supernatural purpose. I am putting my piece into that Passion Puzzle. 

 This was why St. Paul wrote that he was rejoicing about suffering. You see, he knew that when we suffer and offer it in union with Jesus, we become part of the most beautiful and perfect love ever shown for God and man. When we suffer in unity with Jesus then He walks with us through that suffering, He upholds us and never leaves us alone. And so redemptive suffering is a positive, proactive and powerful to the pains that come our way. It is a way to draw closer to Christ, to become like Christ and to love like Christ! And it is also a way to join with Him in obtaining blessings for others. 

 “Redemptive" comes from the root word “redeem” which means to rescue, to set free, to ransom. By His Passion and Cross, Christ the Redeemer rescued us and set us free from the powers and kingdom of darkness. He ransomed us from living in slavery to sin and selfishness. And so by intentionally joining our personal passion to His, it becomes a form of intercessory prayer calling down those very same graces of rescue and ransom upon others. And so, for the Christian there is no such thing as “wasted pain” because Jesus never refuses anything given out of love and so He accepts our offering and makes us partners in the Passion!

Who is My Neighbor?

 

Deacon Dave · Who is My Neighbor?

Homily for the Liturgy of the 15th Sunday of Ordinary Time, July 13, 2025. Gospel of St. Luke 10:25-37. Theme: Who Is My Neighbor? 

 The scholar in today’s Gospel is a man who knows all the right answers. After all, that’s his job. You see, in Judaism a scribe was a professional in teaching others about the law of God. Putting it in contemporary Catholic terms we would say that the scribe was a canon lawyer. It seems like he must’ve been pretty darn sure of himself because St. Luke tells us that he is testing Jesus and not asking a sincere question. And the Gospel points out something else that would be a clue as to the scribe’s cocky attitude: it says he was standing before Jesus. Now, in ancient Jewish culture one sat in the presence of a rabbi or a teacher, as a sign of respect and to show openness to hearing what he has to say. 

 Notice that Jesus doesn't actually answer the question asked. Instead, he tells a parable that must’ve turned the scribe's smugness upside down! Because the hero of the story isn’t a Jewish scribe or Pharisee but a Samaritan, a member of a people who were despised by the Israelites. In the beginning, they had been but one people descended from Abraham and ruled by the great King David. Then, about 700 years before Jesus, Israel was invaded. The upper and middle classes were brought out of the country and kept as slaves in what is today called Iraq. The lower class that was left behind decided it was best to get along and so they began to intermarry with the occupying forces. Then about 70 years later the captive-but-now-freed Jews returned home and they were shocked to find out what those who had been left behind had done! They had polluted the People of God by marrying pagans and had even adopted some of their religious practices! These half-breed Jews were called Samaritans because they lived in a region of the Holy Land called Samaria. They were shunned as traitors, religious heretics, and political enemies of Israel and so there began a centuries-long family feud. This animosity was so bad that Jews traveling from one end of the nation to the other would add days to their journey by going around Samaria instead of taking a shortcut through it. 

 So, we can imagine the looks on the faces of the scribe and others when Jesus talks about a Good Samaritan! And to add insult to injury, Christ went even further by making two members of the Jewish clergy the moral cowards of His story. Both a priest and a Levite see a terribly injured and beaten man in need of help and yet they cross the street and keep going about their business. Most likely because Jewish law forbids them to come into contact with blood or death if they wished to remain ritually clean and lead the people in the worship that day. And so they put their religious laws above the divine law commanding love for one’s neighbor. They used religion as an excuse to withhold compassionate care compassion from a needy person. 

 But Jesus holds up a Samaritan of all people to be the one who correctly understands religion and comes to the rescue of his neighbor. He wants us to see that the kind of person whom we would least expect, the kind of guy everyone might just "write off" as being beyond God's reach, well... he just might be more righteous than even the religious leaders of Israel! This Samaritan reminds us that God looks at the heart of a person and that true religion involves actions that reflect love and compassion, rather than mere rituals or outward appearances. The parable of the Good Samaritan is teaching us that every person in need is our neighbor. Everyone without exception deserves our love and compassion in their suffering, no matter who they are or where they are from. Citizen status, political platforms, religious or ethnic differences are never an excuse in the eyes of God and in the heart of Christ to ignore the needs of another human being. 

