Fr. Roger J. Landry
St. Agnes Church, Manhattan
Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Extraordinary Form
September 13, 2020
Gal 5:25-26.6:1-10; Lk 7:11-16
To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
The following text guided today’s homily:
- Eight years ago, when I was a pastor in Massachusetts, I had the privilege to lead 52 parishioners on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and we made a special trip to the place where today’s Gospel scene took place. The Palestinian bus driver and guide who were accompanying us asked me repeatedly, almost annoyingly, why we were going to go to Nain, telling me that no American groups ever go there and that neither of them, who had worked for years with pilgrims, had ever even been there. They added that the Church remembering the miracle had been closed for years and so there would be nothing to see. I politely but firmly said that we were going anyway. So after we had visited Mount Tabor where we pondered Jesus’ transfiguration, we went off the typical grid on a half-hour trip to Nain. As the bus drove through the small town, many of the kids looked up at the monster vehicle transporting all of us, something that they obviously weren’t accustomed to seeing. Our bus driver needed to ask directions a couple of times, and when he pulled up next to the closed Church, those living around it all peered at us as if we were lost. But we went to the front door of the Church and I had everyone assemble in the area before the door, in a dirt courtyard that hadn’t been cleaned of litter for months. And there we read the Gospel scene we’ve just heard and considered what it meant.
- At the end of the pilgrimage, when we had a chance to discuss our most moving experiences, several pilgrims talked about doing the Stations of the Cross at 3 am along the Via Dolorosa, married couples talked about renewing their marriage vows in Cana, some young people talked about praying on the boat in the middle of the Sea of Galilee, having Mass on Calvary or placing Jesus’ risen Body in the Eucharist back inside the empty tomb. But I’ll never forget what several from among our group commented, that the experience they’ll most remember was praying outside the Church in Nain. A few pilgrims, who had recently experienced the death of immediate family members, said that our prayer in Nain was one of the most moving and healing moments not only of the pilgrimage but of their life and that they would never be able to forget what Jesus had done there, for them, for the widow in the Gospel, and for all of us. I am very happy to say that last year, after several years of hard work of restoration of the Church and the courtyard outside, the Catholic Church on the site of the miracle in Nain, built in 1881 but on the foundations of Churches going back at least until the 300s, was reopened by the Franciscans, and prior to COVID-19, pilgrims from near and far, are making their way there to enter into today’s scene and to the reality that not only has God visited his people, but God remains with his people in his risen body and blood, seeking to give us even more than the resuscitation he worked on out love for a sorrowful mom and a lifeless son.
- What happened in Nain? Two processions met. The first was a funeral cortege involving a large crowd of residents of the city, transporting to the cemetery the corpse of a young man whose life was cut down in the springtime of life. The mourning was intense, as it always is whenever someone with so much life ahead of him suddenly dies. And what could be more poignant than a mother’s weeping over the death of her only child? But in this case the darkness was even worse. The woman was a widow. In Jewish culture and throughout the Middle East, it was a man’s duty to provide for a woman. When a husband died, it was the duty of the eldest son to care for a mother. Without a man to provide for her, and no social welfare state, she was now going to be reduced to being a beggar, a scrounger before her fellow residents, a mendicant among her family of origin, someone destitute, abandoned and helpless.
- But as this death march was heading out through the gates of the city to the burial ground that was also located outside of the city walls for reasons of space as well as public health, they met a very different procession. Jesus of Nazareth was heading in, surrounded by his disciples and a large crowd of followers. When Jesus saw the woman, his heart was moved with life-altering compassion. There are two other times in the Gospels when Jesus raised people from the dead, when he resuscitated his friend Lazarus after he had been in the tomb for four days and when he told the deceased daughter of Jairus the synagogue official, “Talitha kum,” “Little girl, rise up!” In both circumstances, prior to their deaths, there had been a request for Jesus’ assistance: Martha and Mary had written Jesus that Lazarus was dying and asked for him to come and Jairus had approached Jesus to ask him to come urgently and heal his daughter lest she die. Jesus worked both of those miracles in response to faith. In this case, however, the woman didn’t do anything. We don’t know whether she had faith or not. Her son was dead on a bier and a large part of her had died with him. Jesus, however, filled with compassion, made the first move, and in the process brought faith to her to all those in Nain.
- Jesus began by doing a couple of things that were totally unconventional and, on the surface of it, terribly cruel. He told the grieving mother, “Do not weep.” I wouldn’t suggest anyone try to say that at a wake to mourning family members! But it got worse. Jesus then stepped forward, touched the bier and got all the pall-bearers to stop. This gesture would be like someone’s walking out into the center of the road and stopping a hearse on the way to the cemetery. And after those startling words and shocking action, Jesus said and did something that no one had requested, that no one had dreamed possible. “Young man,” he authoritatively commanded, “I tell you, arise!” And the boy sat up, began to speak and was restored to his mother! None of the mourners could fathom it. It was the last thing that anyone thought would occur as they were accompanying a cadaver to a cemetery. But the death march had collided with Jesus’ liturgical procession of life, and life triumphed over death. The mourners ushering a mother in misery met the Messiah full of mercy. The people of Nain responded, St. Luke tells us, by “glorifying God” and saying that “God has visited his people!” Little did they know how literally true there words were!
- What do we learn from this dramatic scene? I think two big things.
