Fr. Roger J. Landry
Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Friday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
Memorial of St. Claude la Colombière
February 15, 2019
Gen 3:1-8, Ps 32, Mk 7:31-37
To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
The following points were attempted in the homily:
- In today’s Gospel, Jesus works a great miracle of healing a deaf-mute in such a way that the people were astonished and exclaimed, “He has done all things well. He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.” The same miracle Jesus worked in the Decapolis he works all over the world. He worked in your life and mine. He did it on the day of our baptism. He didn’t put spit into our ears, but through his minister he put a dry finger in our ears and then touched on tongue, and said, “The Lord Jesus made the deaf hear and the mute speak. May he touch your ears to receive his word and your lips to proclaim his faith to the praise and glory of God the Father.” He opened up our ears in faith to hear his word and our mouths to speak to him and about him. The graces of baptism not only touched these organs but the entirety of our being to be receptive to God in fulfillment of the prayer made in the Alleluia verse, “Open our hearts, O Lord, to listen to the words of your Son.” He wants us to listen to him with love, to treasure his word, to be transformed by it, so that through that transformation we might transform the world. Everything begins with this hearing God speak to us and responding with faith.
- This is important for us to grasp in order to understand the nature of sin. In today’s first reading, we encounter the blow-by-blow details of what we call the “original sin,” but in it we see the essential physiognomy of any sin.
- It begins with listening to God poorly, rather than attentively and lovingly, rather than hanging on his every word. God had told Adam that he wasn’t to eat of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, but as he passed that on to Eve, the details changed, as Eve said, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; it is only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘You shall not eat it or even touch it, lest you die.’” Even though Adam’s and Eve’s eternal life depended on it, they hadn’t listened to God accurately. God had said nothing about not touching it. Every sin begins with a sin of listening. Pope Benedict mentions this in Verbum Domini, “Quite frequently in both the Old and in the New Testament, we find sin described as a refusal to hear the word, as a breaking of the covenant and thus as being closed to God who calls us to communion with himself. Sacred Scripture shows how man’s sin is essentially disobedience and refusal to hear. … For this reason it is important that the faithful be taught to acknowledge that the root of sin lies in the refusal to hear the word of the Lord, and to accept in Jesus, the Word of God, the forgiveness which opens us to salvation” (26). In Hebrew, the same word is used for “hearing” and “obeying,” because it was inconceivable that one could hear God asking something and refuse to obey. In Latin the same relationship is stressed. The word to listen in Latin is audire and to obey is ob-audire, which means to listen intentively, to eavesdrop. The first step in sin is to fail to listen to “every word that comes from God’s mouth,” not to treat what he says as the “words of everlasting life.”
- The second aspect of the devil’s temptation was to get them to distrust God and trust him more than God. He said that they wouldn’t die if they totally did the opposite of what God had commanded and declared that God gave the command simply because he was jealous of his own divine status and didn’t want anyone else to become like him — even though his will from the beginning was to create us in his image and likeness and help us to live according to that image and likeness. The act of faith involves first trusting God and then trusting in what he says. The devil works back from distrusting what was said to getting them to distrust the one who said it. Today he’ll say things to us and our contemporaries like, “You won’t die if you voluntarily miss a Sunday Mass. You won’t die if you follow your heart and pretend you’re married to someone whom you love but whom you haven’t yet wedded. You won’t die if you fail to forgive a family member who’s wronged you. You won’t die if you stiff someone in need who’s probably a con man anyway.” And he seeks to reel us in by that diabolical two-step of faulty hearing and distrust just as much as he hurt Adam and Eve.
- The third step is concupiscence, getting us to desire smaller goods instead of more important goods or even the greatest good of all. The devil knows that he can’t tempt us by evil, because evil is unattractive. He must use some form of good. Today we see that “the woman saw that the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom.” She began to desire those goods, real or imaginary, above the good of obedience, above the good of trust, above the good of even her life. God made us in his image and likeness. He wanted us to be like him. But Eve and Adam sought to “seize” that likeness, sought to have control over the process, by eating of the fruit not of the tree of life but of the knowledge of good and evil because that’s what the serpent mendaciously promised. The devil will seek to do similar things with us, getting us to seek lesser goods or even great goods by immoral means.
- The fourth step is the physical committing of the sin to which the heart had already consented: “She took some of its fruit and ate it.” She had already taken the first bite through desire.
- The fifth step is to try to create a communion of sin. We think there’s safety in numbers. If we don’t feel good about where we are, we want others to join us. There are some solitary sins that we try to keep secret from everyone else, but then there are others in which people like to draw others into their sin. “Everybody’s doing it,” we say to ourselves, so our choices can’t be that bad. We see it here when Eve “also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.”