 Jesus teaches us to look beyond those things which divide us and that set us at odds with one another. He calls us to honor the image and likeness of God in all human beings and treat them with the dignity they deserve. In today’s Gospel and every day, Jesus is calling us to become something far greater than we think we can become. He is asking us to go beyond ourselves, out of our comfort zones, and to love in a way that seems impossible if left to our own devices. But the awesome thing is that He doesn’t leave us to our own devices. He comes to us, comes to live inside us, comes to love within us and love others through us, by means of His Personal Presence in the Eucharist that we receive. In this way, through our intimate union with Him, He makes it possible for us to love God wholeheartedly and to love our neighbor because God loves them. And this transformation within ourselves should be as incredible and amazing to us as a Samaritan being called “good” was to the Jews!

We’ve Got Good News!

 

Deacon Dave · 250705_001

Homily for the 14th Sunday of Ordinary Time. July 6, 2025. Gospel of St. Luke 10:1-12, 17-20. Theme: We’ve Got Good News! 

 Today's Liturgy is all about evangelization, a word that means, "spreading the Gospel". It comes from the Latin word for Gospel which is evangelion and quite simply means "good news." The crafters of Christian vocabulary in the early Church thought this was an excellent word to describe the message from and about Jesus. After all, the Gospel is the very best of Good News! But if we are going to be its messengers then obviously we need to know what this Good News is. St. John has helped us out here because in his Gospel he has given us a one sentence summary of the Good News that is utterly easy to memorize. It goes like this: “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (Jn 3:16). 

 So, that’s a short summary of what we mean by Good News. But there’s more to our mission of evangelization than just knowing about it. We are supposed to share it with others, especially those who have never heard it. And this is why our Liturgy today presents us with the Gospel story of Jesus sending out teams of missionary disciples. Notice that the reading says Jesus chose 72 others, meaning that those missionaries were distinct from the Twelve Apostles. This shows us that Jesus works through all of His followers and not just the leaders of the Church. Everyone who is baptized has a share in this mission of evangelization. And everyone who receives the Sacrament of Confirmation is further equipped by the Holy Spirit to carry it out. 

 St. Luke wants us to learn from this passage that we are like those "72 others" whom Jesus sent out to evangelize. Just as they went out to prepare people for Christ's arrival, so we are to go ahead of Jesus who wants to arrive in the hearts of those with whom we live, work and socialize. But in doing so we have to be messengers whose manner and words do not destroy the message! This means that to share the Good News most effectively, we need to follow some directives that Jesus gave to His missionary disciples in our Gospel reading today. 

 First, Jesus said, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few.” By these words He invites us to actively and positively take up our mission and become laborers for the Gospel. There are many people suffering, struggling and seeking answers in life. They are ready to receive the Good News of Christ if only someone (that is, you and me!) would share it with them. So we need to commit to being missionary disciples, laborers in the harvest, who share with others what Jesus and the Faith has done for us in our lives and what He can do in theirs. This is called being a “witness” or sharing your “testimony”. 

 Second, as Christians we live in what is best described as a post-Christian society. This means that the faith and values of Christianity that formed the foundation of Western Civilization are no longer a significant moral force. Sometimes we will agree with our culture and many other times we will not, which can make us feel vulnerable, or as Jesus put it, to “be like lambs among wolves.” But as missionary disciples we must be prepared and ready to face opposition in order to remain faithful to Jesus. Christ calls us to be counter-cultural which means to live and think according to God’s Word. 

 Third, as evangelizers, we are to trust completely in the Lord and not in ourselves. That is one reason why Jesus instructed the missionary disciples to “carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals.” These 72 others were to rely on God to provide for their needs and we are meant to do the same. We trust in a Power greater than ourselves (the Holy Spirit) to equip us with what we need to spread the Good News. We know that if we keep the Kingdom of God as first in our lives then all that we truly need will be provided in one way or another. And this includes giving us the words that we need to say and the intuition on how to say them to each person in their need. 

 Fourth, the line about "shaking off the dust" reminds us that while we are called to share Christ with everyone, we cannot force anyone to convert. Jesus never ever coerced anyone to follow Him or believe in Him. He simply invited and made it possible. Bringing Christ to others and sharing the Good News with them is a great privilege and honor, but we have to remember that it is a person’s free choice whether or not to receive the Good News. There are many natural and non-confrontational ways to share Christ in our daily conversations and interactions, but if someone rejects the message, then we simply move on and never force the issue. When it becomes apparent that we cannot “speak Christ” to someone, then we just focus on “being Christ” to them by our behavior. Quite often, this in itself is the most powerful form of evangelization that there is because it is done by the example of one’s life, by someone who not just “talks the talk” but “walks the walk”.