HOMILY WEEK 07 06 – Yr II

The Sacrament of Childlikeness – Memorial: St. Philip Neri

(Jm 5:13-20; Ps141; Mk10:13-16)

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

A set of parents finally managed to convince their precocious son that Jesus was really risen from the dead. As that truth settled on him, a gleam appeared in his eye and he headed straight for the door with a determined look on his face. When his parents asked him where he was going, he replied, “Does grandpa know about this? I got’ta go tell him!”

The readings today and this memorial of St. Philip Neri invite us to be both prayerful and childlike in a way that communicates God’s good news.

So often in the gospels, the disciples of Jesus just don’t get his message and act contrary to what he is teaching. In today’s account, they sternly try to protect Jesus from the children crowding around, and Jesus has to indignantly chide them, teaching them an important lesson while doing so: childlikeness is the key criteria for living in the reign of God.

What Jesus did not mean was being childish. There are some adults who are still childish in their behavior and attitude, who have never really grown up. They may have lacked love in their family of origin, the love may have been present but not available to them, or there may have been some trauma that has severely marked them, especially if they have never dealt with it. A characteristic of this is the need to get attention through loud, inappropriate or self-centered behavior. Amazingly, in some that can persist even into old age!

To be childlike is to be humble, trusting, playful, prayerful, transparent, honest, innocent, loyal, have a sense of awe towards creation, faith in a God who created all and who loves that creation, and joy at just being alive. These are the qualities we need to pray for and try to cultivate. I am often amazed at how trusting some children are as I play a trust game with them – inviting them to become stiff as a board, hands by their side, and fall back, trusting that I will catch them. That is the childlikeness Jesus is wanting us to have.

James, in the first reading, in his own childlikeness, offers us some important child-like behaviors we can practice as adults. One is to be open to the sacrament of the sick when we are not well or advanced in years. It is unfortunate when this anointed became formalized as a sacrament in the 12^thcentury, it became known as Extreme Unction for the dying. That scares some people away from receiving this sacrament to this day.

Fr. Al Hubenig OMI tells the story of explaining this sacrament as a prayer for the sick and not the dying to an Italian man in a hospital, in Italian. After he finished and thought the man understood, Fr. Al asked if he would like to receive the sacrament of the sick, to which the elderly gentleman replied in Italian, “Not today, Father – maybe later when I feel better!”

Another child-like action James encourages is the sacrament of reconciliation, including some very pertinent teaching about reconciliation that we somehow missed for centuries – that forgiveness and healing go together as part of the sacrament. Here is how he puts it: “Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.”

So, confessing our sins is not just about forgiveness – it also includes an openness to healing. That is important because of the difference between sin (our hurtful actions for which we need forgiveness) and sinfulness (our painful emotions, negative attitudes and addictions that cause us to sin in the first place, and for which we need healing). Without that healing, we will simply sin all over again in the same way, in a repetitious pattern that is all too common.

That fits with the two-fold role Jesus had as the Messiah – to redeem and to sanctify, to forgive and to heal. So, we need to come to him for both forgiveness and healing in our childlikeness, and we will live much more fully in the kingdom of God.

In one parish, a healing mass had been organized at which I was presiding. One young man came up and very ashamedly asked for healing of his addiction to pornography. I briefly shared with him how God can hold male and female energy together, but we can’t – so being created in the image and likeness of God leaves a gaping incompletion and longing for wholeness and consummation within us. That is a holy longing, a divine fire, an Eros that is a desire to see the face of God. However, it is to be used according to God’s will and never in a selfish way, as Jesus never used his divine power for a selfish purpose. So, we prayed for healing in that area of his life. Two weeks later, he came to the same parish for mass and shared that prayer had certainly helped him. James is right – prayer is powerful and effective.

If one had to choose one saint who showed the humorous side of holiness that would Philip Neri. Born in 1515 in Florence, he showed the impulsiveness and spontaneity of his character from the time he was a boy. He felt called out of the business world into the study of theology, and a deeper life of prayer. At one point, he stopped his studies, threw away his books, and lived as a kind of hermit. Night was his special time of prayer. After dark he would go out in the streets, sometimes to churches, but most often into the catacombs of St. Sebastiano to pray. During one of these times of prayer he felt a globe of light enter his mouth and sink into his heart. This experience gave him so much energy to serve God that he went out to work at the hospital of the incurables and starting speaking to others about God, everyone from beggars to bankers.

In 1548 Philip formed a confraternity with other laymen to minister to pilgrims who came to Rome without food or shelter. The spiritual director of the confraternity convinced Philip he could do even more work as a priest. After receiving instruction from this priest, Philip was ordained in 1551. Realizing young men needed help to grow spiritually, he built an oratory in which they could gather, which led to the founding of the Congregation of the Oratory, made up of secular priests and clerics. Philip was known to be spontaneous and unpredictable, charming and humorous. He was an excellent confessor and gave creative penances, so he and James would have been kindred spirits. Philip spent hours in prayer and was so easily carried away he refused to preach in public and could not celebrate Mass with others around. When asked how to pray his answer was, “Be humble and obedient and the Holy Spirit will teach you.” Philip died in Rome in 1595 after a long illness at the age of eighty years.

The Eucharist Philip loved to celebrate is our family meal at which we are all God’s children. May our celebration empower us to be prayerful, childlike followers of Jesus, like Philip Neri, full of joy and love for all.