Fr. Roger J. Landry
Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Monday of the 26th Week in Ordinary Time, Year II
Memorial of St. Lorenzo Ruiz and Companions, Martyrs
September 28, 2020
Job 1:6-22, Ps 17, Lk 9:46-50
To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
The following points were attempted in the homily:
- Jesus never says to us merely “Do what I say,” but always, “Come, follow me!” He sets the example for us to follow. That’s why, if in today’s Gospel, he tells us that the path to greatness is to receive children in his name, it’s because he himself has received us as children. We don’t ponder Jesus’ “fatherhood” enough because we always look at him as Son in relation to God the Father, but many Fathers of the Church looked at him as the perfect icon of the paternity of God the Father, pondering how Jesus gives us life through his passion, death and resurrection and the sacraments that flow from them. He wishes to receive us as children. But the resistance we put up is to try to be grown-ups. That’s the essential sin found in the Parable of the Prodigal Son: the younger son wants to treat the Father as if he’s dead, as if he no longer needs him in his life. For us to become great, we first need to exercise our divine filiation to the full, allow Jesus to receive us as children, and then, learning from Jesus’ love for us, similarly extend that same, loving, often unrequited gift of self to all those children of God sent to us.
- One of the saints who shows us best how to do this is St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, whose feast the Church will celebrate on Thursday. She became a doctor of the Church, even though she never graduated high school, because she was filled with Divine Wisdom and simplicity and showed us all how to respond to God like beloved children. She taught what she described as her little way of spiritual childhood, the little way of trust and love, by linking two passages in Sacred Scripture about the Kingdom of God. The first is that if we wish to enter the kingdom, we “must convert and become like little children.” Paradoxically to grow in full stature in Christ is to become more childlike. The second passage is “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” The essence of spiritual childhood is spiritual poverty, totally dependence on God, approaching him in everything with open hands and recognizing that everything we’ve received is a gift.
- Today’s first reading from Job shows us a particular aspect of that way of spiritual childhood. After Job has lost all his oxen, asses, herdsman, sheep, shepherds, camels and those tending them, sons, daughters and house — everything but his wife, health and life — his response was not to curse but to praise God: “Naked I came forth from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I go back again. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord!” The Lord should be blessed when he gives and when he strips. Spiritual childhood is a way of trust and love that recognizes that both things that seem propitious and adverse are meant to be united with God. It’s easy to blessed God for the obvious gifts in life, like oxen, asses, herdsman, sheep, shepherds, camels, loyal employees, sons, daughters and houses. It’s much harder when he takes them away. But that’s what Job does. St. Therese taught us that God often loves us by “subtraction.” When a novice once sighed, saying,“When I think of everything I still have to acquire!” Therese replied, “You mean, to lose! Jesus takes it upon himself to fill your soul in the measure that you rid it of its imperfections. I see that you have taken the wrong road; you will never arrive at the end of your journey. You are wanting to climb a great mountain and the good God is trying to make you descend it; he is waiting for you at the bottom in the fertile valley of humility.” God often has us advance by means of taking things away so that he can become all in all. That’s what we see in Therese’s life; that’s what we also see in Job’s.
- After growing in divine filiation, however, we must then grow in emulation of Jesus’ paternity, receiving others, including children, in Jesus’ name. In so doing, he tells us, we not only receive the person, but we receive Jesus and God the Father. We talk often about the virtue of Christian receptivity, of hospitality, of welcoming. We see it in the Blessed Mother, in SS. Martha and Mary, in St. Benedict and so many others. But it’s meant to characterize the Church as a whole, which is mother together with Jesus’ fatherhood. And it’s therefore meant to radiate in every believer. It’s essential to the culture of life. The culture of death is one of rejection, of fear, or dehumanization. The culture of life is one in which we receive others in the name of God and we would receive Jesus himself. And that welcoming of course extends not just to children at the beginning of life, but God’s children at all stages. Jesus mentions little children because little children cannot repay us. We are good to them not out of some quid pro quo but out of sacrificial love. Jesus’ lesson today is that the Church, and believers, become great through humbly and lovingly receiving others and is reduced whenever we reject with hardened hearts. The charism of the Sisters of Life is to live this Gospel and in the process to become great in authentically Christian love.
- Today the Church celebrates the feast of someone who learned how to receive the kingdom of God as a little child later in life and who is a model for us about how to convert and become like little children. St. Lawrence Ruiz, the first Filipino saint, was married with three kids and a very good calligrapher. It seems that he may have murdered a man in the Philippines; regardless, he was accused of murder and was fleeing the charges and the death penalty that came with them. He got on a boat with Dominican priests, a Japanese priest and a leper, and landed in Japan. Soon thereafter he was arrested during the ferocious Tokugowa shogunate. The Japanese sadists went through their normal mind games with their prisoners trying to get them to apostatize and it seems that St. Lawrence asked the question whether his life would really be saved if he denied his faith. But he didn’t deny it. When they were about to torture him by hanging him upside down by his heels over a pit with a cut behind his ear so that he would bleed to death over three days, he said, famously, “I am a Catholic and wholeheartedly do accept death for God; Had I a thousand lives, all these to Him shall I offer.” He was putting into practice Job’s words of filial trust, that the Lord who had given him earthly life was permitting it to be taken away, but his faith in God led him to believe that that would not be the end. His story gives all of us hope, that no matter our failings, as long as we’re alive, we still have a chance to give our life one-thousand times over for him who gave his for us. And we still have a chance to receive others, even thousands of times, in a martyrdom or witness of Christ-like paternal love.
- Today at Mass we receive God’s great gift with childlike receptivity and then, after having received the word of God and Word-made-flesh, we are strengthened by God to go and receive him in his image, from the littlest children to the oldest seniors and everyone in between.
The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1 JB 1:6-22
One day, when the angels of God came to present themselves before the LORD,
Satan also came among them.
And the LORD said to Satan, “Whence do you come?”
Then Satan answered the LORD and said,
“From roaming the earth and patrolling it.”
And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you noticed my servant Job,
and that there is no one on earth like him,
blameless and upright, fearing God and avoiding evil?”
But Satan answered the LORD and said,
“Is it for nothing that Job is God-fearing?
Have you not surrounded him and his family
and all that he has with your protection?
You have blessed the work of his hands,
and his livestock are spread over the land.
But now put forth your hand and touch anything that he has,
and surely he will blaspheme you to your face.”
And the LORD said to Satan,
“Behold, all that he has is in your power;
only do not lay a hand upon his person.”
So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.
And so one day, while his sons and his daughters
were eating and drinking wine
in the house of their eldest brother,
a messenger came to Job and said,
“The oxen were ploughing and the asses grazing beside them,
and the Sabeans carried them off in a raid.
They put the herdsmen to the sword,
and I alone have escaped to tell you.”
While he was yet speaking, another came and said,
“Lightning has fallen from heaven
and struck the sheep and their shepherds and consumed them;
and I alone have escaped to tell you.”
While he was yet speaking, another messenger came and said,
“The Chaldeans formed three columns,
seized the camels, carried them off,
and put those tending them to the sword,
and I alone have escaped to tell you.”
While he was yet speaking, another came and said,
“Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine
in the house of their eldest brother,
when suddenly a great wind came across the desert
and smote the four corners of the house.
It fell upon the young people and they are dead;
and I alone have escaped to tell you.”
Then Job began to tear his cloak and cut off his hair.
He cast himself prostrate upon the ground, and said,
“Naked I came forth from my mother’s womb,
and naked shall I go back again.
The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away;
blessed be the name of the LORD!”
In all this Job did not sin,
nor did he say anything disrespectful of God.
Satan also came among them.
And the LORD said to Satan, “Whence do you come?”
Then Satan answered the LORD and said,
“From roaming the earth and patrolling it.”
And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you noticed my servant Job,
and that there is no one on earth like him,
blameless and upright, fearing God and avoiding evil?”
But Satan answered the LORD and said,
“Is it for nothing that Job is God-fearing?
Have you not surrounded him and his family
and all that he has with your protection?
You have blessed the work of his hands,
and his livestock are spread over the land.
But now put forth your hand and touch anything that he has,
and surely he will blaspheme you to your face.”
And the LORD said to Satan,
“Behold, all that he has is in your power;
only do not lay a hand upon his person.”
So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.
And so one day, while his sons and his daughters
were eating and drinking wine
in the house of their eldest brother,
a messenger came to Job and said,
“The oxen were ploughing and the asses grazing beside them,
and the Sabeans carried them off in a raid.
They put the herdsmen to the sword,
and I alone have escaped to tell you.”
While he was yet speaking, another came and said,
“Lightning has fallen from heaven
and struck the sheep and their shepherds and consumed them;
and I alone have escaped to tell you.”
While he was yet speaking, another messenger came and said,
“The Chaldeans formed three columns,
seized the camels, carried them off,
and put those tending them to the sword,
and I alone have escaped to tell you.”
While he was yet speaking, another came and said,
“Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine
in the house of their eldest brother,
when suddenly a great wind came across the desert
and smote the four corners of the house.
It fell upon the young people and they are dead;
and I alone have escaped to tell you.”
Then Job began to tear his cloak and cut off his hair.
He cast himself prostrate upon the ground, and said,
“Naked I came forth from my mother’s womb,
and naked shall I go back again.
The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away;
blessed be the name of the LORD!”
In all this Job did not sin,
nor did he say anything disrespectful of God.
Responsorial Psalm PS 17:1BCD, 2-3, 6-7
R. (6) Incline your ear to me and hear my word.
Hear, O LORD, a just suit;
attend to my outcry;
hearken to my prayer from lips without deceit.
R. Incline your ear to me and hear my word.
From you let my judgment come;
your eyes behold what is right.
Though you test my heart, searching it in the night,
though you try me with fire, you shall find no malice in me.
R. Incline your ear to me and hear my word.
I call upon you, for you will answer me, O God;
incline your ear to me; hear my word.
Show your wondrous mercies,
O savior of those who flee
from their foes to refuge at your right hand.
R. Incline your ear to me and hear my word.
Hear, O LORD, a just suit;
attend to my outcry;
hearken to my prayer from lips without deceit.
R. Incline your ear to me and hear my word.
From you let my judgment come;
your eyes behold what is right.
Though you test my heart, searching it in the night,
though you try me with fire, you shall find no malice in me.
R. Incline your ear to me and hear my word.
I call upon you, for you will answer me, O God;
incline your ear to me; hear my word.
Show your wondrous mercies,
O savior of those who flee
from their foes to refuge at your right hand.
R. Incline your ear to me and hear my word.
Alleluia MK 10:45
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
The Son of Man came to serve
and to give his life as a ransom for many.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
The Son of Man came to serve
and to give his life as a ransom for many.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel LK 9:46-50
An argument arose among the disciples
about which of them was the greatest.
Jesus realized the intention of their hearts and took a child
and placed it by his side and said to them,
“Whoever receives this child in my name receives me,
and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.
For the one who is least among all of you
is the one who is the greatest.”Then John said in reply,
“Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name
and we tried to prevent him
because he does not follow in our company.”
Jesus said to him,
“Do not prevent him, for whoever is not against you is for you.”
about which of them was the greatest.
Jesus realized the intention of their hearts and took a child
and placed it by his side and said to them,
“Whoever receives this child in my name receives me,
and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.
For the one who is least among all of you
is the one who is the greatest.”Then John said in reply,
“Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name
and we tried to prevent him
because he does not follow in our company.”
Jesus said to him,
“Do not prevent him, for whoever is not against you is for you.”
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