The Delight of Our Eyes and True Treasure, 20th Monday (II), August 19, 2024

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Church of the Holy Family, Manhattan
Monday of the 20th Week in Ordinary Time, Year II
Memorial of St. John Eudes
August 19, 2024
Ezek 24:15-23, Dt 32:18-21, Mt 19:16-22

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

The following points were attempted on the homily: 

• We all know what the first and the greatest commandment is. We’ve heard Jesus’ answer to the question so many times that it’s easy to recall from memory: we are to love the Lord our God with all our mind, heart, soul and strength. But even though we know this, it’s hard to live in practice, because, many times, other loves can get in the way. Today’s readings help us to examine what a few of those loves might be.
• In the first reading, we have the disconcerting scene of the death of the Prophet Ezekiel’s wife, whom God calls “the delight of [his] eyes.” We don’t know if she had been sick or whether her death would be sudden, but God told Ezekiel that she would die and then that night came for her. God had instructed his prophet that when she died, he should “not mourn or weep or shed any tears,” but “groan in silence, make no lament for the dead, bind on your turban, put sandals on your feet, do not cover your beard, and do not eat the customary bread” of grief. He was to go with life as normal. And all of this was to be a sign for the Jews in exile as to how they should mourn the imminent destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, which was the delight of their eyes, the stronghold of their pride and the delight of their eyes. What was going on? Why would God ask this of Ezekiel? Why would he communicate the message to his people in exile in this fashion?
• Ezekiel was all-in as a prophet. His whole life was geared toward being God’s messenger. He doubtless loved his wife very much, she was indeed the delight of his eyes, but he loved God even more. When God asked of him this sacrifice, not only the death of his wife but the sacrifice of not mourning for her, he was willing to do it because he loved God even more, and he knew that even though he no longer had his wife, he still had God who was the true delight of his heart. Mourning the death of loved ones is perhaps the most difficult of human experiences, but as St. Paul would later write to the Thessalonians, we grieve but not like those without hope. We grieve with God, knowing he is with us, and knowing that he can raise the dead. What was going on with this prophetic sign was that the Jewish exiles were still not getting the message of conversion. They were still not turning to the Lord with all their mind, heart, soul and strength. They were still thinking because the temple was standing, they would eventually be able to return there to life as normal. But when the Temple was destroyed, God through Ezekiel wanted them to go on with life as normal in exile, conscious that they still had the one who ought to be the treasure of their heart. It’s a tough lesson, but a very important one. Sometimes we, too, can put too much of our heart in the things of this world, instead of God, even of the holy things of the world, like they did the temple, in which they took so much pride as a sign of God’s presence and blessing. Today people can put so much of their heart in a parish Church such that if it closes, or somehow experiences a major change, people can lose all of their bearings. But God wants to be our true treasure, not the things and the gifts of God. And he wants us to learn that lesson and make that choice for him now, not after, out of love for us, he might take away something good so that we will be able to choose him as the better part.
• This lesson is similarly emphasized in the dramatic encounter in the Gospel between Jesus and the Rich Young Man. We see in this dialogue that he was a good man, keeping the commandments of the “second tablet” of the decalogue — about love of neighbor — well since his youth, but he knew he was still missing something. He was missing two things. First, he was missing a focus on the “first tablet” of the decalogue, the commandments of which all concern the primary love we should give to God, to his name, to his day. Second, he was lacking spiritual poverty: what he lacked was that he paradoxically had too much. Jesus would address both when he said, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” To have it all he had to give away everything. He went away sad because when given the choice between God and his stuff, he chose his stuff. His possessions, his clothes, his money, his lifestyle, were the delight of his eyes and heart. It’s where his true treasure was. And that’s why he went away sad. He was enslaved to it. He knew it didn’t bring him happiness, but he was too attached to let it go. Regardless of how much we have, whether we’re rich or poor, we can similarly be too attached to the goods of the world, more attached to them than we are to God himself. Sometimes God can take them away through a stock market crash, or a fire, or a thief. But he’d much rather have us love with what he’s given us, and give our stuff, especially our excess stuff, away generously to those who need it. In order truly to follow him, in order to experience in this world a little of the happiness he wants us to have forever, we cannot put anything or anyone in our life higher than God. Otherwise we, too, in the midst of those we love, in the midst of things, will experience that we lack something and often wander away from God himself sad rather than joyful.
• Someone who grasped these lessons, lived them and taught others to live them, is the saint we celebrate today, St. John Eudes, one of the great saints of the 17th century, who spread devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. During the time of the plague, he recognized that so many souls were dying, and rather than mourning, he worked indefatigably to try to bring the sacraments to them at the risk of his own life. He began to realize that the state of their souls was worse than their bacteriologically infested bodies and so he founded a Congregation of Jesus and Mary to preach missions to bring them back to the Lord, so that they might convert and learn how truly to love God first and above all and find in him their true wealth and the path of perfection. Over the course of his priesthood, he preached 110 missions — which would have lasted several weeks to months — powerfully describing the love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the way we’re called to respond by imitating and entering into Mary’s Immaculate Heart. He wanted their hearts to become truly rich by placing their treasure in God and in the way God loves. Every morning he sought to recalibrate his own heart and values at Mass, which he would preach upon with passion. He once wrote that we would need three eternities properly to respond to the Mass: the first eternity to prepare for it, the second to celebrate it, and the third to thank God for it. And that’s the awe he would take each day to the sacred encounter. It’s in the Mass that we meet the one who stopped at nothing to raise us and our loved ones from the dead. It’s here that we find and choose each day the Pearl of Great Price, worth selling everything else we have to obtain. It’s here that we meet the one who wants to lead us on the path to perfection. Let us ask him for the grace to yearn to be perfect, by divesting ourselves of whatever good things or bad stand in the way of him in our life, by giving generously what we have to those who are in need because we are seeking eternal treasure, and then to come follow him today, and tomorrow, into eternity where St. John Eudes and all the saints wait to embrace us.

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

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