Faith-Charity-Identity-St. Vincent de Paul

HOMILY WEEK 25 05 – Year I

Living Out Our Identity in Christ:

Memorial of St. Vincent de Paul

(Haggai 2:1-9; Ps 43; Lk 9:18-22)

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Jesus and Moses were golfing one day, and it turns out Jesus was a great fan of Tiger Woods. If he hit a great shot, he would exclaim, “Yes – just like Tiger Woods.” If he hit a poor shot, he would lament, “If only I was like Tiger Woods.” Then he hit a very bad shot over a pond of water. Moses said to Jesus, “Lord, do you want me to part the waters for you so you can go get your ball?” Jesus replied, “No, I’ll just walk over and get it myself,” and proceeded to walk on the water to retrieve his ball. Another golfer came by, saw what was happening, and said to Moses, “Who does that guy think he is, Jesus Christ?” To which Moses replied, “No – Tiger Woods!”

This little story connects with the gospel which highlights the identity of Jesus as the Messiah, the importance of finding our identity in him, and living it out through the Paschal Mystery.

Bishop Robert Barron points out the unique ontological nature of Jesus, in stating that “Who am I?” is a question no other founder such as St. Ignatius or leader such as Mahatma Ghandi would ever ask. Who Jesus is, is of critical importance, and so Jesus puts that question to his disciples. The answer from both the Synoptic Gospels and from Martha in the Gospel of John, is: “You are the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed Son of God.”

As the long-awaited Messiah, Jesus actually had a three-fold mission – to redeem, to sanctify and to inaugurate the kingdom or reign of God here on earth. To redeem is to forgive, and to sanctify is to heal, thus Jesus would inaugurate his kingdom especially through forgiveness and healing. So, we must come to him to receive forgiveness of all our sins, and to experience healing of all our painful emotions and negative attitudes, our sinfulness – that which makes us sin.

The method the Father invited Jesus to use to accomplish his mission is called the Paschal Mystery, made up of six stages: his passion or suffering, his death on the cross, his resurrection from the dead, his appearances to his friends, his ascension into heaven, and finally, the outpouring of his Spirit on the early church at Pentecost. That was the event capping both the identity of Jesus and the mission that identity entailed.

The question Jesus posed to the disciples about his identity is also posed to us. Who do we think Jesus is? Having contemplated that question for many years, I now begin my holy hour each morning with this prayer of praise to him: “Lord Jesus Christ, totally receptive to the Father’s love; humble, obedient, pure and faithful in response to that love; Son of God, Son of Man, Son of David; Savior, Redeemer, Word made flesh; sinless one, free from addiction, the Way, the Truth, the Life; the resurrection, suffering servant, crucified Messiah, sacrificial victim, risen Lord, victorious king.” Perhaps each of us could come up with our own prayer proclaiming who Jesus is for us?

Identity is an important question for each of us as well. The late motivational speaker, Serge LeClerc, mentioned in his talks how all through his life as a gang leader in organized crime, he was searching for an identity, and discovered he could manipulate both the rich and famous because they were also searching for identity.

Mary Eberstadt, a Senior Research Fellow at the Faith & Reason Institute, wrote a book entitledPrimal Screams: How the Sexual Revolution Created Identity Politics. In an interview about the book, she responded to what motivated her to write the book this way: “For several years, following the discussion over identity politics, I kept feeling as if something were missing. Conservatives and traditionalists tend to write off identity politics as the expression of overly coddled youngsters. Liberals and progressives tend to embrace such politics as a way of attaining power. In listening to the various manifestations of identity politics, I was struck by something else: Suffering. Rage. Despair. Watching footage of demonstrations by identity-first groups on campus, say, or reading the movement’s characteristically furious prose, I was impressed by how rancorous this phenomenon is – and how sad.

