HOMILY ADVENT WEEK 01 06 – Year I
Wounded Healers Building Up the Kingdom of God:
Memorial of St. Francis Xavier
(Is 30:19-26; Ps 147; Mt 9:35 – 10:8)
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Are we seeking the God of consolation, or the consolations of God?
That question, sometimes asked of those in spiritual direction, along with the readings for today, invites us to be disciples fully involved in building up the kingdom of God as wounded healers.
In the first reading, the prophet Isaiah prophecies a time of consolation for the chosen people of God, a day when “the Lord binds up the injuries of his people, and heals the wounds inflicted by his blow.” This follows a time of desolation that they would experience – when the Lord would give them “the bread of adversity and the water of affliction.” Isaiah is the greatest of the messianic prophets. He remained true to his principles and pleaded for trust in God, not in military alliances The Messiah he foretells is a descendant of David who will establish peace and justice on earth and propagate the knowledge of God.
In the gospel from Matthew, we see Jesus fulfilling all those prophecies, as he travels around the cities and villages of Galilee, teaching and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God that he came to inaugurate, and healing every disease and illness. He then empowers twelve of his disciples, probably here the apostles, to share in his mission, giving them authority over unclean spirits. He mandates them to go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, to proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God, and like Jesus, to “cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers and cast out demons.”
Jesus then instructs his disciples to pray for more labourers to be sent out into his harvest, to continue the ministry of the apostles. That is where we come in. I am sure Jesus intends us to pray, not just for more priests, deacons or religious to respond to that vocational call, but to all of us, baptized into him, to be missionary disciples, as Pope Francis invites us to be.
We are to share in and continue that mission prophesied by Isaiah, reinforced by Psalm 147, fulfilled by Jesus, shared with the apostles, and now, handed over to us. Each in our own way, we are to bring healing to others, to give hope and new life to the downtrodden, bring about reconciliation and inclusion for the excluded, and help free people from their own demons, painful emotions and defects of character.
For that to happen, the kingdom of God has to be good news for us first. We cannot give to others what we do not have ourselves. It is hard to lead others into areas of life where we have not trodden ourselves. It is imperative that we must have come to Jesus as the Messiah, to receive his forgiveness for all our sins and wrong-doing, as well as to experience healing of all our negative attitudes, defects of character and problematic, hurtful behaviors. Then and only then can we, as wounded healers, truly set about building up the kingdom of God with some integrity.
That means fostering a strong faith in who Jesus is through contemplative prayer especially; entering into deep bonds of fellowship with others involving trust, humility, and genuine caring, as well as humble self-awareness of our own need for on-going growth and healing. With those credentials in our lives, we can then reach out to others and offer support, challenge, affirmation and guidance.
A time when I felt that I was actually walking this talk happened at a rehabilitation centre when Adam shared his story with me. He was drinking and driving one day with his brother and their girlfriends as passengers, when they crashed into a parked car in the rainy, semi-darkness of the night. Though all were injured in the accident, his older brother, sitting on the right-hand side of the front seat, took the greatest impact and was killed. After his dad died some years later, his mother told him, without warning, that he had killed her baby and that he was the one who should have died.
He went home and told his partner that was it, he no longer had a mother. From that time on, he ignored his mother, though their houses were in view of each other. When she was dying, he got drunk and forced himself to go to the hospital. When she saw him, she closed her eyes as if to indicate she did not want to see him. He put his hand on her head and told her not to be afraid to die, but rather to go and not look back, then he left. After her death, he did not go to the wake or her funeral due to his hurt and anger. Instead, he just kept on drinking, and ended up having to go to a rehabilitation center, where he sat in on the talks I was giving on spirituality, grieving and the twelve steps.
After one session he asked to talk with me, shared this story and asked what he should do. I shared with him my own experience of anger towards my dad, and the process of forgiving him, being reconciled with him, and then the letter expressing my feelings towards him that I wrote and read out loud to him, eleven years after his death, and what a powerful moment of healing that was for both of us. I encouraged him to do the same with his mother, and explained to him how he would be doing Step 6 and 7 of the Twelve Step Program in the process. He took it all in, promised me he would try, and left with hope and some relief in his heart. For my part, I felt humbled and honoured to, in some small way, live out the gospel for today.
Today the Church invites us to honor St. Francis Xavier. Francis was born in 1506 in Navarre, Spain. He met St Ignatius Loyola at the University of Paris, and was one of the first members of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). Francis spent many years working as a missionary with the peoples of Goa, Southeast Asia and Japan. He had excellent organizational skills: the communities he established continued to flourish long after his departure. Francis died of fever while on his way from Goa to China, in 1551. He was canonized in 1602 and is a patron of all foreign missions.
The Eucharist is a kingdom meal for disciples, a foretaste of the eternal banquet we will share in the fullness of that kingdom. We experience forgiveness and healing through word and sacrament, and hopefully are empowered to go out to proclaim the kingdom of God and build it up as wounded healers.
