Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time (C), Conversations with Consequences Podcast, September 3, 2022

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Conversations with Consequences Podcast
Homily for the Twenty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time, C, Vigil
September 3, 2022

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

The following text guided the homily: 

• This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a joy 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, when he will speak to us, with challenging or perhaps even scary words, about what being his disciple involves, what Christian faith really means and requires. He uses the images of how a contractor building a tower must make sure he has enough bricks to complete the work, and of a king going into battle ensuring he has enough troops to defeat his adversary to drive home the point. Jesus wants us to know the resources and commitment we will need to build a life of true faith and the type of strategy we will need to be successful in fighting the good fight, finishing the race and keeping the faith. Jesus challenges us this way not to scare us away, but to give us proper expectations so that we will open ourselves to receive the help he’ll give to complete the building project of Christian life and win the battle against the flesh, the world and the evil one.
• As we examine what Jesus tells us, I’d like to contextualize it within the life of St. Teresa of Calcutta, without doubt one of the greats and most compelling saints of modern times, the twenty-fifth anniversary of whose death, and birth into eternal life, the Church will celebrate this Monday. The saints are the living commentaries on the Gospel. Mother Teresa shows us how Jesus’ words — although perhaps initially scary because they are addressed to freeing us from the idols that we can occasionally make of our families, pleasures, health, possessions, and even life — are actually the path of happiness, holiness and heaven. Jesus out of love exposes the various excuses we can give to acting on the call he gives us by our baptism to be, like Mother Teresa, holy as God is holy, and to love others as he has loved us first. He describes for us that our Christian faith is meant to be the most defining reality in our life, more powerful than family, material goods, comfort, safety and even our life. Let’s ask Mother Teresa’s intercession as we seek to follow what Jesus tells us this Sunday, with as much faith, hope and love, with as much courage and commitment, with as much joy and fruit, as she did.
• Jesus gives us three conditions to being his faithful follower. The first is to love God above every reality. He says, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” In other words, Jesus must be our greatest love. The word “hate” in Hebrew does not mean “detest” but to “put in second place.” Jesus, after all, calls us to honor our parents, not hate their guts. If he calls us to love even our enemies then we are certainly called to love our siblings. The point of Jesus’ expression is that we must love him more than we love ourselves or our loved ones. Jesus cannot just be a part of our life but the center. He clearly was for Mother Teresa, who was willing to leave her home in Albania and go first to Ireland, then to India and then to the ends of the earth because she knew that Jesus was calling her to satiate his infinite thirst for souls. Each of us in a similar way must put Jesus first — and this, frankly, will help us to love our loved ones more, not less, and to seek their ultimate good and happiness through a contagious and consistent witness of a life of faith.
• The second condition concerns our willingness to suffer for him who suffered all for us. Jesus says, “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” We need to be prepared to suffer out of love for Jesus and others; otherwise, we will not be able faithfully to fulfill the journey of the Christian life. The clearest example of this is the martyrs, who were prepared to die rather than to sin, who were prepared to embrace the Cross all the way because they knew that the Cross would unite them to Christ. But we see this as well in Christian doctors, medical students and pharmacists who refuse to take part in any way in abortions, even if they might suffer professionally; we see this in people who stick up for Christ and his teachings even when they suffer derision as a result at school, work or in their families; we see this in those who sacrifice money and time to care for others and for the mission of the Church. Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity have never been afraid of the Cross, because they recognize that the Cross is not so much a symbol of pain but of the love that makes that suffering bearable, and they recognize that by uniting themselves to Christ on the Cross they are responding to his thirst and sharing it.
