Becoming the Extension of Jesus’ Merciful Heart and Hands, 24th Tuesday (II), September 18, 2018

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Tuesday of the 24th Week in Ordinary Time, Year II
Memorial of St. Joseph Cupertino
September 18, 2018
1 Cor 12:12-14.27-31, Ps 10, Lk 7:11-17

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

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

• In the Gospel, we encounter one of Jesus’ great miracles, one that communicates far more than a great deed done for a particular family, but a whole way of life for us as Christians. There was a collision of two processions, the great crowd following Jesus and the large funeral cortege accompanying the widow who had just lost her only son. Because of Jewish culture at the time, which dictated that a woman needed to be cared and provided by for a man — first her father, then her husband and after her husband’s death, by a son — this woman was now in a particularly pitiful position. When Jesus saw her, his guts exploded with pity — The English translation of the Greek verb splangchnizomai basically means he was sick to his stomach on seeing those in pitiable situations — and he said something to her that must have at first seemed the cruelest thing anyone could: “Do not weep,” words I would encourage you never to say to a grieving family at a wake. But I like to think that Jesus said them in a way that inspired hope in her. He then stepped forward and touched the bier, an act that would have made him ritually impure according to the Jewish mentality and would have been the equivalent of going out into the middle of the street today and halting a funeral procession. But Jesus did what at first glance might seem the exact opposite of compassion. After Jesus had done so, he said, “Young man, I tell you, arise!” He was having him participate in what every act of mercy is meant to indicate: ultimately resurrection from the dead, an eternal triumph over sin and what sin leads to, death. And we see that the boy sat up and began to speak. I wish St. Luke would have recorded his words, because they would have been something! The response of the people is very significant. The first said, “A great prophet has arisen in our midst.” Jesus had just done what they remembered the prophet Elijah had done in raising from the dead the only son of the widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17:17-24) and the prophet Elisha had done for the only son of a Shunammite woman (2 Kings 4:31-17). But they added, “God has visited his people.” The recognized that it was God who had worked that great miracle, that he wasn’t far off, but that he cared, and because he cared he drew near. Little did they know how true their words were. God visited his people with mercy. God always visits his people with mercy.
• As individual Christians and members of the Church, we are called to grasp that Jesus’ compassion is meant to mark the whole way we approach life. Once we have experienced the compassionate visit of the Lord, a visit that is meant to continue within through remaining in the state of grace, we are capable of going out to visit others with God’s loving mercy. And our words — and body language — will be recorded by others of a recognition that through reconciliation we have received from Jesus resurrection. The Lord calls us to become Good Samaritans, not walking by others in need on the other side of the road, but drawing near, visiting them, helping them with compassion. Pope Francis has said that God’s kingdom is a kingdom in which we all draw near to others, when we compassionately weep for other’s sufferings, when we try to heal their wounds with the balm of the love that flows from Jesus’ heart and our own human hearts. God wants to visit others and draw near to them through us.
• This truth helps us to understand what St. Paul teaches us about the Church in today’s first reading from an important angle. He describes the Church as Christ’s mystical body and mentions that even though in that body there are many different functions and services, we’re all needed to live according to our respective charisms, vocations and missions if the Church is going to thrive. It’s key for all of us to understand that every service he names is supposed to be an exercise of mercy: the apostles are sent out to bring God’s mercy, the prophets to preach it, the teachers to teach it, the administers to administer it, the miracle workers to exemplify it, those who speak in tongues to praise God for it. In an important passage that’s unfortunately excised, St. Paul describes individual members as if we’re organs of a body. Some of us are eyes, others hands, others feet, but we can’t pretend as if any of those organs is superfluous to the health of the body as a whole. In the same way, we can’t behave as if Jesus doesn’t want and need each of us to draw near to others with compassion in accordance with the gifts and talents he has given us and the situations in which he has placed us. To continue St. Paul’s image, if we’re an eye, we need to look on others with love; if we’re a hand, we need to extend Christ’s compassionate touch; if we’re a foot, we need to walk or run to the other side, bringing people Christ and his saving Gospel. Jesus doesn’t call any of us to be the hardened heart of his mystical body. He doesn’t ask any of us to be the blind eye or the closed ear when we see others in distress or hear the cries of the poor. He wants us to recognize that we are called to be his eyes, his hands, his feet, his ears, his mouth, his heart in the midst of a world that is still in so much need of his mercy. He wants us to grasp that he wants to visit them through us.
• Today we celebrate the feast of a saint who felt God’s mercy very deeply. St. Joseph Cupertino (1603-1663) is famous mostly because he is the most celebrated and attested levitator in the history of the Church, able even to fly in Churches to grasp onto Jesus in the Crucifix and unable to keep his feet on the ground as he was celebrating Mass. But he was able to fly toward Jesus because of his love, and that love came from the experience of Jesus’ mercy and goodness. He was really quite unintelligent, unable to finish sentences, unable to hold a thought or a job. He wanted to become a Franciscan but he seemed to be so absent minded that they dismissed him. He was able, however, to return as a member of the Franciscan third order and care for the mule and animals in the shed. He did so with such great gratitude to God and to joy that others started to notice him. They started to come to him to explain their problems with prayer or with life and the advice he gave them in response made many to begin to think that he would make a very good priest. So he was allowed to study for holy orders and received all of the minor orders, but when it was coming time for the diaconate and the priesthood, most thought that there would be no way he would pass the examinations because, try as hard as he could, he just couldn’t learn much. At the diaconal examination, they asked him to comment on the passage, “Beatus venter qui portavit,” and he put his head down. He shamefacedly explained that his Latin was terrible, try as hard as the friars worked to teach him. So they said to him in Italian, thinking that it probably would make no difference at all, “The passage is ‘blessed is the womb that bore you,” at which point he smiled and began to give basically a doctoral dissertation in response. That was the passage in Sacred Scripture he pondered more than any other because of his devotion to our Lady. The examiners were blown away and he was passed to the Diaconate. When it came time for the even more stringent examination for the priesthood, the first several Franciscans did so well on the exam that the examiners thought they were wasting their time and passed everyone else, including St. Joseph, without testing them. He’s been the patron saint of exam takers ever since! When he started to levitate and even fly across Churches to embrace Christ on high crucifixes, he was denounced to the Inquisition as if he were possessed. But through it all, he grew in faith. His example shows us that even in those places we’re not appreciated, even when others — including in the Church — don’t respect us according to our dignity and just see our faults, even when we seem to be the least important part of Christ’s mystical Body, we can still bear great fruit in God’s merciful plan. Whereas he lived with many other very capable Franciscans, Capuchins and others, he was the one who was “great in faith,” he was the one who proved himself best a minister of God’s mercy, caring for so many who came to the stable, that he’ll forever be an inspiration. All he had was a result of God’s mercy, and because he had received much, he loved much, he loved like a saint, he loved like God hopes one day we’ll love.
• At this Mass, as the same Jesus who met the widow and her son in Nain comes to meet us here, he wishes to change our life by his compassion, to lift us up spiritually just like he had the young boy arise physically. He wishes that as we seek to adore him here that we can then venerate him in others.  And we’re called to do this with the attitude about which we prayed about in today’s Psalm: “Serve the Lord with gladness.” To a world grieving, we bring God’s nearness which is at the same time to bring hope, joy and gladness. As we prepare to be reconstituted by Jesus as his Mystical Body in this Mass as he receive his Body and Blood and become one body, one spirit, in him, we thank him for doing something in us far greater than resuscitating a dead boy on a bier. He’s about to raise us from the dead and send us out into the world as witnesses that God has indeed visited his people with his mercy. Like St. Joseph of Cupertino, let’s spread the good news and joy of this visit to whatever people and processions we meet today!

The readings for today’s Mass were: