The Amazing Authority of the One Leading Us to Glory through Suffering, First Tuesday (I), January 15, 2019

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Tuesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
January 15, 2019
Birthday of Cardinal John O’Connor, Founder of the Sisters of Life
Heb 2:5-12, Ps 8, Mk 1:21-28

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

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

•  As we began Ordinary Time yesterday, we pondered the double message the Church gives us to set our spiritual table for the year, that Jesus is the Word who summarizes in himself all that God wants to communicate to us, how God took on our nature precisely to communicate to us by his words and witness in a way most fitting for us as human beings, and how that Word made flesh inaugurated his public ministry in the fullness of time with the eruption of his kingdom telling us to do four things: repent, believe, follow him and fish for men and women.
• Today on this second day of Ordinary Time, the Letter to the Hebrews and the Gospel of St. Mark build on these lessons. The Letter to the Hebrews says that this Son who says it all, even though he was higher than the angels and the angels were created through him, was made “for a little while lower than the angels,” taking on our nature so that he could “suffer death … that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.” This was so, being made “perfect through suffering,” he might lead “many children to glory” precisely through suffering. Jesus humbled himself in this way not simply to speak to us about this glory to which we’re called by the Lord who is mindful of us and cares for us but to show us the path of salvific suffering and lead us through this suffering to glory. The Word speaks to us through his body language so that he might say to us both “this is my body given for you” and “do this in memory of me.” This is the nature of Jesus’ consecration coming into the world. He did all that he did so that we might be sanctified. That’s why the Letter to the Hebrews says significantly, “He who consecrates and those who are being consecrated all have one origin,” namely God the Father and the depth of his fatherly, saving love. Because of this origin, because of this consecration, because of this love, the Letter to the Hebrews says that Jesus “is not ashamed to call them ‘brothers’ saying: “I will proclaim your name to my brethren, in the midst of the assembly I will praise you.” Jesus has come to proclaim the Father’s name and praise to us so that we can join him in the Father’s home. That’s who Jesus is and that’s what he’s about at the general level.
• We see how Jesus goes about accomplishing that missing of announcing to us God’s message, of communicating to us the name and praise of God, of leading us to perfection through suffering, in the Gospel. Right after Jesus began his public ministry and called his first disciples to follow him, he entered the Capernaum synagogue and began to announce and incarnate God’s word through teaching. St. Mark tells us, “The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.” The Scribes would teach by citing Moses, or Scriptural texts, or rabbinical commentaries. Jesus taught in a different way. He spoke with authority because he is the Author of the world. As we’ll see throughout his public ministry, he’ll say things like, “You heard that it was said… but I say to you.” He would say that he himself is the Good Shepherd, the Light of the World, the Resurrection and the Life, the Way, the Truth and the Light. Jesus communicated with a directness and power that came from the fact that he was the origin of what he was speaking about. And the reaction of the crowds was astonishment. They were amazed and said, “What is this? A new teaching with authority.” Jesus showed his authority and the power of his words by the exorcism of a possessed man who happened to be in the synagogue at the time. The very presence of Jesus, his holiness, irritated the demon beyond belief. It convulsed the man and cried out from within him, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are–the Holy One of God!” And Jesus rebuked the spirit, told him to be quiet and finally to “Come out of him!,” and the spirit obeyed, an unforgettable sign of the authority with which Jesus speaks. The question and the challenge for us is whether we are amazed and astonished at Jesus’ message, at Jesus’ healing work, at Jesus himself as he speaks to us. If we are amazed and astonished at Jesus’ teaching, if we recognize he speaks with an authority unlike any other, than we will do what people do when they’re amazed: we’ll behave as if we can’t possibly get enough of his teaching. We’ll devour the Gospels. We’ll seek to enter much more deeply into his words through Bible Study and prayerful lectio divina. We’ll long to meet those who can open up the Word of God to us and help us to experience anew Jesus’ amazing and astonishing authority. It’s key for us at the beginning of the year to rediscover this sense of Jesus’ amazing and astonishing authority and come to Mass each day hanging on Jesus’ words, words that are meant to change our life each day forever.
• Today as we mark the 99th birthday of the late Cardinal John O’Connor, you founder, we rejoice that he was someone who was amazed and astonished by the power of Jesus’ word and authority, a word and authority he echoed in his powerful preaching, particularly about the dignity and sanctity of every human life. He recognized that every child is given a dignity “a little less than the angels,” and is loved so much by God and is cared for by him. He established you to “bring many children to glory,” as together you became part of the great exorcism of the culture of death and leaven of the culture of life. As his sequential “roommate,” living in the room at the rectory of the Church of the Holy Family that he lived in from 1979-1983 when he was military vicar to the United States, I pray that you and I may receive a double-portion of his spirit and love for the Word of God and its power. As we mark today the beginning of the 100th year since his birth, we ask God to pray for us that we might be as blown away by Jesus as he was, enter into Jesus’ consecration, receive the Father’s mindful care to the full, obey him even better than the demons obeyed him in the Gospel, and give our life to help everyone else discovering the astonishing and amazing Treasure whom we’re about to consume.

The readings for today’s Mass were: