Homily
13th Sunday of Ordinary Time B
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas
1 July 2012
Daily Readings
Audio
Whenever we get a good scriptural commentary on death like we have in today's first reading from the Book of Wisdom, I always try to take advantage of it and make a point of emphasis. We know as Christians we are not supposed to be afraid of death. For the love of Jesus Christ is stronger than death, and the Lord's Resurrection is a central tenet of our faith, and a sure sign that He is waiting for us His beloved on the other side of death. For us death is a passover, in many ways no more worrisome than our falling asleep each night before passing into a new day tomorrow. While it is a sign of stewardship of the goodness of this life that we now experience that we do not want to die, and we want to put it off as long as possible, the greatest fear for a Christian must be not death, but living forever as we are now, without ever passing over into the fullness of life that corresponds to our deepest desires. Death for us is a just punishment for sin, as the book of Wisdom rightly says, for since love is the source of life, those who do not always love should not always live. Death is a welcome deadline for each person who wants to love with all their heart, mind and strength, and thus to truly live. In Christ, death is not just a welcome deadline, it is a true passover. Woe to us then if we do not as Christians look forward to, and daily prepare for, our own death.
Christ demonstrates the love that is the source of all life, including the eternal life borne from His Resurrection, in his willingness to touch a young girl who was thought to be dead. Not only this, but He allows himself to be touched by a woman who was hemorrhaging, and thus known to be unclean. In the Mosaic law, most clearly defined in the book of Leviticus, there were strict provisions for the maintenance of the Jewish community, including prohibitions against eating or touching things or persons that were unclean. The law was meant to preserve life and community, and lest we think such laws to be primitive, it is important for us to admit that we still today belong to many groups that have rituals and rules for who is in and who is out. Sometimes the strongest of groups have the strictest of rules and rituals. Think of the consequences for a KU basketball or football player who misses a practice or is late for a game? Think of how quickly we ostracize someone who says something or does something or wears something that we deem inappropriate. The Leviticus rules of the Israelite community may sound primitive to us, but we make as many rules today or more in the forming of our groups. The Catholic Church herself has endured for many centuries now, a group to which all people and nations are invited, but a group with strict rules for things like communion, delineating who is ready and who is not ready to receive communion. Group identity and belonging is one of the strongest forces in human behavior and sociology.
When Jesus goes against these rules, then, as a faithful Jew who came as he said not to abolish the law but to fulfill it, he is doing something big. He is starting a new group, a group that knows not only how to avoid evil but how to conquer it by love and relationship. Two of the strictest rules in the Levitical law were rules against touching human blood, for example, from a woman who is hemorrhaging, and against touching dead persons, unless you were the family member preparing the body for burial. The hemorrhaging woman, then, had every reason to think that Jesus, a faithful Jew, would be hopping mad at her for making him unclean by touching him. Yet Jesus says the opposite, telling the woman that her faith has saved her, and that she may go in peace. Likewise for the daughter of Jairus, Jesus shows himself to be the closer to this girl than any family member, by touching her body that was thought to be dead. Traditionally, the waking of this girl is not a Resurrection miracle on the scale of the raising of Lazarus, for we take the Lord at his word when he says the girl was only sleeping. Nevertheless, though, Jesus' touching of the girl, and healing her through love and relationship, and through his power as the author of life, shows clearly that the old laws delineating the family of Israel are being fulfilled and transcended by Jesus.
So too the Church is our deepest family, for it is the family to which we belong through the healing and powerful touch of our Lord. We can think of the group or family that is the Catholic Church in many ways, by looking at her boundaries and measuring the length and breadth of her tradition, by studying the laws of inclusion and exclusion that define her. Yet most simply and profoundly, we can think of the Church profitably as those who have been healed and made alive by the uniquely powerful and loving touch of Jesus Christ. The Church includes those who have been touched by Christ, particularly through the physical touch of the holy sacraments, and most profoundly by a touch more intimate than the touch experienced by the women of today's Gospel, the touch of the Eucharist, the loving reception under the roofs of our bodies of the Body and Blood of our Lord. The Eucharist then defines who is in and out of the Church, who is part of the new group and family that is destined to last forever, even beyond the boundaries of death, because the Eucharist is truly the perfect healing and loving touch of Jesus Christ. Amen.
