What is ultimate in your life?

Homily

13th Sunday in Ordinary Time A2

28 June 2026

St. Ann Catholic Church - Prairie Village, KS

AMDG

What is ultimate in your life?  We can only answer this question if Jesus Christ, who reveals you fully to yourself, says something provocative and exclusive.

Jesus easily answers this question.  It's hard and complicated for the rest of us.  It's a question I ask couples on the brink of marriage. I ask it like this.  What is the key to a fruitful marriage?  Some get it, some don't.  A lot of them say communication.  A lot of them saying letting nothing get between them.  A few of them say going to Mass, which is the source and destiny of their married love.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is always absolute.  It never panders to any interest.  It is clear.  There is only one proper end to man, made in the image of God.  It's to love God with all your heart, mind and strength.  It is to glorify God by loving His will above and in all things.  It is to die to self in order to love God for His own sake, which is the very definition of love.  

When I interview people for funerals, I ask the remaining family what they learned from the deceased. What was ultimate in their life?  Occasionally I get love of God's will, but not that often honestly.  I usually get family as the ultimate meaning, and what a person lived and died for.  Yet today's Gospel will not accept that as a final answer.  The best way to love your family, if we are truly listening to Jesus, is to love God and His holy will alone.  Only then will you be free to love your family.  Many of us say that our family is our world.   Of course we mean that they are very dear to us.  But to love them in front of or in place of God is idolatry, and it will crush them to make them our ultimate concern.  

What do I want St. Ann's to be known for?  It would be easy for me to say community.  We are relational beings, called into communion by God here at St. Ann. I want St. Ann to be a place where everyone wants to know everyone!  I want us to be known as the very best place to show up and do life together.  Even this according to the Gospel would be idolatry.  

St. Ann's can only fulfill it's purpose if each and every person loves God and worships Him as He deserves and has asked to be worshipped.  By making Mass the heart of my week, and my participation in the sacrifice of Christ and the mystery of His cross as first and ultimate in my life.

What is ultimate in my life?  The Gospel only admits of one answer, if we're being honest.  The Lord God is God alone.  Him alone shall you serve.  This is not a master commanding a slave.  It's a savior inviting a friend to embrace the cross, where true love that endures and conquers all things is made perfect.  It's from the cross that Jesus gives the new and ultimate commandment.  Love one another just as I have first loved you.

In a few weeks I'll make my annual retreat.  I'll have a room with minimal furnishings, just like Elisha had on the roof of a Shunamite woman.  My spiritual director will ask if I have everything I need.  I'll reluctantly say yes, and nothing more.  But it needs to be this way.  If I'm going to have any chance to focus on the ultimate question while being detached from any idols or replacements.  

What is ultimate in my life?  It's to love God alone exclusively with all my heart, and to love His will in all things.  Nothing less brings with it the gift of eternal life.

+mj  

+mj