Harvesters for God’s Luxuriant Vine, 14th Wednesday (II), July 8, 2020

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Wednesday of the 14th Week in Ordinary Time, Year II
Votive Mass for the Evangelization of Peoples
July 8, 2020
Hos 10:1-3.7-8.12, Ps 105, Mt 10:1-7

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

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

• Today God through the Prophet Hosea reminds Israel that it is a “luxuriant vine,” meant to bear fruit — not just the earthly fruit that God made possible from this “land flowing with milk and honey” but abundant spiritual fruit in response to God’s spousal love. But God says through Hosea that the more physical fruit they bore, the richer they became, the more pagan altars and fertility poles they built to Ba’al. Rather than sowing justice and reaping the fruit of piety, they were sowing thorns and thistles. God’s fidelity and blessing were being responded to with infidelity and evil. But rather than being consumed with righteous indignation, God is consumed with mercy: “It is the time to seek the Lord,” he says, “until he come and rain down justice upon you.” God rained that justice down in his Son, Jesus, the Just One (Is 45:8) who came to help the world, beginning with Israel, to sow justice, reap piety, and bear fruit worthy of the luxuriance with which God had endowed them. Hosea urged them to “seek the Lord,” and in the Psalm we see how that yearning was increasing, as the people prayed for the grace always to seek the Lord from their hearts.
• Today in the Gospel we see the fulfillment of that longing as that Just One whom God rained down was instituting his kingdom, calling, authorizing and sending out laborers for the harvest of his luxuriant vineyard. Yesterday, we remember, Jesus had the apostles pray to the Harvest Master, his Father, to send laborers for his harvest. Today, after they prayed and after Jesus prayed all night, God the Father responded by calling the very ones Jesus asked to pray, and he sent them out to collect the harvest that is ever white and ripe. It points to the central truth that the Lord wants all of us to pray and the Lord wants all of us to recognize that the Father is calling us, in different ways, to be those very laborers strengthened by that prayer, the divine calling, and the divine commissioning. We see various elements of that harvesting that Jesus sends us out to accomplish.
• The first is to proclaim that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, or literally “has approached.” The Kingdom is present because the King has arrived. The Kingdom of God is, in short, God. It’s where he reigns. To proclaim the Kingdom at hand is to say, “God is here” and “We need to let him reign in our lives.” Jesus sent out the 12 and he sends out us to proclaim, not merely with our words but with the way we live, that we’re not alone, that God is alive, that is he is with us, and that letting him reign in our lives has made all the difference in saving us and joyfully transforming us. The kingdom of God is one of fruitful spousal love.
• As part of the proclamation that God is among us, Jesus sends the 12 out with his authority to expel demons and heal every disease and illness. It must have blown them away to hear and receive this commission of the Lord’s authority. He was sending them out, in other words, with far more than a message to announce; he was sending them with deeds to accomplish. These deeds were signs that the kingdom had come, that the Messiah had arrived, and that the time for change was now. The Church in every age needs to be signs of that exorcism, no longer letting the prince of this world, the father of lies, have any dominion over us and bringing people to Jesus to experience that same liberation. Likewise we need to be the nurses of the Divine Physician and, as Pope Francis never ceases of saying, healing the wounds of those today. The Church is a field hospital in battle, it’s a trauma unit, and so many are wounded physically, emotionally, relationally, spiritually. We’re sent out as Good Samaritans to try to care for people in their illnesses and to let Jesus and his healing into their lives, remembering that Jesus never healed just for healing sake, but to bring people to the deepest type of healing of all, spiritual healing by faith. But we should also stop to ponder something even more astonishing than what Jesus did, giving the apostles his authority to cast out demons and heal the sick. He has given the Church today authority to do something infinitely greater. He has equipped the Church through her priests to heal the soul of sin, to bring the Just One from heaven to the altar, and to place that King within us in Holy Communion. We should never stop marveling at these gifts as we are attached as branches to him who is the Luxuriant Vine, and made capable in communion with Him of being incredible fruit.
•  So Jesus calls the Twelves, gives them authority, and then changes them from disciples (“followers,” “learners”) to apostles, literally those he is sending out. And he sends them not to the furthest ends of the world, not to strangers, but to the “lost sheep” of the “house of Israel.” The Greek word translated “lost” here (apololota) does not mean those who aren’t where they’re supposed to be or who don’t know where they’re heading; it’s closer to “slain” or “utterly ruined,” like the “mangled and abandoned” sheep Jesus when in yesterday’s reading when he looked compassionatey upon the crowds. And when he indicated the “house of Israel,” he was pointing out those whom the apostles might have taken for granted, because they could have thought those in the house of Israel should have known about the kingdom. Similarly, we’re sent out first to those who are lost, wounded and abandoned among us. The Lord never truly changes the destination from the “lost sheep of the house of Israel” to “the whole world, beginning from Jerusalem,” but what he does is he expands the whole by his Messianic Mission to include the whole world. The luxuriant vine of Israel in him extends its branches to the ends of the earth. But we begin with our literal neighbors, to those next to us with all of their struggles who need a reminder of the Lord’s presence, of his dominion over the evil one, of his healing power, of life-giving communion with him and through, with and in him with others.
• Our calling, our commissioning with Jesus’ authority and our being sent out are renewed at every Mass. Jesus prays for us just like he prayed for the first twelve disciples turned apostles. He gives us not only his authority, but his very being. And then he sends us out in communion with him to carry out the harvest. It’s here we meet and become united with and in the Luxuriant Vine, the Just One rained down by the Father, who helps us to sow justice and reap piety through bringing the lost sheep of the House of Israel across the globe back to the Good Shepherd!

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

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