Homily for the 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time
February 12, 2022
Knights of Columbus Board Meeting
Nuestra Señora de la Leche y Buen Parto; St. Augustine, FL
Introduction: Spiritual Dryness
Sometimes people tell me that they experience spiritual dryness. They feel distant from God and struggle to grow spiritually. Some feel as though they are inwardly withering up – like the leaves of a tree that has been deprived of water. At times, spiritual dryness could be a sign of progress in the interior life. The Lord seems distance himself from some souls to deepen their faith and to draw them more fully into his loving embrace. But many others who claim to be dry are responsible for their own aridity. They don’t read Scripture; they don’t take time to pray; they skip Sunday Mass; and they live in ways that put them at enmity with God.
The reading from Jeremiah and the responsorial psalm describe to a tee those who are ‘spiritually hydrated’, and those who have made themselves arid. Those who are wrapped up in their own security and comfort, wither spiritually. They are ‘like chaff which the wind blows away.’ By contrast, those blessed in God’s eyes refuse to become entangled in evil. Instead, they meditate on God’s Word, “day and night” – that is to say – they truly take God’s Word to heart and live accordingly. Such people are “like a tree planted near streams of water, that yield its fruit in due season and whose leaves do not wither.” They are indeed “happy”, “blessed”.
The Beatitudes
Jeremiah and our psalm response point us towards the definitive path to genuine happiness that Jesus gives us in the Beatitudes. He teaches that we will be happy, fortunate in the eyes of God – if we are poor, if we are hungry, if we mourn, if we are persecuted. And Jesus doesn’t stop there. Those who are rich, those who have plenty to eat, and those who laugh – are accursed. We should never fail to be amazed at “the great reversal” in the Beatitudes. Jesus teaches that we will find enduring happiness in the very things we think would make us unhappy: poverty, hunger, sadness, persecution. He attaches a curse to things we often think will make us happy.
Jesus’ words will baffle us until we see them as a reflection of himself. Who was poor? The Son of Man who had nowhere to lay his head. Who was hungry? Jesus who fasted in the desert for forty days. Who mourned? The Lord who wept for our sins in the Garden. Who was persecuted? The Lord of glory who hung from the tree. The Beatitudes are not a moralistic list of do’s and don’ts, but rather a profile, an image, of who Christ was, and who he still is . . . risen, exalted, but still bearing the wounds of love, and pleading for us at the right hand of the God Father. True disciples find true happiness in no one else but Jesus. True disciples find true happiness in becoming like Christ by participating in his life.
Pope Benedict XVI once wrote that to be “in heaven” is to live in Christ Jesus. Heaven is not a distant place with wide boulevards and lush golf courses. Rather, we are “in heaven” – we flourish, we are happy – to the degree that our lives are rooted in Christ and irrigated by his love. As Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well, “Whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst. The water I shall give will become in him a spring welling up to eternal life” (Jn 4:14). This endless stream of water that flows from Jesus’ wounded side reaches us in the waters of Baptism by which we were immersed in Jesus’ death and resurrection. When those waters flow through us unobstructed, we neither fade nor wither, but rather we grow and flourish in joy, no matter how old or infirm we may become.
Blessed are we if those waters overflow our inmost hearts, spilling over into our thoughts, attitudes, words, relationships, and finally our deeds. As the life of Christ takes root and grows stronger in our hearts, we gradually take on the features of Christ – whatever vocation may be ours – reaching a point in our lives where truly we are poor, wholly reliant on God’s Providence, not on our own meagre resources; reaching a point where we truly do hunger and thirst for righteousness and holiness; reaching a point where we mourn over injury and evil and rejoice with the truth; reaching a point where we are truly happy to suffer for the sake of Jesus’ Name. This is not the world’s definition of happiness, but Christ’s definition, a definition that he wrote not with pen and ink but with our humanity. Any promise of happiness that is limited to earthly horizons does not do us justice. Only the paradoxical happiness Jesus offers us fully corresponds to who we are: finite, earthly creatures made for eternal friendship with God.
Our Lady of La Leche
No disciple participated more deeply in the Christ-life than did Mary. Even as she carried Jesus in her womb, Mary foreshadowed the Beatitudes. In her canticle, the Magnificat, Mary sang of the God who “scattered the proud in their conceit,” who “cast the mighty from their thrones,” who “filled the hungry with good things”, “who sent the rich away empty.” As Mary gave birth to Christ and nurtured him with maternal love, she took on the features of God’s Son “who humbled himself to share our humanity”. Was Mary poor? Was she hungry? Did she weep? Was she persecuted? All of that and more, culminating in the crucifixion of her beloved Son. Because she shared so fully in his Passion, so now she shares fully in his victory.
Though reigning in heaven, Mary remains close to us, her children. The Blessed Mother wants nothing more than to bring forth in us the image of her Son – the Christ of the Beatitudes. Our spiritual mother wants to nurture in us the Christ-life implanted in our souls at Baptism with the milk of her maternal love, with her example of faith and fidelity, and through her powerful intercession in the halls of heaven.
In this beautiful Shrine, the Mission of Nombre de Dios, the Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche, let us invoke Mary’s loving maternal intercession for us her children, that Christ might be formed and nurtured in us and in our families. Thus will we be continually renewed and strengthened to engage in that mission which Blessed Michael McGivney has entrusted to us in the name of God. Vivat Jesus!