Becoming Living Reflections of God’s Given Sign, 28th Monday (II), October 15, 2018

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Monday of the 28th Week in Ordinary Time, Year II
Memorial of St. Teresa of Jesus, Virgin, Foundress
October 15, 2018
Gal 4:22-24.26-27.31.5:1, Ps 113, Lk 11:29-32

To listen to the audio homily, please click below: 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

• Today in the first reading, we continue to explore the sharp contrast St. Paul makes in his Letter to the Galatians between Judaized Christians who think we’re saved by our own efforts to keep all the precepts of the Mosaic Law, and the Christians he worked to form who grasp that we’re saved by God, by our response to the manifold graces he gives us. Using an allegorical style of interpretation he learned in rabbinical school, he described the two spiritualities flowing from Hagar through Ishmael and Sarah through Isaac as a “yoke of slavery” versus a “freedom” in response to God’s “promise” (grace through the promised coming of the Messiah and his incarnation, passion and resurrection of Jesus) for which Christ has set us free. The Christians in Galatia were being persuaded by the Judaizers that they couldn’t be good Christians unless they yoked themselves entirely to the Mosaic law like the Scribes and Pharisees did. The law was lived by them not as an experience of freedom to love God and others maximally, but as a straightjacket in which many focused far more on the law — and all of the binding interpretations of the law made by the Scribes — than on God. St. Paul stressed that Christ, in fulfilling the Mosaic law, freed us from that slavery, and in the new and eternal Covenant, sought to help us live by faith as beloved sons and daughters of God.
• These two different spiritualities provide a context for us better to grasp what was happening in today’s Gospel. Many of the Jews who had been influenced by the Scribes and the Pharisees were seeking signs from Jesus, despite the fact that Jesus had been working many signs. Immediately before this scene, as we saw in Friday’s Gospel, Jesus had exorcised a demon from a possessed man, but Jesus’ critics refused to accept that sign as pointing to what it obviously did, that he was working for God and trying to free people from the domain of the evil one. Instead, they pretended as if the miracle were a sign of another agency, that Jesus was casting out demons by the power of Beelzebul, the prince of demons. Likewise these same critics weren’t accepting any of Jesus’ other signs, his many miracles of healing and feeding. They were essentially only looking for signs that corresponded to their preconceived prejudices, that if Jesus were the Messiah, then he would work signs that pointed to his liberating them from the Romans and establishing a political renewal of the Davidic Kingdom. If he were the Messiah, then everything he did, they thought, would be signs corresponding to and indeed confirming what they were laying the foundations to establish. The Messiah couldn’t possibly work signs that would contradict what they were expecting and doing, they thought. So on the one hand, they sought miracles, but only those miracles that confirmed what they wanted confirmed. None of Jesus’ miracles seemed to be doing this, which is why they continued to seek signs.
• Similarly, on Saturday, we had Jesus’ response to the shout of the anonymous woman, “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you,” when the Lord responded about the real thing that makes Mary most blessed of all, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and observe it.” Jesus was looking for those who would receive the Word of God with faith and act on that saving word.
• These two scenes set us up for Jesus’ words today when he says, “This generation is an evil generation; it seeks a sign.” We see just how evil the generation was when they conspired to frame Jesus before the Roman authorities they detested to have him murdered for working signs they didn’t want to believe. Jesus replied by saying that no sign would be given to this evil generation except the sign of Jonah. That implies three things:
  • First, it implies Jesus’ call to conversion. Jesus said, “At the judgment the men of Nineveh will arise with this generation and condemn it, because at the preaching of Jonah they repented, and there is something greater than Jonah here.” Jonah’s message of conversion, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be destroyed,” got the pagans of that enormously large city to convert, from the king to pets, immediately. They were all in sackcloth and ashes. But Jesus was saying that his message of conversion is a sign to an even deeper conversion that God wanted.
  • Second, it implies Jesus’ wisdom. Jesus said, “At the judgment the queen of the south will rise with the men of this generation and she will condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and there is something greater than Solomon here.” The Ninevites accepted Jonah’s wisdom as coming from God. The Queen of Sheba journeyed over 1,660 miles over at least three months to hear Solomon’s wisdom, accounting it worth the sacrifice not just of many months round trip but also so much material wealth. Jesus’ wisdom, the wisdom that would have crowds amass to listen to him for hours, was a sign that he was speaking of a way to live, to die and to live forever that was far greater than anything Solomon ever taught. Jesus’ wisdom was a sign that he was not only continuing in the path of Solomon’s wisdom, but was the one to whom Solomon’s wisdom pointed.
