Is it really about the kids?

Homily

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time B2

22 September 2024

St. Ann Catholic Church - Prairie Village, KS

AMDG

Is it really about the kids?

For St. Ann's parish to fulfill its destiny, we must raise magnificent children.  It comes up in my prayer all the time.  It's our namesake legacy, for St. Ann was the mother of a child whose soul magnified the Lord!  St. Ann is the grandmother of Jesus, who gave us his little disciples, his children, the glory that He has with His Father in heaven.  What a compelling word - magnanimity - greatness of soul!  St. Ann's must not fail to raise the most magnificent children.  This includes children of all ages, for Jesus teaches so clearly, that unless each and all of us turn and becomes as a child - small, vulnerable and dependent - we will not enter the kingdom of heaven.  If we fail to see God and ourselves in our children, we will lose our souls.

It's easy to say it's all about the kids, but is this what St. Ann's is really known for, and what do we mean when we talk about raising magnanimous children.  It can't be about spoiling them, or only about insulating them from how life really is.  It has to be about teaching them courage by example, for greatness of soul, magnanimity, is the precise fruit of the passion of Jesus, His suffering and death.  The new, full, abundant and eternal life offered ultimately through Jesus Christ - true holiness and greatness - comes only through a tenacious participation in his paschal mystery.

Jesus is always inviting us his little ones into his passion.  But like the first disciples, we still don't get it.  We don't understand, and are reduced to silence in the face of His passion.  Instead of being meaner than hell, we too easily get scared to death.  When was the last time I faced adversity, suffering and danger with tenacity?  In our fallen world, everyone has to go through hell, one way or another, and nobody gets out of here alive.  So Jesus is always inviting us into His passion, and away from our attachments to wealth, power, pleasure and honor.  He begs us not to pass onto our children our politicking and judging, our ways of escaping, avoiding or hiding from life as it really is.  He teaches us courage, and invites us to be the martyrs of this generation, for true peace only comes when heroes are living dangerously, overcoming evil with good and hatred with love and despair with courage.

This is how a human soul is made magnanimous, through the passion of Jesus Christ.  If we dare to raise magnanimous children, we should protect them from as many evils as we can, but the safest thing we can do for them is to teach them to live courageously in the face of danger.  Only then can we say that St. Ann's is really about the kids.  

+mj