Faith-Christian life-Holy Name of Mary

HOMILY WEEK 23 04 – Year I

God’s Chosen Ones: Mandate and Methodology:

Optional Memorial of the Most Holy Name of Mary

(Col 3:12-17; Ps 150; Lk 6:27-38)

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Do you belong to an organization, business or club? If you do, chances are your organization has a mission statement articulating its “raison-d’être”, its purpose, along with a series of strategies or ways of successfully achieving that purpose.

The readings today offer us an identity, a mandate, and a methodology. As God’s chosen ones, we are called to be holy and beloved, and then sent out to live that mandate through a variety of ways of loving.

First of all, we are not an organization, business or club. We are much more than that, something much more ineffable and profound – we are God’s chosen ones, according to St. Paul in his letter to the Colossians.

To be God’s chosen ones harks back to the Israelites in the wilderness, transformed into a holy nation by the foundational experience of their liberation from Egypt through the Red Sea and the theophany on Mt. Sinai, where they were given their methodology – the ten words (Dabar) of God or the Ten Commandments. They were now God’s chosen people, mandated to be icons of God on earth, tasked by their holy lives and faithful integrity to attract all nations back to the one true God of heaven and earth.

Of course, we know all too well how they failed miserably at that divine mission, always falling for the false gods of the other nations (possessions and pleasure, prestige and fame, power and control) and notorious in their infidelity to the covenant with God, prostituting themselves to idols and allowing their temple cult to become self-serving and corrupt. This culminated in Jesus feeling compelled to cleanse the temple which he claimed had become a market place instead of the house of God, a defiant act that was the last straw leading to his crucifixion at the hands of the religious establishment in collusion with the state, or Roman Empire.

Fast forward to St. Paul and his letter to the Colossians, reminding them they are now the new chosen ones, the new Israel, the new people of God. Their mandate is to be holy and beloved. To be holy is to be Christ-like, to be forgiven and healed by Jesus Christ, to be single-minded in following him, in being his disciples who strive to be carbon copies of him.

That holiness is grounded in the knowledge and experience of God’s love for them, poured into them by the Holy Spirit as mercy, humility, forgiveness, compassion, unconditional love and total non-violence, displayed for all the world to see by Jesus on the cross. Secure in God’s love for them, as Jesus was secure in God’s love for him, they could now resist and reject those temptations of money, fame and power that seduced their ancestors in the wilderness and throughout their history, and follow the new path given to them by Jesus.

St. Paul’s words to the Colossians, and Jesus’ words to his disciples, are now addressed to us as well, in terms of both our identity as the chosen one’s of God, and our mandate as this new Israel. For St. Paul, we are to be compassionate, kind, humble, meek and patient. We are to be forgiving and forbearing. We are to love as Jesus has loved us, and work for peace and unity as one body. The word of God should dwell in us, through studying God’s word and pondering it in our hearts through contemplative prayer. Our hearts are to be filled with gratitude for this calling and all this love given to us by the Holy Spirit. And in the end, we are to do all that we do in the name of Jesus.

To do all in the name of Jesus is to strive to do his will. Throughout his ministry on earth, Jesus taught what the Israelites were supposed to have been like, summarized beautifully by Luke in today’s gospel passage. They were to love their enemies, do good to those who offend them, be merciful as God is merciful, avoid judging others in any way, and above all, to forgive from the heart anyone who hurt them.

These instructions were given to Jesus’ followers who would become his body, the church, after his resurrection from the dead and the sending of the Holy Spirit upon them at Pentecost. They are now directed to us, describing what we are to be like as the new chosen ones of the Father.

Unfortunately, as news of one sexual abuse scandal after another in the church surfaces in the news these days, we are discovering, to our shame and even to our horror, that we have not been any better than the Israelites of old, after all. Those words of Jesus about not judging take on a keener edge, as we humbly admit our own painful failure to be the chosen ones of God, icons of God here on earth, children of the light.

Perhaps this is a time of much needed humility and purification for us as a church, and an urgent call for us to finally take to heart these teachings of St. Paul and Jesus about who we are, who we are called to be, and how we are to live out our God-given identity as holy and beloved.

Today the church gives us the option of celebrating the Most Holy Name of Mary. This feast honouring the name of Mary was instituted by Pope Innocent XI in the 17^thcentury. God the Father is glorified by the exalted role in salvation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Thus, her name is one of honor, a holy name, a maternal name and a name responsive to the needs of the Church.

One of the needs of the Church today is to do metanoia, repentance, to change our ways and be the best persons we can possibly be, with her help, her example, her deep faith in Jesus her son, and her maternal love for us. More than ever, we need to pray to her for deeper faith ourselves, more profound awareness of how loved we are by God, greater humility and courage to come to her Son for forgiveness and healing, and emulate her in her life of prayer, compassion and fidelity to her calling as the Mother of God.

The Eucharist is a celebration of who we are, the Body of Christ; a source of forgiveness and healing, helping us become who we are, and a mandate to live out our identity as did Mary and St. Paul, true disciples of Jesus Christ. May our celebration help us truly become the chosen ones of God, holy and beloved, and live out that calling through the many ways love offers us.