HOMILY WEEK 20 05 – Year II
The Oxygen of Faith:
Optional Memorial of St. Rose of Lima
(Ezk 37:1-14; Ps 107; Mt 22:34-40)
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The reflection from The Word Among Us for today begins with the sentence, “Breathe into these slain that they may come to life.”
It continues to ask if one has heard of free-diving? A swimmer dives into the open water without an oxygen tank and holds his or her breath for long periods of time. When the swimmer surfaces, they are gasping for air because they desperately need to breath oxygen.
In today’s first reading, we see the need for a different kind of oxygen – the breath of the Holy Spirit. The prophet Ezekiel, speaking to the Jewish exiles in Babylon, depicts the desolation and loss of hope they are experiencing through the image of dry, lifeless bones. But God wants to breathe God’s Spirit into them so that they come back to life. And what is that spirit or breath? The Holy Spirit.
Did you know that the Hebrew word for breath, wind and spirit is the same? It’s ruach. Like oxygen, the breath of God is fundamental to our existence. We see this in the opening verses of Scripture, when the Spirit of God hovers over the waters. In the New Testament, after Jesus rises from the dead, he breathes the Spirit into his disciples and sends them out to proclaim the gospel. With the Holy Spirit working through them, the disciples evangelized and spread the good news around the world.
We have all received the Holy Spirit in baptism and confirmation. The Holy Spirit lives in each one of us, but maybe we aren’t experiencing its presence right now. We may be feeling like those dry bones in Ezekiel’s vision, “lost” and cut off” from God. Or maybe we are struggling with disappointment or weariness and feel as if we are running out of air. If so, know that the Spirit is always there, ready to revive and refresh us again and again.
And we don’t even have to wait until we are completely depleted! Every day – every moment of every day – we can ask the Spirit to come and fill us with her life-giving power and grace.
As you pray today, take a deep breath. Imagine the Holy Spirit filling you in the way that air is filling your lungs. Keep asking the Spirit to fill you. We all need the breath of God. We can’t survive without it, and the Holy Spirit is delighted to fill us.
In the Gospel, the religious leaders, characterized by a lack of the Holy Spirit in their lives, attempt to test Jesus with a question about which is the greatest commandment. Jesus, himself filled with the Spirit, is unfazed by that trick question. He reminds them of the Great Shema of Judaism, to love God with our whole being, then reaches deep into the Old Testament, Leviticus 19:18, and retrieves one of the often-overlooked laws buried there – the commandment to love others as we love ourselves.
From now on, then, it is just as important to love other people as we love ourselves, as it is to love God with our whole being. In fact, perhaps the best way to love God is precisely to love others, as we love ourselves. And living out this commandment of Jesus is made possible by the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. As the Holy Spirit helped put flesh on the dry bones of Ezekiel’s image, so the Holy Spirit will help us put flesh to our faith by keeping that great commandment to love.
St. Rose of Lima
The church today offers us an example of someone who lived this gospel fully – St. Rose of Lima. Rose was born in Peru in 1586 and died on August 15, 1617. While still a young girl, she embraced a selfless life of prayer, devotion and penance which she practiced to an extreme, subjecting her body to austerities as well as deprivation of food and sleep. Rose was confirmed in 1597 by the Archbishop of Lima, Toribio de Mogrovejo, who was also to be declared a saint. She refused to marry and became a Dominican tertiary at the age of 20. Rose lived in a small hut in her parents’ garden, working to help support them, and also cared for the sick, the poor, the Indigenous and slaves. Her asceticism and her intense spiritual experiences (periods of darkness and desolation as well as mystical experiences) aroused some criticism from her family and friends and the suspicion of Church authorities. Nevertheless, in 1671, she became the first person in the Americas to be canonized and is patron saint of South America.
The Eucharist we celebrate now is our best way of loving God with our whole being. May it empower us to put flesh to our faith by living out the commandments to love, as did St. Rose of Lima, with the help of the Holy Spirit.
