Security and Insecurity, 34th Wednesday (I), November 27, 2013

Fr. Roger J. Landry
St. Bernadette Parish, Fall River, MA
Wednesday of the 34th Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal
November 27, 2013
Dan 5:5:1-6.13-14.16-17.23-28, Dan 3, Lk 21:12-19

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

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

• We see in the readings today a huge contrast between seeming security and insecurity and true security and insecurity. This makes the lessons today particularly timely and important because we’re living in an age of deep insecurity.
• In the first reading, we see King Belshazzar living outwardly very secure. He was throwing a banquet for 1000 courtiers and their wives in a time of great prosperity. He decides to have some of the 5400  gold and silver that King Nebuchadnezzar had taken from Jerusalem, using what was sacred for the Jews for their drunken party. He seemed to be totally in control. But then when, straight out of the Addams’ Family, a hand starts writing on the wall, we see that his security was just an outward show: “When the king saw the wrist and hand that wrote,” the Prophet Daniel tells us, “his face blanched; his thoughts terrified him, his hip joints shook, and his knees knocked.” None of his pagan experts could mollify his anxiety, because no matter how smart they were, they didn’t have divine wisdom. Daniel was brought in and he was able to interpret the three words that were being written on the wall: mene, tekel, peres, which were three terms for coins. Mene was a full payment, and Daniel used it to express that Belshazzar’s kingdom was “fulfilled” or all over; a tekel was 1/60 of a mene, indicating that Belshazzar doesn’t weigh very much; and peres, which was half of mene, indicating that his kingdom would be divided in half. Belshazzar’s kingdom would come to an end that very night when his kingdom and the palace would be invaded by Darius and Belshazzar killed. Like the man in the parable whom Jesus called foolish for building bigger grain bins to store his harvest only to have his life taken that very night, so Belshazzar was an even bigger fool, sacrilegiously debauching the things of God not realized that he would be weighed in the balance and found less secure than a feather. Today there are still many who, even though they’re in prominent positions or incredible houses with security details and systems, aren’t really secure at all.
• How we become truly secure we learn in today’s Gospel. Jesus describes what was coming for his disciples. Just like would happen to him, so they, too, would be seized and persecuted, handed over to religious and civil leaders, thrown in prison, betrayed my family members and friends, hated by all, and some martyred. But Jesus told them not to worry, that the Holy Spirit would teach them what to say, and despite their martyrdom, not a single follicle would be destroyed but that all would be restored — even to the baldest of them! — in the resurrection. “By your perseverance,” he stressed, “you would secure your lives.” Real security comes from building our whole life on God and once we do, nothing in all of creation — not persecution, peril or the sword (Rom 8:31-39) — will be able to separate them from God. By persevering in faith, we will be secure now and secure later, even if all fleeting forms of worldly security disappear. This is a lesson we always need to learn. The first Christians suffered so much, including the plundering of their property and even their lives,  as we read in the Letter to the Hebrews, because they had a greater security in God. True security in God can’t be given by the world or stolen by those in the world. That’s why the martyrs in every age weren’t afraid even during while suffering torture; and that’s why, in the absence of it, King Belshazzar’s knees were knocking even during a party surrounded by 1000 of his friends and soldiers. The martyrs feared God and were fearless. Belshazzar scorned God and was scared so much that he relieved himself of his sumptuous food and drink on the throne.
• Today we celebrate the feast of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, who on November 27, 1830, appeared to St. Catherine Labouré at the Daughters of Charity Convent on Rue du Bac in Paris, where the pilgrims from this parish and I had the chance to celebrate Mass in September. One of the reasons why we can be secure is because we can always call on God in prayer and depend upon the help and intercession of Mary and all the saints. When Mary appeared to St. Catherine, she asked her to have a medal struck with the words, “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.” Recourse means to “run-back,” and those who run back to Mary in distress will find her always compassionate, no matter the circumstance, and we can build our faith on the strength of her faith that kept her standing at the foot of the Cross. We can build our security on her security in her Son. In the image that St. Catherine saw and had struck that Mary revealed to her, Mary had rings on her various fingers that were as radiant as the sun, but a few of the rings were dull without light. St. Catherine asked why some were resplendent and others not. Mary replied that the luminous rings symbolized the graces that God had flow through her hands for those who had recourse to her; the dull rings were graces that God would have given through her but people never asked. In our life, we’ve made some of her rings shine and others remain dull because we seek to go about things on our own and not run back to her, including in those times when we’re insecure in the faith. Today’s feast is an opportunity for us to remember this truth and to run back to her help often, not only so that all her fingers shine but so that she can strengthen our faith so that, with her, we might shine forever in the Lord’s kingdom by remaining faithful even and especially when we endure the hardships the Lord describes in today’s Gospel. By our perseverance, like Mary’s, we will secure our lives, in this world and forever.

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

Reading 1
DN 5:1-6, 13-14, 16-17, 23-28