To Dwell in the House of the Lord: Homily for the 3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time

  

Is 8:23-9:3

Ps 27:1,4,13-14

1 Cor 1:10-13,17

Mt 4:12-23

 

In its introductory essay to the Book of Isaiah the Jewish Study Bible notes: "Isaiah is perhaps the best-loved of the prophetic books.  It is the most cited prophetic text in rabbinic literature."  The same can be said of the importance of Isaiah for the Catholic Church. 

 

There are questions. Was Isaiah speaking of Christ?  Was he speaking of something else entirely?  Biblical scholars are all over the place on the answer.  Agreement is unlikely.   

 

The same essay explains two important aspect of Isaiah. The first is his name. Semitic names often consisted of sentences that described God; In Hebrew the name Isaiah means "The Lord saves."  Secondly, it clarifies why the reading we just heard was in the past tense.  Recall:

"The people who have walked in darkness,

have seen a great light;

You have brought them abundant joy . . . ." 

 

The use of the past tense in prophecies is an example of the  "the prophetic past tense."  The prophetic past predicts future events using the past tense to signify that those events are already as good as done.  The prophetic past tense is rooted in the faith and hope that what we ask of the Lord and what the Lord has promised, is as good as done, even if the present is not as we would want it to be, even if the present bears no resemblance to what God has promised. 

 

Paul was unhappy with the Corinthians when he wrote in response to reports about abuses in the Church at Corinth.  He addressed those abuses in the first six chapters of his letter.  They included: divisions among the faithful, a case of incest, lawsuits among Christians, and sins against chastity.  Apparently, it is true that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

 

"I urge you . . . in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that . . . you agree in what you say . . . that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose." Paul is not suggesting that Christians cannot disagree on earthly affairs:  say politics, covid vaccinations, or the merits of the Patriots vs. the Denver Broncos.  Paul is referring to the unity of Church teaching and the belief of her members.  He is decrying the divisive sectarianism that today is oftentimes driven by idiosyncratic attempts to fashion a Jesus who fits the speaker’s or group’s agenda.

 

Paul’s letter is an important corrective to myths of a golden age of agreement and concord even in the earliest days of the Church and the unlikely possibility of unity in the future.

“Come follow me.  And I will make you fishers of men.”  That last is not a very specific job description either for them or for us today. But yet they went.

 

When we heed Jesus' summons we enter into an open-ended project without much of a description.  But through this call to follow Him Jesus surrounded himself first, with the apostles and then with other disciples, Some accepted the summons immediately and without equivocation.  Some rejected the call for the flimsiest of reasons.  Others initially followed but then said “I’m outta’ here.” 

 

To be called by Jesus is to be called into His mission  that is mediated and supported by the Church. It is not supported or helped by the cafeteria Catholic who picks and chooses what he or she will believe while rejecting other dogma, the type who may invoke vague generalities about Jesus and love to push an agenda but say, “I really can't get into that Real Presence stuff.”  The type who will rationalize the meaning of thou shalt not kill, so as to permit abortion, the killing of sick elderly, and even the chemical interruption of a child’s puberty

to follow what is ultimately a delusion.

 

Friday’s March for Life—the 53^rd  since Roe—was a needed reminder of how far we have to go before vulnerable life is protected from premature and intentional termination.  Alas, a 54^th annual march will be necessary next year.

 

Paul’s letter reminds us that the Church is not perfect.  It never was and never will be.  It is, after all, made up entirely of sinners from top to bottom.  However, it is what has come down through two millennia by preaching the salvation found in Jesus, the same Jesus who is present in the midst of the assembly, who is found in the words of Scripture, the same Jesus whose Real Presence in the Eucharist is a offered to us daily. 

 

We heard in the psalm:

"One thing I ask of the Lord, this I seek:

to dwell in the house of the Lord

all the days of my life,

that I may gaze on the loveliness of the Lord

and contemplate his Temple"

 

Sit with that prayer.

Meditate on those images.

They will yield much fruit.

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There was no homily last week as I got snowed in at St. Joseph Trappist Abbey.  I'd come out for my usual monthly visit.  The snow was not predicted.  The Abbey is on a hill, a rather steep one.  By 4 PM it was obvious that leaving was not possible.  Apparently the surrounding roads were fairly awful as well.  Departed later in the morning.  Things improved roadwise the closer I got to Boston.  I am posting this from there  as I try to catch up with meetings that had to be canceled.

 

Fr. Jack, SJ, MD