Here is this Sunday's homily - sorry I've been so terrible about not adding them (tempus fugit). I welcome any comments you might want to make or checking any of the ratings boxes immediately below the post. God's blessings to each of you!
Resp. Psalm: Ps. 66:1-3, 4-5, 6-7, 16, 20
2nd Reading: Galatians 6:14-18
Gospel: Luke 10:1-12, 17-20 (OR Luke 10:1-9 {short version})
FOCUS: Promoting vocations is the work
of the whole Church.
Location: Saint Joseph’s Catholic Church
(Earlville, IA) – 8 a.m. Sunday
Saint Boniface Catholic Church
(New Vienna, IA) – 10 a.m. Sunday
Date: Sunday July 7th, 2013
(14th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C)
READINGS:
1st Reading: Isaiah 66:10-14cResp. Psalm: Ps. 66:1-3, 4-5, 6-7, 16, 20
2nd Reading: Galatians 6:14-18
Gospel: Luke 10:1-12, 17-20 (OR Luke 10:1-9 {short version})
At
the beginning of his ministry as a prophet, the Lord said to the Jeremiah, “Before
I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you, a
prophet to the nations I appointed you,” (Jeremiah 1:5).
This verse is a good reminder that God knows each of us from the first
moment of our conception in our mother’s womb, and even before our conception
since He is outside of time. And it also
reminds us that God has a plan for our lives.
But what is God’s plan for our
lives? Does God really have a plan, I
mean, for everyone? Doesn’t it seem a
little far-fetched? We have to remember
that He is God – He is not like us; He is perfect: all-knowing, all-powerful,
and all-good. And because He’s perfect,
God has a wise and loving plan for each of us – a plan that respects our
freedom: a plan we can say “yes” to (like the Blessed Virgin Mary at the
Annunciation) or “no” to (like Judas Iscariot who betrayed the Lord for thirty
pieces of silver). And God gives us that
freedom – the freedom to say “yes” to His plan, and the freedom to reject it.
God has a plan for each of us; each of
us has a “vocation” or a calling in life – a plan that, if we say yes to it,
will bring us an immense amount of joy and peace, perhaps in this world, but
especially in the next. And it’s up to
us to say “yes” to that vocation in life – no one else can say “yes” for us. We can’t “pass the buck” – we can’t say to
ourselves, “Someone else will do what I
feel called to do.”
Have you ever heard of the idea of “diffused
responsibility”? It usually happens when
you have a large group of people: each individual in that group believes that
someone else is going to take action – for instance, helping someone in distress
– which often results in no one taking any action at all. So it could happen that someone on the streets
of Chicago or New York falls down and has a seizure and no one in the crowd calls
911 or offers the person in distress any aid.
It’s a pretty scary thing when you stop and think about; it reminds me
of a quote often attributed to Edmund Burke –
“All
that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”
Sometimes
the same thing happens in our spiritual life – God inspires us to perform a
good work, but we brush it off, thinking that someone else can do it. But the reality is often the opposite – God didn’t
inspire someone else; He inspired YOU.
And in that moment, YOU have to respond.
Think of how much poorer our world would be if no one responded to the
inspirations they felt – we wouldn’t have the Statue of Liberty or the Mona
Lisa or the Declaration of Independence or the Panama Canal or automobiles or
any of the other things – big and small – that we so often take for granted;
these things wouldn’t exist if someone didn’t take the initiative and create them.
My
point is there’s important work to be done in the world; and part of that
important work is the work of evangelization – the work of proclaiming the
Gospel to the next generation and passing on the Catholic and Apostolic faith
to the people of tomorrow. In the Gospel,
Jesus said, “The harvest is abundant, but
the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for
his harvest.” Jesus is saying there’s
a need – a need to gather in the harvest (a harvest of souls for the kingdom of
God); He also points out that there aren’t that many laborers (priests,
catechists, evangelists, etc.) to gather in the harvest, so we need to ask the
master of the harvest (God) to send out laborers for His harvest.
We
often talk about vocations when we hear this passage, and rightly so. The Church (and the whole world) needs priests,
because without priests, there is no Mass; and without the Mass, there is no
Eucharist; and without the Eucharist, there is no Church; and you cannot have
the corporate Body of Christ, the Church, without the sacramental Body of
Christ, the Eucharist. We are the Church
of the Eucharist – the Church founded upon faith in the Real Presence of Christ
in the Eucharist, the Church nourished and strengthened to live out her mission
by the grace of the Eucharist, the Church who daily feeds on the Body and Blood
of Christ in the Eucharist.
We
need priests; and we can no longer afford to think, “Someone else will answer the call.”
Unfortunately, the no. 1 obstacle to a person embracing a vocation to
the priesthood or religious life, from what I understand, is often the
disapproval of parents. Do parents make
a sacrifice if one of their children wants to become a priest or nun? Yes – it means that they will never have
grandchildren from that child, or that their child will have to move far from
home, or that they might not get to speak to or see their child as often as
they would like. But it’s still a big
deal to have a child say “yes” to a vocation to the priesthood or religious life.
When
I was ordained, there was a custom for new priests to give their parents
something from their new priestly ministry – I gave my mom the cloth that was used
to wipe the oil off my newly-anointed hands and I gave my dad the stole that I
used to hear my first confession. The
tradition is that the parents of a priest are then buried with these things
after death, and when they go before the Lord and the Lord asks them what they
did for Him, they can respond by saying that they gave Him their son as a
priest. Now, we priests are not perfect –
far, far from it; my parents can easily attest to that. But, we live an awesome life – able to be
with people at key moments in life: celebrating a baptism or a wedding or
sending a soul home to God in a Funeral Mass; and there are other graces, too –
being able to proclaim the Gospel and preach and celebrate Mass and absolve
sins in the sacrament of reconciliation and lead people closer to heaven. It’s a great life.
As
we know, “The harvest is abundant, but
the laborers are few...” Now’s the time to heed Jesus’ words – “…so ask the master of the harvest to send out
laborers for His harvest.” Promoting
vocations is uniquely a priest’s job; but it’s also the work of the whole
Church – we’re all responsible for promoting vocations. And so let’s promote it – in our families,
among our relatives, to our friends, and in our parish community; and one day
our community can have the joy of saying, “We
gave the Lord one of our own.”
