Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (A), Conversations with Consequences Podcast, June 27, 2020

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Conversations with Consequences Podcast
Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (A) (Vigil)
June 27, 2020

To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below: 

The text that guided the homily was: 

• This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a privilege for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us this Sunday.
• There are two essential aspects of our Christian life, discipleship and apostolate, on the one hand, our following Jesus and on the other, our proclaiming him. We could also phrase it as our work to become holy as God is holy and our fidelity to the mission he gives us to become instruments in the sanctification of others. These can also be summarized by the two principle verbs in Jesus’ vocabulary, come and go. We come to him and then he sends us forth.
• We see both of these aspects in the dialogue Jesus has with us in this Sunday’s Gospel. First he talks to us about the conditions of discipleship and then he speaks to us of our apostolate.
• Jesus describes that to be his disciple, to enter into his kingdom, isn’t easy. It requires a decisive choice. To do so, he tells us, we must love him more than father and mother, more than son or daughter. We must take up our cross and follow after him, losing our life for his sake in order to find it. Many people today do not recognize the seriousness of the call of Jesus. The people in Jesus’ own day had a similar problem. For centuries, they anticipated that a Messiah would come, overwhelm all foreign powers, and they would ride his coattails to great triumph and riches. They were unprepared for the cost of discipleship, for the fact that to follow him might involve family opposition, not to mention the Cross, suffering, and struggle. In terms of family relations, Jesus says that we can only have one absolute in our life, only one love can have primacy, only one thing can have our ultimate obedience and affection, either God or our parents, or our spouse, or our children. The same God who calls us to honor our mother and father, who calls us to reverence our spouse out of love for Christ, who calls us to love our children as God loves us, at the same time calls us to love God with all our mind, heart, soul and strength. When we choose to love God above all, we do not love our family members less, but better. Many times we won’t have to choose between the love of God and the love of family members, but when faced with the choice, Jesus is saying God must come first.
• This choice sadly comes up sometimes and we all need to be ready for it. When I was in seminary, many of my classmates were there over the opposition of their family members, who didn’t want them to become priests because, sadly, in many cases their family members preferred them to marry and continue on the family name than to help make children for God through baptism and the Sacraments. I’m a spiritual director to many religious women and many of them, too, have received not encouragement but opposition from their families, who think they’re throwing their lives away when they give them to Jesus. A few weeks ago, a priest friend of mine died, Fr. John Jay Hughes, a famous convert. I just wrote a tribute to him for the National Catholic Register. His father and grandfather were well-known influential Episcopal priests in Newport, RI and at St. John Divine Cathedral in New York. Fr. Jay himself became an Episcopal priest. But eventually he realized that God was calling him to be a Catholic. His dad told him that if he “perverted to Rome,” he would never be welcome again in the family home. Fr. Hughes knew, however, that that was where God was calling him and he left the Episcopal clergy in 1960 to be received into the Church. His father never spoke to him again. It was very hard but Fr. Hughes chose Jesus. Sometimes to have the pearl of great price we have to sell all our other pearls, but ultimately we do so when God is God. And even though it is hard, it is rewarding. Elsewhere St. Peter asked Jesus what they would receive for leaving mother and father, children and lands for his sake and the sake of the Gospel. Jesus replied, “100 fold in this life and eternal life.” And those who have made these sacrifices know that the reward is far greater than the cost, even though the cost is high. Fr. Hughes said becoming a Catholic was the most difficult decision he ever made, but also the best, and he spent his life in thanksgiving to God for the graces received, especially each morning at the altar. Jesus is worth it. To follow him does sometimes require crucifixion to worldly ways but it also involves resurrection.
• In the second part of the Gospel conversation Jesus has with us he speaks about the importance of our apostolate. The Gospel is part of Jesus’ instructions to the apostles before he sends them out for the first time to preach. He gets them ready to identify those who are open to the Gospel by those who welcome them. He tells them to stay in the houses where they are welcomed not just as a courtesy, not just so that it wouldn’t be bad form to be looking for a better deal, but precisely to learn from those who welcome them one of the crucial aspects of the Gospel: the welcome necessary to embrace God and his word. There’s a far deeper dynamic happening in their being welcomed: in welcoming them, they’re welcoming God himself:  “Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever receives a righteous man because he is righteous will receive a righteous man’s reward. And whoever gives only a cup of cold water to one of these little ones to drink because he is a disciple – amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward.” Jesus sends us out in his name so that others have a chance, in welcoming us, to welcome him, in caring for us, to care for him. Sometimes we can think that our apostolate involves having the knowledge of Sacred Scripture like St. Paul, the preaching ability of Archbishop Fulton Sheen, the loving charisma of St. Teresa of Calcutta, the missionary zeal of St. John Paul II. Sometimes it involves just going out in the name of Christ and allowing others to welcome us in his name. That very act of welcoming is more than one of basic human hospitality: it’s often one of faith, hope and love. It’s also why one of the most important habits we need to cultivate in ourselves, and form in our children, is this habit of welcoming, because in welcoming others, including strangers, not to mention in welcoming those sent out by the Church in Jesus’ name, we’re welcoming the Lord who has sent them as his emissaries, who tells us, “When I was a stranger, you welcomed me.” Often we don’t have to build huge Cathedrals to God’s glory to please him; we just need to give a cup of cold water to someone in his name. Jesus, who said, “I was thirsty and you gave me drink,” promises we will not lose our reward.
• So in the conversation this Sunday, Jesus wants to strengthen us to choose him who has first chosen us in love, the one who loved us more than his own life, picked up his Cross and lost his life so that we might have life to the full. He wants to help us welcome him who came to welcome us into his kingdom, in this world and in the next. He wants to embolden us, as he sends us out like he sent the original apostles, promising that others who welcome us because we’re his disciples will receive an unbelievable reward, the reward of the great apostles, the great prophets, the great saints. Let us listen to him with that in mind, welcome his words on good and fruitful soil, choose him with preferential love, and commit ourselves anew to spread that love of him. God bless you.

The Gospel on which this homily was based was: 

Gospel MT 10:37-42

Podcast: Play in new window | Download