Faith-Will of God-St. Thomas Aquinas

HOMILY WEEK 03 02 – Year II

Doing God’s Will – Key to Joy:

Memorial of St. Thomas Aquinas

(2 Sam 6:12-19; Ps 24; Mk 3:31-35)

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“Why do you Catholics worship Mary when Jesus pushed her away the time she came to see him with his family?”

The readings today and the memorial of St. Thomas Aquinas provide an answer to this query, and remind us that doing God’s will is the key to experiencing joy in our lives and worship.

That question was put to me by an evangelical grade eleven student one day. If I recall, my answer to her was something like this: “I don’t think you understand that passage correctly. Jesus wasn’t pushing Mary away – just the opposite – he was honoring her as his mother and using his relationship to her as her son to teach us a very important message: we can be even closer to Jesus spiritually, then he is to his mother physically, if we listen to his Word and do the will of God.”

Which begs the question – what is the will of God that we are to do? I would like to pull out of scripture five ways that we can do the will of God:

1. Believe in Jesus and do metanoia:

The first words Jesus uttered as he began his public ministry were to “repent and believe for the Kingdom of heaven had come near” (Mk 1:14-15). We are to believe in him as the Messiah who came to redeem and to sanctify; to forgive and to heal. We can come to him for forgiveness of our sins and healing of our sinfulness, that which makes us sin – our painful emotions, negative attitudes and addictions. The Greek word for repent is metanoia, which involves much more than a simple change of behavior. It means to put on our highest mind, to change our whole way of being and acting, to open ourselves up to the new reality Jesus is bringing into the world, to be the best person we can possibly be. So, to do the will of God, we must repent and believe.

2. Seek to be a disciple:

The first invitation Jesus extended to the future apostles was “Come and follow me, and I will make you fishers of people” (Mt 4:19). And they left everything and followed him. The word for disciple, Mathanete, “Learn of me,” is the call to be a learner. This term occurs more than 250 times in the gospels. The disciples were constantly learning who Jesus was and who they were in the light of that identity. So, to do the will of God, we must seek to be a disciple and follow Jesus.

3. Spend time in prayer:

Another first invitation of Jesus to his future disciples was “Come and see” and they stayed with the rest of that day (John 1:39). To follow Jesus begins with the experience of spending time with him, getting to know him and developing a relationship with him. That is contemplative prayer. Jesus not only taught us how to pray (the Our Father) and worship in the synagogue, but also modelled contemplative prayer for us, as he often went off by himself to commune with the Father. So, worship, prayer, meditation and especially contemplative prayer is another way we can do the will of God.

4. Live the Beatitudes (Mt 5:1-12):

The Beatitudes are the Magna Carta of Jesus’ teaching, eight ways of being in this world. To be poor in spirit, to grieve well and help others do so, to be gentle and not aggressive, to be fair and work for justice, to forgive and show mercy, to be single-minded and pure of heart, to be a peacemaker and meditator, and to be willing to endure ridicule and persecution because of our faith is to do the will of God. Keith Hoang, author of The Path to Greatness, shares how he and his whole family, over the generations, has been inspired by his great-grandfather who, because he refused to step on an image of Jesus, was martyred in Vietnam.

5. Keep the commandments:

This is perhaps the clearest way to do the will of God – keep the commandments that Jesus taught us. I like to summarize them as follows: Love God with our whole being, love one another as we love ourselves, love one another as Jesus has loved us, and love our enemies, especially by forgiving them from the heart. To live these commandments is certainly to do the will of God.

The first reading today illustrates dramatically the result of doing the will of God, and that is joyful worship. David, now in a position to bring “home” the ark of God, is filled with joy, and dances with all his might before the Lord, as all the house of Israel joins him with shouting and the sound of trumpets. That unbridled joy is perhaps one of the best indicators that one is doing God’s will, for joy is a pure gift of the Holy Spirit.

I remember a Eucharistic celebration Chief Harry Lafond, the drummers from Beardy’s First Nations, their pastor late Fr. Gil Doucette and I were invited to share with a Catholic School District years ago in their cathedral. We had a grand entry complete with drummers and jingle dress dancers, Harry’s daughters, leading the procession in. As presider, I was last, dancing the dignified double-step dance used by the veterans and elders. I thought of King David, and felt some of that joy that he felt bringing back the ark. Years later, I would experience that same uninhibited joy the people of Kenya expressed with singing, drumming and dancing as I ordained one of their own young Oblates to the priesthood in Kitengala. I wanted to bring that exuberant, joyful worship of God back to Canada!

Today the church honors St. Thomas Aquinas, who had one of the greatest minds in the history of the Church. He was born near Aquino, Italy, about 1225. From an early age he posed questions of great theological depth; his family sent him at the age of five to be educated by the Benedictines in Monte Cassino. While his family was pious, they did not approve when 19-year old Thomas joined the newly formed Dominicans, going as far as to imprison Thomas in the family castle. Once released, he studied in Italy and Germany, where, ironically, some of his classmates named this great thinker “the dumb ox,” a name which prompted his teacher, Albert the Great, to proclaim: “We call him the dumb ox, but in his teaching he will one day produce such a bellowing that it will be heard throughout the world.”

With Albert, he developed the theological Scholastic method which dominated Catholic teaching for centuries. A prodigious writer, his most famous work is the Summa Theologica, one of the greatest examples of theological thought ever composed. Many of his hymn texts, such as Pange lingua, Tantum ergo and Adore te devote, are still used today. A man of towering intellect, Thomas was also a humble mystic. He died in 1274, was canonized in 1323, and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1567. In 1880, he was proclaimed a patron saint of universities and schools.

Thomas was able to plant a seed of truth-seeking that enable the works of the greatest philosopher of ancient times, the pagan Aristotle, to become accepted in the Western Christian world, even though that work was coming mostly form Muslim sources. His simple principle was that truth does not contradict truth, so if the teachings of Aristotle rang true to Christian belief, then they must be true and acceptable.

Every time we celebrate the Eucharist, we have every reason to do so with joy, for certainly we are doing the will of Jesus, who commanded us “to do this in memory of me.” Would that we could also add dancing to our liturgy as a fuller expression of our joy!

That may happen someday, but in the meantime, we can be assured that doing God’s will is the key to experiencing joy in our lives.