Trusting that Nothing is Impossible for God, 20th Tuesday (I), August 18, 2015

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Tuesday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
August 18, 2015
Judges 6:11-24, Ps 85, Mt 19:23-30

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

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

• Today Jesus, commenting on the departure of the Rich Young Man we pondered yesterday, said, “Amen, I say to you, … it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God.” That led the apostles to exclaim, “Then who can be saved?,” to which Jesus replied, ““For men this is impossible,
  but for God all things are possible.” No matter whether we’re rich or poor, salvation is always impossible for us as a result of our efforts alone. Salvation is always a grace. But God does will all to be saved and therefore makes possible by his own divine grace what would be impossible for us according to our nature and effort.
• As a great illustration of how God can make the impossible possible, we have the great scene of Gideon in today’s first reading, which is one of the most inspirational in Sacred Scripture. Gideon, the least son in his family, which is the least family in his tribe, and his tribe is the least among all the tribes in the area, is doing the hard work beating wheat in a wine press when the angel of God comes to him and says, “The Lord is with you, O Champion!” What a greeting! The angel was greeting someone with little going for him in terms of worldly status and bearing and calls him a Champion. And God would indeed make him a champion in a way! As St. Paul would write later,”God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something, so that no human being might boast before God” (1 Cor 1:27-29). And God’s way of leading Gideon to triumph is even more shocking that his calling. His tribe needed to go up against the fearsome Midianites and Amalekites with 135,000 fierce soldiers. There were only 32,000 that Gideon could count on. But God said that even outnumber 4 to 1, there was still the danger that when God led them to victory, they would think it was by their own prowess. So he had Gideon allow anyone who didn’t want to fight against those odds to leave. 22,000 did, so that Gideon was left with only 10,000, leaving them outnumbered 13.5 to 1. But even that was too many. God told Gideon to send his soldiers down to the water to drink and to observe how they drank. Those who bent down to cup water and drink from their hands were dismissed. Those who lapped the water like a dog were kept. There were only 300 of them, to fight against the 135,000 from Midian. They were outnumbered 450 to 1. But with God on their side, and led by a “mighty warrior,” the odds were more than in their favor. And we know what happened. Nothing is impossible for God. As Jesus would say at the end of today’s Gospel, “The last shall be first and the first shall be last.”
• We need to keep this lesson very much in mind. Many times Christians i the United States today can get discouraged when we see the odds that are stacked against us. A government that doesn’t respect religious freedom. Many Catholics who have left the faith or no longer practice it. Many who still practice it only by halves or less. For you in the Sisters of Life, we can look at the vast conspiracy of governmental forces, Hollywood, and big dollar donors that continues to prop up Planned Parenthood even after their evil in carving up the little beings they’ve killed has been exposed for all the world to see and begin to say, “How can we compete against that?” But we remember what the Lord did with Gideon. We remember what Jesus did with twelve — make that 11 nobodies — who began the transformation the entire ancient world. Nothing is impossible with God. The devil once told St. John Vianney — if we can believe anything the devil says — that if there were three priests like him, the devil’s kingdom would be destroyed. On our own, we’re incapable of very little. But united together with God there’s nothing he can’t do. The angel Gabriel easily could have said to Mary, “The Lord is with you, O mighty warrior!” And that’s what God says to us every day, provided that we put on his armor, cinctures of truth, breastplates of righteousness, shoes of the Gospel of peace, helmets of salvation, swords of the Spirit and word of God (Eph 6:14-17).
• And the God who makes possible the impossible will give us also a mind-blowing reward for trusting in him in this way and fighting the good fight. St. Peter asks about it at the end of today’s Gospel. “We have given up everything and followed you. What will there be for us?” Jesus promised that those who have left everything to follow him — houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands — would receive 100 times more in this life and eternal life. For you, sisters, who are living by the evangelical counsels, you through your chaste celibacy will receive not just 100 times more children in this life but thousands of children whose lives you help God and their moms to save. From your obedience you will be blessed with manifold freedom. From your poverty, you will become billionaires in the only wealth that evades the 100 death tax. You will receive eternal life in embryonic form now. This is the Lord’s promise and his guarantee was sealed not just in his blood but in his own triumph over death on the third day as the greatest Warrior of them all.
• Today we come here to Mass to receive the One for whom and in whom nothing is impossible. We receive the great treasure. He has chosen us, like Gideon, to show by faith that everything is possible in whom he strengthens us. And so, like Gideon, we make an offering to him, not of a kid and unleavened cakes, not even of merely bread and wine that he will transform into himself: we offer ourselves knowing that he wishes to consume this offering not with fire from the rock but within the fire of his love so that he may make us with all our weaknesses mighty warriors leading our families and friends and all those the Lord places in our “tribe” and neighborhood to victory in this world and forever.

The readings for today’s Mass were: