The Constant Newness of Christian Life, 22nd Friday (II), September 7, 2018

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Friday of the 22nd Week in Ordinary Time, Year II
Votive Mass of the Sacred Heart
September 7, 2018
1 Cor 4:1-5, Ps 37, Lk 5:33-39

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

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

• Jesus today talks about how he wishes us to relate to him. He has come to give us new life but the new life is not a minor revision to our “operating system,” to eliminate some “bugs” in the software; rather it’s a thorough revamp. He describes this in the images of the new patch, new wine, and new wineskins and in his words about fasting. At the time of Jesus there were three purposes for fasting: reparation for one’s sins and those of others; supplication, or prayer in the body, for some petition; and the desire for authentic self-mastery through the capacity to say “no” to one’s appetite for food and “yes” to some other purpose, developing a moral muscle that can help to say no to other temptations in order faithfully to say yes to God. These purposes flowing from Old Testament times were not bad or immoral. But Jesus today gives thoroughly new purpose. He says the purpose of fasting is to help us hunger for him in his absence. When he is “ripped away” — the same verb that is used for his arrest in Gethsemane — we would fast then. With regard to fasting, we need to do more than just copy what they did in previous times. We need more than a minor correction or  “patch.” We need a new heart. We need a new longing. We need a new hunger.
• Today the readings specify three “new” ways we need to relate to Christ.
• First, as “friends of the bridal chamber,” which is what is poorly translated as “wedding guests.” Because Jesus the Bridegroom is with us, pouring himself into our life, we must like groomsmen and bridesmaids be full of joy. That’s the first type of wine he wants to pour into us anew.
• Second, St. Paul says we’re called to be servants of Christ. The word servant is now diakonos or doulos, the common Greek words for “servant” or “slave.” It’s huperetes, which means the slave at the rudder in a big ship, whose doesn’t establish the direction (the captain does) but helps head in that direction. That’s what we do for Christ, trying to point the ark of salvation in the direction he sets to the eternal port, not steering people off course. That’s the second type of grace he wants to give us today.
• Third, He says that we’re likewise called to be stewards of the mysteries of God. The word steward is economos, which means the one who implements the law of the house, who administers. We’re entrusted with the mysteries of God, which means not just the sacraments, but also the world — which is a sacrament of God’s presence — and especially of others. We seek to be good and faithful servants of those gifts. And Jesus wants to pour into new wineskins the help we need to be so.
• And Jesus the Bridegroom does all of this here at Mass, where he welcomes us not merely as “sons of the wedding chamber,” but actually as bride and friend of the bridegroom, desiring to give us new wineskins to receive him who will help us to become truly joyful rudder men, faithfully caring for the gift of every one and thing God in his goodness has bestowed.

The readings for today’s Mass were: