Thirteenth Sunday in
Ordinary Time
My dear friends in
Christ. We had an old time Redemptorist
by the name of Father Donald Miller who was rector of our major seminary for
many years and editor of the “Liguorian” for a ton of years. And he always told us young priests that our
homilies or sermons should never have more than three points. He was a great homilist himself and one year
the Archbishop of St. Louis had him write the Sunday sermons for the 52 Sundays
of the year so that every parish in the Archdiocese would have the same homily
at Mass with the same message. Of course
he never told us how long the points had to be so we could use our imagination
there.
But I thought that since this is summer and it’s a time of a little more rest
and relaxation in the Lord, I’d like to bring out several points that will help
us, I think, seek peace in God’s grace and in God’s love.
We all know—well I don’t
know if we all know—but some of us get a good physical during the summertime
because we have more time to go to the doctor and so forth. It’s also a time of spiritual check-up.
And I think the first
check-up that we could make is on our life of prayer because I think in the
summer it’s easier to miss Mass on Sunday, or at least the temptation might be
stronger. There’s the lake, there’s the
cabin, there’s travel, there’s fishing, there are baseball games, or even there
might be laziness. And equally we might
be tempted to forsake or lower other praying.
It might be a little more burdensome in the summer. We know that prayer is speaking to God and we
always have need to speak to God, but prayer is also listening to God and we
always have need to listen to God. And
so during the summer we should perhaps spend a few more quiet times reflecting
on the graces and blessings that God has given us because prayer is the
necessary means by which God’s Holy Spirit guides our thoughts and our actions
in God’s service. The person who prays
will probably accomplish more in one year for God’s kingdom than a person who
doesn’t pray will accomplish in a lifetime.
And we can never forget St. Alphonsus saying, “The one who prays will
certainly be saved.”
Secondly, I think it’s a
good time to examine ourselves to see, as St. Paul says, “If we have submitted
to the yoke of slavery.” We can be
slaves. We can be slaves to fear, to
anxiety, to bad habits, to grudges, to spiritual stubbornness. We can be slaves in our uncharitableness or
passing judgement on our neighbors, our brothers and sisters. It’s a good time for us to reflect in a
positive way on our own faults and failings and try for some improvement, at
least in one area of our spiritual life, and remind ourselves of what Our Lord
said, “Stop judging that you may not be judged for as you judge so will you be
judged.” Instead if we get that
temptation to judge other people let’s use those few minutes to thank God for
the gifts and graces and blessings that He has given us.
And third, during the summer
I think we can examine our attitude of humility. We know that humility can be defined in many
ways. Basically I think we all
understand what it means. We are who we
are and nothing else, so there can be no pretensions in our life. We know what we have. We know our abilities and capabilities, and
certainly we should use the talents that God has given us and we should
recognize them and be proud of our accomplishments and have satisfaction in
them. Our accomplishments both spiritual
and temporal. But we can’t glory in them
as if they came from our own making. We
can’t boast of them as if we are alone responsible for them, because we all
know that it is God who gives us the grace, the courage, the ability. In all our service humility not false pride
must mark our lives as Christ’s disciples.
As scripture tells us the
left hand should not know what the right hand is doing. And Our Lord tells us in today’s gospel,
“Take hold of the yoke and keep on the straight path and do what you are
supposed to do as My disciples.” And St.
Paul said, “Serve one another through love.
I got a good dose of
humility one time. A seven-year-old girl
told me, she said, “Father I really liked your sermon, especially when it was
over.”
Our Lord told us to learn
from him. He said, “Learn of Me because
I am meek and humble of heart.”
The great parish priest,
probably one of the greatest parish priests in the history of the church, St.
John Vianny said that the virtue of humility is like the chain of a
rosary. He said, “Snap those chains and
the beads fall all over”, but he said,
“the chain keeps the beads together”.
And he said that’s what the virtue is like. If you snap that virtue, the other virtues
fall asunder but if you keep that virtue of humility it keeps all the other
virtues together, and especially the virtue of love. Love of God and love of neighbor.