Homily OT (B) 21st Sunday - Pact of Shechem

CAPTATIO: When loved ones leave

Good evening. I am Deacon Andrew, from the United States, and it’s a pleasure for me to be visiting this parish tonight.

· I was ordained just a few weeks ago, and God willing, I will be ordained a priest in December of this year.

· So, I am very grateful for your prayers.

· Please excuse my Italian. I will make a few mistakes, but I promise to try my best.

Since I am very far away from home, I think it’s okay if I share a very personal family story

· When I was in high school, my big sister, Cara, called home from college, and told my mother that she was abandoning the Catholic Church. A professor of hers made her lose her faith.

· Of course my mother was distraught, thinking, “Oh no, what will become of my daughter?”

· Did Cara know what she was saying goodbye to?

o the means of salvation Christ gave us

o the teachings of the Church and the sacraments: the priesthood, Eucharist, confession...

o This was frightening!

· Perhaps, someone close to you has drifted away or gone over to other faiths.

· I reflected more deeply than ever on this question, “What difference does it make to be Catholic?”

That’s a profound question, one that emerges from today’s Gospel.

LESSON: Our Faith Matures through Testing

Today we are presented with a profound, disturbing mystery.

· St John tells us that our Lord's teaching about the Eucharist, which we have been following over the last few Sundays, was so difficult, so shocking, that "many of his disciples" simply refused to accept it.

· As a result, they stopped following Jesus and returned to "their former way of life."

Picture the scene.

A large crowd of people surrounds our Lord in the synagogue of Capernaum. Many of them witnessed the incredible miracle of the multiplication of the loaves just the day before.And yet, when he tells them about the Eucharist, about his plan to become truly present under the appearances of bread and wine so that his divine life will become our nourishment, …they turn their backs on him. God's creatures turn their backs on their Creator.We can only imagine how painful that was for him.

I remember a gift my father wanted to give me when I was six years old.

· He sent me off with my mother and sisters on a summer trip to Italy and promised that when I returned, he’d buy me my first bicycle.

· After our vacation, Dad picked us up from the airport and drove us home.

· During the trip, I was so excited by my father’s promise that the idea consumed my thoughts, but I did not dare remind him of his generous offer.

· Besides, I had no right to so big a gift.

· As we approached the front door with our luggage in hand, my father looked at me.

· “Do you remember what I promised before you went to Italy?”

· I was exhilarated that he was finally mentioning it. Then he opened the door.

· In the middle of the living room, a shiny red bicycle was waiting for me.

· I dropped my suitcase and celebrated with unrestrained joy.

· Seeing how content I was, my father, glowed with satisfaction.

But imagine if the unthinkable had taken place. Imagine if I showed no joy in his gift.

· Imagine if I saw the bicycle and simply remained indifferent and simply proceeded upstairs with my suitcase.

· I don’t know if anything could have wounded my father’s heart as much.

But this is the precisely the kind of pain Jesus feels.

· He is promising them his most precious gift, the gift of his own divine life, a spiritual food that makes us one with God eternally, and they don’t care.

· So indifferent are they to his gift, they leave him

And so he looks at his closest disciples, the Twelve, the ones he has chosen to become the foundation stones of his Church.

He doesn't offer some kind of watered down explanation of the Eucharist in order to convince them to stick around.He simply asks them: "Do you also want to leave?"

It was a moment of crisis.

The Twelve didn't understand, rationally speaking, the mysterious doctrine of the Eucharist any more completely than everybody else.So why did they continue to follow the Lord?Because they trusted in him, in his person.They put more faith in the person of Jesus Christ, the Lord, than in their own limited ability to understand God.

And that was a wise thing to do.

By consciously exercising their faith in the midst of that crisis, and not just depending on their own limited, error-prone understanding, they lifted their spiritual maturity to a whole new level.

ILLUSTRATION: The Pact of Shechem

Testing doesn't always come in ways that we expect.

· We tend to think of difficulties, injustices, struggles, and suffering as the usual challenges to our faith.

· But sometimes success and prosperity can be equally challenging.

That's what happened to Joshua and the people of Israel in today's First Reading.

This passage from the Book of Joshua is part of what is known as the Pact of Shechem.Shechem was centrally located in Palestine, and therefore a good meeting place for the different tribes.It also had religious significance.Abraham had built an altar there when God first appeared to him, promising to make his descendants a great nation in a new land (Gen 12). The patriarch Jacob had bought land there (Gen 33) and buried some left-over Mesopotamian idols there (Gen 35). God renames Jacob Israel and renews the covenant with him.I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply (remember Adam). A nation and a company of nations shall come from you (remember Abraham), and kings shall come from your own body (remember Isaac). The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, and I will give the land to your offspring after you.” (Gen 25:11-12)

When Joshua called the tribes together at Shechem (Josh 24), therefore, it was an important event.

It took place at the end of Joshua's long and successful career as Israel's leader.Joshua had taken over after the death of Moses, leading the people into the Promised Land and then masterminding their conquest of that land.Under his rule, Israel had experienced political, economic, and cultural prosperity and success.

And yet, as he feels death coming on, Joshua considers it necessary to call a gathering of all the tribes.

And at that gathering he challenges them to consciously renew their commitment to God.He knows that prosperity can breed arrogance and laziness.He knows that the idol worship of the nations they had conquered, the nations they now inhabit, was still seductive.He recognizes that if the Israelites are going to keep their faith alive and strong in this new chapter of their history, they need to make a firm, conscious renewal of their most deeply held convictions.If you will not serve the Lord, choose today whom you wish to serve, whether the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are now living. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

In our lives too, whether we are experiencing crisis or the temptation that comes when all is going smoothly, we need to make our own pact of Shechem, reaffirming our commitment to serve Christ.

As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

APPLICATION: Serve in Freedom

A mature faith is, among other things, a conscious faith.

Jesus doesn't want us to remain spiritual infants for our whole lives.Rather, he wants us to follow him in freedom and in love, fully aware of what we are doing.When he allows trials and tests to come our way, it gives us a chance to deepen that awareness, to exercise our freedom and our love.And when we exercise them, we strengthen them.God wants mature followers, not robots, zombies, or fanatics.

Our God is so passionately in love with us, that he will never betray our freedom.

· But this implies that we have the possibility of walking away from him.

· So we return to the question, “What difference does it make if I stay Catholic or not?”

I thank God that, after a year of trying on atheism, my sister Cara came back to Christianity

· She has a genuine love for Jesus and strives sincerely to be a good disciple.

· Nevertheless, she has not returned to the Catholic Church. She has not settled in any particular community.

· I’m confident that our Lord is constantly drawing her back to the only Church which possesses all the means of salvation.

· Let’s pray for all of our loved ones, that they may know the hope that comes in belonging to the instrument of salvation.

· Because while it is true that those can be saved, who through no fault of their own, do not know Christ or his Gospel, by following the dictates of their conscience, they honor God with upright lives, BUT

· What guarantee do we have? Are we willing to risk being in doubt about our own salvation, when Christ has clearly marked out the path to our eternal home, the way of sanctification.

Only Christ saves, there is no other. “No one comes to the Father except through me.”

· To whom shall we go? Ghandi, Scientology, Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons, Protestants, Buddhists, New Age

· The 2nd Reading tells us that Christ is one with the Church, as the head is one with the body

· We are incorporated into that body when washed in the waters of baptism.

· We are sanctified and made holy through the Church. All salvation through the Church!

Rejoice then in the Father’s abundant gifts! And renew your commitment to lovingly serve him as sons and daughters

· As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord

Lord, how am I serving you?

· Do I come to worship, motivated by duty, as servants?

· Or do I come as a son, motivated by love?

· Have I embraced his gifts joyfully?

· Or am I indifferent to the one who died that I might have eternal life in him?