Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost 2017
From the epistle of Blessed Paul the Apostle to the Ephesians:
Brethren: I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.
14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with might through his Spirit in the inner man, 17 and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fulness of God.
20 Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.
From the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke:
One sabbath when [Jesus] went to dine at the house of a ruler who belonged to the Pharisees, they were watching him. 2 And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy. 3 And Jesus spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” 4 But they were silent. Then he took him and healed him, and let him go. 5 And he said to them, “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well, will not immediately pull him out on a Sabbath day?” 6 And they could not reply to this.
7 Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he marked how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, 8 “When you are invited by any one to a marriage feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest a more eminent man than you be invited by him; 9 and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give place to this man,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. 10 But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, go up higher’; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. 11 For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
In nomine Patris. . .
The apostle Paul wrote today’s Epistle to the church in Ephesus, one of his favorites, but it very well might be the Epistle to the Americans from any right-thinking bishop today. He, and we, need to bow our knees before the Father, and cry out in loud petitions and fervent repentance, because of the constant assaults by the culture of death upon the family.
What Paul wrote in Greek doesn’t translate effectively into English. In fact, unless you know what he said in Greek or in the Latin translation, verse 15 might not make sense. Every family takes its name from the Father because the Greek and Latin word for father, Pater, gives us the word for family, patera, and the Latin word paternitas, which can mean family or paternity. The Father of all, God, gives us family because the Blessed Trinity is the foundational family. On that model each human family should form, each community come together, every fatherland, every patria, exist in harmony. That is the will of God. That is how God planned for us to become sanctified, to exhibit the image and likeness of God. “It is not good for the man to be alone,” and so man is given to woman, and woman to man, as a divine gift, and from that gift are the children as gifts. All together, in charity, they image on earth the divine family of heaven.
So, too, is the Church one family. This is why we call priests “father,” and why the Pope is the “holy Father.” Holy Orders is a gift to the human family for the propagation of faith, hope and charity among all, so that we can all be saved and sanctified and fit for the divine family that is called the “kingdom of God.” Each time our family comes together, whether for Eucharist or another sacrament or the Divine Office, what is our common prayer? It is the prayer Jesus taught us, a prayer to the Father. In fact, let’s all pray that prayer together in English right now, slowly enough so we can savor the words: “Our Father, who art. . .”
We pray that the kingdom of God, the family of God, may come. But it can only come if we dedicate ourselves to doing the Father’s will. We also pray for our daily bread, which is more than the food we eat two or three times a day. Our bread is the Word of God and the Body of Christ, where is present the whole Christ, Body, Blood, Soul, Divinity, the Risen Christ who we hope to be united with in communion.
Now let’s learn something from the Holy Gospel. With what mindset do we come to the Banquet of Life? The scribes and Pharisees came to find Jesus, but not to repent and do the will of the Father. They came to find some reason to accuse Jesus of some sin. What a total waste of time! What a total waste of a life! Jesus pointed out their hypocrisy. They were so enmeshed in the minutiae of the Law that they couldn’t even answer if it is lawful to heal a sick person on the Sabbath. Yet they would surely pull their firstborn son out of a ditch on the Sabbath. Even their ox! What motivated the Pharisees was the respect of other Pharisees. They were constantly looking for human respect, for human attention, for human approval. “Look at me! I’m sitting at the head of the table.” That, I believe, is the mentality of a five year-old. And that is the kind of hubris that ends in a fall, and never brings happiness.
But, I believe, this constant seeking for human approval is the spirit of this wretched age, this unhappy culture of death. The political class and the media set up a new code of conduct, a new set of moral dos and don’ts, and enforce them on everyone else. And so in the midst of a succession of killer hurricanes, political bodies direct money to the removal of statues instead of human relief. That’s just one little symptom of the bigger problem. There is a widespread effort within our culture to destroy the human family, and ultimately to dehumanize all of us, to turn us into commodities.
Growing up, our family watched “Father Knows Best.” Well, actor Robert Young did not always know what was best, but there was a basic respect for fatherhood in the media. Today, do a survey of television sitcoms and dramas. You’d hardly know that the nuclear family still exists. The fictional characters on broadcast and cable TV, on the broadband services, pretty much everywhere are bachelors, divorced, occasionally widowed, but almost never in happy marriages. You can count the number of times in a week that God, or church, or religion are mentioned positively on the fingers of one hand. The positive news–so called–is given to the support of irregular and perverse ways of life. What we see modeled in the culture for our children and grandchildren is the sure road to perdition and cultural annihilation.
Are there positive signs? Maybe not in the media, but look around you here. We have happy marriages, large and committed families, examples of piety and dedication. Our young people are preparing for marriage and entering into chaste wedlock. Some are pursuing religious and priestly calling. What is the difference? It’s not the extraordinary form of the Mass, though that is no deterrent. It’s a culture of prayer, of life, of mutual caring and love. It’s the opposite of clawing one’s way to the top so you can lord it over others. It’s a commitment to service of others that we see in Jesus and Mary and Joseph, the Holy Family, who themselves mirrored the divine family, Father, Son and Holy Ghost. In nomine Patris,. . .
