The Vocation to Pass through the Needle’s Eye, Tuesday of the 20th Week of Ordinary Time (I), August 20, 2013

Fr. Roger J. Landry
St. Bernadette Parish, Fall River, MA
Tuesday of the 20th Week of Ordinary Time, Year I
Memorial of St. Bernard of Clairvaux
August 20, 2013
Judges 6:21-24, Ps 85, Mt 19:23-30

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

The following is a summary of the points made in the homily:

•  In the follow-up to the scene of the Rich Young Man, Jesus reinforces the point that unless we’re capable of detaching ourselves from material possessions, we will not be able to enter his kingdom. He recognizes how hard it is, saying it is more challenging that a camel’s passing through the eye of a needle. The disciples, who clearly weren’t rich like the Rich Young Man, nevertheless realized that they would have great difficulty detaching themselves from their lesser possessions.
• Jesus pointed out that what for us would be very hard if not impossible, it’s not impossible for God. He will give us the grace to do so, but we need to ask for it and respond. He says if we do we will gain infinitely more than what we give up. We see this in a scene from the life of St. Bernard whom the Church celebrates today. He came from a very wealthy noble family, but gave it all up to enter the Cistercians, entering with 31 people who had previously tried to dissuade him from the vocation, including four of his brothers and an uncle. He congratulated  his brother Nivard as the older men of the family were entering religious life that Nivard was to be their heir of the entire familial estate, but Nivard complained that that was unfair, that Bernard and the others would inherit eternity and he would just inherit stuff on earth. Nivard recognized the value of the things of God compared to the things of earth and soon would enter through the eye of the needle into religious life with his brothers.
• If we are afraid of what we might lose, of the vocation to which the Lord is calling us, to enter this Year of Faith through the “door of faith” that is the size of the eye of a needle, we receive great strength from today’s first reading about the vocation of Gideon. He was the least of his family and his family the least of his tribe and nevertheless God called him to free his people from the dominion of the Midianites — and did so when he was fighting with just 300 against the Midianite army of 135,000. If God could strengthen him to do that, he can certainly strengthen us to make the choice that the Rich Young Man couldn’t, and use all that we have for the service of God and others and pass through the eye of the needle with the only thing we can take with us, our deeds of love.

The readings for the Mass were: 

Reading 1
JGS 6:11-24A