HOMILY WEEK 24 04 – Year II
Believing in Jesus – Befriending our Shadow:
Optional Memorial of St. Januarius
(1 Cor 15:1-11; Ps 118; Lk 7:36-50)
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Saint, sinner and Pharisee – today’s liturgy provides us with a study in contrast of three characters – the first two we can emulate, and learn from the latter.
They all combine to present us with a strong message – believe in Jesus, befriend our shadow, and come to him for forgiveness and healing.
The Pharisee in the gospel is curious, and invited Jesus to come to his home for a meal. We already are aware that the Pharisees in the scriptures were very legalistic in their effort to live the religious rules perfectly. When Jesus is at table and an uninvited guest comes in, we quickly learn that the Pharisee is also very judgmental. He considers the woman a sinner, and so concludes Jesus must also be a fraud and not really a prophet, and a blind one at that, or he would have known her situation.
But in fact, this Pharisee is the one who cannot see. He is blind, both to the holiness and the real identity of his guest, and to his own sin – legalism and judging others – and therefore he “loves little” (Luke 7:47). He had a blind spot, a shadow side, of which he was unaware, and so was acting out of that blindness and ignorance.
We don’t know what became of the Pharisee. Were his eyes opened? Did he learn about his blind spot from Jesus and accept it? Did he turn to God in humble repentance and pray for healing? We just don’t know. What we do know is that he can serve as a wake-up call for us, as most of us also have a blind spot or shadow to our personalities that we are invited to not so much expunge, but to expose to the healing light of Jesus’ love.
The woman, on the other hand, is a model of faith and repentance. She saw what nobody else saw – the mercy, compassion, unconditional love and holiness of Jesus. She was fully aware of her sinful actions and her reputation in the town, but did not allow that to dissuade her from coming to Jesus. Rather, her faith in him gave her the raw courage and humility to spend money on the alabaster oil, enter into the house of a feared Pharisee, wash Jesus’ feet with her tears, dry them with her hair, and anoint them with that expensive oil.
There is a startling and revealing detail to this incident. Jesus not only used her as a model of faith, repentance and love to confront the Pharisee with his negative attitude, his sinfulness (that which made him sin), he actually informs her she is forgiven after her remorseful action, with his gentle words, “Your sins are forgiven.” She is already forgiven before she comes into his presence! What is remarkable is that in her faith in him she either knows this somehow, or just intuits that he is forgiveness itself, and so all she has to do is come into his presence to receive that forgiveness.
In this way, she is a model for us of what actually happens when we realize we have sinned, are aware of our own shadow, repent, have a humble and contrite heart (which is all that God really wants), and decide to celebrate the sacrament of reconciliation. We also are already forgiven, because God is forgiveness and never stops forgiving – we simply come to confess our sin and sinfulness, and thus make room within our spirits to receive the love and forgiveness that Jesus wishes to lavish on us. Like that repentant woman, when it comes to Jesus, we cannot lose – the more we have sinned, the more love and forgiveness we receive. As he put it, she must have been forgiven much, to be showing so much love.
Enter St. Paul, who also experienced that lavish mercy, compassion and forgiveness of Jesus on the road to Damascus, even before he had an opportunity to repent, an incident that also involved blindness – three days of darkness providing a liminal space for Saul of profound reflection, learning, repentance, transformation and finally, an unshakeable faith in Jesus as the Messiah, Risen Lord, and forgiveness in person. In fact, it took three years in Arabia for Paul to truly absorb the degree to which he was forgiven, and that experience made him the world’s greatest evangelizer, his version of anointing Jesus with alabaster oil.
In this passage, St. Paul’s faith in Jesus and enthusiasm to share this “good news” with the Corinthians shines forth, as he reminds them of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus, and then his many appearances to the apostles and disciples. All of these appearances were actually for them an experience of being forgiven – as they had betrayed, denied and abandoned Jesus and stood in need of that forgiveness.
The second miracle we consider today is that of the relic of St. Januarius. Little is known about the life or martyrdom of St. Januarius. His fame is centered on a relic, said to contain his blood, that is kept in the cathedral at Naples. Early devotion to the saint was based on the belief that Januarius, an Italian bishop, lived in the 4th century and was martyred during the Diocletian persecution, but the records are unreliable. Early Christians kept clothing of martyrs soaked with blood as objects of devotion, and if possible, gathered blood in flasks, sometimes buried with them to indicate martyrdom.
In the 14th century there occurred a phenomenon that was to attract curiosity throughout the centuries. The year was 1389. A procession was making its way about the cathedral when the priest holding the flasks containing the saint’s coagulated blood noticed that the contents began to liquefy and bubble. Since then, the blood has repeated this phenomenon 18 times each year. The solid mass in the vial becomes liquefied, sometimes seeming to bubble and froth.
Even today the happenings provoke worldwide interest. The relic is an object of devotion and the activity is said to be miraculous. The cathedral is always filled to capacity when the resident cardinal or a priest holds the reliquary for all to see, being careful not to touch the crystal sides. The cardinal then announces, “The miracle has happened,” words that cause great joy and the chanting of the “Te Deum”. No natural explanation has been found for this phenomenon.
The fact that Januarius was a holy bishop and martyr connects with the double message to be both holy and compassionate. The Eucharist invites us to join both St. Paul and the woman with the alabaster jar in receiving and experiencing the mercy and unconditional love of Jesus as we listen to his word, and enter into intimate communion with his body and blood.
May our celebration deepen our faith in his love and forgiveness, help us deal with our shadow side, and transform us into evangelizers spreading the good news of salvation like St. Paul.
