Late Have I Loved Thee: Homily for 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

  

Jeremiah 20:7-9

Ps 63

Rom 12:1-2

Mt 16:21-27

 

Among the most useful bits of advice given in theology school was that when preparing to preach, write a paper, or even for personal devotion, it is important to read more than one translation of the readings. This is particularly true in English in which there are multiple translations that vary tremendously in style, grammar, wording, and sometimes with the agenda of the translator.  There are revisions of revisions, new versions of old versions, new versions of revised versions, and so on.  Some are written in lofty and elegant language while others approach slang.  At times one version of a reading may resonate more with a reader than an alternative.  

 

At times it helps to pay attention to subtle shades of meaning of a particular word or phrase.  Depending on the translation they can have a significant impact on our understanding of the reading.  Sometimes a reading from a different source works better than the one found in the lectionary.  Such is the case today. 

 

We just heard, “You duped me O Lord and I let myself be duped.”  Duped is not in common use today.  I suspect it is unfamiliar to those  who are not native English speakers, and possibly unfamiliar to a lot of native speakers as well.  Duped means tricked or fooled. The King James Version and the Catholic RSV use: “O Lord, you have deceived me and I was deceived.”  A version in common English is accusatory when it writes, “You tricked me Lord and I was really fooled.”  However, The Jerusalem Bible gets it right:

 

“You have seduced me Yahweh, and I let myself be seduced.”

 

Deceived. Duped.  Tricked.  Seduced. There is conceptual overlap to be sure but each has distinct nuances of meaning.  Deceived has entirely negative connotations of being lied to. Duped also suggests a dishonest approach that takes advantage of another. Calling someone a dupe is never a compliment.  Tricked is well, tricked, pulled the wool over the eyes, fooled,  the old switcherooni.

 

Seduced is the only one of these that truly works when applied to God.  Seduced has multiple meanings, among which one finds: to win over, to attract powerfully and insistently.  “You attracted me powerfully and I allowed myself to be attracted.”  “You won me over . . . “ There is no hint that God lied, was dishonest,engaged in subterfuge, or used trickery. 

 

You attracted me strongly and I allowed myself to be attracted. 

You called to me in a powerful voice and I followed. 

You waited until I came to my senses.

 

So much better than hinting that God pulled a fast one, tricked, or deceived.  God calls. God beckons. God invites.  He wins over. He does not trick, deceive, or dupe. 

 

Saint Augustine got it right. In one of his most eloquent and resonant  passages, that was the second reading in the breviary on his August 28 memorial. He wrote:

 

“Late have I loved you,

O beauty ever ancient ever new . . .

You were within me but I was outside. . .

You were with me, but I was not with you . . .

You called, you shouted and you broke through my deafness . . .

You breathed your fragrance on me . . .

You dispelled my blindness . . .

You touched me and I burned for your peace . . . “

 

There certainly is nothing suggesting trickery, chicanery, or duping in Jesus’ words to the apostles. “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.  For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” 

 

Jesus is not promising an easy life, a life free of pain, suffering, or trial.  He is telling it like it is, like it was, and like it will always be for those who choose to follow him, for those who allow themselves to be seduced. 

 

“God forbid that this should be so . . . .”

 

Peter’s denial of Jesus’ statement of reality earned him a harsh rebuke.  We are not to think as Peter did.  Rather we are to accept the reality that it ain’t easy and it ain‘t gonna be easy.  But we know that. We have known that from the beginning. No deception or chicanery involved.

 

Paul gives sage advice against taking the easy way, the soft way, the way of those who deceive and dupe when he advises, “Do not conform yourselves to this age.”  Especially this age in the U S of A, an age in which “sin” “immoral” and “wrong” have been stripped of all meaning.  Indeed, in the cases of abortion, killing the sick elderly, and puberty blockade for confused children, sin and immoral have been elevated to the level of virtue for some.    

 

“You have seduced me and I allowed myself to be seduced.” 

 

When we can say that we can also sing with the psalmist:

 

“I will bless  you while I live;

lifting up my hands,

I will call upon your name.

As with the riches of a banquet

shall my soul be satisfied,

and with exultant lips

my mouth shall praise you.”

 

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There were no homilies the past two weeks as I was at the monastery in VT and had no public Masses.  Things settling to normal again.  

 

Photos were taken in Australia in 2011 during tertianship.  After two days in Sydney we were taken to Seven Mile Beach in Gerroa, NSW.  None of us was Australian. To describe our reaction to the place as happy shock captures it.  Glorious place.  

 

Sunset the first or second night.  The camera never left my side for the ten days of our stay

This silhouette captures childhood in black and white

The view from the property on which we stayed.

Fr. Jack SJ, MD

Walkin’ on the Water: 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time

   

1 Kgs 19:9a, 11-13a

Ps 85

Rom 9:1-5

Mt 14:22-33

 

"Lord let us see your kindness and grant us your salvation."

 

Psalm 85 brings the two readings and the Gospel together.  Each reading is about faith fraying along the edges or faith that seemed to be lost.  Each of the speakers:  Elijah, Paul, and Peter could have easily uttered the psalm response from his position of desperation, discouragement, or fear.  We can identify with those feelings and add a few of our own. 

 

Things can't be worse for Elijah.  He fled to escape the wrath of the evil Jezebel

who wanted him dead.  While in hiding an angel instructed him to eat and prepare for a journey.  All Elijah wanted was to die.  He was despondent and had lost hope.  His faith was shaky.  He ate only because the angel demanded that he do so.  Then, he began a journey of forty days. 

 

The Jewish Study Bible notes that when unencumbered and alone a man could walk between 15 and 25 miles per day Multiplied by 40 days, Elijah walked between 600 and 1000 miles.  To put the distances into perspective, it is about 500 miles south from Boston to Washington, DC and 1000 miles west to Chicago. 

 

What went through his mind during that arduous trek? What goes through our minds during the 40-day journeys we are forced to take during life, the journeys of chemotherapy, chronic pain, or the seemingly endless journey of caring for a loved one with Alzheimer's?

 

Elijah's encounter with God in a whisper rather than an earth-shaking event is one of the remarkable images in the Old Testament.  Elijah had to be open and willing to hear that whisper.  He had to be attuned to and ready for it.  Similarly, we have to be prepared and willing to hear the voice of God in a whisper, in the brief moment of quiet that interrupts the background noise that complicates our lives. 

 

Paul’s discouragement that his people rejected Jesus is palpable.  His distress was such that he would have been willing to have himself cut off from Christ if they would accept the great gift of salvation. We all know Paul’s frustration. We know the pain when no one will listen to us.  We know the frustration of being met with opposition by everyone in our lives: family, friends, co-workers and so on.  We know that feeling of radical loneliness  when we plead: "Lord let me see you kindness and grant me your salvation."  Today’s Gospel take place immediately after Jesus fed the multitude with a few loaves and fishes.  The crowd had dispersed.  He dismissed his disciples and went up the mountain alone to pray.  Something important happens here, something we fail to notice much of the time. Pope Benedict XVI wrote that we know from the Gospels that Jesus frequently spent nights alone in prayer and  conversation with His Father.  He suggests that Jesus’ speech, preaching and ministry grew out of that silence and matured within the accompanying solitude.

 

While Jesus was praying the apostles were crossing the 4 1/2 mile wide Sea of Galilee.  They were a few miles off-shore and in no position to swim if the boat capsized.  It was very late.  The fourth watch of the night was between 3:00 and 6:00 AM.  Thus they had been struggling to cross--and Jesus had been in prayer--for hours. 

 

We can identify with their terror when they saw Jesus walking on the water toward them. And then, as we heard,  Peter acted. when he ”got out of the boat and began to walk on the water toward Jesus.”  But his faith wavered when he saw how strong the wind was.” Fear replaced faith. This brings up the difficult question, “What is faith.”

 

Australian Trappist Fr. Michael Casey makes an important point:  “Faith has to grapple constantly with the doubts we may experience when we hear the words of the poet Robert Browning  God is in his heaven—all’s right with the world.'  So often it doesn’t seem that way.”  Many times in our lives it doesn’t seem, or didn’t seem, that God is in his heaven or that anything is right with the world. 

 

Casey goes on to define faith:  “Faith means letting go of our ambition to control, understand, or even cope with what happens. Faith means releasing our anxieties into God’s hands and seeing all that happens as coming from the hand of God. The fact that I cannot comprehend the logic of events means simply that my intellect is limited.  Our relationship with God is often undermined by fears about impending disaster”

 

It is terrifying to be wheeled into an operating room.  It is panic-inducing to hear a diagnosis of cancer. No one can describe the emotions upon the death of one’s child.  Our faith wavers and, like Peter, we begin to sink.  Our faith may waver when we realize the seriousness of our situation.  We may suddenly doubt as the river rises above flood stage in our lives. 

 

Faith does not mean that life will go smoothly.  Faith is not a shield against trauma. Faith does not protect us from pain nor is it a Berlin wall against the anguish of grief. Faith is an umbrella over us during these crises. Peter’s faith was strong when he jumped out of the boat because he wasn't thinking about it too much. When he began to intellectualize and pay attention to the storm he tried to take control.  For the moment his faith vanished.  And then he prayed; “Lord.  Save me!”  We also try walk on the waters of a stormy lake at night. In those moments

we can only plead as did the psalmist:

 

"Lord let us see you kindness and grant us your salvation."

 

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Photos are from tertianship in Australia in 2011.  We were there for 8 months, half of the time in Sydney and the rest scattered all over the country.  These are from all over the country but not Sydney.  That is a separate topic. 

 

 

Rainbow after a violent storm arcing over Out Lady of the Angels, the church at which I spent five weeks during the second 'experiment.'

Oil rig visible from the porch of the church rectory. 

The beach at Warrnambool was magnificent and only a short walk from the church at which I was giving retreats in daily life for three weeks. 

Sunset at Sevenhill, South Australia where we made the long retreat. 

Walking after Mass at Sevenhill.  The camera was part of my anatomy during the entire thirty days there either hanging from my shoulder of under the chair. 

Sunrise at Gerroa, NSW.  Beautiful place at which we spent the first ten days of the retreat getting to know each other.  

 

Fr. Jack, SJ, MD 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Homily for the Feast of the Transfiguration

  

6 August 2026

Dn 7:9-10, 13-14

Ps 97:1-2, 5-6,99

2 Pt 1:16-19

Mt 17:1-9

 

The Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord, draws us into a mystery that is well beyond our understanding or comprehension.  The Transfiguration represents the fulfillment of the prophecy we just heard in the reading from Deuteronomy that  also tried to describe something beyond the ability of words and images. "The Son of Man received dominion, glory, and kingship; all peoples, nations, and languages serve him.  His dominion is everlasting; his kingship shall not be destroyed."

 

"His dominion is everlasting; his kingship shall not be destroyed."

 

On this Feast we recall Jesus appearing in brilliant glory; speaking with Moses and Elijah, the Law and the Prophets in front of three of His disciples.

 

Imagine the scene: Dazzling light.  Moses, Elijah, and Jesus conversing. What were they saying? How did their voices sound?  Place yourself with the apostles. Stand on the mountain with them.  The tension is increasing, it is almost unbearable.  And then you hear God's voice: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased."  The Father confirms that Jesus is the Christ, the Beloved Son of God, the one whom Peter confessed him to be in the previous chapter of Mark's Gospel.

 

And then the Father gives you a mission: "Listen to him." 

 

Like the apostles, you are stunned into silence and overcome with awe.  Jesus--the Nazorean and teacher, Son of Mary and Wonder Worker, Jesus, the carpenter, healer, and prophet who was given no honor in his native place, was revealed in his Divinity. 

 

But, there is another transfiguration, there is another revelation, we must recall today. That event was also marked by blinding light, overshadowed by a cloud, and a deafening sound led to a stunned silence. 

 

On August 6 the Church recalls that Jesus was revealed in his Divinity on a mountain.  On August 6, 1945 the human race revealed its depravity at Hiroshima.  The world would never be the same.  Hiroshima captured in one event the sum total of human sin from the fall of Adam and Eve. 

 

The event of Hiroshima, and three days later, Nagasaki, condensed the cumulative horrors of all the wars of the past centuries, into a single and singular event.  This time God did not give mankind a mission from the cloud.  There was a terrible silence. There was a void. 

 

Or was there?

           

The voice of God was obscured by the explosion.  It was not silenced. 

 

Almost 2000 years since Jesus' incarnation, birth, passion, death, resurrection and ascension, and eighty-one years since Hiroshima, God's mandate to the apostles, and thus His mandate to us: “listen to him” is more compelling and urgent  than it was for the shaken apostles.  Hiroshima and Nagasaki demonstrated man's capability for destruction on an unimaginable scale, a scale that is unique to our present time and technology.

 

"This is my Son; listen to him.”     

 

As we listen to Jesus, as we take his teaching to heart and allow that teaching to transform us, we move a bit closer to the eschatological glory of  the transfigured Jesus. At the same time we move that much farther from the apocalyptic destruction of the nuclear bomb, the human destruction of  past genocides in Armenia, Rwanda and Burundi, the unbearable memories of WWII and many others throughout the world up to and including Ukraine and the Middle East.

 

And, as we heed God's mandate to listen to his beloved Son, we begin to move further from the systematized attacks on morality and vulnerable human life being waged in the U.S. today, abortion, the planned killing of the elderly, and the castration of prepubertal children for the sake of a perverted agenda.

 

"The mountains melt like wax before the LORD,
before the LORD of all the earth.
The heavens proclaim his justice,
and all peoples see his glory."

 

"The Lord is king, the Most High over all the earth."

 

"This is my beloved Son,

listen to Him."

 

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I won't try to elaborate why the Feast of the Transfiguration is so deeply meaningful for me, even before I began working with the monks at the Charterhouse of the Transfiguration in Vermont. I'm not certain I can put the reasons into words anyway.

The photos are from the Charterhouse over the past years

 

 

 

A depiction of the Transfiguration on the staircase leading to the Church.  It is about five feet high and proportionately wide.  Note the quote at the bottom.  

The miracle of Transubstantiation

Taken from the choir stall to which I was assigned on my first visit ten years ago.  It never changed.  The books are in Latin, Gregorian Chant, and are huge.  

 

Have a Blessed Feast

Fr. Jack, SJ, MD