- Lastly, there’s shame — coming from the fact that they know “knew … evil” they felt the need to protect oneself from others. Whereas previously “they were naked without shame,” now they “realized that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.” Prior they trusted; after sin, they recognized their vulnerabilities before each other and protected their most vulnerable parts from each other. They would also try to hide themselves and their vulnerability from God, as we’ll see tomorrow. There was a three fold rupture: in their relationship with God, with each other, and within each of them, body and soul. When we sin we always seek to hide ourselves from God, from his mercy, from his forgiveness, as if he can’t already see what we’ve done…
- That’s the six-step process of the devil, an itinerary we have taken often whenever we’ve sinned.
- Today we have a chance to reverse the process by pondering the saint whom the Church remembers at the altar, St. Claude la Colombière (1641-1682), most famous for his having been for a short but crucial time the spiritual director of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, to whom Jesus appeared to reveal the mystery of his Sacred Heart. I’ve always looked to him, and to St. Francis de Sales, as two of the great patrons of priest spiritual directors and I rejoice that twice I’ve had the chance to preach to seminarians at the Jesuit Church in Paray-le-Monial where his body is interred under one of the altars, to try to help them hunger for and learn from the graces of spiritual direction that poured through his mind, heard and words. Even though St. Margaret Mary had been receiving apparitions of Jesus, there was so much she didn’t understand. St. Claude was like the healing spittle Jesus used to open her up and give her confidence to handle others’ blindness. We know what happened with St. Margaret Mary. As she had been receiving apparitions from Jesus, she eventually confided to her superiors and various priests came in to examine here. Some thought she was crazy. Others thought she was possessed. They hurt her quite a bit and their evaluations caused her huge problems in her community. The priest theologians who were in were not properly trained to help her. Finally, God sent her St. Claude, who was able to be Jesus’ instrument to tell her that she wasn’t a freak, that she wasn’t being diabolically played, but that this came from the Lord. And then he helped her fulfill what the Lord was asking of her. Here’s what she wrote in her autobiography. St. Margaret Mary said of him,”His gift is to lead souls to God.” Here’s what she wrote in her autobiography: “In the midst of all my fears and difficulties my heart, … I was made to speak to certain theologians, who, far from reassuring me in my way, added still more to my difficulties, until at last Our Lord sent the Rev. Father de la Colombiere here. I had already spoken to him in the beginning of my religious life. My Sovereign Master had promised me shortly after I had consecrated myself to Him, that He would send me one of His servants, to whom He wished to make known according to the knowledge He would give me thereof, all the treasures and secrets of His Sacred Heart that He had confided to me. He added that He sent him to reassure me with regard to my interior way, and that He would impart to him signal graces from His Sacred Heart, showering him abundantly over our interviews. When that holy man came and was addressing the community, I interiorly heard these words: ‘This is he whom I send thee.’ I soon realized this in the first confession on the Ember days; for, although we had never either seen or spoken with each other, the Reverend Father kept me a very long time and spoke with me as though he understood what was passing within me. But I would not in anyway open my heart to him just then, and, seeing that I wished to withdraw for fear of inconveniencing the community, he asked me if I would allow him to come and speak with me again in this same place. But in my natural timidity which shrank from all such communications, I replied that, not being at my own disposal, I would do whatever obedience ordered me. I then withdrew, having remained with him about an hour and a half. Before long he again returned, and although I knew it to be the Will of God that I should speak with him, I nevertheless felt an extreme repugnance to be obliged to do so. I told him so at once. He replied that he was very pleased to have given me an opportunity of making a sacrifice to God. Then without trouble or method, I opened my heart and made known to him my inmost soul, both the good and the bad; whereupon he greatly consoled me, assuring me that there was nothing to fear in the guidance of that Spirit, since It did not withdraw me from obedience; that I ought to follow Its movements, abandoning to It my whole being, sacrificing and immolating myself according to Its good pleasure. At the same time he expressed his admiration at the goodness of God, in not having been repelled at so much resistance on my part. He further taught me to value the gifts of God and to receive with respect and humility the frequent communications and familiar converse with which he favored me, adding that I ought to in a continual state of thanksgiving towards such infinite goodness. I told him that as this Sovereign Lord of my soul pursued me so closely regardless of time or place, I was unable to pray vocally, and, although I did violence to myself in order to do so, I nevertheless remained sometimes without being able to pronounce a single word, especially when reciting the Rosary. He replied that I was not to force myself anymore to say vocal prayers but to be satisfied with what was of obligation, adding thereto the Rosary when I was able. Having mentioned some of the more special favours and expressions of love which I received from this Beloved of my soul, and which I refrain from describing here, he said that in all this, I had great cause to humble myself and to admire the mercy of God in my regard. But as this infinite Goodness did not wish that I should receive any consolation without its costing me many humiliations, this interview drew several upon me, and the Reverend Father himself had much to suffer on my account. For it was said that I wanted to deceive him and mislead him by my illusions, as I had done others. He was, however, in no way troubled by what was said, but continued nonetheless to help me, not only the short time he remained in this town, but always. Many a time I have been surprised that he did not abandon me as others had done, for the way in which I acted towards him would have repulsed any other; he spared me, however neither humiliations nor mortifications, which gratified me greatly.”
- St. Claude, like every spiritual director, is an instrument to reverse the pattern of the evil one. He helps us:
- To listen to what is saying to us in prayer, in the events of life, in the commands of our superiors, and in other ways, to make sure we’re understanding it appropriately, loving it, and seeking to act on it. They help to remind us of many of the things God has said in Sacred Scripture or in our own life or the life of the saints that we may not know or have forgotten. They help us to structure our life in loving obedience to God and to live off of every divine word.
- To grow in loving trust of God, especially in the challenging times of our life, when we’re confronted by seeming contradictions.
- To desire the right things, in proper order, and to help acquire self-mastery so that we’re not dominated by concupiscence.
- To be doers of the Word, acting according to what God has asked, and accompanying us as we make our life a fiat.
- To bring others into a communion of good, to enter more fully into the loving communion of persons that he came into the world to form, prayed for during the Last Supper, and wants us to share forever.
- To experience not shame but the joy that comes from uniting ourselves to the Lord in loving action and gratitude.
- That is the path of holiness, which is the goal of spiritual direction, to attune us to the work of the Holy Spirit in us, making us, like Mary, those whose whole life flourishes according to God’s will and word.
- Today as we celebrate this Mass, we ask the Lord, through St. Claude’s intercession, to help us to hear and obey the saving word he proclaims to us in the Gospel, to hear it accurately, to treasure it, and to pass it on. We thank him for giving us the faith each day to act on his word to “do this” in his memory, as we now celebrate the greatest act of love of the one about whom they said in the Gospel, “He has done all things well!”
The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1 GN 3:1-8
Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the animals
that the LORD God had made.
The serpent asked the woman,
“Did God really tell you not to eat
from any of the trees in the garden?”
The woman answered the serpent:
“We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden;
it is only about the fruit of the tree
in the middle of the garden that God said,
‘You shall not eat it or even touch it, lest you die.’”
But the serpent said to the woman:
“You certainly will not die!
No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it
your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods
who know what is good and what is evil.”
The woman saw that the tree was good for food,
pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom.
So she took some of its fruit and ate it;
and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her,
and he ate it.
Then the eyes of both of them were opened,
and they realized that they were naked;
so they sewed fig leaves together
and made loincloths for themselves.
When they heard the sound of the LORD God moving about in the garden
at the breezy time of the day,
the man and his wife hid themselves from the LORD God
among the trees of the garden.
Responsorial Psalm PS 32:1-2, 5, 6, 7
R. (1a) Blessed are those whose sins are forgiven.
Blessed is he whose fault is taken away,
whose sin is covered.
Blessed the man to whom the LORD imputes not guilt,
in whose spirit there is no guile.
R. Blessed are those whose sins are forgiven.
Then I acknowledged my sin to you,
my guilt I covered not.
I said, “I confess my faults to the LORD,”
and you took away the guilt of my sin.
R. Blessed are those whose sins are forgiven.
For this shall every faithful man pray to you
in time of stress.
Though deep waters overflow,
they shall not reach him.
R. Blessed are those whose sins are forgiven.
You are my shelter; from distress you will preserve me;
with glad cries of freedom you will ring me round.
R. Blessed are those whose sins are forgiven.
Alleluia ACTS 16:14B
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Open our hearts, O Lord, to listen to the words of your Son.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel MK 7:31-37
Jesus left the district of Tyre
and went by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee,
into the district of the Decapolis.
And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment
and begged him to lay his hand on him.
He took him off by himself away from the crowd.
He put his finger into the man’s ears
and, spitting, touched his tongue;
then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him,
“Ephphatha!” (that is, “Be opened!”)
And immediately the man’s ears were opened,
his speech impediment was removed,
and he spoke plainly.
He ordered them not to tell anyone.
But the more he ordered them not to,
the more they proclaimed it.
They were exceedingly astonished and they said,
“He has done all things well.
He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”
