Understanding and Speaking by the Spirit of the Amazing Words of God, 22nd Tuesday (II), September 1, 2020

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Tuesday of the 22nd Week in Ordinary Time, Year II
World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation
September 1, 2020
1 Cor 2:10-16, Ps 145, Lk 4:31-37

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

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

• Today we meet Jesus teaching in a synagogue. After he was booted and almost killed from the Synagogue in Nazareth where he grew up — which we heard yesterday — he went to Capernaum, on the Sea of Galilee, where Peter, Andrew, James and John all lived and worked. In Nazareth when he taught, St. Luke tells us all were initially “amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth,” but eventually doubts entered because they thought they knew him and those doubts quickly passed to rage and homicidal intentions.  Today in Capernaum, St. Luke says that those in the Synagogue “were astonished at his teaching because he spoke with authority” and later, after he had rebuked a demon, they were “all amazed and said to one another, ‘What is there about his word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits and they come out!”
• One of the most important aspects of our Christian response in faith is to be amazed and astonished at Jesus and at his words. This astonishment is an experience most of us, I hope, had when we first started living by faith, when our parents read to us from the Bible or from Bible stories and told us that the Bible contains the words of God himself; when we first began to pray and we recognized that God was listening to us with love; when we first discovered that the Eucharist is God and comes down from heaven on the altar, and dwells within the tabernacle, or loves us from the monstrance; when we first started to hear about Jesus’ great miracles, his multiplication of the loaves and fish, his walking on water, his casting out the devil like he does in today’s Gospel, his healing the sick, and his rising from the dead. This is an amazement and astonishment that likewise would have enveloped us at the time of our becoming aware of God’s calling us to follow him in a special way within the call of our Baptism, when he wanted to configure us to him as his priest in my case or his Brides in yours. But what can happen over time to every Christian, including those of us in the priesthood and consecrated life, is we can lose our astonishment. The things of God can become routine. We can cease to view with amazement the fact that God has spoken to us in Sacred Scripture, that he listens to us in prayer, that he awaits us with love in the Eucharist wanting to nourish us with the only nourishment worthy of our souls, that he thirsts to forgive us in the Sacrament of his Mercy, that he is risen and alive and seeks to walk with us throughout each day, that he can continue to work great miracles if we approach him with faith and it really is in alignment with what’s best. We can begin to take things for granted, to “domesticate” Jesus, and lose our awe. It’s one of the saddest things that can happen in the life of faith. I think of those priests, religious and “professionally Catholic” lay people who have lost the basic astonishment that accompanies the life of faith, so that they begin to look at the Mass as just some dramatic ceremony, who begin to place tabernacles in “worship spaces” as if they’re placing potted plants, who begin even to use words to describe the Eucharist like “bread” and “cup,” who deconstruct the Word of God as if they’re dissecting a cadaver instead of analyzing a Living Word, who mock the Sacrament of Penance as if it’s just a historical vestige rather than a gift of God we need for salvation. Real faith always brings with it this childlike astonishment and amazement before God and what God has done and is doing. It’s important for us all to ask the Lord for the gift never to lose this holy awe and to help us grow in it each day. How can God, who never gives us stones when we ask for loaves of bread, refuse such a humble, filial prayer?
• There’s a particular type of awe that we’re called to ponder in today’s Gospel. It’s astonishment at Jesus’ teaching, at the power of his word. St. Luke tells us that the people in the Capernaum synagogue were amazed because “he spoke with authority.” Most of their rabbis — as well as the Scribes, Pharisees and anyone who tried to teach the Jewish faith — would normally instruct by citing passages from the Hebrew Bible or from the oral tradition of the rabbis. They were constantly using footnotes to ground what they were saying. Jesus didn’t do that. He spoke as if he were the author — that’s what it means to speak with authority. We see this clearly in the way that he used parables. We see even more strikingly in how he preached the Sermon on the Mount, beginning with what they knew from the Mosaic law and then taking the teaching much further by declaring, “But I say to you.” Much like the disciples on the Road to Emmaus, when Jesus started to do this their hearts began to burn, those in the Capernaum synagogue could sense that they were hearing the truth from one who knows.
• Recovering this astonishment at Jesus’ word is one of the principle works of the Holy Spirit. St. Paul tells us in today’s first reading that “no one knows what pertains to God except the Spirit of God,” but adds that “we have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand the things freely given us by God,” and that we are then helped by the spirit to “speak about [the things freely given us by God] … with words taught by the Spirit, describing spiritual realities in spiritual terms.” The world needs that truly spiritual perspective, of astonished hearers of the world and astonished apostolic echoes. When we’re truly amazed and astonished at Jesus’ teaching, the Holy Spirit helps us to understand it according to an inner logic  and then makes us capable of passing on that understanding not just as words but as words that astonish and amaze us just as much in proclaiming them as they do when we hear and read them. And that amazement and astonishment is contagious when it is met by those listening with faith. That’s one way we can help remind others of the reason for the hope we bear with in.
• Today the Church marks the World Day of Prayer for Creation. Pope Francis in his Message to guide the celebration begins, ““And God saw that it was good’ (Gen 1:25). God’s gaze, at the beginning of the Bible, rests lovingly on his creation. From habitable land to life-giving waters, from fruit-bearing trees to animals that share our common home, everything is dear in the eyes of God, who offers creation to men and women as a precious gift to be preserved.” We need to be amazed and astonished at the gift of creation, and the words of Creation, from “Let there be light” to “Let us create man in our own image.” We need to read the beautiful book of the Creator, speak of it with reverence, so that others may come to recognize it as more than just matter, but become aware of its relationship to God and the gift it is to us and others.
• Jesus’ most astonishing words of all are those that he says through the accent of his priests each day, when he takes simple bread and wine and changes them into himself. He does this by his authority as Creator over all creation, but he also does it by his love as our Redeemer. Today he comes not to the Capernaum synagogue, but here to this beautiful chapel, and even more particularly, he comes to each one of us, seeking to make us his temple and speak with authority to us from within throughout the day. Let us ask the Spirit who helps us to understand the things of God to give us greater amazement at this tremendous mystery as we prepare to great him with the astonishment of the Roman Centurion: “Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof, but only say the word and my [soul] shall be healed.”

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

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