FOURTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
6-7 July 2024 - St. Lambert Parish
Ez 2:2-5
2 Cor 12:7-10
Mk 6:1-6a
Praised be
Jesus Christ!
Hard of face and obstinate of heart are they to whom I am
sending you.
The prophet Ezekiel is speaking
judgment in God’s name against the Israelites, calling them a rebellious people.
In that regard, the Church in today’s Liturgy of the Word is comparing us, God’s
chosen people of the New Testament, to these obstinate Israelites to whom God
sent His prophet. St. Mark in his Gospel speaks of Jesus being confronted with
a similar challenge. In his Gospel he makes note of the unresponsiveness of
Jesus’ listeners in the synagogue.
“And they took offense at him… A prophet is not without honor except in his native place
and among his own kin and in his own house.”
Actually, we as diocesan priests
should be able to identify with these words. A prophet is not without honor
except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.
Unfortunately among priests you often
hear another kind of analysis of this problem, which kind of denies the
dynamics of the priest’s mission as a prophet to his people. There is a kind of
“shop talk” which goes on in clerical circles and especially among the pastors
of parishes that rates a given congregation kind of like you would spirited ponies.
If a rambunctious horse is hard to break in, not suited for children to ride, then
ultimately it may be the best sort of work animal for rounding up cattle, and
so forth. In a sense, you may say that is how a priest might make excuses for a
difficult parish or parishioners. In a sense though, that sort of talk could
not be farther from the point of what the Gospel teaches. If the priest is
doing his duty and leading his people to God, then just like Ezekiel and just
like the Lord Jesus, he should be content not with applause but with grief, if
he is not the one giving grief unjustly to his people, but is rather truly following
in the footsteps of Christ. The Gospel is good news, but the reality is that
faithful to Christ and full of His love, more often than not we are sent to a
people more likely than not to turn away from him and the fulness of truth
which comes to us from Christ in and through His Church. Hard of face and
obstinate of heart are they to whom I am sending you.
Having spent most of my priesthood at
a desk, I have to rely on the witness of others concerning the ups and downs of
parish life. Because of my diplomatic career in the service of the Holy See, I
don’t have that ongoing experience of parish life. As such, I really can’t
identify with the shop talk. Even so, I am convinced that parish ministry cannot
be compared to breaking in a horse and training him for his work. We should be
convinced that there are no good parishes and no bad parishes. The readings for
this 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time would seem to indicate a very
different sort of challenge, namely that of preaching in season and out of
season and generally being unwelcome when you are faithful to Christ’s message.
If I were giving a retreat on this
topic to priests, I would probably say, “Reverend Fathers, prepare yourself to
stand with Ezekiel and the Lord Jesus!” Don’t judge a parish as good or bad but
be ready for pushback when you preach the Gospel in its fullness! Hard of face and obstinate of heart are they to whom I
am sending you.
But here and now I am not preaching
to a group of priests or deacons but rather to you the faithful. I see you in
living out the Christian life and I would hope you can see yourselves as going
through a process of winnowing like grain, sifted or shook up such that all
that is useless chaff can be borne away by the wind, leaving just the pure
wheat of you on the threshing floor. Hard of face and obstinate of heart are
they to whom I am sending you. No! That you cannot be! If in your Catholic
life and practice, Holy Mass on all Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation, honest
recourse to the Sacrament of Penance, a regular life of prayer and devotion,
including even a simple morning offering, your meal prayers, and your
examination of conscience at bedtime, and you don’t feel just a bit of
heartache, then you probably deserve a good one right along side the head, as
they used to say.
The ordinary advice young priests
receive as they prepare to hear confessions for the first time is to be as
brief and even-tempered as possible so as not to frighten or drive people away
from confession. I would invite you today to help your priests in confession so
that they can help you. Do so by being less guarded in describing your sins and
failings, by being eager for any counsel father might give. Hard of face and
obstinate of heart are they to whom I am sending you. Your panic or fear or
embarrassment in confession has more to do with defensiveness and pride than it
does with true sorrow for sin.
Take the leisure of this season of
Ordinary Time and perhaps the slower pace of summer to think about living as a
true penitent, who takes on penance in life or at least gladly embraces any
hardships which life might impose upon you: be it aches and pains, health
issues, or unjust accusations on the part of others who second guess your
motives. If family or your coworkers tend to weigh on you a bit heavily, thank
the Lord for this opportunity to be scrubbed clean of all the temporal punished
still due for your sins yet after absolution in the Sacrament of Penance.
The second reading today from
Corinthians includes St. Paul’s reference to the thorn in the flesh, the angel
of Satan, which God allowed to beat Paul down. Hard of face and obstinate of
heart are they to whom I am sending you. We are only in the right place,
when we humbly accept not really being able to handle all which comes our way in
hardship but also to accept or embrace even all those who dish it out.
Praised be Jesus Christ!
PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI
