Becoming, like St. Patrick, Part of God’s Holy “Vengeance,” 4th Saturday of Lent, March 17, 2018

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life Manhattan
Saturday of the Fourth Week of Lent
Solemnity of St. Patrick, Patron of the Archdiocese of New York
March 17, 2018
Jer 11:18-20, Ps 7, Jn 7:40-53

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

• Yesterday we began a new cycle of Lenten readings in the Old Testament focusing on the prophecies about Jesus’ suffering and death. We heard in the Book of Wisdom yesterday the very explicit details of the envy that led to Jesus’ betrayal, besetting the Just One because his very being was an obnoxious censure to others’ way of believing and living. Today Jeremiah prophetically enfleshes the persecution Jesus himself would undergo. “Like a trusting lamb led to the slaughter, … they were hatching plots against me,” trying to “destroy the tree in its vigor, cut[ting] him off from the land of the living so that his name may be spoken of no more.” In his youthfulness, Jeremiah cried out to the God who had called him, “Let me witness the vengeance you take on them, for to you I have entrusted my cause!” We now know the form that vengeance would take. It would be ruthless. But rather than doling it out, God suffered it. His vengeance was mercy, coming to take away the guilt of the sins that led him like a lamb to the slaughter. We’ve all benefitted from that holy vengeance. And today as we celebrate the Feast of St. Patrick, we’re able to see how that same divine vengeance worked in his life to the benefit of all of the people of Ireland and all of us in the Church. Before, however, we get into the life of St. Patrick, let’s begin with today’s Gospel, because the three reactions to Christ in the Gospel can help put into greater relief the reaction of St. Patrick, whom we’re called to imitate to the best of our abilities.
• In the Gospel, we see the fulfillment of those plots prophesied against Jesus. The temple guards were sent out by the Jewish leaders to arrest Jesus because, as we’ve been seeing in recent days, the leaders considered Jesus an untrained blasphemer or worse. They were in fact seeking to kill him because they were convinced that he was an agent of the devil, working miracles not by the power of God but by the power of Beelzebul to destroy the Jewish religion by violating the Sabbath through works of charity, driving money changers out of the temple and speaking about the Temple’s destruction and rebuilding, befriending notorious sinners, pretending to forgive sins, and various other practices that conveyed by which Jesus was showing not only acting with divine authority but that he believed himself to be the actual Son of God. Rather than being filled with joy when Jesus reconciled sinners, or made the lame walk, the blind see, the deaf hear, or freed the possessed of their demons, they responded with envy, anger and unholy homicidal thoughts.
• But not everyone obviously saw Jesus this way. St. John tells us today there was “division because of him.” Some thought he was “the Prophet,” the fulfillment of Moses’ words that after him someone would come to whom they should listen and obey just like the listened to and obeyed him (Deut 18:15). Others said, “This is the Messiah (Christ).” But then others retorted that the Messiah could never come from Galilee, because he was prophesied to come from Bethlehem. None of those critics ever bothered to ask Jesus where he was born. They heard he was a Nazarene and that’s all they needed in order to dismiss him as the Messiah because they didn’t want to accept the type of Messianic reign he was heralding, one far different than the Messianic kingdom for which they aspired. It’s important for us to grasp that Jesus always provokes division. He himself said elsewhere in the Gospel, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s enemies will be those of his household” (Mt 10:34-36). While at the same time he is the Prince of Peace who came to give and leave us his peace and establish the definitive peace treaty between us and God through the forgiveness of sins (Jn 14:27), he at the same time knew that he would be a “sign of contradiction” (Lk 2:34) because no one would be able to remain neutral in response to him. We would either be “with him” or “against him,” we’d either “gather with him” or “scatter” (Mt 12:30). It’s not that he would personally cause division because he had come to bring peace; but division would ensue because of him, because there would be some who would accept and follow him and others who would refuse. For us as priests, religious and faithful Christian disciples, we need to grasp that often, we, too, will be signs of contradiction. People will claim we’re divisive because we don’t want to worship their own desires and designs as divine. But, rather, it’s sin that divides. The devil is the diabolos, the one who throws us off course. It’s not Christ. Christ and anyone truly united with him, however, will be the occasion of division for others. We should never forget that when he was seeking to give others the greatest gift in the history of the world — his own body and blood in the Eucharist — most of his disciples separated from him. We shouldn’t be naïve. Christ the King is not Rodney King (“Can’t we all just get along?”). None of us — Jesus foremost — wants division. He came so that we all might be one. But he leaves us free and through sin we and others choose division. And we need to be ready for that.
• Today in the Gospel we see three different ways of responding to Jesus that we ought to consider because they shine a mirror for us to examine our own response to Jesus.
  • The first happens with the Temple guards. They had been sent to arrest Jesus but they couldn’t bring themselves to do it. When they were asked, “Why didn’t you bring him?,” they replied, “Never before has anyone spoken like this man!” They were astonished and amazed at Jesus’ incredible words. Their souls were touched. They knew that a man who spoke like that couldn’t possibly be a malefactor. Pope Francis said of them this morning in a homily in Naples, that theirs “is the voice of truth that resonates” in simple, good men. It would be like police officers today being sent to arrest a beautiful four year old girl or sweet 106 year old great-great-great-grandmother, bound her in cuffs and have her do a “perp walk” because some superior officer commanded them to do it in order to put on a show. Beyond that simple common sense, however, they were fascinated by Jesus and his words. These were not a bunch of naturally pious women or children. They were cops, basically soldiers, hearty men, who probably spent much of their time engaged in the types of things men of force engage in whenever they’re together on duty but not engaged in work. They’re not singing praise and worship songs together! And yet these probably coarse men were profoundly touched by Jesus, which teaches us something about Jesus and the power of his words. For us it should leave us wondering that if those men could be so moved by Jesus’ words, recognizing that no man had ever spoken like him before, are we even more amazed and astonished by his words?
  • The second reaction is by the chief priests and Pharisees. Hearing the guards testify to the power of Jesus’ exhortations, they said, “Have you also been deceived? Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd, which does not know the law, is accursed.” They had no openness whatsoever to Jesus. They already concluded that he was evil and nothing was going to change them. They even damned the crowd that was hanging on Jesus’ discourses. They condescendingly spoke to the guards as if they were gullible to being lied to; after all, none of their leaders had accepted Jesus and therefore no one else should have either. These are the elites who in every age foster division against Jesus, because they don’t want to accept him, his teaching, or his deeds. We can look back with a cultural distance and say, “Foolish Pharisees,” but the type of division they caused from their ivory perches still happens today. There are many, inside and outside the Church, who think Jesus’ teaching that divorce and remarriage is sinful adultery is foolish, who think that Jesus’ teaching that the way we treat illegal immigrants is the way we treat Jesus himself is foolish, who believe his teaching that we’re supposed to love enemies and pray for persecutors is foolish. They legalize the killing of innocent human beings in the womb and then lament at how divided our culture is about abortion. They legalize the so-called marriage of two men or two women and then complain at how divided our nation is about it. They try to force people to pay for others’ abortions and then protest how divided our politics are. The same thing happens in homes and families when one accepts Jesus and others get jealous. Jesus came to bring communion with God and with others, but sin divides and the fundamental sin is the rejection of God and those he sends. The end of today’s Gospel summarizes effectively the division that comes when everyone is not united in the true following and worship of God: “They each went to his own house,” because they were each worshipping his own domesticated deity.
  • The third response we see in the Gospel is that of Nicodemus. You remember Nicodemus. He is the member of the Sanhedrin who came to Jesus “at night,” because he was too afraid to be seen with him during the daylight. He was himself drawn to Jesus but he really didn’t want to pay the cost of discipleship. Various scholars have called him the “tentative” or “reluctant” disciple. Cardinal Bergoglio back in a 2006 retreat to Spanish bishops said he was an example of a conditional disciple, someone who would follow Jesus only if Jesus accepted his terms: “He wants a dialogue in security, coming under the cover of night to ask him questions,” the future Pope told the Spanish hierarchy. “And Jesus, because he senses that the Pharisee is not well disposed, lets him remain wrapped up in his trivial objections. For Nicodemus, such objections serve as an egoistic refuge for not being honest.” Today we see that. He knows that the objections of the chief priests and the Pharisees against Jesus are flowing out of envy because they’re not only afraid to change but afraid that they might lose their status. But instead of defending Jesus fully, he raises a legal objection. “Does our law condemn a man before it first hears him and finds out what he is doing?,” he asks. And when they accuse him of being a Galilean and an idiot who fails to grasp that “no prophet arises from Galilee,” of failing to grasp that no one consequential will ever come from those backwaters, he remains silent. We’ll meet Nicodemus once more after Jesus’ crucifixion. Whereas he could have sought to defend Jesus before he died, as Jesus was being condemned in a mock trial in which he was one of the judges, he did come to him to anoint his dead body afterward. He recognized who Jesus was and wanted to follow him, but his cowardice regularly got the worst of him. His example of following Jesus “a little” rather than all the way, of wanting to be his disciple but caving into human respect, ought to provoke in us the question of how courageous we are in being publicly identified with Jesus, of defending him, and his teachings, and the Church he founded when it comes under attack, or whether we prefer to come to Jesus in the shadows, when it won’t cost us too much, when our commitment won’t be total.
• Today on the feast of St. Patrick, we have a chance to see and imitate his response. Born in Britain, Patrick did not have much of a life of piety until he was captured by raiders at the age of 16 and sold into slavery in Ireland. He was a reluctant disciple. But the Lord used his slavery as a time to liberate him spiritually and help him to grow in faith so that he became fascinated like the guards who came to arrest him. Patrick said that during the six years he tended his master’s herds, he prayed constantly in the daytime and prayed almost as much at night, sometimes spending all night outdoors in prayerful vigil of the dawn. One night in a dream, he heard a voice telling him to be ready for a brave effort to secure his freedom. And he trusted in the dream. In the morning, Patrick escaped and hustled 200 miles to a boat that he saw in the dream was about to depart. After adventures and hardship during which he was able to bring many of the ship’s crew to conversion — another marvel of the Lord! — he arrived home. But after several days of joyous reunion with the family he loved very much, he began to be moved in prayer and in dreams to think of all those back in Ireland who had never known the Gospel. Against the wishes of his beloved family, he decided to use his newly found freedom to dedicate himself to returning to the land of his captors, to preach to them the truth that would set them free. The Lord used his slavery to teach him the language he would need, to help him develop the necessary zeal, to return to lead the Irish to salvation. He had no illusions, however, about how difficult the task was that lay in front of him. He went to France to prepare for the priesthood so that he would be able to bring the greatest gift of all, the presence of the Lord in the sacraments, to his missionary land. In France, he prayed, fasted and readied himself for 20 years. At the age of 43, having been consecrated bishop so that he could found churches and ordain priests, he set off with a few apostolic collaborators. Over the course of the next 30 years, he labored tenaciously for the conversion of the nation. As one of the great “Lenten” saints, he famously fasted for 40 days and 40 nights on what is now called Croagh Patrick in prayerful bodily supplication that those entrusted to him would receive the Gospel with faith. Village by village, chieftain by chieftain, he planted the seed of the Gospel. Though his life was in constant peril due to the hatred of the druids — much like the hatred of Joseph’s brothers — he soldiered on, and through prayer, mortification, disputation, and miracles, his life of faith bore enormous fruit. Twelve years after his arrival, he was able to found the Church of Armagh, Ireland’s primatial see. By the time of his death in 461, the whole nation was Christian. He renewed his faith every morning when we vested by praying a prayer he wore on a patch underneath his clothes. It’s called St. Patrick’s breastplate or Lorica. It’s one of my favorite prayers and one of the most manly prayers ever written. It talks about God’s strength to strengthen us. That’s God’s great and holy vengeance: “I arise today through God’s strength to pilot me: God’s might to uphold me, God’s wisdom to guide me, God’s eye to look before me, God’s ear to hear me, God’s word to speak for me, God’s hand to guard me, God’s way to lie before me, God’s shield to protect me, God’s host to save me from snares of devils, from temptations of vices, from everyone who shall wish me ill, afar and near, alone and in multitude.” No matter what would come, he would trust in God who could save him and use that circumstance to save others. In the sixth verse he proclaimed that no matter the circumstances, he knew that God was with him: “Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me.” And in the final verse he renewed his trust in God the Savior in every circumstance: “I arise today Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity, Through belief in the threeness, Through confession of the oneness, Of the Creator of Creation. Salvation is the Lord’s, salvation is the Lord’s, salvation is Christ’s. May Thy salvation, O Lord, be always with us.” The real strength of St. Patrick’s life became his relationship with God whom he came to know intimately in Holy Communion. This was the ground of his confidence that Christ was with him no matter what difficulties or rejections he needed to endure because he was a contradiction in the cross-hairs of others. The ultimate retaliation that God took was laying down his life so that they might live forever. Jesus’ vengeance is to overcome evil with good, hatred with love, persecution with pity. As we come forward to receive that “vengeance” God the Father took here in Holy Communion, we ask the Lord we’re about to receive to help us to become, like St. Patrick, inflamed with that same holy, merciful revenge! And we ask him to make us part of that revenge, by being willing to suffer with him as signs of contradiction as we seek through, with and in him to go out to the world to turn it right side up — especially those who treat us like the slave owners treated St. Patrick — and bathe it in his healing, restorative, merciful love!

The readings for today’s Mass were: