Building on Christ the Rock in the Midst of Changes, 25th Friday (II), September 25, 2020

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Friday of the 25th Week in Ordinary Time, Year II
September 25, 2020
Eccl 3:1-11, Ps 144, Lk 9:18-22

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

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

• In today’s first reading, the sacred author of Ecclesiastes says that there’s a time, a “kairos,” for everything under the heavens, and lists several of them. He shows time more or less as the undulating waves of opposites, from night to day, without end, without direction, almost in a circle of endless repetition. This is what life may seem to those who live life without God: everything can seem pointless, where the human person accomplishes nothing from all his labors and sufferings in life, a vanity of vanity. But the author then shifts gears and says that God “has put the timeless into their hearts, without man’s ever discovering.” God has placed his eternal self within us in a way that far exceeds our knowledge or comprehension. This placement of God happened with the appearance of Jesus as the Messiah of God in the “fullness of time,” as St. Paul describes in his Letter to the Galatians.
• In today’s Jesus asked a question about what the people were saying about him not because he was curious but because he wanted to lead them on a journey of faith to recognize that the long-awaited time had really come. After Peter, however, moved my God the Father had courageously confessed his faith in Christ, Jesus announced the type of Messiah he would be in the fullness of time: a Messiah who would suffer and die in order to bring us salvation, a Messiah who would summon us to be co-redeemers with him precisely through entering into his suffering, his death, and his resurrection. This is the Messiah we are called in every time and in eternity to confess. In his Passion, we have a shift from death to life, from darkness to light, from sin to salvation, but one that is not cyclical but ultimately linear. There is a time to die but also a time to rise and the advantage that comes from all this toil is eternal reward. This happens, as the Psalm indicates, when we build our life on God as our rock, mercy, fortress, stronghold, deliverer and trustworthy shield. Even though man’s life is like a breadth and his days on earth like a passing shadow, the Lord notices him and takes thought of him, and comes to make his days not a passing shadow but an eternal life. There is indeed “an appointed time for everything,” but in birth and death, planting and uprooting, weeping and laughing, rending and sowing, silence and speech, God’s grace is given to unite those moments to God so that they may all enhance the way we build our life on God as a stable, secure Rock and thereby confess him to be the long awaited Messiah and Savior, the “same yesterday, today and forever.”
• After Peter’s confession as the Messiah in the Gospel, Jesus told the apostles “not to tell this to anyone.” It wasn’t the kairos yet for them to tell everyone they met directly about the Messiah’s coming. Later it would be the time for them to proclaim the Gospel to every creature. But both were done in obedient love of the one who entered time so that we might enter eternity. Today at Mass, as we prepare in time to receive within the “Timeless One,” we ask him for the grace to recognize, as St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “Now is the acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation,” and seize this time to love and confess him with constant faith, hope and love.

The readings for today’s Mass were:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download