Faith-Compassion-St. Robert Bellarmine

HOMILY WEEK 24 02 – Year I

Holy Compassion:

Optional Memorial of St. Robert Bellarmine

(1 Tm 3:1-13; Ps 101; Lk 7:11-17)

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

Today’s readings, present us with a miracle to ponder and appreciate, and a clear, simple double message to absorb and live: be holy and compassionate, or in the words of the psalm, “walk with a blameless heart.”

Let us look first at the miracle. Although Jesus performed miracles, he never performed miracles for the sake of doing so or simply to impress others. His miracles always had a purpose – to reveal who the Father is and who he is, and to empower people to both praise God and live full lives. Notice, Jesus never performed an appendectomy or repaired a broken tooth. His miracles involved the senses and were all purposeful: He gave sight so that the blind could see God’s marvels; healed the deaf so they could hear God’s word; healed the mute so they could proclaim God’s glory and healed the lame so they could walk in God’s ways. He never used his divine power for a selfish purpose.

The miracle is Jesus restoring life to a young man. Jesus had just healed a centurion’s slave in Capernaum. Soon afterwards, he went to Naim, a small community about 37 kilometers southwest of Capernaum. Here, the work of Jesus now progresses from a healing to a resuscitation, underscoring once more that Jesus is one of the prophets mighty in word and deed. Luke places importance on the similarity with Elijah, who gave life to the only son of a widow of Zarephath.

This deliberate similarity with 1 Kings 17 adds strength to this incident, elicits the reaction of the crowd and demands greater attention to the details here. First, Luke points out this is the only sonof the widow. As a widow and now childless, she would be totally vulnerable and without support in that society. Second, he underlines the compassionof Jesus for her. Jesus saw her, took the initiative, came forward, touched the pallet and stopped the procession. He felt in his guts the plight of the widow. Third, whereas Elijah cries out to God and stretches himself three times over the child, Jesus simply gives an authoritative command, affirming the power of Jesus’ word. The narrator refers to Jesus as the Lordfor the first time. Fourth, the crowd’s response identifies Jesus as a great prophet fulfilling the works of the great prophets of Israel, and who for Luke, is greater than the prophets. John the Baptist announced the coming of Jesus as Elijah announced the coming of the day of the Lord. The hope of the resurrection is not grounded in the fact that the widow’s son has come back to life, but in the fact that the one who had the compassion to bring back the widow’s son has himself triumphed over death.

In his letter to Timothy, St. Paul gives sound advice to bishops regarding holiness: they are to be gentle, respectable, hospitable, teach well, unselfish and good administrators. Deacons must be serious, single-minded, sober, unselfish and faithful to the gospel. He even adds a few words of advice for women to be faithful, temperate and affirming. We can take to heart all that encouragement to be holy ourselves.

However, it is Jesus in the gospel who puts the spotlight on the most important virtue of all – to be compassionate as he and our heavenly Father are compassionate. A secular definition of compassion is a sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others. A more spiritual definition would be to take into one’s self and to feel in one’s inner being the pain and plight of the other, and to provide comfort, understanding and emotional support to the other to the extent that one can. Sometimes that might be simply being present and listening from the heart. Sometimes all the other person needs, is to be heard and understood to find the strength they need to take them through their unique suffering that no one can take away from them. Towards the end of her life, author Alice Millar basically dis-associated herself from her own profession as a psychologist, claiming all people really need to heal is a “Listening witness.” We are all called to be that “listening witness” to one another.

One person who had all these qualities is Archbishop Emeritus Adam Exner OMI. As my spiritual director when I was a young Oblate in formation, he heard my story, discerned what I needed to work on to move forward, and asked me to pray with Isaiah 43:1-4 for a whole month. That passage, in which I truly heard God tell me that I was precious and honored in God’s sight because God loved me and not for anything I had done, was the beginning of my life-long healing journey. He taught us the importance of psychic presence when counseling others or directing them, and modelled that for us as he listened to the stories of countless others.

 

Today the Church honors St. Robert Bellarmine, who is one of the Church’s great apologists. Born in Tuscany, Italy, in 1542, he entered the Jesuits in 1560 and was renowned for his preaching even before his ordination in 1570. After years of study and teaching he was made Professor of Controversial Theology at the Roman College. Robert’s many roles included revising the Latin Vulgate Bible, advisor to Galileo, author of two catechisms, director of the Roman College, leader in the Catholic Reformation, head of the Vatican library, and theological consultant to the Holy See. Appointed cardinal in 1599 and archbishop of Capua in 1602, he was greatly loved as a pastor. He died in 1621, was canonized in 1930 and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1931. He is a patron of catechists and catechumens.

The Eucharist is a sacrament in which we experience both the holiness of God and the compassion of Jesus shown to us through his ministry and especially the selfless gift of his life on the Cross that led to his resurrection to new life.

May our celebration today both inspire us and empower us to be both holy and compassionate, and to “walk through life with a blameless heart.”