Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
The study of Canon Law, the law of the Church, is one of the least popular disciplines for priests to study after they have been ordained. Recently, Bishop Boyea appointed one of my good priest friends, Fr. David Fons, to study Canon Law in the University of St. Thomas in the City (more commonly referred to as the Angelicum) in Rome. Bishop Boyea’s two other choices were either Fr. Gary or Fr. Todd Koenigsknecht, the twins from Fowler who were ordained a couple of years ago. They were very happy when Bishop Boyea chose Fr. David. I joked with Fr. David that he should tell Frs. Gary and Todd: “Someday, and that day may never come, I’ll call upon you to do a service for me,” quoting the famous line at the beginning of the movie “The Godfather.”
We don’t have to be in the mafia to want to do something kind for those who do something for us. We hear about the Prophet Elisha who is taken care of by a woman of influence as she gives him room on the roof “with a bed, table, chair, and lamp.” And without her asking, Elisha wants to do something for her to repay her generosity. And he promises her that she will conceive a son with her husband, since she was childless and her husband was an older man.
Jesus Himself in our Gospel talks about how those who serve the servants of God will receive their reward:
“Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man’s reward. And whoever gives only a cup of cold water to one of these little ones to drink because the little one is a disciple–amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward.”
Now, this isn’t a homily about trying to butter Father Anthony up in order to get something in return. I may call my bulletin article Don Antonio’s Dispatch, but I’m not Don Corleone. You, my parishioners, my family, are very generous, but you’ll never hear me say, “Someday, and that day may never come, I’ll call upon you to do a service for me.”
If we really think about it, we have received everything from Jesus. I dare you to think about one thing, other than your sins, that you have not received from God. Your talents–from God; your family, spouse, and children–from God; your house–God gave you the talents that helped you find a job that paid you that helped you to get the house, so from God; this building–it was built by the generosity of our parishioners who went before us, and some still here, who paid for it with the money they made from the jobs they worked using the talents they received…you guess it, from God; your priest–some of you might be saying from the devil, but I was sent here by Bishop Boyea, who, when it comes to parish assignments, speaks for God. Everything except our sin, which is when we try to do things on our own without God, is a gift to us from God. We are in God’s debt. There is no two ways about it. We owe everything to God. So how can we repay God?
One of the choral anthems played at my first Mass of Thanksgiving and at both my installations as pastor is based on Micah 6:6-8:
With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow before God most high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with myriad streams of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my crime, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? You have been told, O mortal, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you: Only to do justice and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God.
But Jesus, as He so often does, raises the stakes. He says that we must give Him everything of who we are. If we love even our family more than Jesus, then we are not worthy of the gifts He has given me. Only if we give away our life to Him will we find it.
And in this Mass we have the opportunity to do exactly that, at least as a beginning to our week. Every Mass we are invited to offer all of who we are–our joys, sorrows, excitements, fears, job, family, vacation, and all that has happened since the last time we went to Mass–and unite it with the bread and the wine that is offered to God and changed into the Body and Blood of Jesus. I know I’ve said that before, but have we done that? Have we really put ourselves into what is offered on the altar? I can tell you that when I do that, especially if I have something heavy on my heart, then as I hold the host in my hands and say, “This is my Body,” and as I hold the chalice in my hands and say, “This is my Blood,” there is a great weight lifted from my shoulders and I almost want to cry because of the great gift of freedom that Jesus gives me as I give Him my all. And then God transforms it and gives it back to me as something that no longer weighs me down, but that gives me life. But it’s not just for the tough stuff; it also applies to our joys. And then, having given God our all in the Mass, we are then much more likely to give Him our all during the week.
You might think that this is just my shtick as a guy who studied the liturgy–the Mass and the Sacraments. But I truly believe it. Give your all to Jesus, because He has already given His all for you. And He doesn’t want a favor or a service like a mafia don. The only thing that Jesus wants the thing only you can provide: you.
