Christ-Like Ambition for Self-Giving in Marriage and in Life, Feast of St. James, July 25, 2018

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Feast of St. James the Apostle
Fiftieth Anniversary of Humanae Vitae
July 25, 2018
2 Cor 4:7-15, Ps 126, Mt 20:20-28

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

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

• Every summer tens of thousands of people from around the world, from devout Catholics to agnostics trying to take a journey to find themselves, make the 478 mile Camino de Santiago in Spain to the tomb of St. James the Apostle whose feast we celebrate today. Today, we’re not in Spain, but we’re asked to make what I would call the true way of St. James, following his footsteps as he sought to follow the Lord’s, knowing that this sainted apostle is praying for us that we may indeed take that root.
• The Way of St. James begins at the seashore of Galilee when the apostle left his boats, his fish, his parents to respond to Jesus’ call “follow me!” and he kept following Jesus not only in the occasions he shared with all of the apostles, but when Jesus called him, his brother John and Peter, apart from the rest to cure Peter’s mother in law, to raise the daughter of Jairus from the dead, to be transfigured among them, and to pray in the Garden that, if it be the Father’s will, the chalice of suffering God the Father was giving him might be taken away. For us to follow the way of St. James, we, too, must follow Jesus, leaving other things behind; to follow him to the sick; to follow him to the dead and mourning; to follow him on the happy moments; to follow him into the moments of great suffering.
• To do that, we need to have our desires, our ambitions, our longings transformed just like St. James did. In today’s Gospel, after his mother asks whether James and John could have the choicest positions in Jesus’ messianic administration, Jesus asks, “Can you drink the chalice I am to drink?,” the chalice Jesus would reveal in Gethsemane he would rather have taken from him, the chalice of suffering foretold in Isaiah’s suffering servant song. They both responded with zeal, “We can,” and Jesus confirmed that they would, but they would be able to do so only through a humble acceptance of the power of the Holy Spirit after Pentecost, since we know both refused to drink it with Jesus on Holy Thursday night. That chalice is a death to ourselves so that Christ can rise, it’s a joining him in giving our life as a ransom for all, becoming with him a servant and slave of the rest, starting from serving those “among us” rather than neglecting them to serve neighbors elsewhere.
• That path of self-sacrificial loving service is, of drinking Christ’s chalice, St. Paul tells us in today’s first reading, paradoxically the path to life. He says that we are “always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body,” that “we who live are constantly being given up to death for the sake of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.” For Christ “dying” is the process of total self-giving: “No one has greater love than to lay down his life for his friends.” We are called constantly to live Christ’s dying, his self-giving, so that his real risen life can shine. All of our sufferings are an opportunity for us to die to ourselves so that the love of Christ risen from the dead can become more manifested in our “earthen vessels.” That’s the chalice we must consume. It’s a bitter one of suffering at first but in the consumption and the living it is transformed into truly sweet and overflowing, as love is. This is part of the way of St. James, to drink that chalice, become true servants of the rest, and manifest the dying, rising and living of Jesus in our own life.
• Today as the Church marks the 50th anniversary of the Blessed Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae, it’s an opportunity for us to recognize that just as in the Christian life we’re called to drink the chalice of Christ like self-giving love, so in marriage. In HV 9, Pope Paul VI described how marital love, modeled on Christ’s spousal love, is to be free, full, faithful and fruitful. The use of contraception, on the other hand, does not involve this type of loving self-giving to God or to one’s spouse, but rather a built-in rejection of the maternal or paternal meaning of the man’s or woman’s body in the very act made by God for it to be maximally expressed. I saw a comment to an article I wrote yesterday commemorating Humanae Vitae‘s 25th anniversary saying, “You have to admit that Catholic couples have it much harder than their non-Catholic contemporaries.” There would be a lot one could say in response to that, but I’d like to get right to the core of it: yes, to be a Catholic brings with it higher demands. When a Catholic bride processes down the aisle, she passes the Stations of the Cross and heads toward the Crucifix. St. Paul instructs husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the Church, and Christ was crucified out of love for the Church. So it may be “harder,” but Jesus didn’t promise any of us in any state of life an easy path. He promised us that he would be with us on that narrow road. Christian marriage is an opportunity for spouses to learn how to love each other as Christ loves them, to serve rather than be served, to give their life as a ransom for the other’s eternity, to carry about the self-giving dying to self of Jesus so that the real life of Jesus may be manifested in their bodies and the children with which God blesses them. Today on the 50th anniversary of Humanae Vitae, we pray for all married couples that the “grace bestowed in abundance on more and more people,” as more and more come to discover that there’s a better way to live marriage than with contraception, “may cause the thanksgiving to overflow for the glory of God.”
• The way we learn with St. James to drink that chalice is every day at Mass, when we are given a chance to hear Christ saying, in a slightly different way each day, “follow me!,” and then, united to him, we are able to go out to give our life as a ransom to save others’ lives, serving them and becoming great with St. James. That’s the chalice of blessing we have, which is a participation in Christ’s blood (1 Cor 10:16). This is the sacrifice in which St. James participated on Holy Thursday and later would celebrate with the first Christians. This is the source and summit of the Camino on earth. May St. James intercede for us that we may follow his Camino all the way to Jesus’ eternal right side where he seeks to make our chalice forever overflow.

Today’s readings were: