Fr. Roger J. Landry
Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Wednesday of the 27th Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
Memorial of Blessed John Henry Newman
October 9, 2019
Jon 4:1-11, Ps 86, Lk 11:1-14
To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
The following points were attempted in the homily:
- The Church universal is preparing for the canonization of Blessed John Henry Newman on Sunday. There’s no greater way to prepare than to celebrate his feast today. In the Gospel Jesus is asked by the disciples to teach them how to pray and he responds by teaching us what has traditionally been known either as the Our Father, based on the first two words of the prayer, or “The Lord’s Prayer,” in order to distinguish it from every other prayer as one coming from the Lord. The fact that St. Luke’s version which we have today and St. Matthew’s, a little longer and used in the liturgy, diverge a little shows us that Jesus in teaching us how to pray was not so much giving us a formula to pray as communicating to us how to communicate with God the Father, indicating to us the types of things we should be seeking and the sequence with which we should be longing for them.
- For Cardinal Newman, this training was really important because it brought us into direct contact with Jesus. He wrote in one of his Sermons, “Surely there are few of us, if we dwelt on the thought, but would feel it a privilege to use, as we do (for instance, in the Lord’s Prayer), the very petitions which Christ spoke. He gave the prayer and used it. His Apostles used it; all the Saints ever since have used it. When we use it we seem to join company with them. Who does not think himself brought nearer to any celebrated man in history, by seeing his house, or his furniture, or his handwriting, or the very books that were his? Thus does the Lord’s Prayer bring us near to Christ, and to His disciples in every age. No wonder, then, that in past times good men thought this Form of prayer so sacred, that it seemed to them impossible to say it too often, as if some especial grace went with the use of it. Nor can we use it too often; it contains in itself a sort of plea for Christ’s listening to us; we cannot, so that we keep our thoughts fixed on its petitions, and use our minds as well as our lips when we repeat it.”
- The Lord’s prayer brings us near Christ, and not just in time and expression but also in heart and thought and, if we correspond to grace, in behavior. We begin to think as Christ thinks. To love as Christ loves. And to act as Christ acts. We begin to think about God the Father in heaven, to seek to glorify his name, to long for the coming of his kingdom, to strive to do his will. We begin to become more dependent on his providence in giving us today not only our daily necessities but also his Son in the Eucharist, more transformed by his forgiveness to be merciful as he is merciful, to seek his protection in temptation and against the evil one. For that reason, as Newman indicates, we can never say it too often.
- Today we can ponder in a particular way the petition about mercy, since it is central to the story of Jonah and the Psalm. We are nearing the end of three weeks of focus on the post-exilic writings that were all about the rebuilding of the Temple and the mercy of God that made it possible. In the story of Nineveh, the great pagan city of Assyria, we see an image of the type of conversion God wanted to see from his chosen people in Jerusalem and the type of mercy that gave this fresh start. God, we praise in the Psalm, is “merciful and gracious,” “good and forgiving, abounding in kindness to all who call upon” him, which is why together with the Psalmist we have confidence to ask, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, for to you I call all the day.” But this healing balm was something Jonah didn’t appreciate. God’s mercy, in fact, angered him. “Jonah was greatly displeased,” we read, “and became angry that God did not carry out the evil he threatened against Nineveh.” Whether his anger flowed from pride that God didn’t carry out the destruction Jonah had announced to the Ninevites, or indignation that he had been inconvenienced to leave his home and come to Nineveh to preach, we don’t know. But he claims that God’s mercy was the reason “why I fled at first to Tarshish,” as if he was running away from God’s goodness, which is totally revisionist history! (He fled because he was afraid of announcing harsh words, that they would attack the messenger, rather than embrace the message as they did.) Jonah says, “I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger, rich in clemency, loath to punish. And now, Lord, please take my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.” It’s funny: the only reason why he was alive in the first place is because God is merciful and gracious, forgave him his desertion and saved his life. Jonah thought that his complaining to the Lord might have an impact, however, and so went outside the city to wait to see if God would in fact destroy the city. The Lord used a gourd plant to teach him an important lesson: that just Jonah didn’t want to lose the gourd plant, which had grown up just for a day, so God didn’t want to lose the Ninevites, 120,000 of whom he was still raising even though spiritually they could not “distinguish their right hand from their left.”
- In teaching us the Our Father, as well as in so many other aspects of his teaching — his forgiveness of sinners in particular, his teachings on the lost sheep, coin and sons — Jesus wanted us to have a different relationship with the mercy of God than Jonah. When his disciples asked him to teach them to pray, he taught them how to relate to God as Abba, as Dad, as Father in a relationship of spiritual filiation. As an essential part of that prayerful communion, he taught them to pray, “forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us.” In St. Matthew’s version, Jesus would comment immediately after teaching us what to pray with a commentary on only one of the seven petitions he communicated, the one about mercy: that unless we forgive others, God won’t forgive us, not because he would want to punish us like the ungrateful debtor in the parable, but because in a sense he “can’t,” since unless we’re merciful to others, our heart is hardened to receive God’s mercy. The other petitions in the Our Father can all be framed in terms of mercy. We know that God rejoices most for one repentant sinner and the greatest way to hallow his name is to help his prodigal sons and daughters return to his house. To pray for his kingdom to come is to enter it through following Jesus’ words about repentance and faith: “The kingdom of God is at hand: repent and believe in the Gospel.” To do his will is to remember that he desires mercy, not sacrifice. The temptation from which we ask him to protect us is not trusting in his mercy or not sharing it, because the great work of the evil one from whom we ask him to deliver us is to separate us in this world and eternally from the mercy and grace of God. The Lord’s prayer in fact brings us near to Christ who is the incarnation of the mercy of the Lord and brings us near to others, since merciful love heals the roots of division that can divide and drive us away from them. That’s why, as Newman says, we can never say it too often!
- Today we don’t seek solace under a gourd plant, but do so here before the altar, where God the Father’s merciful design reaches its culmination, as we prepare to receive his Son’s body and blood shed on Calvary for the forgiveness of sins. Whether we know our “right hand from our left,” God in his gracious mercy gives us the greatest spiritual treasure of all. As we make this prayer to the same Father with the attitudes Jesus taught us in the Lord’s prayer, we beg him to give us today our “super-substantial” living Bread come down from heaven, so that, one with Mercy incarnate, we might with zeal like Newman in 19th Century England bring that gift of mercy to the Ninevites of today in every country on earth!
The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1 JON 4:1-11
Jonah was greatly displeased
and became angry that God did not carry out the evil
he threatened against Nineveh.
He prayed, “I beseech you, LORD,
is not this what I said while I was still in my own country?
This is why I fled at first to Tarshish.
I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God,
slow to anger, rich in clemency, loath to punish.
And now, LORD, please take my life from me;
for it is better for me to die than to live.”
But the LORD asked, “Have you reason to be angry?”
Jonah then left the city for a place to the east of it,
where he built himself a hut and waited under it in the shade,
to see what would happen to the city.
And when the LORD God provided a gourd plant
that grew up over Jonah’s head,
giving shade that relieved him of any discomfort,
Jonah was very happy over the plant.
But the next morning at dawn
God sent a worm that attacked the plant,
so that it withered.
And when the sun arose, God sent a burning east wind;
and the sun beat upon Jonah’s head till he became faint.
Then Jonah asked for death, saying,
“I would be better off dead than alive.”
But God said to Jonah,
“Have you reason to be angry over the plant?”
“I have reason to be angry,” Jonah answered, “angry enough to die.”
Then the LORD said,
“You are concerned over the plant which cost you no labor
and which you did not raise;
it came up in one night and in one night it perished.
And should I not be concerned over Nineveh, the great city,
in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons
who cannot distinguish their right hand from their left,
not to mention the many cattle?”
Responsorial Psalm PS 86:3-4, 5-6, 9-10
R. (15) Lord, you are merciful and gracious.
Have mercy on me, O Lord,
for to you I call all the day.
Gladden the soul of your servant,
for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
R. Lord, you are merciful and gracious.
For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving,
abounding in kindness to all who call upon you.
Hearken, O LORD, to my prayer
and attend to the sound of my pleading.
R. Lord, you are merciful and gracious.
All the nations you have made shall come
and worship you, O Lord,
and glorify your name.
For you are great, and you do wondrous deeds;
you alone are God.
R. Lord, you are merciful and gracious.
AlleluiaROM 8:15BC
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
You have received a spirit of adoption as sons
through which we cry: Abba! Father!
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel LK 11:1-4
Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished,
one of his disciples said to him,
“Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.”
He said to them, “When you pray, say:
Father, hallowed be your name,
your Kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread
and forgive us our sins
for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us,
and do not subject us to the final test.”
