Divine Repetition

There are a lot of reasons why people might tune out of listening to a homily.

One reason might be the priest’s voice is annoying or monotone.

Or even that he’s speaking some words you don’t understand and you lose attention. Another reason might be stuff going on around the church. That kid staring at you combined with your short attention span you’re lost.

But another reason might be because you’re listening and you think, “I’ve heard this before. I know that.” You might think why is this priest repeating the same thing?

I agree repetition can lose someone’s focus. But any good teacher knows that if they want their students to learn and have certain teachings really stick, they have to repeat.

Even when students study, repetition with flashcards helps you memorize.

St Paul in his many letters he’s written, writes to the Philippians, and warns them that he’s going to repeat things. They might be thinking, doesn’t that bother you? He says no, it doesn’t bother me to repeat these things because it’s safe for you to hear it again and be reminded!

Jesus today in the Gospel is greeted by the disciples after he’s told them to go out and minister and they’re really shocked why they were not able to cast out a demon.

And here, he’s irked, he seems bothered that they don’t know that it’s because of their little faith.

I did a search for the words faith, believe, faithful, in the gospels and it’s mentioned 123 times. That’s a lot of times it’s repeated.

Jesus is not telling them to have LARGE faith, but faith the size of a mustard seed. Which is small and microscopic.

What can stop us from this? What are these mountains standing in between us having transformative faith? St. Paul mentions this in his letter.

Doing everything right. If we think that doing everything right will make everything go well, we’ll be mistaken. Following the commands of God, begins the process of healing in ourself and brings order in our relationship with God, while still knowing the world is out of order!

St. Paul also mentions the fear of loss of what we have can hold us back from going all in. We can be afraid thinking, I’ll lose time, I’ll lose my personality, I’ll lose my ability to enjoy life, I’ll lose friendships, or relationships. St. Paul mentions that he counts all these as TRASH/REFUSE compared to the incomparable joy of knowing and being in relationship with Jesus.

Finally, he mentions that in his pursuit of growing with God, he says one thing he does is he forgets what lies behind. He makes sure not to dwell on the mistakes of the past knowing God has and will deliver him. He’s also careful not to let his accomplishments in the past from making him comfortable and complacent. What he focuses instead is looking at the prize ahead.

The good news of this repetition today is that God doesn’t give up on you and me. He continues this good work of teaching and will only stop when we really GET IT.

Once we move these mountains of expectation of things going perfect, let go of the fear of what we have to lose, let go of this stronghold of the past, we can be free to have this faith to put away the devil’s clutches in our life and experience God’s goodness and joy always!