- First, we learn of Jesus’, God’s, incredible compassion for those mourning the loss of loved ones. Jesus himself wept at the tomb of his friend Lazarus, even though he knew he was going to raise him from the dead. Likewise, for any of us here who has buried a husband or a wife, a mother or a father, a son or a daughter, a brother or sister, Jesus has compassion on us. For any of us here grieving over the death of loved ones who have died during the pandemic, Jesus knows what we’re going through and cares. We need to remember that God never intended death. Death is a consequence of sin. But the Lord of life didn’t leave the situation as it was. He entered into our world, took on our human nature, even took on human death, in order to redeem it completely and make eternal life possible. Just as the multiplications of the loaves and fish foreshadowed the far greater miracle of the Eucharist, so these physical resuscitations of Jairus’ daughter, Lazarus and the young man of Nain foretell the far greater miracle that Jesus wants to give our loved ones and us, the miracle of resurrection from the dead. Resuscitations are temporary. Resurrection is forever. Jesus, who is rich in mercy and compassion, particularly wants to share his compassionate touch with us around the time of our death and the death of our loved ones. He wants to say to each of us and them, not temporarily but eternally, “Young one, I tell you, arise!” And so we need to entrust ourselves and our loved ones to that mercy and we need to bring our faith, hope and love to help those who are mourning the loss of their loved ones. It is always good for us — but especially at the time of this pandemic — to focus more concertedly on the corporal work of mercy of burying the dead with reverence and prayer and on the spiritual works of mercy of consoling the sorrowful and praying for the salvation of the living and the dead.
- Secondly, we have to grasp that the same two processions we see in the Gospel continue on a moral and spiritual plane. One procession is a death march, a funeral cortege, a journey on the “broad road that leads to perdition” (Mt 7:13), toward definitive self-alienation from God. The second is a procession on the narrow road that leads to life, which involves walking together with Jesus. Which procession are we on? The procession of life is one in which Jesus seeks to bring us fully alive. The life, the triumph over death he wants to give us, is not so much an event as a relationship. Jesus says “I am the Resurrection and the Life,” and for us to experience his risen life, both now and in the future, means to enter into that deep relationship with Jesus. It means not just to hear him, but to follow him, step-by-step, teaching by teaching, prayer by prayer, beatitude by beatitude, commandment by commandment. The path of death is to structure our life apart from Jesus Christ. Many people are walking spiritual cadavers. Some are totally empty on the inside. Others are decomposing, full of hatred, envy, lust, and anger against others and often against God. And they surround themselves with a big crowd of people heading with them toward the necropolis, and often not knowing that they’re already interiorly dwelling within the city of the dead. Some of the most tragic casualties on this cortege of corpses are those who mistakenly think they’re alive because they have some intellectual knowledge of Christ and his teachings, or may know some Biblical verses, or even occasionally pray or regularly come to Church, but Christ really isn’t alive in them because they’ve fatally wounded their relationship with Christ through living in a way mortally and morally incompatible with his life. They may be going through the motions but at the level of their soul, at the deepest levels of their being, they’re not in relationship with Jesus, they’re not walking with him.
- St. Paul talks about this in today’s epistle, when he says, “If we are living in the Spirit,” the Spirit that he says elsewhere raises us from the dead to share Jesus’ risen life (Rom 8:11), then “let us also follow the Spirit.” And that is a consequential choice that leads us, he underlines, not to be conceited, to provoke each other, to be envious, to be caught in transgressions, to delude ourselves, ultimately to mock God; rather it leads to a commitment to examine our own work, to bear others’ burdens, to never grow tired of doing good and to do good toward all. Ultimately he says we reap what we sow. We end up in the direction we are actually walking in life. If we wish to reap eternal life, we need to sow life according to the Spirit. “While we have the opportunity,” he emphasizes, “let us do good to all.” Today is the day to make the commitment even more to walk with the Lord of life as through us he who “does all things well” (Mk 7:37), seeks to continue his works of merciful love through us.
- Today at this Mass, Jesus wants to touch us all. He is about to work a far greater miracle than raising a young man from the dead. He is about to change simple bread and wine into his body and blood so that we might, in receiving his risen body, have life through him. This is the place in which Jesus wants all of us, whether we’ve arrived at Church on a procession of life or one of death, to leave following him on a life-giving journey all the way to the Father’s eternal embrace. We thank him for this gift. God still visits his people. God is with us always until the end of time (Mt 28:20). May we here in New York, like those in ancient Nain, return from this encounter glorifying God and spreading news of him through all the surrounding regions, so that others may join Christ and his Church on pilgrimage to the Father’s open house and to the eternal life he gives!
The readings for today’s Mass were:
From the Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians (Gal 5:25-26; 6:1-10)
If we live in the Spirit, let us also follow the Spirit. Let us not be conceited, provoking one another, envious of one another. Brothers and sisters, even if a person is caught in some transgression, you who are spiritual should correct that one in a gentle spirit, looking to yourself, so that you also may not be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so you will fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he is deluding himself. Each one must examine his own work, and then he will have reason to boast with regard to himself alone, and not with regard to someone else; for each will bear his own load. One who is being instructed in the word should share all good things with his instructor. Make no mistake: God is not mocked, for a person will reap only what he sows, because the one who sows for his flesh will reap corruption from the flesh, but the one who sows for the spirit will reap eternal life from the spirit. Let us not grow tired of doing good, for in due time we shall reap our harvest, if we do not give up. So then, while we have the opportunity, let us do good to all, but especially to those who belong to the family of the faith.
The Continuation of the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke (Lk 7:11-16)
Soon afterward Jesus journeyed to a city called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd accompanied him. As he drew near to the gate of the city, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. A large crowd from the city was with her. When the Lord saw her, he was moved with pity for her and said to her, “Do not weep.” He stepped forward and touched the coffin; at this the bearers halted, and he said, “Young man, I tell you, arise!” The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, exclaiming, “A great prophet has arisen in our midst,” and “God has visited his people.”
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