• The third condition is meant to help us find and place in Christ our real treasure. Jesus says, “None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.” This seems to be a shockingly challenging condition, but Jesus was driving at something he had said elsewhere in the Gospel. “No one can serve two masters; for he will either hate the one and love the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other” (Mt 6:24). He then gave that sentence a clear practical application: “You cannot serve both God and money” (Mt 6:24). Unless we give up our love of money, unless we make the choice not to serve money, unless we sever the cord of being possessed by our possessions, unless we become detached from them and use them for God’s kingdom, then we cannot be his faithful follower. We cannot help but think here of the Rich Young Man, who, when presented by Jesus with the path to true fulfillment through giving up what he owned, bestowing the money on the poor, storing up treasure in heaven and then coming after him, chose his stuff rather than Jesus. Jesus says that we cannot be his disciple unless we’re prepared to choose differently from the Rich Young Man, unless we’re ready to use all that we have in order to obtain the pearl of great price. This, likewise, Mother Teresa did, becoming poor together with Jesus, so that she might better serve the poor and lift them up. This led her to a far greater trust in God’s providence, since she wasn’t putting her faith, hope, love and security in the things of this world. And God responded. And she became one of the richest persons on earth in what matters most. God wants to enrich each of us by that same wealth, if only we detach ourselves from the things of this world so that we might be able to receive it.
• It’s tempting to try to soften Jesus’ three conditions, as if he really didn’t or couldn’t mean them literally, because they are so challenging. We’re tempted to try to reduce the price tag of the faith, as if Jesus were running a Yard Sale and we can haggle the cost down to something we think a bargain. There’s no such thing, however, as a “Christianity on the cheap,” in which we’re somehow able to have God and our other gods, too. It’s not enough to be a “fan,” or a “groupie,” or a Facebook friend or Twitter follower of Jesus. To be Jesus’ disciple, to enter into his kingdom, requires a hard choice, a decisive choice. One has got to be willing, as Jesus says elsewhere, to “pluck out one’s eyes,” “to cut off one’s hands” if that’s what it takes to follow him (Mt 5:29-30). We have got to be willing even to lose our life, because it is only the one who loses his life who will find it again in God (Mk 8:35). Unless we have a clear idea of the cost of discipleship and are prepared to pay it, Jesus implies, we’re not going to be able to complete the journey of the Christian life. With great love, authentic spiritual fatherhood, and trust in us, Jesus wants to help us reflect on what means it’s going to take to achieve the end and to will those means.
• And Jesus reminds us that while there is always significant cost to our discipleship, the rewards are much greater. Jesus promised us as much elsewhere in the Gospel after Peter asked him, “Lord, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?” Jesus responded, “Truly I tell you, … everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life” (Mt 19:29). There’s no greater promise than that! As we count the cost of discipleship and with God’s help pay the price, we know that in return we will receive Christ, who is the pearl of great value and the treasure buried in the field, worth sacrificing all we are and have to obtain!
• Part of that reward, that super-compensatory treasure, is Jesus’ awesome self-gift in the Holy Eucharist. This is the fruit of Jesus’ leaving his Father’s side in heaven, his carrying the cross, his renouncing all earthly possessions, his “hating” even his own life, so that we might have life to the full. This is where Jesus strengthens us for the battles of life and gives us sturdy bricks, day by day, to become a temple with a high bell-tower capable through its peals of bringing others to worship God alongside us. The Eucharist — both Mass and adoration — was the real source of Mother Teresa’s sanctity. She summarized the secret of holiness by saying: “The time you spend with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the best time that you will spend on earth. Each moment that you spend with Jesus will deepen your union with Him and make your soul everlastingly more glorious and beautiful in heaven.” As we prepare for her feast and 25^th anniversary of her glorious and beautiful birth into heaven, we ask her to pray that our union with Christ in Holy Communion may spur us on to choose him above everyone else, to embrace him on the Cross, to find in him the real treasure of our heart, and to help us to enrich others with that same gift. And we beg her to continue to pray for us so that in our life, we, too, may do something truly beautiful for God and come to the place where she now rejoices with Jesus and all the saints. God bless you!

The Gospel on which this homily was based was: 

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