Fr. Roger J. Landry
Our Lady of Guadalupe Chapel
Ave Maria University, Ave Maria, Florida
Catholic Medical Association Boot Camp for Medical Students
Monday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
June 12, 2023
2 Cor 1:1-7, Ps 34, Mt 5:1-12
To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
The following points were attempted in the homily:
- Yesterday, June 11, was the feast of St. Barnabas, nicknamed by the early Christians the “Son of Encouragement,” because of the way he emboldened so many in the first decades of the Church, including St. Paul. St. Barnabas was the one who encouraged the generosity of the first Christians by himself selling his property and laying the proceeds at the feet of the apostles to distribute as was most needed. He was the one who encouraged St. Paul, introducing this former terrorist against Christians to the apostles in Jerusalem and personally vouching for him. He was the one who eventually tracked St. Paul down in Tarsus where he was making tents to take him to Antioch and have him become the greatest Christian missionary of all time. We’re all called ultimately to be like St. Barnabas, a true person of encouragement who can strengthen others to be bold, to go on, to confront and overcome their fears. But we call him “Son of Encouragement,” not just “Man of Encouragement,” because he received the encouragement he paid forward from above, from Christ himself, who told him and others time and again “Take Courage. It is I. Do not be afraid.”
- St. Paul’s experience of encouragement, from Barnabas and like Barnabas from Christ, led him to write the extraordinary consoling words he penned in his Second Letter to the Christians in Corinth. In the first seven lines of this letter, the Apostle to the Gentiles uses the word “encourage” ten different times. He describes how God encourages us in our afflictions precisely so that, having received his strength in those difficult moments, we might credibly be able to encourage others with the same encouragement — namely God’s — we have received. St. Paul received this encouragement various times, as we see in the Acts of the Apostles and his letters. Right after this passage, he describes how his afflictions were crushing him. But God came to his aid and helped him to see that “if we are afflicted,
it is for your encouragement and salvation; if we are encouraged, it is for your encouragement, which enables you to endure the same sufferings that we suffer.” What we prayed in the Psalm happens often: “When the poor one called out, the Lord heard, and from all his distress he saved him.” God permits us to suffer so that we might receive his encouragement and then be better equipped to share that blessing with others. That’s part of the good that God wants to bring out of the hardships he permits us to endure. I think by this point we are all able to relate to this point, that if we’ve suffered, for example, a physical illness and recovered, we’re able to encourage those suffering the same illness; if we’re gone through a particularly grueling academic program, like medical school or residency, we can help those who are beginning; if we’ve had to endure the dark night of the senses or the soul in prayer, we can help those who are now just entering into it. God encourages us in our circumstances and helps us to encourage others. His encouragement is both a gift and a task. - We see how Jesus similarly seeks to encourage others in today’s Gospel in sharing the Beatitudes. I normally prefer to preach on the Beatitudes in a straightforward way, contrasting Jesus’ notion of the path happiness from the world’s and using it as an introduction to the entire Sermon on the Mount that we’ll be pondering for the next three weeks. But we can look at it under the aspect of Jesus’ encouragement from within, with the same encouragement he has received from the Father. An important key that unlocks the Beatitudes comes at the very end of them. In many presentations of the Beatitudes, it’s listed that there are “eight” of them, but under this frame it would seem as if Jesus were repeating numbers seven and eight with different words: “Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness” and “Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me.” But another way of looking at them is that in the “eighth,” Jesus is summarizing what he said in all seven that came previously: when we live any of the Beatitudes, we suffer for them; for putting them into practice, we are often insulted, calumniated, and even sometimes are persecuted. Jesus, who enfleshed all of the Beatitudes, experienced this first hand and wanted to encourage any of his followers who was enduring similar ridicule to remember that what seemed like a curse to the world was actually a blessing. Those who are poor in spirit are often mocked because they convict the world of its addiction to money and its avarice. Those who mourn because of sensitivity to suffering and to sin are treated as oxygen suckers. Those who are meek are teased as if they were weak because they don’t play by the rules of using their strength to overpower others or retaliate. Those who seek holiness are derided because just ones are always considered obnoxious to those whose of evil ways, as we see in the Book of Wisdom (2:12). Those who are merciful are called bleeding hearts who let others take advantage of them. Those who are pure in heart are mocked as prudes. Those who are peacemakers are treated as if they are utopians who stupidly don’t grasp how the real world works. Those who are persecuted are considered the most foolish of all, suffering for the faith when God doesn’t exist, or when he doesn’t care about the unpopular moral issues we suffer to defend, or when we’re supposedly neurotically misled in conscience, and so on. If we live as persons of the beatitudes, if we seek to conform ourselves with Jesus and not to the world and its values, we will suffer for it. Jesus, however, wants us to encourage us. He desires us to know that we are blessed in all of those circumstances and they will lead, not just in eternity, but in some way here in this world, to enter God’s kingdom, to deep consolation and fulfillment, to possessing the earth, to seeing God, to being called his children, to great heavenly reward.
- This morning, as we begin the Boot Camp with a day focused on bringing God into every aspect of life in medical school and the medical profession, Jesus seeks to encourage us by sharing with us the Good News and applying it to our day-to-day existence. He wants to enter our lives with his strength, to help us conform our life to his poverty of spirit, sensitivity, purity, hunger, work for peace, meekness and humility, and endurance in persecution. He wants to have us taste and see his goodness — what a great encouragement this is — in the Holy Eucharist! We ask him who has spoken to us and is about to feed us to encourage us so deeply that we may bring this same encouragement, as men and women of the Beatitudes, out to our world that desperate needs courage to experience grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1 2 COR1:1-7
Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,
and Timothy our brother,
to the Church of God that is at Corinth,
with all the holy ones throughout Achaia:
grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of compassion and the God of all encouragement,
who encourages us in our every affliction,
so that we may be able to encourage
those who are in any affliction
with the encouragement with which we ourselves are encouraged by God.
For as Christ’s sufferings overflow to us,
so through Christ does our encouragement also overflow.
If we are afflicted,
it is for your encouragement and salvation;
if we are encouraged,
it is for your encouragement,
which enables you to endure the same sufferings that we suffer.
Our hope for you is firm,
for we know that as you share in the sufferings,
you also share in the encouragement.
Responsorial Psalm PS 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9
R. (9a) Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.
I will bless the LORD at all times;
his praise shall be ever in my mouth.
Let my soul glory in the LORD;
the lowly will hear me and be glad.
R. Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.
Glorify the LORD with me,
let us together extol his name.
I sought the LORD, and he answered me
and delivered me from all my fears.
R. Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.
Look to him that you may be radiant with joy,
and your faces may not blush with shame.
When the poor one called out, the LORD heard,
and from all his distress he saved him.
R. Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.
The angel of the LORD encamps
around those who fear him, and delivers them.
Taste and see how good the LORD is;
blessed the man who takes refuge in him.
R. Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.
Alleluia MT 5:12A
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Rejoice and be glad;
for your reward will be great in heaven.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel MT 5:1-12
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain,
and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him.
He began to teach them, saying:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the land.
Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the clean of heart,
for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,
for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you
and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me.
Rejoice and be glad,
for your reward will be great in heaven.
Thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
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