  • Third, it implies Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection, that he would spend three days in the belly of the earth just like Jonah spent three days in the belly of the whale (as St. Matthew’s version tells us). Jesus’ crucifixion would be a sign of how corrupt their hearts had become but also the greatest sign of the love of the Lord who would die because they didn’t really know what they were doing. Jesus’ resurrection itself would be the sign of the triumph of good over evil, light over darkness, life over death, and sanctity over sin. Jesus’ resurrection is the greatest sign in the history of the world. It would be what St. Paul called in his first Letter to the Corinthians, the “power and the wisdom of God.”
• Today it’s important for us to become a “good and holy generation” in contrast to the receptivity of those whom Jesus was calling out in today’s Gospel. We’re called not only to accept the signs of Jesus’ call to conversion, his wisdom and his death and resurrection, but to become so united to him that we become signs of Jesus’ death and resurrection, signs of his wisdom, signs of his summons to conversion in the midst of the world. Jesus does that through the great signs he’s left us, signs that not only point to him doing certain spiritual work, but actually bringing that work about. We call those signs the sacraments, signs that effect what they signify. By Baptism, Jesus seeks to unite us to him so that we may become an efficacious sign of God’s presence in the world as his temple. By Confirmation, he fills us with the fire of the Holy Spirit so that we may continue his mission of proclaiming the Gospel of salvation to the whole world. By Reconciliation, he heals us of our sins and sends us out as walking advertisements that Jesus is the Lamb who wishes to take away the sins of others, too. By the Eucharist, Jesus unites us as members of his body, so that we can become one body, one spirit in Him, so that we can become his hands, his feet, his heart bringing his love to the world. By Matrimony, husbands and wives become signs of Jesus’ union with his Bride the Church, so that by their love for each other, Christian couples will remind everyone by the particularity of their mutual love of what Christ loves the Church and the Church loves Christ. By Holy Orders, priests are meant to remind everyone of Christ’s teaching, sanctifying and shepherding his people and are changed so that they might act in Christ’s very person communicating his life, especially through the Sacraments. And by the Anointing, we ponder the sign of Jesus’ healing that actually communicates a healing of the soul and often of the body, helping people to unite themselves to Christ’s own suffering, which is a sign not so much of pain but of the love that bears that pain. To our age and every age, Jesus continues to give us these signs through which he himself brings the reality to which these signs point.
• Religious and those who are consecrated have a particular sign value. St. John Paul II prayed to Jesus in his beautiful exhortation on the consecrated life, Vita Consecrata, that “as you have entrusted your own way of life to those whom you have called, continue to draw to yourself men and women who will be, for the people of our time, dispensers of mercy, heralds of your return, living signs of the Resurrection and of its treasures of virginity, poverty and obedience.” Religious in a particular way are called to be living signs of Jesus’ risen life through their yoking themselves to him in poverty, chastity and obedience, as they die to themselves so that he may rise, as they place their heart in his riches, love and will.
• Today the Church celebrates a great saint — one of the greatest — who enfleshed the lessons of these readings. She was one who had a great conversion in the midst of her religious life. She was someone who from that point forward dedicated herself fully to receiving God’s wisdom, living by it, and seeking to pass it on. She was one who found in the passion, death and the resurrection of the Lord the meaning of her life and the worth of her soul. And through her own personal reform, she sought to reform the Carmelites and the whole Church. We prayed at the beginning of Mass that God “who through your Spirit raised up Saint Teresa of Jesus to show the Church the way to seek perfection” would “grant that we may always be nourished by the food of her heavenly teaching and fired with longing for true holiness.” Her life shows us the way to seek perfection by responding to Jesus’ call to turn with him always, to do everything — including suffer, live and die — with him, and to discover in that paschal life God’s great power and wisdom.
• Like many of us, St. Teresa started off with great desires. When she was seven, she took great pleasure in the lives of the saints, making a little hermitage in her back yard where she could read and pray. One day her younger brother Rodrigo was in the back yard with her and they began to think about the happiness of the saints in heaven and got caught up in the thought of living “forever and ever and ever and ever and ever.” Rodrigo asked how they could get to heaven fastest, and Teresa replied that that would be through martyrdom, because the sufferings of the martyrs were nothing compared with the glory they received immediately upon death. Rodrigo asked how they could become martyrs and she said that they would need to go where the Muslims were in order to be killed by them for the faith. Rodrigo asked where the Muslims were and she told him in Morocco. And so off they went walking toward Morocco, forgetting — we can excuse 7 and 5 year olds! — the small geographical complication that there was the Mediterranean Sea between Spain and northern Africa! The got outside the city walls and as far as the ancient Roman Adaja Bridge when they were met by their Uncle Francisco coming back on his horse from hunting who asked them where they were headed. When informed they were heading to Africa to be martyred by the Moors, he told them he would give them a ride on his horse. After they hopped on, he took them back to their home! The episode shows, however, how strong young Teresa desired what the Holy Spirit wants, which is to help guide her all the way to heaven, how courageous she was from an early stage to be willing to suffer even earthly tortures — like the stories of the martyrs she read with her brother — for the eternal prize. That deep desire never left her, but over the course of time, it waned. She entered the Carmelite monastery when she was 20, but the house was in a spiritual malaise. Some nuns had suites of rooms, with servants and pets. Eventually she succumbed to it herself, spending vast amounts of time entertaining visitors and friends in the parlor, giving herself over to various compromises with worldliness and vanity. It was only two decades later, in 1554 when she was about 38, that God reawakened her from her life according to the flesh, from her spiritual worldliness, from tolerating venial sins, trusting in herself, not valuing God’s grace, to a truly fervent life of the Holy Spirit. It happened when she saw a small statue of Jesus as he approached crucifixion, which touched her deeply and reminded her of just what her sins caused and how much Jesus loved her despite those sins. She gave herself over to God and allowed herself to be led to reform Carmelite life as a whole. The Holy Spirit revivified her desire for holiness, for happiness, for heaven and he guided her through all the stages necessary to give her a foretaste of heavenly union here on earth through prayer.