13th Sunday of Ordinary Time B
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas
1 July 2012
Daily Readings
Audio
Whenever we get a good scriptural commentary on death like we have in today's first reading from the Book of Wisdom, I always try to take advantage of it and make a point of emphasis. We know as Christians we are not supposed to be afraid of death. For the love of Jesus Christ is stronger than death, and the Lord's Resurrection is a central tenet of our faith, and a sure sign that He is waiting for us His beloved on the other side of death. For us death is a passover, in many ways no more worrisome than our falling asleep each night before passing into a new day tomorrow. While it is a sign of stewardship of the goodness of this life that we now experience that we do not want to die, and we want to put it off as long as possible, the greatest fear for a Christian must be not death, but living forever as we are now, without ever passing over into the fullness of life that corresponds to our deepest desires. Death for us is a just punishment for sin, as the book of Wisdom rightly says, for since love is the source of life, those who do not always love should not always live. Death is a welcome deadline for each person who wants to love with all their heart, mind and strength, and thus to truly live. In Christ, death is not just a welcome deadline, it is a true passover. Woe to us then if we do not as Christians look forward to, and daily prepare for, our own death.
Christ demonstrates the love that is the source of all life, including the eternal life borne from His Resurrection, in his willingness to touch a young girl who was thought to be dead. Not only this, but He allows himself to be touched by a woman who was hemorrhaging, and thus known to be unclean. In the Mosaic law, most clearly defined in the book of Leviticus, there were strict provisions for the maintenance of the Jewish community, including prohibitions against eating or touching things or persons that were unclean. The law was meant to preserve life and community, and lest we think such laws to be primitive, it is important for us to admit that we still today belong to many groups that have rituals and rules for who is in and who is out. Sometimes the strongest of groups have the strictest of rules and rituals. Think of the consequences for a KU basketball or football player who misses a practice or is late for a game? Think of how quickly we ostracize someone who says something or does something or wears something that we deem inappropriate. The Leviticus rules of the Israelite community may sound primitive to us, but we make as many rules today or more in the forming of our groups. The Catholic Church herself has endured for many centuries now, a group to which all people and nations are invited, but a group with strict rules for things like communion, delineating who is ready and who is not ready to receive communion. Group identity and belonging is one of the strongest forces in human behavior and sociology.
When Jesus goes against these rules, then, as a faithful Jew who came as he said not to abolish the law but to fulfill it, he is doing something big. He is starting a new group, a group that knows not only how to avoid evil but how to conquer it by love and relationship. Two of the strictest rules in the Levitical law were rules against touching human blood, for example, from a woman who is hemorrhaging, and against touching dead persons, unless you were the family member preparing the body for burial. The hemorrhaging woman, then, had every reason to think that Jesus, a faithful Jew, would be hopping mad at her for making him unclean by touching him. Yet Jesus says the opposite, telling the woman that her faith has saved her, and that she may go in peace. Likewise for the daughter of Jairus, Jesus shows himself to be the closer to this girl than any family member, by touching her body that was thought to be dead. Traditionally, the waking of this girl is not a Resurrection miracle on the scale of the raising of Lazarus, for we take the Lord at his word when he says the girl was only sleeping. Nevertheless, though, Jesus' touching of the girl, and healing her through love and relationship, and through his power as the author of life, shows clearly that the old laws delineating the family of Israel are being fulfilled and transcended by Jesus.
So too the Church is our deepest family, for it is the family to which we belong through the healing and powerful touch of our Lord. We can think of the group or family that is the Catholic Church in many ways, by looking at her boundaries and measuring the length and breadth of her tradition, by studying the laws of inclusion and exclusion that define her. Yet most simply and profoundly, we can think of the Church profitably as those who have been healed and made alive by the uniquely powerful and loving touch of Jesus Christ. The Church includes those who have been touched by Christ, particularly through the physical touch of the holy sacraments, and most profoundly by a touch more intimate than the touch experienced by the women of today's Gospel, the touch of the Eucharist, the loving reception under the roofs of our bodies of the Body and Blood of our Lord. The Eucharist then defines who is in and out of the Church, who is part of the new group and family that is destined to last forever, even beyond the boundaries of death, because the Eucharist is truly the perfect healing and loving touch of Jesus Christ. Amen.
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