Growing in Vigilance, Prayer and Strength Each Liturgical Year, 34th Saturday (I), November 28, 2015

Fr. Roger J. Landry
St. Francis Xavier Parish, Acushnet, MA
Saturday of the 34th Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
Memorial of St. Catherine Labouré
November 28, 2015
Dan 7:15-27, Dan 3:82-87, Lk 21:34-36

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

The following is a transcription of the homily:

• Today, on this last day of the liturgical year, the Church wants us looking ahead, to learn how we’re supposed to live at all times, and to look behind, to examine the type of foundation we have for today and tomorrow based on yesterday, to learn from the various graces as well as the various falls that have occurred, so that in this new liturgical year about to begin, we may live it in an even more Christian way.
• So the liturgical year ends by trying to scare the hell out of us, literally. The first reading from the book of the prophet Daniel describes, in imagery, the persecution of Christians in the church throughout time, at the mercy of those with “bronze claws” and “iron teeth.” For the Christians today in Iraq and Syria, that beast looks very much like the ISIS. At all times, there will be sufferings for the Christian. Jesus wants us to get ready for it: not just something that’s coming much later, but something that will afflict his Mystical Body at every time in history.
• But how does he want us to prepare? He’s been speaking to us about that the last two weeks at daily Mass. Today he says, “Beware that your heart’s not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life and that day may catch you by surprise, like a trap.” Just think about the Bataclan club a couple weeks ago in Paris, people of every generation perished. I still don’t know what the heck seniors were doing there. They’re supposed to have greater wisdom. But they go to a death metal concert. And at the very singing of the song, “Kiss me, Satan,” these terrorists start murdering people. The victims unfortunately weren’t alert. They weren’t vigilant. They were going to a satanic death metal concert. It wasn’t as if God was punishing them. He wasn’t. God loves every one of us. He doesn’t want any of this evil to occur. But rather than being alert, their hearts had become not just drowsy, but stony from carousing, drunkenness, seeking earthly pleasures, and being weighed down by the anxieties of daily life.
• Many of us are asleep. We sleepwalk through life, we’re not really alert that God’s always present, that he’s always trying to help. Jesus wants us to face whatever realities that come sober, and to learn. He tells us be vigilant at all times and pray that we may have the strength to escape the tribulations that are coming and to stand before the Son of man. To escape and to stand. To make sure that we can turn our back on evil and can stand before the Lord because we’ve always come to try to be in His presence. He gives us two verbs. To remain alert, to be vigilant, to know that he’s coming. To also know that evil is trying to come but then to take advantage of every time to pray, to long for him, to desire him, to offer our life to Him. That hopefully, has been the way we’ve at least striven to live over the course of last year, and the prayer that the church has been saying throughout this 34th week of Ordinary Time, to “stir up the will of your faithful, Lord, so that striving more eagerly to bring your kingdom to its fulfillment here on Earth, they may be more receptive to, they’ll receive in greater measure, the healing remedies your kindness bestows.” We turn to the Lord and say, “Wake up our will make us long for this, make us hunger for this, so that we might bring your plan towards fulfillment here on Earth and open ourselves up through that striving to the healing remedies you are always giving us. That’s being vigilant and alert, aware that our task is to bring God’s kingdom to completion, knowing that he’s always giving us his healing remedy. He’s always giving us the help we need.
• Today the Church celebrates the feast of St. Catherine Labouré, to whom our Lady appeared in November of 1830 to ask her to have struck a metal on one side, showing our lady with rays coming from her hands, saying “O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee,” and the flip side has a great M with a cross and two hearts, Jesus’ Sacred Heart and Mary’s Immaculate Heart. And if you know that image very well, you see that Mary’s hands have rings on them. And some of those rings are radiant with light. And other rings are dull. And so St. Catherine asked our Lady, “Why are some rings almost blinding in their beauty and others are totally dull?” Mary replied that the rings and the rays coming from the rings are the graces that God is giving to the human race through prayers made through her intercession. The radiant ones are the graces that have been received. The dull ones are the graces that could have been given if only the people had asked, that we waste so many of the graces so much of the time.
• Over the course of this last liturgical year, we’ve received so many gifts from God. But there were other gifts that God was willing to give us, but our will wasn’t yet ready to receive them, gifts to help us to make his kingdom come, gifts to heal us so that we can do it, gifts so that we can escape the enemy and stand before the Son of Man. And so some of those we didn’t receive. And that’s not supposed to make us feel guilty. It’s not supposed to make us beat our chest like crazy. It’s supposed to lead us to say, “Thank you, Lord, for the gift of another liturgical year. And I want to live it in such a way that, please, do stir up my will, so that I may receive all of those and help make your kingdom come.” What’s been unique about this last year it’s the only liturgical year in the history of the church that has been marked in the particular way it was, which has been a way of so many graces. It’s an opportunity for us to ask whether we’ve received those grace or not. It’s the only liturgical year ever that has been a year dedicated to the consecrated life. And in the consecrated life, we see religious men and women, consecrated virgins and hermits, members of societies of apostolic life and secular institutes, and so many of the new movements and forms that the Holy Spirit has raised up for the sanctification of the church. One of the things that we see quite clearly in all of these forms is that they stay awake and pray. And their example is supposed to influence us all. How lucky you are and how pleased God is that so many of you practice that vigilance and practice that prayer together when you come to stand or kneel or sit before the Son of Man in Eucharistic Adoration, which helps, God willing, not just to have an hour a day or an hour a week of prayer, but should help to influence the entire way you live. So that at all times, you’re alert because you recognize the same Lord who’s here in the Tabernacle wants to help us 24/7. And you also stay prayerful, uniting all the aspects of your life to that Lord who wishes to abide in us and make us His tabernacle. This is the grace in which our Lady’s 10 fingers are wanting to just pour down upon all of us as we finish this liturgical year and begin the new. And so let us pray through her and St. Catherine’s intercession, that the Lord may so stir up our will, as to receive this great grace and come throughout this new liturgical year to make it truly a year of the Lord and annus Domini. To the Lord that she gave us from her womb and continues to wish to give us we give glory and eternal praise forever.

The readings for today’s Mass were: