Faith-Covenant-Forgiveness-St Paul of the Cross

HOMILY WEEK 28 06 – Year I

The Flow of Trinitarian Faith:

Optional Memorial of St. Paul of the Cross

(Rm 4:13-18; Ps 105; Lk 12:8-12)

*************************************

A rather vain, somewhat narcissistic woman confessed she was guilty of the sin of vanity. The priest popped out of the confessional, opened her door to look at her, came back in and told her, “Lady, in your case, it’s not a sin – it’s just a mistake!”

The readings today remind us that faith and forgiveness empower us to live out our intimate covenant relationship with God and with our spouses.

St Paul, in the first reading, speaks about righteousness that comes through faith in God as our loving father/mother. He then holds up as a model Abraham, whose faith empowered him to hope against hope, to weather all the odds facing him. The theological virtues that ultimately describe God form a pattern in our lives: faith enables us to keep on hoping, and hope empowers us to love.

Psalm 105 reminds us God “remembers God’s covenant with humanity forever,” and will always be faithful to that covenant, even when we are not. God has always desired an intimate covenant relationship with God’s people, starting with a couple – Adam and Eve. That covenant grew to become a family – Noah who was ordered to take his family into the ark. Then with Abraham it became a tribe, as he was commanded by God to take all his tribe and set out on a journey of faith. Next, with Moses on Mt. Sinai, it became a holy nation, a people set apart. The psalmist summarizes that genealogy as the line of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and finally, Israel.  We stand on solid ground when we affirm Christian marriage as a covenant relationship with God, each other as a couple, and with the church, the Body of Christ.

With David, the previous somewhat conditional covenants (keep the law and they would be blessed; break the law and they would be cursed) were transformed into an unconditional covenant, as God promised to be with David no matter what he did. And what did David do? – lust, adultery and arrange a murder. Rather serious stuff, but the critical element is when confronted by the prophet Nathan, David admitted his guilt, repented sincerely, experienced God’s unconditional love as pure forgiveness, and was transformed into the only true king Israel ever had. Which is why Jesus is always referred to as Son of David, of the lineage of David, born in the city of David – and never as Son of Moses or of Elijah.

The Gospel passage from Luke adds the element of Trinitarian faith to this revelatory path. Our faith now is to be, not just in God as an impersonal power in the heavens, but in Jesus Christ as the Son of Man, Son of God, savior, redeemer and Kyrios – Lord of all creation. Jesus adds the important note that he is forgiveness, always forgiving. As the Messiah, he had a two-fold role – to redeem and to sanctify; to forgive and to heal. To have faith in Jesus is to come to him to receive forgiveness for all our sins, and to experience healing for our sinfulness, that which makes us sin.

Then Jesus injects an interesting and intriguing theological element – they who blaspheme or sin against the Holy Spirit “will not be forgiven.” What does that mean? My own theory is if we don’t really believe in the Holy Spirit, or in forgiveness, we close ourselves off from being able to receive the forgiveness Jesus offers us and wants us to receive. This ties in with the line from the Our Father in which we ask God to forgive us as we forgive those who sin against us. We can’t receive that which we refuse to offer to others.

I was invited to speak at a conference organized by Phil Fontaine, at that time chief of the Assembly of First Nations, in preparation for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I happened to use the word “forgiveness” in my presentation. I was barely off the stage when a psychologist angrily literally attacked me with these words, “How dare you use that word? It doesn’t belong in this process. You’re just using it because you are a Christian and imposing it on others!” My reply was to gently tell her that, according to my experience, if people don’t at least move towards forgiveness, they will be angry for the rest of their lives. To which she retorted, “It’s okay to be angry as long as it doesn’t control you.”

I felt like telling her I forgave her, but refrained. We parted civilly enough, but I felt sad – here was a psychologist who did not believe in forgiveness, who perhaps did not believe in the Holy Spirit either, and may be closing herself off from ever receiving forgiveness in her own life. Such is our reality when we lack that Trinitarian faith. On the other hand, faith in God and forgiveness, is the lifeblood of living out our intimate covenant relationship with God.

Today the Church invites us to honor and emulate someone who had an exemplary faith in God expressed through a life of love. Born in northern Italy in 1694, St. Paul of the Cross experienced conversion at 15 and began a lifetime devotion to prayer and austerity. After having had several visions, he determined his vocation was to found an order dedicated to the Passion of our Lord. Officials declared the visions authentic and Paul withdrew to write a rule. He was joined by his brother, who remained with him for the rest of his life. He was known as a “walking saint”- when he walked by, crowds pressed in on him, hoping to get a piece of his habit as a relic, or to ask for a cure or a favor. By 1747, the Passionists had three houses and were preaching missions throughout Italy. At his death in 1775, Paul was establishing a congregation of Passionist nuns.

The Eucharist is both an act of faith and an experience of forgiveness. It is also a covenant meal with our God foreshadowing the eternal covenant. May our celebration today strengthen our faith, empower us to trust and forgive, and experience the joy of living out our covenant with our loving Trinitarian God.