Childlike Joy over Heavenly Inscription, 26th Saturday (II), October 3, 2020

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Saturday of the 26th Week in Ordinary Time, Year II
Memorial of St. Mother Theodore Guerin
October 3, 2020
Job 42:1-3.5-6.12-17, Ps 119, Lk 10:17-24

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

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

• On Thursday the Church was able to focus on the meaning of spiritual childhood, with the feast of St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the “little way of trust and love” that helped make her a doctor of the Church. Yesterday, on the feast of the Guardian Angels, we heard Jesus’ call to convert and become like little children to inherit the kingdom of heaven, and how our guardian angels, even from the time we’re the littlest of children, are constantly before the Father’s throne in heaven praying for us so that we paradoxically grow to full stature while continuously converting to being spiritual children. Today Jesus speaks about spiritual childhood when he rejoices in the Holy Spirit and praises his Father for revealing the most important things — especially who the Father is — to the childlike rather than to the worldly wise and learned. He was rejoicing because the 72 had just returned from proclaiming the Gospel and had participated in Jesus’ authority over Satan and the demons. The disciples were full of joy. Jesus responded by saying, “I have observed Satan fall like lightning from the sky.” This meant that they had “tread[ed] upon serpents and scorpions and upon the full force of the enemy and nothing [harmed] them” but was also a warning for them not to become proud as a result of it, because Satan himself had fallen. He then helped them to rejoice fundamentally because their names had been written in heaven, that they were known by God before they had done anything. He finished the whole passage by saying how blessed they were to see and hear what they do and not to take it for granted. He wanted them to share his joy in what God was doing, which was far greater than what they themselves had done!
• We can see the drama between being childlike and worldly “wise and clever” throughout the Book of Job we’ve been pondering this week. Job had a childlike faith that rejoiced in both what the Lord gave and took away and blessed God’s name. His friends, however, were educated and tried to draw him to look at things in a sophisticated manner, without childlike trust. His sufferings challenged him to begin a little rebellion. But when God spoke and took him on a spiritual journey through creation seen from the perspective of the Creator, he repented and returned anew to his childlike situation. He humbly admitted today, “I have dealt with great things that I do not understand; things too wonderful for me, which I cannot know.” His childlike faith was rewarded, by receiving more than he had had before. The extended allegory of Job helps us to appreciate the way God’s mercy works: As St. Ambrose teaches, our state after having been forgiven is greater than if we had never sinned, because we know know God in his mercy better than we would have otherwise.
• Someone who lived with this mature childlike faith and helped thousands of others to learn to do so is the American saint we celebrate today, St. Mother Theodore Guerin, the foundress of the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana, who was baptized on this day back in 1798 in France. (She died on May 14 in 1856, but May 14 is the Feast of St. Matthias and so the Church celebrates the day of her baptism). As a young girl she distinguished herself by her love for God and those God had made her neighbor. When she made her first communion at the age of 10, she confided to the priest that she was being called to religious life, but after her father was murdered by bandits when she was 15, she had to care for her mother for the next ten years. Her mother didn’t want her to leave her side and little Anne-Therese was patient and kind with her. Eventually, seeing her daughter’s devotion, Isabelle Guerin permitted her daughter to follow her vocation and draw near to others with the same mercy with which she had been caring for her. She entered the Sisters of Providence of Ruille-sur-Loir and taught in schools and visited the poor and the sick. Eventually, when she was 42, her community responded to the request of the Bishop of Vincennes, Indiana, to send sisters to teach the children in the woods of Indiana to help them learn to live the Gospel. She was asked to be the superior of the new community. This was quite a request for one who had become a teaching sister all of a sudden to be a missionary. She prayed about it for a long time, before recognizing that she had committed herself to a Constitution that said, “The Congregation being obliged to work with zeal for the sanctification of souls, the sisters will be disposed to go to whatsoever part of the world obedience calls them,” and that convinced her to answer the call to America. After a four month journey she arrived, founded the new Congregation (since they wouldn’t be able to communicate back with France) and began the work, bringing people the Gospel, an education, loving mercy in founding orphanages and even medicine in establishing various pharmacies. There are still 300 Sisters of her order in Indiana, who are continuing that work of making Satan fall like lightning, and of helping so many to see and hear what the prophets longed for.
• Today at Mass, we have a chance to hear Jesus’ voice and to behold the Lamb of God under sacramental signs. These are blessings far greater than fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen, a thousand she-asses, seven sons and three stunningly beautiful daughters. This is a downpayment on heavenly inscription in the book of life. How blessed we are to be here!

The readings for today’s Mass were:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download