Taking Courage to Build and Rebuild the Church, 25th Friday (I), September 24, 2021

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Friday of the 25th Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
Memorial of Our Lady of Mercy/Our Lady of Sheshan
September 24, 2021
Hg 2:1-9, Ps 43, Lk 9:18-22

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

The following points were attempted in the homily:

• We are five days into the three weeks in which the Church has us ponder, through eight post-exilic prophets, the rebuilding of the Temple of Jerusalem after the exile and what that means for Christ’s resurrection, the rebuilding of the Church, and our own redemption, since we individually and collectively are called to be a Temple of God’s presence. Today we see the second main message of the Prophet Haggai. Yesterday it was to “consider your ways,” a collective examination of conscience, about their priorities, since they were living in “paneled houses” while the house of God still needed to be built, not just in homage to the Lord after having freed them from Babylon but also to strengthen them to give God what he is due lest history ever recur. Today we have the second message: “Take Courage!” This message was given through Haggai to Zerubbabel, the governor of Judah and grandson of Jeconiah, the penultimate king of Judah. Then it was to Joshua, the high priest. Then it was to the remnant of the people present and “all you people in the land.” The third part of the message is to get down to it. “Take courage … and work!” The source of their courage is the presence of the Lord, the same Lord who had freed them from slavery in Egypt, had made a covenant with them and whose spirit, he affirms, continues in their midst. He promises to help them with the materials they will need to build it, that he will “shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land, … the nations … and fill this house with glory.” He also promises that he will give them peace in the house they will build.
• Considering their ways, taking courage, and working together with the Lord in building up his temple, his kingdom, his name, kingdom and will is also our vocation and mission. In today’s Gospel we see one of the crucial moments, and two of the essential elements, in the building plan of the Church. We had a chance to ponder St. Mark’s version of the scene 11 days ago. Jesus asks who the people say he is and then who each the apostles say he is. The Church is comprised of all those who confess Christ as the long-awaited-anointed one of the Lord and God-with-us. This confession not only says something about Jesus but about ourselves as well. Just like Peter, we need to have this confession of Jesus be revealed to us by the Father, we need the grace of faith. We need to consider our ways and ask whether we’re confessing Jesus more in little ways and big ways in our life. The second aspect of the rebuilding process revealed in the Gospel is through suffering. Jesus says that he would have to suffer greatly, be rejected and killed. That was the way for the rebuilding of the true Temple he is and that’s the path for each of us to be rebuilt on him the cornerstone. That takes courage and constant work, but the same Lord who shook the heavens, the earth, the land, the sea and the nations, never ceases to shower the graces necessary.
• One way he does so is through Our Lady. Today the Church celebrates the Memorial of Our Lady of Mercy, in which we see the beauty of a life lived in total cooperation with God, someone who was filled with grace and the Lord’s merciful love, someone who became a channel of those graces to all of us. This feast has a special meaning for me not merely because I, like you, love our Lady and am so grateful for her maternal merciful love for me in the ways I’m aware of and in the many ways she’s prayed for me before I even knew I had a need. It also has great meaning because the prayers for the Mass, approved by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, were written from the contemplative heart and scholarly head of a great friend of mine, Sr. Esther Mary Nickel, of the Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma. To turn to “Our Lady of Mercy” is to understand her not just as “Mother of Mercy,” as we pray in the Salve Regina, but also as “Daughter of Mercy,” “Spouse of Mercy,” “Disciple of Mercy, “Apostle of Mercy,” and so many other angles. She is one who took courage and believed as she heard the words of mercy throughout Sacred Scripture as words to be interiorized and lived. We see how deeply they impacted her entire world view in her Magnificat, when her soul joyfully proclaimed the greatness of the Lord whose “mercy is from age to age,” who helped Israel his servant, “remembering his mercy,” and who out of mercy looked on her lowliness and blessed her such that all generations would recognize the great things he has done for her, who has lifted up the lowly and filled the hungry with good things. She experienced God’s mercy from the first moment of her existence at the Immaculate Conception. She experienced it anew at the Annunciation when God’s plans were fulfilled. She instigated his public manifestations of his merciful love in Cana. She saw God’s mercy on full display on Calvary. And she’s praying now that we will hear as efficaciously as she did Jesus’ words about mercy, come to him to receive it, build our life on it, and help others to build their lives on it. One way in which we invoke her mercy today, as we think about the context of the building of the Temple, the Kingdom, that is the Church, is for the Church in China, ever in need of our prayers. Back in 2007, reiterated in 2009, Pope Benedict asked for prayers to be especially raised on September 24 each year for China, as today the Church in China celebrates the feast of Our Lady of Sheshan. We ask that on this day the Christians in China, and all of us in communion with them, will take courage and work.
• The great building project of the Church, where we consider our ways, learn how not to fear, and are strengthened to do the Lord’s work is here at Mass. This is where we confess Christ to be the Messiah, the Son of God, the Lamb of God who mercifully takes away the sins of the world. This is where we relive Mary’s mystery in Christ, as we receive within the same Jesus who took his flesh from hers, who dwelled within her. This is where his words through Haggai, “Take courage … for I am with you” find their deepest meaning. We ask our Lady’s intercession that we may say “fiat,” “amen” to this great work of Mercy and allow him to work in us, making us an ever sturdier living stone built on him.

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

Reading 1
HG 2:1-9

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