Sermons
30th Sunday Ordinary Time A – Oct 25th 2020
In this homily, I would like to take you on a small trip through some thoughts of St Ignatius – as you know, he is the founder of my order, the Jesuits.
Let us have a look at the gospel (Mt 22 34-40): the teacher of the Law thinks he is going to confuse Jesus with his question about the greatest command, and Jesus answers simply by reciting the daily Jewish prayer called the Shema (“Hear!”). It is so named after a sentence the book of Deuteronomy 6:4-9, which begins: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. Therefore, you shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.”
Jesus then goes beyond the question by quoting what he calls “the second command”: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” which comes from another book of the Law, from Leviticus 19:18. What could be simpler? What could be more obvious? I trust that few if any Jews would disagree. And every Christian knows about this question and the answer Jesus gave. In his response to the lawyer’s question, Jesus is quite clear that loving God is indeed the first and greatest commandment.
But how does one take seriously this command to love the invisible God? Concretely love the invisible God, practically love the invisible God? Do you have to become a monk or a religious sister?
St. Ignatius took this command with full seriousness. He even dared to work out a set of “how-to” notes for himself and for the Jesuits, his companions – and for us all who want to follow Jesus, who want to act like him. The notes of St Ignatius comprise the final contemplation in his Spiritual Exercises – the Jesuits do them at least twice in our lives, in their full form they last 30 days - in silence.
This final contemplation is called “Contemplation to Attain the Love of God” referring not to God's love of us, which is always given, but the title “Contemplation to Attain the Love of God” refers to our love of God, which always needs coaching.
Ignatius begins by calling the retreatant’s attention to the simple reality that love consists more in deeds than in words, that lovers give what they have to one another. Then Ignatius instructs the retreatant, instructs us to place ourselves in the presence of the Lord and the communion of saints. Ignatius instructs us to ask the Lord to wake us up to a knowledge of the gifts we have received – the gifts we have received from God, of course. Ignatius instructs us to stir up gratitude “so that we may become able to love and serve the Divine Majesty in all things.”
Now the simple insight begins to dawn: the most direct way we can obey the command to love God is to pay attention to God's gifts. The remainder of the contemplation presents four concrete ways of getting in touch with those gifts of God.
The first is, and I quote Ignatius: “I will call back into my memory the gifts I have received—my creation, redemption, and other gifts particular to myself.” In other words, Ignatius suggests that we review our life story. Then Ignatius tells us to consider how much we ought to offer and give to God. Ignatius suggests at this point the famous “Suscipe” prayer, which begins, “Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and all my will—all that I have and possess. You, Lord, have given all that to me. I now give it back to you.” This would be the first way of getting in touch with those gifts of God.
The second way is to consider how God is present within all creatures — in the elements, giving them existence; in plants, giving them life; in animals, giving them sensation;
in human beings, giving them intelligence, and finally, how in this way, God dwells also in myself, giving me existence, life sensation, and intelligence; and even further, making me God’s temple, since I am created as a likeness and image of the divine Majesty. This would be the second way of getting in touch with those gifts of God.
The third way focuses on how God works for me “in all the creatures of the earth.”
And finally, the fourth way considers how all good things I discover in and around me are but partial reflections of their source, partial reflections of God.
When we take the command to love God seriously as “the first and greatest,” it is not hard to see how love of neighbor follows from this. When we learn to see all human beings as fellow creatures and co-recipients of God's gifts as we are, then we are enabled to love them that much more.
Fr. Wolfgang Felber; cf: https://liturgy.slu.edu/30OrdA102520/theword_hamm.html
29. Sunday A (18.10.2020)
How wonderful to hear: “We know that you are a truthful man and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. And you are not concerned with anyone’s opinion, for you do not regard a person’s status.” In brief: We know you are an honest person, a man of character. - And how infuriating to see: All this is slimy flattery, false theatre, a plot to hide the decided intention to catch the man by whatever he might say in reply to the question they want to put to him.
This procedure seems extremely modern, fully 2020. These Pharisees have made up their minds as to what they want, and are ready to use every means imaginable to get it. Since the word lie has a negative offensive ring, one speaks of fake news. Fake news is no news at all, but merely lies to achieve one’s aims. As it is ridiculous to speak of news about nothing, fake news is declared to report alternative facts, a sweet term for viciously devised verbal inventions about something to which no one honest and in his senses could ever agree that this is true and demonstrated, backed up by intelligent judgement. The direct word for such talk is “lying”, or more elegantly, “indulging in unwarranted statements”. In a nutshell, truth is discarded as folly of the honest. Looking into the media these days, one is bound to recognise that these Pharisees have plenty of offspring and imitators. Words that have nothing to do with truth and reality are lethally dangerous weapons.
