How Long O Lord, How Long? Homily for the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

 Hab 1:2-3, 2:2-4

Ps 95: 1-2, 6-7, 8-9

2 Tim 1:6-8, 13-14

Lk  17:5-10

 

The first verses of Habakkuk are startling: 

“How long O Lord?  

I cry for help 

but you do not listen!

I cry out to you, "Violence!"
but you do not intervene.”

  

“I cry for help 

and you do not listen.” 

 

Habakkuk is one of the minor prophets; minor not because his message is insignificant but because the Book of Habakkuk is so short that it was combined 

with eleven other short prophetic books so as to be able to fill one scroll.  He is unique among the prophets because he openly questions God’s wisdom and asks the question WHY?  One can only wonder how many people in Florida,

and southeastern coastal cities are asking this question and expressing doubts about God’s goodness at this very moment.  The devastation is unbearable to consider.

 

The major thrust of Habakkuk is moving, or trying to move, from perplexity, confusion, and doubt toward faith and reliance on God. Only at the end of chapter three, the book's final chapter in what is sometimes called the Psalm of Habakkuk does the prophet express his ultimate faith in God, 

even if he, like us, does not understand God's ways. In this prayer, that is part of the Liturgy of the Hours, we hear the prophet reflecting on the loss of everything only to end on a note of optimism.

 

“For though the fig tree blossom not 

nor fruit be on the vines, 

though the yield of the olive fail 

and the terraces produce no nourishment, . . . 

Yet will I rejoice in the Lord 

and exult in my saving God.

God, my Lord, is my strength; 

he makes my feet swift as those of hinds 

and enables me to go upon the heights.”

 

Only at the end of a book that opened with a hostile challenge do we learn of the faith that redeems and sustains through everything despite the challenges to that faith. 

Faith is freely given. Faith sustains us through the ups and down of life. It augments joys and tempers sorrows.  Faith brings us eternal life. But we must tend it and nurture it. Much of Jesus’ teaching turns on the question of faith,

how it is nurtured and how it is maintained.  Thus, today’s Gospel begins 

with the famous statement relating faith to the mustard seed.

 

Think back to the popular necklace from days of yore, those days being the 50s and 60s. The pendant was a small clear globe with a tiny yellow mustard seed 

suspended in the middle. It seemed that half the Protestant girls in my high school wore them while the other half wore crosses. The Catholic girls, of course, 

were split between crucifixes and miraculous medals.  

 

Because the mustard seed is only one or two millimeters in size, about 1/25th of an inch, one had to look very closely to see it suspended in the clear globe. The tiny mustard seed grows into a large bush that, while technically not a tree, is large enough for the birds to perch in as if it were a tree. Just as it takes the mustard seed a long time to grow from 1/25th of an inch into a large bush, so it is with faith.  As we live it, cultivate it, and attend to it through prayer, reflection, meditation on scripture, and frequent reception of the True Body and Blood of Our Lord in the Eucharist, faith matures, becomes stronger, and more resilient.  It becomes more able to sustain us in good times and through bad times. Faith permits us, indeed it sometimes compels us, to ask the question that opens the Book of Habakkuk:  How long O Lord? How long?  Faith allows us to pray 

with one single screamed word:  “WHY?”  in times of grief and loss.  And, it allows us to endure the startling silence that may be the reply.  Faith also allows us to sing the great Psalms of praise. 

 

Faith allows us,  despite the losses, traumas, and unavoidable crises of life, to change the angry question: How long O Lord? How long? 

 

to the affirmation: “God my Lord is my strength, He enables me to go upon the heights.”

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Nine years ago today, October 1, 2013, the Memorial of Terese of the Child Jesus, I pronounced final vows in the Society of Jesus.  The event was photographed only because our late Father General Adolfo Nicolas, received the vows.  Below are a few of the photos.  Photographers are generally not hired for final bows but with Father General presnet it was a no brainer. 

The vow Mass program

Chapel of the Holy Spirit at Campion Center

Jesuits pronounce vows at communion while the man receiving them elevates the Body and Blood of Our Lord

The second half of Jesuit vows is the simple vows that are pronounced in the presence of other Jesuits in the sacristy.

The man and the superior, in this case the General, sign six times, twice on each of the three copies of the vow formula and the simple vows

George Murray, SJ, MD in wheelchair speaking with Fr. General.  The only man who had more influence on my life was my physician father.  George died six weeks after vows.  I celebrated and preached at his funeral Mass

Fr. Jack, SJ, MD