Fr. Roger J. Landry
Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Monday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
June 7, 2021
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:
- This Friday, June 11, is the feast of St. Barnabas, but because of the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, it will not be observed. Yet it’s important to focus on the nickname the members of the early Church gave him, “Son of Encouragement,” something we see in a particular way in his support for St. Paul, and a Christian virtue that is needed in every age. Today we can focus on the type of encouragement St. Paul received from God through him and then focus on the encouragement Jesus, through his Sacred Heart, gives us all.
- In today’s first reading, taken from the beginning of St. Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul uses the word “encourage” nine different times. He describes how God encourages us in our afflictions precisely so that, having received his strength at those times, 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 partially so that we might in turn 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 evil he permits us to endure (since to prevent absolutely our suffering evil would eliminate others’ free will). Most of us have had many examples of this pattern: 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, we can help those who are beginning; if we’ve had to endure the dark night of the senses in prayer, we can help those who are now just entering into it. God encourages us in our circumstances and thereby equips us to encourage others. His encouragement is both a gift and a preparation.
- 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 on which we’ll be pondering for the next almost three weeks. But we can look at it under the aspect of Jesus’ encouragement from within the encouragement he has received from the Father. An important key that unlocks the Beatitudes comes at the very end. In many presentations of the Beatitudes, it’s listed that there are “eight” of them, and under this frame it seems as if Jesus is 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 it is that in the last Beatitude, Jesus is summarizing what he said in all seven that came previously: when we live any of the Beatitudes, we suffer for them; we are often insulted, calumniated, and can even be persecuted. Jesus, who enfleshed all of the Beatitudes, experienced this first hand and wanted to encourage any of his followers who were 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 just 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 the way the real world works. Those who are persecuted are the most foolish of all, suffering for the faith when either God doesn’t exist, or doesn’t care about moral issues, or conscience rights or anything similar. If we live as persons of the beatitudes, if we seek to conform ourselves with Jesus in these ways, we will suffer for it. Jesus, however, wants 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.
- Every morning Jesus seeks to encourage us by sharing with us the Good News and applying it to our day-to-day existence, and by entering our lives to help us conform our life to his poverty of spirit, sensitivity, purity, hunger, desires for peace, meekness and humility, and endurance in persecution. We taste and see his goodness in the Eucharist! We ask him who has spoken to us and is about to feed us to help us bring this same encouragement, as men and women of the Beatitudes, out to our world that desperate needs this encouragement 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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