Fr. Charlie’s Homily – 30^th Sunday in Ordinary Time – October 25, 2020 9:30 am
In Matthew’s gospel, we are in that part of it where Jesus had already gone up to Jerusalem and told some parables, but imminent will be his passion and his death. And people were coming up trying to trap him.  So remember last week, it was the Herodians, who were in cahoots with Rome, and were trying to trap him with the payment of the tax to Caesar, cornering him and Jesus’ getting out very easily.  So, today they did a teacher of the law, says “what’s the greatest commandment?” 

And as we keep reviewing that Old Testament understanding of God is a God of judgement; kept track of every time you overstepped your boundary, punished you when you did; that this was the moral code – The Ten Commandments.  At least for me growing up, I remember when we went to confession we always examined our conscience according to The Ten Commandments.  So, I went to church on Sunday; I didn’t kill anyone; I didn’t commit adultery, at least at that age; and so I felt “well, I’m a pretty good Christian. I’ve got this all down.” 

Well, those were sins of commission and we never got into the sins of omission.  It was mentioned, but it’s that we used that to reflect upon and so out of those ten commandments there came six hundred precepts of the law and pretty much being very restrictive.  Today is an exception in that first reading where the focus becomes on the other that if they aren’t faithful to this Shema – the prayer in the gospel, ‘loving God with all your heart, mind and soul, which a faithful Jew would proclaim each day, would pray each day, that it did require, even in the Old Testament was Hesed, this covenant love, that you take care of the widow; you take care of the orphan; you take care of the alien because you were aliens once yourself.  So, we have that described in the Old Testament, but it isn’t ‘til Jesus in the New Testament makes that the center – “what is the greatest of the law?”  And Jesus comes down to that just simply, that the Love of God and the second is like it.  It’s not the second; the second’s like it…it’s almost the two were one in this love.  If you have God’s spirit of love within you, there’s no way you can exclude any person on this planet…the alien.

And that’s the biggest question for us today, when we continue to find ourselves being split apart.  So much divisiveness in the world. 
We are celebrating world priesthood Sunday, focusing on the importance priesthood.  When I went here at St. Mary’s, there were four priests in the Rectory.  Today, in Lorain County there are four pastors that have two parishes.  And that’s, I think, reflective of the Spirit.  I think that in the family circle there is that generosity; there is that depth of faith; people are gonna [sic] hear that call. 

I joke with my nephew, (in) seventh grade, now maybe I had ulterior motives ‘cause I didn’t want to milk cows, but I was in the seminary my freshman year in high school.  He went out to California, he had a degree in sound technology, he worked in the muppet studio – meeting all these people – and then one day had this vision, had this moment, had this conversion and felt called in a very special way to serve in priesthood.  So it took him thirty years to figure that out, but I think that’s because we are so distracted – there’s so much – that blinds us to these important questions of life, and then we wonder why we feel empty inside.  We wonder why that the suicide rate keeps going up.  It’s because we are not addressing what is our primary purpose on this earth.  And I would submit to you, that this, this is what we gather together here to do. 

And so, if we focus on the need for priests – I think it’s interesting to point out – if you read through the New Testament, you won’t find a priest in there anywhere, only the high priest that serves at the altar in Jerusalem.  Remember for the faithful Jew, that they would do their Liturgy of the Word in the synogogues, but the only place they could worship was in Jerusalem at the Temple. 

And so, the idea of sacrifice being offered by a priest – that cult – was not recognized or that was centered there for the early Christians.  It wasn’t until the Temple was destroyed in 70 AD, that we begin to see in the New Testament, moments of reflection like in Romans 8, “make of your lives, living sacrifices.”  Not those poor animals, God doesn’t need steak or a loin chop.  It’s our life…”my life is being poured out like a libation,” Paul says, in Colossians.  That what we are doing is when we use those terms and moving from the presbyter in the New Testament, the elder who presided over that common meal, the eucharist, is now taken on a cultic sacrificial dimension.  It became overemphasized, I think, in the sacrifice of the Mass, where the priest had his back to the people, mumbled in Latin for the benefit of his people, those sinners out there, that the blood of Christ would “buy back” their lives, their souls.

I think going back, and this is what Vatican II did to the original bible texts and the church fathers saw in that communal meal the more significant element. 
So, the sacrifice that this priest is offering is US.  That the point of bringing this eucharist, Christ into our lives, is so that we can grab on, we can follow him.  We die to self, we nail that selfish self to the cross just as he was nailed to the cross and allows that Spirit to come in.  And the Spirit becomes the operating principle.  It’s the Spirit – if God’s Spirit is dwelling within us, then how can we not love and respect every creature of God.  That’s what changes our world.
And, as I said before in this day and age; look at poor Pope Francis, the guff he’s taking in trying to bring this compassion, this love that is the gospel of Jesus and all the pushback he’s getting…”he’s breaking all the rules, he’s a heretic, he’s not even the Pope” - the stuff that’s coming out, where he’s trying to take us deeper into the mystery of God’s love because in this eucharist, we bring our lives to offertory  (unintelligible), not the poor animal, it’s our lives.  We place it on this altar and we consecrate all that we do, all that we are.  By consecrating we mean we join it to Christ, we make it holy, it shares in the divine love itself.

And so, the privilege of being able to gather – and that’s why it’s so sad in this difficult time, where not only is there divisiveness in our society and culture, but even nature is doing it to us; how important, how significant it is, this faith we have in the mystery Jesus’ dying and rising, that we celebrate that mystery; that we stay faithful to that mystery through these difficult times, that through that mystery, we die to ourselves; that we do everything we can to be in tune with the Father’s will; to be in tune with the Spirit dwelling within us, so that our lives reflect, our lives reflect this goodness and love of God in the world. 
Interesting, the letter to the Thessalonians is probably the earliest, probably the first writing of the New Testament, the gospels were written much later.  But, somewhere around 50-52 AD, after Paul evangelized Thessalonica, sends a letter back to ‘em [sic], in praising them for living their Christian life and how that love was so attractive when people saw the care and the love that Christians had for one another, they wanted to be part of it. 

I don’t know that we have that problem today, but I think that’s where we need to go.  And maybe with all the struggle going on in the church with the scandal and everything else, maybe it’s us, gathering around this table, celebrating this eucharist that is going to be the renewal; the renewal of the life of faith, the life of faith in the church, and not only in the church but even in our world.