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Hearts of Prayer: Sacred Liturgy - Homilies |
The Kingdom of God Is At
Hand For You!
Homily for
Sunday, July 8, 2007- 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C
Fr. Joseph Rogers
Is 66: 10-14c; Ps 66; Gal 6:14-18; Lk
10:1-12,17-20
What a joy it is to be with you. My name is Fr. Joe Rogers. I was
ordained on May 26th. You are my first assignment. I am your “first”
assignment. I am thrilled to be your priest. As I woke up this
morning I was reminded of the words of a famous southern political
philosopher – named Jeff Foxworthy – who was noted to have said in
1995, “The Olympics are coming to Atlanta . . . Lord, are we gonna
screw that up.” My brothers and sisters, I will make mistakes. I
have so much to learn. But you will teach me. I am here to be
invited into your lives – and I thank God that I am a catholic
priest, His priest, your priest. I was sharing with someone very
dear to me yesterday that being a priest is better than the movies.
. .what a gift to be a vessel of Mercy! How beautiful to hear your
confessions, to give you absolution, to be a font of Mercy for you.
Do not be afraid of Confession! We’re all a bunch of schmucks! I
hope you realize that. There is nothing new under the sun – except
the grace of Christ that renews us, rebuilds and gives us new
hearts. And this is the life of the priest, to be a vessel of Mercy,
not because of who we are, not because we deserve anything, but
because God is humble – and so rich in Mercy. He chooses the weak
and makes them strong to manifest his glory. And what a joy and
grace it is to behold His glory in you!
With Live Earth and Wimbledon now over, and whatever else has
happened this weekend, we are here today to proclaim that “The
Kingdom of God is at hand!” In our hearts we cry out, “My Redeemer
Lives!” Those words above the entrance to the Church are our words.
They are engraved in us at baptism and nurtured in our hearts by the
Eucharist. We sang Lift High the Cross as we began today and so we
do: I boast in nothing except the Cross of Jesus Christ! Only the
Cross, my sisters and brothers! There is no other standard for our
lives! So, awakened, let us listen to the Sacred Scriptures.
In the Gospel today St. Luke tells us that seventy were sent by the
LORD to proclaim that “the Kingdom of God is at hand – for you!”
Those are Eucharistic words, my brothers and sisters: “this is my
body – for you; this is my blood, shed – for you;” words that
disclose to us the order of the Kingdom, a Kingdom that is totally
for us – because the King is totally for us. There is one
fundamental question in the Old Testament: “Who is your king?” Is it
Pharaoh? Is it the LORD God? Is it Wall Street? And every time we
return to Egypt we defile and hurt ourselves, but we return to the
One True God: “Lord, have mercy on me a sinner.” The Kingdom of God
is not about real estate, not a set of codes and norms to be
promulgated from on high: it means God is King! Will we follow Him?
“The Kingdom of God is at hand.” These words invite us to enter our
biblical roots, into the heart of the Covenant (Ex 24), to return
once again to Mount Sinai where Moses ascended into the cloud to
behold the God who was not to be seen – with Aaron and the 70
elders. Scripture tells us that “No man shall see God and live” (Ex
34) yet “they beheld the God of Israel” (Ex 24). St. Luke is telling
us today that the LORD has chosen some to behold Him face-to-face –
so that they may be sent to proclaim the light of the glory of God
that shines on the face of Christ. Today He is sending us. This is
the reality of the Mass. We ascend the Mountain of God, the altar of
the Eucharist, beholding His sacred face, receiving Him, and He
sends us! “The Kingdom of God is at hand for you!” But before we can
proclaim the Kingdom of God to anyone else, in our workplaces and
spaces, our schools and sports fields, the Kingdom must be really,
truly present in us – especially in our homes: husbands love your
wives as Christ loved the Church! Wives, as the Church entrusts
herself to Christ, entrust yourselves to your husbands.
The other readings show us two dimensions of the Kingdom that must
take root in our hearts: the Kingdom must be personal and it must be
Marian.
My brothers and sisters, we have heard today from the great witness,
that Hebrew of Hebrew origins who could testify to the grace of God
working in his heart, not due to his lineage, nor his achievements,
nor his education, nor his capacities but solely because of the
Cross of Jesus! St. Paul has born witness to us in the sixth chapter
of his letter to the Galatians, “I boast in nothing except in the
Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The world has been crucified to me
and I to the world. . . I bear the marks if Jesus in my body.” St.
Paul is relating to us the reality of Baptism, by which we are
conformed to the marks, the glorified wounds of the Passion, Death
and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, but those sacramental marks cannot
remain stagnant. They must come to life! They are marks of grace.
The deepest, darkest, most fearful places in our hearts – these must
become the glorified wounds of our hearts! That place where we do
not want to go, that place where it’s too hard to look, those
crevices and crannies that are too deep to plunge into – they are
our path! Because when they are illuminated by the Gospel of Grace,
when they become healed in the Holy Spirit, we praise God, we
tremble and we profess with full knowledge that solely by grace have
we been healed! Then we profess with St. Paul, “I boast in nothing
but the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ.” And then as we bear the
marks of Jesus in our bodies and the Mercy of God flows through
those glorified wounds, the Kingdom of God becomes our personal
reality.
But that’s not all. The sixty-sixth chapter of Isaiah is the
conclusion of the Book of Isaiah, of many generations of prophecy.
It gives us a prophetic image of a woman: fertile, fruitful, and
free. . . with children, nursing and teaching them with joy – giving
them life. That prophetic image depicts the new Israel, “the Israel
of God,” and what we see is a sign of the Church. At the center of
the Church – beautiful, fruitful and free – is not the Pope – and I
am quoting the Pope on this – not the hierarchy, but a woman, a
virgin who said, “Yes!” so that the Word would become flesh and
pitch His tent among us: Mary, the virgin from Nazareth, the Mother
of God. She who held the mysteries of the faith in her heart holds
us. We let her hold us. We turn to her, we ask her to teach us how
to live aware of the Kingdom, how to pronounce our own fiat, how to
make concrete choices for love. We entrust ourselves to her:
“Mother, hold us close to your heart.”
We are sent by the LORD, my brothers and sisters, the new 70 from
the Mount Sinai of the Eucharist, we are witnesses of the power of
the Cross in our lives – and she is our guide. The Kingdom of God is
at hand for you! Amen.
Fr. Joseph Everett
Rogers resides at the Pontifical North American College
in Rome studying for the
Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. He is a Graduate of Notre Dame
University, with an MA from the John Paul Institute for Marriage and
Family. He was ordained a Priest on May 26, 2007.
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