Sent Out As Sheep To Evangelize Even The Wolves, 14th Friday (II), July 10, 2020

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Friday of the 14th Week of Ordinary Time, Year II
July 10, 2020
Hos 14:2-10, Ps 51, Mt 10:16-23

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

The following points were attempted in the homily:

• The Prophet Hosea says, “Straight are the paths of the Lord,” but the Book of Hosea, as well as today’s Gospel both at first glance seem to contradict it. Those words of Hosea are at the end of the entire book. Hosea summarizes everything he says about the forceful call to conversion throughout the book as the Assyrians were approaching to attack the Kingdom of Israel and had finally arrived to do their destruction and deport so many Israelites, “Let him who is wise understand these things; let him who is prudent know them.” The Lord’s paths are straight, he says, and the just walk in them. Sinners stumble, in them, he adds, but as God said through him in yesterday’s passage, God lifts them after they’ve fallen up to his cheek, or, as we saw earlier this week, God welcomes us back as his beloved bride. But how can we understand the Lord’s straight paths when he allows his people to be defeated and deported? The Lord’s path does not meant the path to earthly prosperity, or earthly tranquility, or earthly pleasure. The Lord’s path is ultimately the path to him. And even in hardship, even in difficulty, even in losing everything else in life, we can still walk that path. That’s why God through Hosea tells those in the Kingdom of Israel before the deportation, “Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God.” They are leaving Israel but it’s still a chance to return to the Lord! He adds, “Take with you words and return to the Lord,” meaning that God’s word is part of the journey home. And God specifies those words that they’re supposed to say to him: “Forgive all iniquity and receive what is good. … Assyria will not save us. … We shall say no more ‘Our god’ to the work of our hands, for in you the orphan finds compassion.” He was teaching them the straight path of a prayer for mercy, which involves renouncing the sins of placing their trust in Assyria, creating idols and making sacrifices to them. He was also teaching them the path of trust. Even though they were being orphaned their land, God extends to orphans his compassion. And God specifies the compassion he will give: He will heal their defection, forgive their betrayal. He will love them free of any anger. He will be like dew for them, allowing a fruitful spring day, that will permit their flower — their lily, a sign of purity and a future sign of resurrection — to blossom. He will plant them like a fragrant Lebanon cedar and a splendid olive tree and they will produce fruit — symbolized by great wine. God says about himself, “I am like a verdant cypress tree,” meaning he is ever green, ever casting his shade, preventing them as olives and vines from being scorched by incessant sun. This is what the Lord will do as soon as the Israelites return to him and walk the straight path to meeting him.
• In the Gospel, Jesus similarly illustrates how the straight path is not immune from bandits, traitors, persecutors and even executioners. He says he is sending out the apostles as sheep among wolves, and describes how they will be betrayed to courts, scourged in places of worship, led before governors and kings, handed over by family members to death, hated by all, and persecuted. The ways of the Lord seem complicated and perilous, anything but straight. But that brings up again what we understand by straight. If it means a road without sufferings, without hills and valleys, without having people try to get in our way, then it would seem that the Lord’s ways indeed are meandering. But if we understand by straight everything intended to lead us to the destination he intends — encounter with him — then we can begin to see how neither betrayals, nor hardships, nor sufferings can prevent it. In fact they can make that encounter even more complete as we meet Jesus on the Cross. But we have to be just and walk that way.
• It’s similarly a paradoxically straight path for our apostolate. At first, it seems strange that Jesus is sending his apostles “as sheep” at all — aren’t they supposed to be shepherds? — and then sending them out “among wolves,” and those wolves will be come from the state (kings), Church (synagogues) and family (parents, brothers, children). But Jesus sends us out as sheep because he wants us to be docile and show our relationship with the Good Shepherd. He sends us out among wolves so that we might help convert the wolves! He tells us two things. First, not to worry about what we are to say because “The Spirit of our Father” will speak through us. God will himself to proclaiming his presence by our words and our body language. The very situation of persecution will lead not just to our encounter with God in us, but also to our joint witness, with God doing the work!  We saw this yesterday in the life of St. Augustine Zhao Rong, how the witness of the way Bishop Dufresse handled his suffering with meekness and forgiveness led him to go from a pagan soldier to follow the Lord’s straight path baptized Christian to priest to martyr within months.  Similarly, all of the difficulties Jesus describes will lead us, he says, to giving a compelling “witness” together with the Holy Spirit that life triumphs over death, forgiveness over sin, resurrection over crucifixion, fidelity over betrayal. The second thing Jesus says to us is to be as shrewd as serpents and as simple as doves. It’s easy for us to understand the simile of doves, because we’re meant to be pure in intention, thought, word and action. Many people are thrown off by the image of the serpent’s shrewdness, because we normally think of the serpent as a sign of the evil one, as if Jesus is calling us to become spiritual Machiavellians or manipulative like the devil. He’s not. Like with his lament later that the children of this world are wiser than the children of light, the main point is that Jesus wants us to be truly practical, and, in Biblical times, the serpent was image of cutthroat practicality: it would sacrifice most of its body while saving its life and growing back. Jesus was telling us to be shrewd and courageous because those threatening us cannot definitively hurt us, they can harm the body but not the soul, provided that we don’t give them the soul. That’s why doves and serpents are not contradictory images but similar. With purity of soul, we’re called to trust in God as we go out, because even if we’re among wolves, they can’t ultimately harm us unless we surrender to them what belongs to God alone.
• Every Mass we are given the opportunity to live these lessons. We literally return to the Lord here through repentance and through hearing the Word of God. God has not left us orphans, but as sons and daughters we come to entrust ourselves to his compassion. As dew hits the grass outside, we allow the Holy Spirit to be poured out upon us like dew, so that we may blossom like the lily, become strong like a Lebanon cedar, and plant ourselves under the God’s evergreen shade, as he strength us through this encounter to walk with him, since in walking with him we will always be on the straight path. This is where the Good Shepherd gives his life not only for us but to us, to strengthen us to be, like him, shrewd and pure, filled with the Spirit of the Father, as we go out to evangelize not just the sheep but the wolves among our families, among fellow believers, among all those in society. The Son of Man here comes to us and we have not even finished traveling to all the towns in Israel!
• I finish this homily with words from today’s first reading that are a fitting end to any homily in which the Spirit of the Father has spoken through human instrumentality: “Let him who is wise understand these things; let him who is prudent know them.”

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

Gospel MT 10:16-23

Jesus said to his Apostles:
“Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves;
so be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves.
But beware of men,
for they will hand you over to courts
and scourge you in their synagogues,
and you will be led before governors and kings for my sake
as a witness before them and the pagans.
When they hand you over,
do not worry about how you are to speak
or what you are to say.
You will be given at that moment what you are to say.
For it will not be you who speak
but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.
Brother will hand over brother to death,
and the father his child;
children will rise up against parents and have them put to death.
You will be hated by all because of my name,
but whoever endures to the end will be saved.
When they persecute you in one town, flee to another.
Amen, I say to you, you will not finish the towns of Israel
before the Son of Man comes.”

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