Trained Like The Master, 23rd Friday (II), September 11, 2020

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Friday of the 23rd Week in Ordinary Time, Year II
September 11, 2020
1 Cor 9:16-19.22-27, Ps 84, Lk 6:39-42

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 gives us an indication of what he hopes we will become: “When fully trained,” he said, “every disciple will be like his teacher.” Jesus wants us to become like him, to love as he has loved, to live as he has lived. The essence of human life and of Christian existence is to become “fully trained.” God provides this training, through his Word, through his Church, even through the suffering he permits. In the Gospel, in the powerful parable of the splinter and the wooden beam, Jesus indicates to us that he wants us paying attention to the ways that we need to grow, to those aspects of our own conduct that still need to be trained, rather than to obsess about others’ faults and flaws, so that we might see clearly, virtuously, charitably and be better trained to help our neighbor.
• St. Paul in the first reading today likewise talks about the training necessary to become saints, to become like Jesus. He makes an analogy to the training of championship athletes. “Do you not know that the runners in the stadium all run in the race, but only one wins the prize? Run so as to win. Every athlete exercises discipline in every way. They do it to win a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one.” We need to learn how to exercise discipline in every way, because discipline makes disciples. In this, St. Paul leads the Corinthians and us by example. He says, “Thus I do not run aimlessly; I do not fight as if I were shadowboxing. No, I drive my body and train it, for fear that, after having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified.” He was taking out his own logs from his life and that’s why he was able to see so clearly to assist others.
• And help others he did. He wanted everyone to become fully trained disciples through exercising discipline in every way. He made himself “a slave to all so as to win over as many as possible.” He became “all things to all, to save at least some.” His love for others and his recognition of God’s love for them because the driving force of his zeal. He wasn’t doing it for money or for earthly compensation, but because of an interior obligation to share the joy of what he himself had received. “Woe to me,” he says today, “if I do not preach the Gospel!” He recognized he had been given a treasure of which he had been made a steward and sought to pass on free of charge what he himself had received. A Christian spiritual athlete fully formed will have that same holy woe.
• The importance of this training is shown most conspicuously during times of crisis. Today on the 19th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, we see the blindness of terrorism and how evil and metastatic is the jihadi approach to life, as otherwise generous and sacrificial people are inspired not to make a sacrifice of themselves in love but waste their lives in suicidal terrorist acts. We are conscious, however, that we cannot just see the evil in their world vision, but must remember that the demagogues who manipulate them do so by calling the USA, not a nation filled Christian disciples like Jesus their master, but rather the “the great Satan,” because they see the cultural and moral garbage we often blithely tolerate and export to other countries. And so 9/11 must always be a day not just of prayerful remembrance but of continual pleading to God for mercy, begging him not only to save us from the scourge of terrorism but to have mercy on us for the types of behavior that the terrorist leaders are able unjustifiably to use to incite acts of homicidal hatred and grant us the gift of conversion, removing from our vision whatever is not like the Master. This day is also a time to remember all those who were like the Master who laid down his life for his friends, the first responders who ran into danger rather than away from it, who heroically stopped the terrorists on United 93 over Pennsylvania, who waited for hours to give blood, who prayed, who labored to care for those who were directly impacted, who in short proclaimed the Gospel free of charge with a certain woe, allowing that light to shine in the midst of pitch black darkness. We Christians are trained to be like Christ not just on tranquil, peaceful days, but also days that revisit his Crucifixion, days like September 11, and we give God thanks for the graces he bestowed on that day, to strengthen so many to live that day and many others with heroic faith, hope and love.
• The greatest spiritual training of all takes place through the Mass, in which we enter into Jesus’ own passion, death and resurrection. He gives us the chance here not only to become “like” him but to enter into communion with him, so that the Master can continue to teach and train us, his disciples, from the inside. This is the means by which we learn from him how to give our lives, our own body, blood and soul, for the salvation of others, to save as many as possible. Hearing the Word of God zealously proclaimed, we’re moved to receive God’s blessing at the end of Mass and to “go and proclaim the Gospel of the Lord.” Examining our consciences before Mass, we confess to God and to others that we’re sinners with logs in our eyes but that we’re turning together with them to the Lord so that we may likewise see and experience his mercy to such a degree that with our eyes healed we may help others to see by faith. This is where we receive a foretaste of the imperishable wreath with which God one day seeks to crown us, as he did St. Paul. The Lord’s dwelling place is indeed lovely, and he seeks to make his dwelling place in us and in all those to whom he wishes to send us, as he sent Paul before us. Today may we receive Jesus’ help to become as fully trained as they!

The readings for today’s Mass were:

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