September 6, 2009
Twenty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time
By Rev. Joe McCloskey, S.J.
“Say to those whose hearts are frightened: Be strong, fear not! Here is your God, he comes with vindication; With divine recompense he comes to save you. Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared…” Isaiah 35:4-5
Listen, my beloved brothers. Did not God choose those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he promised to those who love him? James 2:5
…then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, "Ephphatha!" (that is, "Be opened!") and (immediately) the man's ears were opened, his speech impediment was removed, and he spoke plainly. Mark 7:34-35
Piety
The Lord tells us: “Be strong, fear not!” Piety is the strength of our love for God. Love casts out fear. God is our vindication. He has sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to save us. Christ is our better self once we surrender to him. Piety is our closeness to Christ which our love for him brings. We are created to the image and likeness of Christ. When we discover ourselves in Christ we will find the fullness of who we are meant to be. When he comes to save us, the eyes of the blind are opened; the ears of the deaf are cleared; the lame leap like a stag; the tongue of the mute sing. How can one be afraid who is truly in love with Christ. Love goes toward union with the beloved. Love opens our heart to bridge the difference between self and the beloved. Love is the energy of courage. It would make no sense for lovers to be different. Jesus loves us with the same love that he had for the father. Our piety teaches us how to love like Christ. The true lover has nothing to worry about in Christ. Differences bring more suffering than sameness. If one could give as much glory to God by short life as by long life, the true lover would choose short life to be more like Christ. Fear of death is removed because death becomes the embrace of God calling us home. Life is the sharing of the beloved with others. Death brings no fear for the lover. God brings vindication for our love of Christ by our dying in his name. Fear of poverty goes out the same way as fear of death. To love Christ so much brings desires of oneness with his poverty. Christ emptied himself out of his “goodness” to be one with us. How could I not want to be one with the poverty of Christ? Christ died in the poverty of the cross. His death takes away any fear of disgrace since the ultimate disgrace of life for the time of Christ was death on the Cross. Ritual impurity was had by just being touched with the shadow of the cross. Loving Christ is the ultimate panacea for getting rid of all a human could fear about life. Christ came to bring life and he gives us back a fullness of life by our closeness to him through our love which is what piety is all about.
Study
We study Christ that we might learn how best to love our neighbor. To love our neighbor as our real self gives us the secret of eternal happiness. To find our life more fully in Christ is what we investigate in the teachings of the Church and Scripture and Spirituality. Our study takes away our blindness. We learn to choose the poor of the world who are rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom of God to be closer to Christ who identifies with such people so that we can always be close to him. We study all the ways we can put our talents to the service of our world that Christ might be known in how we treat the little and the least ones of our lives.
Action
Our actions in the good we do make it possible for Christ to be heard in the story of our lives. Actions speak louder than words. All our stuttering in doing good gives way to broad strokes of outreach to those who need our talents. The help we offer gets less and less conditioned by our willingness to be involved with the down and dirty of life. We realize that Christ came to serve, not to be served and we reach the highest levels of sanctity by our willingness to go the extra miles in our service of those who cannot say thanks for what we do. Our service of others is no longer conditioned by what we get out of it for ourselves and the hope for divine recompense becomes our best reward. We are even happier in our actions when no one is told about the good we do. Then we know our reward is waiting for us in heaven.
