Fr. Roger J. Landry
Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Saturday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
Votive Mass of Mary, Mother and Teacher of the Spirit
June 15, 2019
2 Cor 5:14-21, Ps 103, Matt 5:33-37
To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
The following points were attempted in the homily:
- If we hadn’t had a proper reading for the feast of St. Barnabas earlier this week, we would have pondered on Tuesday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time (Year I) the prehistory for St. Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians. Paul had promised to make a return visit to Corinth, but because of sufferings and hardship he had not yet been able to come. Those who were opposed to his message of conversion took upon themselves to try to persuade others that he was unreliable: if he couldn’t even be trusted to keep his word about whether he would be coming to Corinth, how could anything else he said — about God, for example — be reliable? Paul wrote that the source of his veracity is found in God. “God is faithful,” he wrote, and then he gave a beautiful witness to how Jesus is the fulfillment, the definitive “yes” to all God’s promises. “For however many are the promises of God,” he stated, “their Yes is in him.” And Jesus’ yes, he continues, is the source of our own. “The Amen from us also goes through him to God for glory.” God is faithful, God fulfills his promises, and our response to God is to reciprocate that fidelity but maintaining our fidelity to his covenants and imitating his yes.
- Today in the Gospel, Jesus speaks to us about becoming that “yes” to God. “Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’ Anything more is from the evil one,” he tells us. Throughout the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus was teaching us how to have our righteousness surpass that of the Scribes and Pharisees. He wanted to help us interiorize the law that they often kept exterior, to enter into loving relationship with the Lawgiver rather than just keep his laws. He wanted to help us get right what they try to get out of. On Thursday, he helped us to focus on the fifth commandment, saying we should not only not kill but not hate. Yesterday, he helped us to focus on the sixth, that not only should we not commit adultery but shouldn’t lust. Today he has us focus on the eighth. The Scribes and the Pharisees would get away with not telling the whole truth — essentially lying — by swearing oaths not by God but by heaven, the earth, Jerusalem, their head, as we see today, or by the altar and the gifts of the altar, as we see in St. Luke’s Gospel. It’s much like kids when I was younger would pretend that if they affirmed something but had their fingers crossed behind their back somehow they were excused from having it be truthful. Jesus was having none of it. The Truth incarnate wanted us to tell the truth. He came so that we might be set free by the truth and he wanted us to know that every lie and dissimulation enslaved us. He wanted our yes to be yes, and our no to be no. St. James, whose letter was a commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, echoed Jesus words: “But above all, my brothers, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath, but let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No,’ that you may not incur condemnation” (James 5:12). Christ, Paul, James all want to help us imitate God’s fidelity persevere in the truth, persevere in our commitment.
- In the first reading, St. Paul speaks to us about God’s committed, saving yes and how we’re supposed to respond to it. Having received the love of God, we’re called to be impelled by that love. If Christ died for us, we must no longer live for ourselves but for him who for our sake died and was raised. Our Christian conversion is not a minor course correction in our life, the fixing of a few bad habits; it’s meant to be a death and resurrection in which Christ’s risen life comes to reign in us. We’re called to live a new life, impelled, compelled, by the love for Christ and Christ’s own love living in us. That changes all of our relationships. If we’re living for him who died for us, and he loved others to the point of dying for them, we’re called through, with and in Christ to live and die for love of them, too. For that reason, “from now on we regard no one according to the flesh,” according to worldly categories,” because “whoever is in Christ is a new creation.” We’re a new creation. They’re a new creation. We see them with the love of Christ. Even when those we’re beholding are sinful, we look at them from within the context of Jesus’ desire to forgive and save them. God “has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation,” St. Paul says, so that, entrusted with the message of reconciliation, we might be “ambassadors for Christ, as if God were appealing through us, … be reconciled to God.” In the wondrous exchange we celebrate every Easter, God “for our sake made him to be sin who did not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.” Christ transforms our no through sin into his yes in righteousness. Our selfishness is changed into his selflessness. Our enmity is changed into charity impelling us toward others.
- Today, as we draw near the octave of Pentecost, we celebrate a votive Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother and Teacher in the Spirit. Mary taught the early Church how to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in his work of reminding them of everything Jesus taught, including today’s words about becoming a yes, and in the Spirit’s mission of leading us to all truth, a truth that doesn’t dissimulate. Her whole life was a yes, a fiat. She said fiat at her first annunciation in Nazareth. She said fiat at her second annunciation before Simeon. She said her fiat at the third annunciation at Calvary. St. John Paul II said, in his beautiful encyclical on the Eucharist, Ecclesia de Eucaristia, that our “Amen” in Holy Communion is meant to echo her “fiat.” As we prepare now to receive the blessed Fruit of her womb, who defines himself in the Book of Revelation as the “Great Amen,” we ask through Mary’s intercession that we might make of our life one great yes to the One who made his yes incarnate for our salvation, become transformed by the love we receive in Holy Communion, so that we might always be impelled by Christ’s love, live for him who for our sake died and was raised, see ourselves and others as new creations, and go out as Ambassadors of Christ, announcing God’s plan to transform us, like Mary, into his very righteousness!
The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1 2 COR 5:14-21
Brothers and sisters:
The love of Christ impels us,
once we have come to the conviction that one died for all;
therefore, all have died.
He indeed died for all,
so that those who live might no longer live for themselves
but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
Consequently, from now on we regard no one according to the flesh;
even if we once knew Christ according to the flesh,
yet now we know him so no longer.
So whoever is in Christ is a new creation:
the old things have passed away;
behold, new things have come.
And all this is from God,
who has reconciled us to himself through Christ
and given us the ministry of reconciliation,
namely, God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ,
not counting their trespasses against them
and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
So we are ambassadors for Christ,
as if God were appealing through us.
We implore you on behalf of Christ,
be reconciled to God.
For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin,
so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
Responsorial Psalm PS 103:1-2, 3-4, 9-10, 11-12
R. (8a) The Lord is kind and merciful.
Bless the LORD, O my soul;
and all my being, bless his holy name.
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits.
R. The Lord is kind and merciful.
He pardons all your iniquities,
he heals all your ills.
He redeems your life from destruction,
he crowns you with kindness and compassion.
R. The Lord is kind and merciful.
He will not always chide,
nor does he keep his wrath forever.
Not according to our sins does he deal with us,
nor does he requite us according to our crimes.
R. The Lord is kind and merciful.
For as the heavens are high above the earth,
so surpassing is his kindness toward those who fear him.
As far as the east is from the west,
so far has he put our transgressions from us.
R. The Lord is kind and merciful.
Alleluia PS 119:36A, 29B
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Incline my heart, O God, to your decrees;
and favor me with your law.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel MT 5:33-37
Jesus said to his disciples:
“You have heard that it was said to your ancestors,
Do not take a false oath,
but make good to the Lord all that you vow.
But I say to you, do not swear at all;
not by heaven, for it is God’s throne;
nor by the earth, for it is his footstool;
nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King.
Do not swear by your head,
for you cannot make a single hair white or black.
Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’
Anything more is from the Evil One.”