Jesus is fully aware of the circumstances when the disciples of the Pharisees come to him to consult him, as they pretend, on a difficult question of practical importance. “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar?” As shrewd as they thought themselves to be, they had certainly not expected the argument with which Jesus replied. Show me the money you use! What sort of money is this? Oh, Roman money? So, you, sons of Abraham and followers of Moses, you use Roman money? Caesar’s coin? Give it back to whom it belongs!
They surely felt deeply disappointed. No way of accusing him before the colonial administration. And no way of accusing him you speak against the Law of Moses. They themselves had Roman money in their pockets, without finding that unlawful! Finally, in the end Jesus adds a lesson, clarifying the matter in principle. He makes it clear, for them as well as for us and all our social experts: There are two realms, Caesar’s and God’s, that have to be distinguished and kept separate. Both of them exist and both of them have to be respected. Both put their demands to the citizen of this world, and on either side, these demands have to be met. “Pay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God.”
Nobody is allowed to claim: I am a Jew, a member of God’s Chosen People, or I am a Christian, a member of the Catholic Church, and therefore I orientate myself by my religion, and therefore the Government, the civil administration and their laws are no concern of mine. Faith and religion can never serve as a legitimate exit from public, social and civil obligations.
And on the other hand, nobody must ever dare to set God apart or leave him out of sight in the practicalities of life. When Jesus speaks of “what belongs to God”, whatever religion or faith someone might hold, he or she will always immediately understand that in a world created by Almighty God, there is nothing anywhere that does NOT belong to him. Giving to God what belongs to him can only mean giving him everything. The little money that may belong to the emperor becomes entirely irrelevant in this context.
Fr. Dietmar Lenfers
21. Sunday A (23.08.2020)
Almost daily we are reminded by the news that the ballot box is approaching, hence we live with a heightened political sensitivity. Our first reading therefore may today stir us more that at other times. The text speaks of the past, the time of the prophet Isaiah, but with memorable relevance. We are told of politicians, persons of public influence. One of them is Shebna, master of the palace. As such he is the treasurer, something like the minister of finance in the reign of King Hezekiah. We know little about him, but he appears to have been the leader of a party who favoured a military alliance with Egypt against Assyria. That must surely count as bad strategy, something profoundly godless, because it went directly against what Yahweh had ordered his people through the prophets: No return to Egypt!. More serious however is something else that manifests itself by the description of his successor, a man who is introduced as my servant Eliakim, son of Hilkiah. Obviously he is the opposite of Shebna, a visible contrast. We hear of Eliakim: He shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, exactly what Shebna failed to be. So Israel is given this consolation: A public authority that lacks paternal care for those under its rule is fired and replaced, by Yahweh, the Master of all history, for from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen, as St. Paul assured us in the second reading.
Let us turn to the gospel. Jesus asks a question: What do people say about me? And then, But who do you say that I am? What do YOU say about me? Obviously, everyone of us here would know something to say about Jesus. Otherwise we would not have come to church today. But what do we have to say about him? In our neighbourhoods we will find many people who were not brought up in a Christian tradition. When they ask, “you often talk of Jesus Christ; who is this person really?”, what will you reply?
Certainly, there is no simple answer that might be helpful. One can, and should, of course present all the information that the gospels provide. Jesus was a Jew, living about 2000 years ago, in Palestine, north west of Lake Genesaret, a handy man, joiner or carpenter, later giving up this profession when he started to move across the region trying to explain the religion of their fathers to his contemporaries, to renew and reform their faith and practice. However, the ruling authorities of his time did not see any need for reform, and they would not tolerate any criticism. So they soon intervened, and with Jesus’ execution they wished to stop this whole affair once and for good.
Beyond doubt, that would be a correct answer. But of course, it is not complete. For it conceals the extraordinary impact Jesus’ teaching had on those who directly witnessed his way of life and heard him teach. They were impressed by his personality. Hence they continued to talk about this Jesus, otherwise he would be as forgotten today as all the other people of his village for whom he did carpentry work. But Jesus proved unforgettable. Those who had met him were so fascinated that they found it impossible adequately to explain their experience. Even after he had been killed, they were sure they had met him, ate with him, talked with him, received orders from him to make him known everywhere, “I am with you always, until the end of the world”. For them, the Church, he clearly is the centre of world history. The great event!
However, there is also this other question of Jesus from which we must not try to escape. “But who do YOU say who I am?” This is an intimate personal question. It cannot be answered by quoting the Bible or the Catechism of the Church. For what Jesus wants to hear is this: What role do I play in your life? Do I matter to you?
Fr. Dietmar Lenfers