The Leaven of Faith, Often Lived in Pairs, Sixth Tuesday (I), February 14, 2023

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Campus Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
Tuesday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
Memorial of SS. Cyril & Methodius
February 14, 2023
Gen 6:5-8.7:1-5.10, Ps 29, Mk 8:14-21

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

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

• “Do you still not understand?” So Jesus asks the disciples and asks us. The specific context was about leaven when he warned them about the leaven — the corrosive teaching and example — on the one hand of the rigorist Pharisees and on the other the laxist Herodians. He wanted, rather, the leaven of faith (Mt 13:33), that a tiny bit of faith when placed in the “dough” of God’s power was able to accomplish great things. Jesus showed what a little bit of this leaven could do in the two miracles of the multiplication of the loaves and fish. He wants us to trust that with faith the size of a mustard seed we could move mountains, with some water in jars at a wedding we could have wine, with 12 relative nobodies we could have a message go out to all of the world. “Do you still not understand?,” he asks.
• Noah in today’s first reading is a sign of this leaven of faith. God asks Noah to build a huge ark and to do so, not in a big ship building yard but in the middle of nowhere, far from the ocean. The dimensions of the ark — 300 x 50 x 30 cubits, with a cubit being 18 inches or half a yard — were huge and would have taken some time to build. For weeks and months, people around him must have thought he was nuts. Imagine trying to build the Queen Elizabeth II on a farm in Iowa or up in the Rocky Mountains, far from water. But Noah trusted in the Lord and built. With his faith in God, he was the leaven for the renewal of creation. God always starts small and builds. We see that with the Israelites, with the tribe of Judah within God’s people, with the “remnant,” ultimately with Mary and Joseph, and then the apostles. Many get corrupted by the leaven of the world or pseudo-religion. God always looks for the leaven of faith.
• As the Fathers of the Church were accustomed to preach, the Church is meant to function as Noah’s Ark, bringing everybody to salvation on the barque of Peter despite the storms of life on the water. The “nave” or central aisle of a Church is named because the Church is meant to be the “navis” or ship like the ark as a means of rescue. Christ is like Noah on that ark of Peter.
• We see that in God’s plan of salvation on the ark he brought not just individuals, not just random people and animals, but heterosexual pairs. As God instructed, “Of all other living creatures you shall bring two into the ark, one male and one female, that you may keep them alive with you” (Gen 6:19). The reason is somewhat obvious, for the re-propagation of the various species. But it also brings us back to the beginning of Creation, which we heard about last week, that it is not good for man to be alone and God created not just the animals for him but a “fitting helper,” not a twin, but a woman, with whom he could image God. On this St. Valentine’s Day, this points to the importance of marriage for the renewal of the world after the devil tries to destroy Adam’s and Eve’s bond and every other. Married couples are called through the Sacrament of Marriage to help each other onto the ark as it heads toward the eternal shore.
• But it’s not just married pairs that are part of salvation. God sent out the first disciples two-by-two even though they could have covered far more ground going out singly. The reason, however, is so that they could announce the good news by how they lived it, loving each other, forgiving each other, correcting each other, helping each other to trust in God’s providence and so much more. Today the Church celebrates one of the most fruitful pairs in Church history, two brothers in blood and in spirit who brought whole nations in the Slavic world onto God’s ark: SS. Cyril and Methodius. Methodius was a military man, 12 years older, and was highly organized. Cyril was a brilliant scholar. When there was a need to evangelize Moravia, they were asked to go. Together they evangelized the whole region. Methodius had the administrative and political skills to help the mission; Cyril brilliantly invented a new alphabet to be able to be able to write the Bible and liturgical texts in the language of the people and lead people more effectively in prayer. They couldn’t have really succeeded without the other, not just because their God-given talents complemented each other, but because of the simple, evangelical and human fraternity they had, which allowed them to endure the many trials they had, both physical and ecclesiastical, with perseverance. Cyril died while visiting Rome and his remains are enshrined in the Church of the fourth Pope, St. Clement, whose relics the two brothers had discovered and brought with them to Rome. They were elevated by St. John Paul II in 1980 to be co-patrons with St. Benedict of Europe, because they are considered great patrons of Eastern Christianity. St. John Paul II recognized that for the Church to be what God wants it to be, East and West must help each other, the Church must pray with both lungs, we must work together like Cyril and Methodius, we must complement each other to be effective leaven to bring about Church communion. John Paul II wrote in Slavorum Apostoli (1985): “Ever since the ninth century, when in Christian Europe a new organization was emerging, Saints Cyril and Methodius have held out to us a message clearly of great relevance for our own age, which precisely by reason of the many complex problems of a religious, cultural, civil and international nature, is seeking a vital unity in the real communion of its various elements. It can be said of the two evangelizers that characteristic of them was their love for the communion of the universal Church both in the East and in the West, and, within the universal Church, love for the particular Church that was coming into being in the Slav nations. From them also comes for the Christians and-people of our time the invitation to build communion together. … Cyril and Methodius are as it were the connecting links or spiritual bridge between the Eastern and Western traditions, which both come together in the one great Tradition of the universal Church. For us they are the champions and also the patrons of the ecumenical endeavor of the sister Churches of East and West, for the rediscovery through prayer and dialogue of visible Unity in perfect and total communion, ‘the unity which,’ …‘is neither absorption nor fusion.’ Unity is a meeting in truth and love, granted to us by the Spirit. Cyril and Methodius, in their personality and their work, are figures that awaken in all Christians a great ‘longing for union’ and for unity between the two sister Churches of East and West.” Today we ask their intercession to help unite East and West in the Church, so that we can more effectively give witness to God’s plan of unity and salvation, and serve as much needed leaven for the world.
• Today at Mass, God does something greater than the miracle of the multiplications of loaves and fish and greater than the flood. He gives us himself as our food. He wants us to respond to this gift with faith like SS. Cyril and Methodius, to understand what he’s asking, and to help others similarly to become with us this leaven, as we continue to head with Christ toward the eternal shore.

The readings for today’s Mass were:

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