John Paul II and the Signs of the Times, 29th Friday (I), October 22, 2021

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Friday of the 29th Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
Memorial of St. John Paul II
October 22, 2021
Rom 7:18-25, Ps 119, Lk 12:54-59

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

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

• Today Jesus speaks about our reading the signs of the times spiritually as well as we do meteorologically, to know that all of Christian life is a journey to meet the “Magistrate” and to have us reconcile with God and with others, to do reparation and restitution, as we’re heading toward the court. He urges us to settle, to plea bargain, to plead guilty, before we get to the court and receive the verdict. As St. John Chrysostom would say, now is the time of mercy; later is the time of justice.
• Learning how to read the signs of the times is important to see what we need to do with regard to the experience of concupiscence that St. Paul describes in today’s first reading. He says, “I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want.” Despite the fact that he “take[s] delight in the law of God in my inner self,” he recognized “in my members another principle at war with the law of my mind.” Jesus had warned people of this battle between spirit and flesh, telling him that “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Peter, we know, was willing to die for the Lord, but when push came to shove, he denied even knowing him. St. Paul was himself recognizing this battle between weak flesh and willing spirit. He struggled with it so much that he prayed at the end, “Miserable one that I am? Who will deliver me from this mortal body?”
• Before we answer that question, we need highlight two things we find in the passage that are key to the Christian moral life. The first is that knowing is not enough. Plato once taught that all that we need to do the good is to know the good. But that’s not true because frequently, like SS. Peter and Paul, we do not do the good we want, but rather the evil we do not want. As much as we say, “Lord, teach me your statutes” and he responds with that instruction, it’s not enough; we also need to win the battle to do what he says, having our spirit of obedience triumph over the weakness that makes obedience at times so hard. The second thing we learn is that resolutions alone are enough. We need to set them and form our will, but at the same time, it’s not enough for us to set them. Keeping them requires this same triumph over spirit over flesh.
• So we come back to the question: “Who will deliver me from this mortal body?” There are three basic answers, one we get from today’s Gospel, and two we’ll get tomorrow, as we enter into one of the most important chapters in the Bible, Romans 8, which was St. Paul’s answer to his interrogative. The first is prayer. When Jesus told Peter in the Gospel that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, he gave him the medicine for that diagnosis: to pray, that he would not undergo the test. We need to recognize our weakness and similarly turn to the Lord for help. The second is the Holy Spirit. Jesus promised that whenever we ask the Father for anything, he sends the Holy Spirit: “If you who are evil know how to give good things to your children, how much more will your father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” The Father gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask him for anything. It’s the Holy Spirit, as we’ll be hearing tomorrow and early next week, who helps us to lift up our hearts to the Lord, to set our minds on the things of the Lord, to discern the signs of the times and respond accordingly. The third thing we’ll also hear tomorrow: it’s to cooperate with the Holy Spirit and “put to death,” “mortify,” whatever in us is earthly, liberating ourselves by God’s grace precisely from that dominion of the flesh. It’s hard work. It’s the work of a lifetime. But it’s possible by the Holy Spirit’s help.
• Today the Church celebrates the Memorial of Pope John Paul II, who during his life and lengthy pontificate taught us these truths. In a General Audience reflection in 1998, he spoke about the signs of the times and especially the role of the Holy Spirit in discerning them. He said that the Second Vatican Council was an attempt to lead the whole Church in reading them together and responding. “Jesus’ admonition to his contemporaries rings clear and salutary for us as well,” he wrote. “‘You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of Jonah” (Mt 16:3-4). In the eyes of Christian faith, the invitation to discern the signs of the times corresponds to the eschatological newness introduced into history by the coming of the Logos among us (cf. Jn 1:14). In fact, Jesus invites us to discern the words and deeds which bear witness to the imminent coming of the Father’s kingdom. … The providential ordering of the signs of the times was at first hidden in the secret of the Father’s plan (cf. Rom 16:25; Eph 3:9), broke into history and made its advance in the paradoxical sign of the crucified and risen Son (cf. 1 Pt 1:19-21). It was welcomed and interpreted by Christ’s disciples in the light and power of the Spirit, in watchful and diligent expectation of the definitive coming which will bring history to fulfillment beyond itself, in the heart of the Father.” There were several signs of the times he helped the Church interpret. The first was modern modern confusion about who the human person is. He responded with his beautiful, programmatic encyclical on Christ, the Redeemer of Man, which is echoed in the opening prayer for Mass today, who shows us who the human person is and makes his supreme calling clear. The second sign was fear and John Paul II responded with his thunderous inaugural homily encouraging the world, “Do not be afraid,” and to help the world open our hearts to Christ. The third was the modern need for forgiveness after two world wars, several genocides, the river of blood in abortion and so many other sins against each other. He responded by reminding us that we are living in a kairos of mercy, a time for reconciliation with God and others, that the good that we should have done and the evil we wanted to avoid we haven’t done and avoided and we need forgiveness from God and with others. One area in which he focused on this kairos of mercy is with regard to the Gospel of Life in the midst of a culture of death. In Evangelium Vitae, he said in contrast to the “false mercy” or the “perversion of mercy” offered by the culture of death, he said the Christian faith offers “the way of love and true mercy, which our common humanity calls for, and upon which faith in Christ the Redeemer, who died and rose again, sheds ever new light. The request which arises from the human heart in the supreme confrontation with suffering and death, especially when faced with the temptation to give up in utter desperation.” This mercy is mercy for those in difficult circumstances. It’s mercy for those who have made the choice of abortion. This mercy must be extended to children in the womb and to seniors whose lives seem to themselves or others to be a burden. The Holy Spirit is helping us to see that we need to respond to this age of destruction, of the culture of discarding even human beings, with the full measure of the love of God and to help people receive the help of the Holy Spirit through prayer to do what is right and avoid what is evil so that we may be delivered from this “mortal body” and path of death to an immortal one by means of the one who raises from the dead.
• At Mass, which was the center of St. John Paul II’s life, the Lord wants to work the great miracle of strengthening our flesh to live according to the Holy Spirit. In his encyclical Veritatis Splendor, St. John Paul II reminds us that through Christ’s redemption, the Holy Spirit helps us to put to end the “domination of concupiscence.” He writes, “Christ has redeemed us! … He has set our freedom free from the domination of concupiscence. And if redeemed man still sins, this is not due to an imperfection of Christ’s redemptive act, but to man’s will not to avail himself of the grace which flows from that act. God’s command is of course proportioned to man’s capabilities; but to the capabilities of the man to whom the Holy Spirit has been given; of the man who, though he has fallen into sin, can always obtain pardon and enjoy the presence of the Holy Spirit.” In other words, we will always have to deal with concupiscence, because it’s a result of the fall and we’ll be tempted not to do the good we know and to avoid the evil we recognize. But concupiscence doesn’t have to have the last word. God the Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit to overshadow us just like he overshadows this altar: the total change of bread and wine into God is a sign of the power of transformation that the Holy Spirit can work likewise in our matter. As we read the signs of the times, we grasp that not only we’re heading toward the Judge but toward the Sun of Justice, rising with his healing rays.

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

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