Called by Christ to Be Rooted, Built Upon, Firmly Established, and Gratefully Walking in Him, 23rd Tuesday (I), September 7, 2021

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Tuesday of the 23rd Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
September 7, 2021
Col 2:6-15, Ps 145, Lk 6:12-19

The following points were attempted in the homily:

• Today we ponder the calling of the apostles — and our calling — in the Gospel. Our vocation, like theirs, is a direct result of the prayer of the Lord Jesus. We see Jesus at the beginning of today’s Gospel passage climb a mountain and spend all night in prayer to his Father. Jesus seems to have been praying in discernment about whom to choose as his apostles and praying in intercession for those whom he was about to call. We should never forget that Jesus likewise prays for us. He’s ascended into heaven in order to intercede for us “night and day.” Just as much as he prayed for the apostles before summoning them, prayed for Peter that his faith may not fail but that after his conversion he would strengthen his brothers (Lk 22), prayed to the Father for all those who would hear the Gospel through the work of the Apostles (Jn 17), he prays for us still. For that reason, we should never really be afraid of living up to the vocation he has given us.
• From among his disciples, he selected twelve apostles. St. Luke says he “called [them] to himself” and “named [them] Apostles,” another way of saying what St. Mark describes: “he called them to be with him and so that they might be sent out” (Mk 3:14). Those are the two essential realities of the Christian life: to come to and remain with Jesus, and to be sent out by him as apostles. But the passage also brings us face-to-face with the mystery of divine election. God calls us all to him, but among all of us he chooses some for more intensely intimate cooperation with him. Out of all people he chose the Jews; out of all the Jews, some became his disciples; out of all those disciples, 12 became apostles; out of all 12, he chose three (Peter, James and John) to be with him in many of the most pivotal moments of his public life (healing the daughter of Jairus, the Transfiguration, the Agony in the Garden); and out of the three, he chose one, Peter, on whom to build his Church. Likewise we can say that Jesus calls all 7.6 people billion alive today to come to the knowledge of the truth, but only 2.5 out of 7.7 billion are Christian and only 1.3 billion are Catholic. Out of that, only 415,000 (0.03 percent) are priests and 660,000 (0.05 percent) are women religious. These facts don’t make us better than anyone else, but we are certainly fortunate. And just as the apostles responded to Jesus’ invitation and left other things to be with him and made themselves available to be sent out on mission, so have we, something that is a response to Jesus’ prayer and doubtless something that gives him great joy. We also see in the Gospel is the way Jesus trained the twelve to carry on his mission: he taught the crowds, he healed them of their diseases and cured them of demonic possession. Everyone, St. Luke tells us, wanted to touch him “because power came forth from him and healed them all.” The mission of the Church is to continue to teach as Jesus’ mystical body, to continue to heal through the sacraments and through charity, and to continue to make it possible for people to touch Jesus and be touched by him. For this to occur, we need to “be with Jesus,” by praying in union with him, by teaching in union with him, and by acting in union with him.
• And that brings us to today’s extraordinary first reading. St. Paul says at the beginning of today’s passage from his letter to the Church in Colossae, “As you received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in him.” “Walk” is a Biblical word for “behave,” for the moral life. Our faith is a “way,” not a classroom. Christ summons us to come and go. We’re supposed to be journeying on the pilgrimage of faith — and on that pilgrimage not just following Christ’s footsteps on the outside, but walking in him, doing everything in him, having an interior yoking. St. Paul makes what is far more than a metaphor concrete with four verbal expressions, which give us criteria to evaluate how we’re supposed to grow in our vocation. “Rooted in him,” “Built upon him,” “Firmly established in the faith as you were taught,” and “abounding in thanksgiving.” For World Youth Day in Madrid in 2011, Pope Benedict chose the first three expressions as the motto and wrote a letter to the young people of the world about them. His words are relevant to all of us, no matter how young.
• To be rooted in Christ means that we embed our lives more and more in him, like the image of the tree in the first psalm that stretches forth its roots to the living water and remains strong and vibrant even in drought and against wind. We’re supposed to root ourselves in Christ’s word, in the sacraments, in his charity, in his body the Church. Trees firmly rooted are the ones still standing after a hurricane. If we’re not firmly rooted in him, we’ll be like the chaff that burns away. To be built on Jesus brings to mind Jesus’ words about the wise man who built his house on rock, the man who hears his words and acts on them. The Church’s architectural plan has Christ as the cornerstone, the apostles (who are called in today’s Gospel) as the pillars, and each of us as “living stones,” living meaning growing, alive in Christ, and stones meaning not play dough but solid. We see that Simon, the first of the apostles, had his name changed to Peter meaning “Rock,” despite the fact that he was a sinner and weak before temptation. The Lord, likewise, can change us from dead silly puddy to living stones. To be “firm in the faith” means that we don’t waver in our trust. St. Paul, we know, was writing to a Church in which many had been seduced by the philosophies associated with gnosticism, what he describes as “empty, seductive philosophy according to the tradition of men.” Pope Benedict in 2011 said we likewise need to make sure we’re not seduced away from the faith by the philosophies of our own age, individualism, materialism, hedonism, secularism and the like. We need to be firm in faith to recognizes these seductions and resist them. Finally — and this for some reason was not part of the World Youth Day 2011 theme — we are called to be overflowing in gratitude. Very often we can be like the Israelites in the desert, complaining about everything. To walk in Christ, however, means that we live a perpetual Eucharist, a thanksgiving to the Lord, for the gift of life, the gift of his love, the gift even of the Cross. “It is right always and everywhere to give you thanks,” we pray in every Mass. That is God’s will for us in Christ Jesus, St. Paul says elsewhere.
• In the Mass, all of the truths today come to completion. Jesus calls us here by name, just like he called the first apostles to the Upper Room, so that we might be with him and so that, at the end of the Mass, he might send us out in the Christian apostolate. It’s here that he teaches, heals and delivers us from the evil one. It’s here that he helps us to root ourselves in him, to build ourselves on him the cornerstone, to be strengthened by him in the truth of the faith, and to thank the Father with him. It’s here that he enters into us so that we might walk in him on the pilgrimage of faith until the celestial Jerusalem.

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

Reading 1
COL 2:6-15