What gate am I gonna smash?

Homily

21st Sunday in Ordinary Time A

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

27 August 2023

AMDG

What gate am I going to smash?

There appear to me to be two gates in play in today's Gospel from Matthew. There's a gate that needs to be smashed with a rock, and a gate that will be unlocked with a key.

Peter, you are a rock with keys.  One gate you will smash.  The other you will open.

I'm gonna leave the second gate for another homily.  It's the gate guarding the authority Christ gave to His Church in and through its first royal steward St. Peter, a gate that 2000 years later Pope Francis also has the key to unlock as our papa, the steward of our Catholic faith, the vicar or most visible representative of Christ in the world.

I want to talk about the first set of gates, the gates of hell.  They are the gates holding those who have lost their souls. Right after calling Peter a rock, Jesus says these gates will not stand!  Take that as you wish.  I take it to mean the faith of the Church will smash the damn things.

Do you remember that as a member of the Catholic Church whose founding we rehearse in today's Gospel, that you exist to save souls and defeat evil?  Yes you!  I'm talking to you, as a I talk to myself.  You exist to smash the gates of hell.  It's your legacy.  Permission granted today for you to be a criminal trespasser past the gates of hell.  I ask you to break and enter, please!

A part of the mission of the Church is to break down the gates of hell. It's my mission, and it's yours.

Too often I automatically interpret today's Gospel in a soft, weak, defensive way.  That even though my faith might be threatened, and I'm scared to lose faith, that someone I'll be able to hang onto it.  Jesus says so.  I don't think that's the interpretation of this Gospel at all.  Those afraid of losing faith in some ways have already lost it.  It's a losing mentality.  The faith we celebrate and lay hold of has the power to smash evil.  The Catholic faith is powerful and offensive.  If it's not, to hell with it, pun intended.

What gate am I going to smash this year?

I'm determined to witness that the Catholic faith retains its power to help me live fully, live differently.  I'm especially excited to profess the times the Holy Eucharist has rescued my soul from death, and to invite more and more to the transformative experience of the Mass, confident that KU students will respond to God's desire to change their lives through the sacrament of His Body and Blood.

The gate I am going to smash is my fear that I can't do anything to get people to Mass, that I have to accept the ways things are.  I'm tired of worrying whether students will show up for Mass.  I'm going to move past my fear and boldly witness my faith, confident in its power to defeat the evils that afflict us.

You got next.  What gate are you gonna smash this year?

+mj