Growing in Faith through Prayer and Fasting, 7th Monday (I), February 26, 2019

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Monday of the Seventh Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
February 25, 2019
Sir 1:1-10, Ps 93, Mk 9:14-29

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

The following points were attempted in the homily:

• Today, on the heels of a study of creation in the Book of Genesis through the lens of the Letter to the Hebrews, the Church begins the study of the Book of Sirach, the longest of all of the Old Testament works of wisdom literature. Normally the study is two weeks, but we will study it until the beginning of Lent in a week and a half. Today we encounter the introduction to the Book, which highlights the main theme: Awe and wonder at the mystery of God’s wisdom concealed in creation, from sands on the seashore, to drops of rain, to heaven, to earth, to subterranean realities. The inspired Joshua ben Sirach tells us that real wisdom comes from God, “one, wise and truly awe-inspiring, seated upon his throne, … Most High all-powerful creator-king and truly awe-inspiring one, the God of dominion.” His wisdom effuses throughout his creative word, for “the word of God on high is the fountain of wisdom and her ways are everlasting.” But God “has lavished” this gift of wisdom, this capacity to understand, “upon his friends.” Throughout this work, we will see how that font of God’s wisdom lavishly overflows to those who live in friendship with the Lord.
• When we turn to the Gospel, we see one way in which that wisdom is lavishly poured out upon us in the explanation that Jesus gives to his apostles about why he was able to drive out a demon they couldn’t. He was imparting to them the means by which they could share not just in his wisdom but more fully in God’s powerful recreative work. The scene is a father’s request on behalf of his son, who since birth has been possessed by a demon in such a way that it causes him to be deaf, mute, thrown into convulsions and even suicidal. When the father and a crowd meets Jesus returning from the top of the Mount of Transfiguration with Peter, James and John, he tells Jesus that the apostles were arguing with the Scribes over why they couldn’t heal the boy. Doubtless the Scribes were attacking them for their failure. Jesus seems to express some frustration that, because of a lack of faith among a “faithless generation,” the miracle wasn’t able to be worked by the nine apostles who were at the foot of Mt. Tabor as he was being transfigured. There was two-fold lack of faith.
  • First in the father who asked, “If you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us,” to which Jesus replied, “If you can! Everything is possible to one who has faith!” And the father replied that he did have faith but needed more of it to overcome his weakness and doubt.
  • The second lack of faith was in the disciples. When they asked Wisdom incarnate why they couldn’t drive it out, he responded, “This kind can only come out through prayer.” In most of the early manuscripts — and in the RSV translation — it says “prayer and fasting.” Notice that Jesus didn’t say, “I was able to do this miracle but I have divine power that you don’t.” He said “prayer” and perhaps “fasting,” the type of activities that they were capable of, the practices in which he was engaged. Prayer, as Pope Benedict liked to stress, is “faith in action.” Fasting is ultimately a bodily prayer, recognizing that there are certain areas in which the Bridegroom has been taken away and is absent. It’s a means by which we learn how to hunger for what God hungers, to persevere in the existential dialogue of life that is prayer, as we seek to abide in God and have him abide in us. Wisdom incarnate from whom all wisdom flows was sharing with his friends his secrets. It was a summons for them to grow in faith, like the father of the boy, through their own prayer and fasting.
• It was a summons likewise for us. Miracles still happen, and happen all the time. We see stupendous miracles in Lourdes and in the causes of canonization. But there aren’t anywhere near as many miracles — moral and physical — as there could be if more of us had faith the size of a mustard seed. The disciples clearly had some faith, faith to leave everything to follow him, faith to believe he was the Messiah, but there, too, was still an admixture of doubt. They, too, had some of the problems of their faithless and perverse generation. Likewise we can often have our faith undermined by the rationalism of the age that doesn’t believe in miracles. We may “say our prayers” and fast a couple of days a year, but God is calling us to more. These are useful thoughts not just as we approach Lent but as we take our faith more seriously. The Sisters of Life, as you well know, were founded by Cardinal John O’Connor to pray and fast for the cause of life.
• A week ago, and then again on Friday, I led tours of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. Toward the end of the visit, I always stop at the altar where now Blessed Pope Innocent XI is entombed under the altar. On top of it, there’s a mosaic of Raphael’s famous Transfiguration, his very last work and, in the opinion of many of the experts of his work, his greatest. It’s unique. It shows at the top of the image Jesus transfigured by light, with Elijah and Moses floating beside him and Peter, James and John overwhelmed on the ground. Some scholars say that the figures are arranged basically in the form of a triangle indicating the Blessed Trinity, others in a circle, indicating God’s eternity. Regardless, it’s a place of light and order. That’s all in the top half of the work. In the bottom half, we have what was occurring simultaneously at the bottom of the mountain, chaos, cacophony, a lot of darkness and some light of faith: it’s the scene of the father of the possessed boy asking the disciples to heal his son and their not being able to do it. Raphael’s is the only image of the Transfiguration in which what is occurring at the bottom of the mountain is also displayed. It’s a means by which to say that at the very moment God is present with all his light, transfigured in one way or the other, sharing his wisdom with his friends, there are many who continue to walk in darkness, in chaos, in suffering, without the sufficient light of faith. That image from 2000 years ago remains actual, and we are called to approach the situation with increased faith, to help those of our generation not be “perverse” but faithful, and to lead them to grow in faith through prayer and fasting.
• Today at Mass, we listen anew to Wisdom speak and then we enter into a Holy Communion with Wisdom incarnate. During the Last Supper Jesus called us his friends because he revealed to us everything the Father had given him and said we would be friends if we did what he commanded. We deepen our friendship as we do this in memory of him at his command. This really is lavishing his wisdom as he lavishes on us himself. May we respond with faith give an example of wisdom for the world.

The readings for today’s Mass were: