Finishing Well with Generosity, 9th Saturday (II), June 6, 2020

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Saturday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time, Year II
Memorial of St. Norbert
June 6, 2020
2 Tim 4:1-8, Ps 71, Mk 12:38-44

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

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

• Today in the Gospel Jesus contrasts two types of persons and believers. The first are the Scribes, who, despite their intellectual knowledge of the law, are vain and rapacious. They vainly “go around in long robes and accept greetings in the marketplaces, seats of honor in synagogues, and places of honor at banquets.” Worse, he says, “They devour the houses of widows and, as a pretext, recite lengthy prayers.” Their religion is a show and a means by which they can take advantage even of the poor, by persuading them to give to them out of a desire to give generously to God. On the surface the scribes seem very holy, but underneath, Jesus — as he says elsewhere — says they’re full of dead men’s bones, a hypocrisy that would show itself in starkest relief as they conspired to get him executed by the Romans. In contrast to their external display, Jesus points out a poor widow who contributed to the Temple treasure two lepta, together worth less than a penny, but Jesus said that constituted “all she had, her whole livelihood.” She wasn’t giving a show out of hypocrisy. She was giving herself with integrity.
• There’s a similar distinction in today’s moving first reading from the end of St. Paul’s Second Letter to St. Timothy. St. Paul describes those teachers and prevaricating believers who do “not tolerate sound doctrine, but, following their own desires and insatiable curiosity, … accumulate teachers, … stop listening to the truth, and … [are] diverted to myths.” These are sophists and curiosity seekers, who are constantly looking for the latest novelty in the faith. We see this today in preachers who, for example, use their pulpits to speak disproportionately about their political opinions in opinable areas, or who try foremost to entertain, or who deform rather inform people’s consciences with regard to intrinsic evils, and people who look for gurus who reduce the Gospel to politics on the right or the left, who want to be entertained, and who are looking for those who won’t call them to conversion but rather pat them on the back even when they’re turning their back on Christ. In contrast St. Paul charges St. Timothy on behalf of God to “proclaim the word” rather than what people want to hear, to “persist” no matter the circumstances, to “convince, reprimand, encourage” with patience and sound teaching according to where the person is with regard to living according to God, to be “self-possessed” rather than fly off the handle, to “endure hardship” because it will inevitably come to every sign of contradiction to the age, to share the fulness of the Gospel rather than only those parts that will please the listeners, and to fulfill rather than leave incomplete the work God has given him to do. And, as he often did with Timothy, St. Paul showed that he was not merely saying, “Do as I say,” but “Follow me.” He was writing from a Roman prison where he was about to sacrifice his life for God. He put into practice all of these imperatives he gave to his spiritual son. As he was preparing for his end in Rome, he said, however, that he had fought the good fight of faith, had finished the race with urgency, had kept the faith by passing it on, and was now awaiting an encounter with Christ, the just judge. The good fight comes from the Greek work “agon” from which we get agony. He fought like Christ did in the Garden of Gethsemane. He recognized that the journey of faith requires urgency, as he hastened across the ancient globe planting the Gospel. He kept the covenant of faith, the oath he had made with the Lord as a loyal servant. And now he awaited the fulfillment of the Lord’s promise, which he himself said awaited Timothy if Timothy similarly persevered.
• Today we have someone who made the conversion from the first type of believer to the second. St. Norbert (1080-1134) became a cleric originally out of an impure desire to get ahead in the German court, to get benefices and live well without commitment (remaining as a subdeacon to keep all of his options open). But he was injured in a terrible fall from a horse during a storm — his conversion, unlike St. Paul’s, actually involved a horse! — the Lord spoke to him saying “Turn from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it.” That’s what he did. After his conversion, and precisely learning from his formerly worldly ways, he would call others to “live according to the norms of the Scriptures with Christ as their model.” He did this as a priest, the founder of a reformed group of secular priests called the Premonstratensians (Norbertines), and eventually as a bishop. So many secular priests, he recognized, were isolated and easy prey for the devil and lives according to the three-fold lust instead of the evangelical counsels, lives of corruption that corrupt others rather than lives of holiness that help sanctify others. He wanted to bring priests together so that they could worship God together, grow in holiness together, and work together to spread word of God and love for God, to help them fight the good fight, finish the race, keep the faith, proclaim the word in and out of season, convince, reprimand, encourage, endure hardship, share the fullness of the Gospel and fulfill their ministry.
• Mass is where we are not here for show but to put in our lepta, our whole livelihood. It’s where we pour ourselves out as a libation in response to God’s pouring out his blood for us and our salvation. It’s where those who long for the Lord’s appearance, not only see him, but are nourished and strengthened by him to persevere in the fight, in the race, in the faith, until the one crowned with many crowns crowns us. Today through the intercession of Saints Norbert, Paul and Timothy, we ask for the grace to love God like them and the widow in the Gospel.

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

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