• To profit from her wisdom, she opened herself up in prayer to such a degree that eventually became a doctor of the Church whose wisdom continues to nourish the Church through today. She described the various stages on which God led her and leads us as an Interior Castle with seven “mansions” (each containing many rooms) of prayer and the spiritual life which leads to it and flows from it. The first mansion begins in the state of grace, but involves a lot of fighting against sin, especially pride. People are pulled by the material world and a desire for possessions, honor and power. The second mansion happens when the person seeks to advance through the castle through daily prayer, thoughts of God, humble recognition of God’s work in the soul, sermons, edifying conversations, good company and other means. The third mansion happens when, moved by grace, the person has a love for God so great that the person has a total aversion to all sin including venial and a desire to do works of love for others for God’s glory. The person begins to have less self-reliance and become more dependent on God. The person has generally reached a high standard of virtue, self-discipline, penance and prudence. These are all stages that are meant to happen in everyone who follows the guidance of the Holy Spirit in ordinary Catholic life. The fourth stage is one of contemplative prayer, when the person no longer seeks to acquire or grow by one’s own efforts but allows God to lead, even in prayer. The person begins to attach lesser importance to the things of this world and far more to God. The person decreases and God increases and experiences many spiritual consolations, like the prayer of Quiet. It no longer shrinks from trials. The fifth mansion begins an experience of union of wills in which the person develops a complete trust in God’s will. There’s no longer a need to control events or lose much time over petty worries, something that opens the person to receive more and more gifts from God. It’s a spiritual betrothal and the faculties of the soul can often go “asleep” in prayer as the soul is completely possessed by God. The sixth mansion is when the person is torn away from outside afflictions and begins to experience not just a betrothal but a love between Lover and Beloved that lasts for long periods of time full of intimacy. It often involves some intense suffering (physical, spiritual, often misunderstanding from others and occasionally a sense of abandonment comparable to the pains of hell) in which through the Cross one’s union with God and longing for God grows. The person begins to become increasingly occupied in the things of God and can have difficulty in every day practical issues. In the seventh mansion, there is a spiritual marriage in which two candles become one, where there is complete transformation and profound peace, when inadvertent venial sins are still possible but there’s great fruitfulness in prayer and action. The person can now continue duties with no difficulty because there’s a union with God in doing them. The person is engaged fully in the service of God and others with great calm and self-forgetfulness. St. Teresa invited all her sisters through all of these stages of spiritual progress by opening themselves up to the grace of God. She considered it within the reach of everyone who allows the Holy Spirit to lead. She would encourage us to abandon ourselves to the Holy Spirit and let him lead us through the various rooms of each mansion according to God’s pace until, God-willing, we enter into the mansions where we, with her, will live and love God “forever and ever and ever.”
• Today as we celebrate Mass on St. Teresa’s feast day, we ask the Lord to nourish us not only with the Gospel and the way St. Teresa became a living commentary on it, but fire us up with a longing for true holiness, not just by our willingness to be martyred as she was as a kid but for a transforming union with God as an adult. We ask her intercession that if we’re at all lukewarm, if we’re tolerating venial sin, or near occasions, or not really treasuring and responding to God’s graces in our life, to help us convert, no matter what age we are, so that our lives may correspond to the hope God has placed in us in calling us, and so that we might come to experience the fullness God intends to give us as we now receive within the power of the one who raised Christ from the dead and now gives him to us as our nourishment. The Mass is our participation in Jesus’ fulfillment of the Sign of Jonah. We become here one with his call to conversion, one with his wisdom, one with suffering and death, and one with his risen life. We ask St. Teresa to pray for us that we may recognize that here on the altar we have something far greater than Jonah and Solomon, that we are so blessed to be called to this supper of the Lamb, and that Jesus wants through this efficacious sign to transform us more and more into him, so that we may become through, with and in him, living signs in the world calling others, as we prayed in the psalm, to bless the name of the Lord forever.

The readings for today’s Mass were: