The Everlasting Way of Increasing in Faith, 32nd Monday (I), November 11, 2019

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Monday of the 32nd Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
Memorial of St. Martin of Tours
November 11, 2019
Wis 1:1-7, Ps 139, Lk 17:1-6

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

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

•  “Guide me, Lord, along the everlasting way!,” we pray in today’s Psalm, and the Lord responds by giving us guidance in the first reading and in the Gospel. We begin the Book of Wisdom, which we will ponder throughout this week. The first chapter sets the tone for the entire book and describes for us the everlasting way. He calls us to “love justice,” “think of the Lord in goodness,” “seek the Lord in integrity of heart.” These are all expressions that say that our hearts, our minds, and our actions should be aligned with God and his holy wisdom, we should be right with him, right with others, and whole. The greatest criticisms Jesus would give in the Gospel were for those “hypocrites” who said one thing, but did another, who on the outside were beautiful in terms of their religious practice but who on the inside were sepulchers full of dead men’s bones. Some of the scribes and Pharisees, for example,  to use the words of the Book of Wisdom, had souls that plotted evil, regardless of what their lips claimed.  Jesus calls us, rather, to genuine integrity. That’s what the everlasting way is all about. God probes us, he understands our thoughts from afar, he scrutinizes us and is familiar with all our ways. We recognize that he is everywhere around us, wants to guide us, and hold us fast with his right hand. He wants to help us to grow.
• In the Gospel, he talks about growth in faith. The apostles cry out audage nobis fidem! — “Lord, increase our faith!,” and Jesus responds by saying that if they had the faith of a mustard seed they could uproot and transplant trees. Faith has the power to transform and do the seemingly impossible. The apostles ask for increased faith immediately after Jesus talks about the evil of scandal and the need constantly to ask for forgiveness of God and others and to give it when someone asks it of us. One of the most important parts of our life of faith — if we love justice, think of the Lord in goodness, and seek the Lord in integrity of heart — is our recognition that just as God never tires of forgiving us, we should never tire of asking him for forgiveness and of sharing a similar mercy with others. This is hard. It requires great humility to ask for forgiveness and greater humility to give it. Jesus is calling us not merely to give people a second chance, but an eighth chance (and in another part of the Gospel he says, depending upon the translation, that we need to give a 78th chance or a 491st chance, meaning, since seven was a number signifying infinity, to forgive infinitely). In order to be capable of doing this, we need the strength that comes from faith. That’s why we humbly beg, “Increase our faith!”
• There’s also another aspect to today’s Gospel for which we need increase faith. Jesus describes someone who gives scandal to another and says not that we should forgive seven times a day but that the scandalizer should have a millstone tied around his neck and thrown into the sea. Several years ago Pope Francis said in a homily on this passage that there is a big difference between a “sinner” who needs to be forgiven and a “scandalizer.” A sinner repents and comes to say to God and others from the heart, “I’m sorry.” A scandalizer doesn’t repent. He just goes on with the sinful behavior, settling an example of sin for others. Jesus says, “Woe” to him. Pope Francis said that the one who causes scandal has become corrupt. He’s no longer sinning because of weakness, but because of choice. He no longer is humbly coming to ask for mercy, because he has begun to think that his sinful conduct doesn’t need to be forgiven, that it’s precisely the right thing to do. A scandalizer sins proudly, with an air of self-righteous defiance of God and others. We see it, for example, in those politicians who support abortion and claim that they’re just following their conscience. We see it in those people who relate to illegal immigrants with hearts full of stone, calling for policies in their regard that they would never ask for if they were dealing with people whom they looked at as brothers and sisters whom they should love. We see it in those people who proudly make excuses for not coming to Church or to Confession. To this circumstance as well, the disciples cry out, “Lord, increase our faith!,” lest we, too, can be in a situation of setting scandal for others — not just setting bad example by weakness, but setting it with supposed justification. As we ask the Lord for an increase in faith, we are asking him for the light that comes from faith so that we may examine our consciences appropriately, see our spiritual blind spots and look at our behavior from God’s perspective, and come, even seven times a day, to say, “Lord, have mercy on me!”
• Someone who journeyed along the everlasting way, who grew in faith through the exercise of mercy and sought to help others grow in faith through a holy example is the saint we celebrate today. St. Martin of Tours was the son of a pagan army officer and was brought into the Roman army as a teenager. Eventually he was stationed to Amiens in the north of France, which is where his celebrated conversion took place. He was on patrol duty one frigid night when he saw a shivering, lightly clad man begging for alms near the city gate. Martin was shocked that no one was giving this man assistance. He had no money on him; all he had was his horse, his armor and his own clothes. But he dismounted, took out his Roman lance, and cut his military cappa in two, covering the beggar with half and wearing the other half himself. Later that night, Jesus appeared to him in a dream dressed in the half of the cape given to the beggar, teaching Martin that whenever he cared for, whenever he served, anyone else, he was caring for Christ himself. He was a catechumen at this point but immediately sought and received baptism. Knowing that he could not fully live the Gospel and live by the principles of the Roman army at the time, he soon after he left the army, put himself under the charge of St. Hilary of Poitiers and began a life of prayer as a hermit, which is how he lived for more than a decade. In 371, the Christians of Tours demanded him to be ordained their bishop. And there his faith grew as he gave an example of love for justice, prayer in goodness to the Lord, and aligning the whole life of those who followed him to the Lord’s wisdom. He fought very hard against the paganism of the terrority and against heresies in Christianity. He traveled all throughout his enormous diocese by foot, on a donkey or by boat. Even when it was clear that his ascetical life, age and hard work were catching up with him, he kept going on. There was  controversy in the parish of Candes because of disputes among priests and he wanted to visit to help remove the sin from their midst. Those around him tried to prevent his going, saying he would likely die on the way. He turned to the Lord and said, “Lord, if your people still need me, I am ready for the task. Your will be done.” He went and reconciled the priests and people. But he informed them that he was about to die. As he lay on his death bed, they wanted to turn him around to prevent bedsores, but he said, “Allow me to look to heaven rather than at earth, so that my spirit may set on the right course when the time comes for me to go on my journey to the Lord.” He always sought to keep his eyes on the everlasting way!
• “Lord, increase our faith!” The greatest way to grow in faith is through the Mass. Listening to him here, we are able better to know justice so as to live it, to seek the Lord in integrity, and to think of him in goodness. Recognizing him here we’re able more easily to recognize him in the needy people in our midst. As we prepare to behold the Lamb of God, we ask him to help us to recognize him more easily in others, so that together with them, we may journey along the everlasting way, setting good example, and forgiving as God forgives. What the Lord does here is a greater miracle than moving a mulberry tree into the sea!

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

Reading 1
WIS 1:1-7