A lot of people today really seem frantic to know who they are, frantic to attach themselves to collective and exclusive political groups based on shared characteristics like ethnicity or erotic longings – as opposed to universally shared humanity. That is a remarkable fact, and a remarkably moving one. I concluded that beneath the noise of identity politics lies something real: A desperation to find in collective identities some simulacrum of a family, at a time when the literal family of humanity and the figurative family of God are in decline across our civilization.”

The commentary in The Word Among Us builds on this idea of family and relationships as a source of our identity. Our identity doesn’t really exist in a card with our picture on it. Our identity exists in the web of relationships that define us and sustain us: our parents, siblings, close friends, children, colleagues. All of them helped shape us in ways no single card could ever contain.

Peter’s response, then, to the question posed by Jesus, comes from the way his contact with Jesus had already indelibly marked and shaped him and eventually led him to give his entire life to following Christ, as well as sharing in his suffering and death (tradition tells us he was crucified upside down on a cross).

We can stand tall in our identity in Christ: We are children of a loving God, brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ, temples of the Holy Spirit, a Beatitude people, living in the reign of God by living the commandments to love God, others, ourselves and our enemies as Jesus has loved us.

 

Our intimate relationship with Jesus will hopefully empower us to pick up our cross and follow him through our own version of those six stages of his Paschal Mystery – dealing with our hurt (passion) through forgiveness (ascension); dealing with our losses (deaths) by grieving (the appearances); going beyond surviving to thriving (resurrection) and enjoying the new eternal life of peace and joy only the Risen Jesus can give us (Pentecost).

Today the Church honors someone who truly had an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ, and who followed his teachings to the full:  St. Vincent de Paul, founder of the Congregation of the Missions (Vincentians) and co-founder of the Daughters of Charity. Born in France in 1580, the son of a peasant farmer, Vincent attended university and was ordained at 20. His first inclination was to earn a good income, but appointed to the Queen’s household, he came under the influence of Bérulle (later Cardinal), and became a changed man. Vincent devoted the rest of his life to acts of charity. He organized groups to provide food and clothing for all who were poor: orphans, prostitutes, the sick, the disabled and the homeless. He established a congregation to preach and to train clergy. He collected large sums of money for his many projects and his influence spread from France across Europe. He died in 1660, was canonized in 1737 and is patron saint of charitable societies.

In many ways, Vincent was also like Jesus in the gospel, at home with the simple country people, proclaiming the Good News of the kingdom, reaching out to the poor and sick, and being a true shepherd to all under his care. His example has spawned the birth of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, a lay Catholic organisation that aspires to live the gospel message by serving Christ in the poor with love, respect, justice, hope and joy, and by working to shape a more just and compassionate society. It was co-founded around 1848 by a 20-year old student Frederic Ozanam along with six associates, operates in 140 countries and has over 800,000 members. I am actually privileged to be their Canadian national chaplain.

We need the example of St. Vincent reminding us to always be cognizant of the poor in our midst, and to do what we can to alleviate their distress. Here is an excerpt from his writings that speaks for itself:

 “Even though the poor are often rough and unrefined, we must not judge them from external appearances nor from the mental gifts they seem to have received. On the contrary, if you consider the poor in the light of faith, then you will observe they are taking the place of the Son of God who chose to be poor. Although in his passion he almost lost the appearance of a man, was considered a fool by the Gentiles and a stumbling block by the Jews, Jesus showed them his mission was to preach to the poor: He sent me to preach the good news to the poor. We also ought to have this same spirit and imitate Christ’s actions, that is, we must take care of the poor, console them, help them, support their cause.” Doesn’t he sound a lot like Pope Francis today?

The Eucharist is where the Messiah, who became poor for our sake, encounters us in all our brokenness and poverty, calls us to share in his mission to initiate the reign of God and empowers us to live the Paschal Mystery as the privileged way to accomplish it. So, let us place our faith in Jesus as the Messiah, and follow the footsteps of St. Vincent de Paul by ministering as he did through the Paschal Mystery.