Resurrection-Suffering-St Charles Lwanga & Companions

HOMILY WEEK 09 03 – Year II

Faith in the Resurrection, Living in Christ and Redemptive Suffering;

Optional Memorial of St. Charles Lwanga and Companions

(2 Tim 1:1-12; Ps 123; Mk 12:18-27)

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How strong is your belief in the resurrection?

Today’s memorial and readings invite us to be like St. Paul whose belief in the resurrection of Jesus led him to live in Christ and even suffer for the sake of the gospel.

Years ago, I took a Community Addictions Training course here in St. Albert with twenty other participants. One evening the conversation turned to the topic of re-incarnation, and I was shocked to discover that only two of us of the group believed in the resurrection! Everyone else seemed to take re-incarnation for granted.

Jesus finds himself in a similar situation in the gospel, as the Sadduccees, who didn’t believe in the resurrection, tested him with a conundrum about a woman who married seven brothers. According to Bishop Robert Barron, Jesus brushes aside this casuistry by pointing out heaven is where our bodiliness will be so rich and so intense that we will be able to relate to all those around us in the most intimate, powerful, and richest way possible. And there we will be fully alive, for as Jesus explained from the Torah, God is not God of the dead but of the living.

The Sadduccees are in stark contrast to St. Paul writing to Timothy in the first reading, on fire with his faith in the resurrection of our Saviour Christ Jesus, who in his words, “abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.” Paul is passionate about Jesus Christ, and totally centred on a life in Christ Jesus whom he trusts totally, and witnesses to unashamedly.

Paul reminds us that Jesus gave us the power of the Holy Spirit, the gift of unconditional love, and the virtue of self-discipline. We have the power to overcome sin in our lives and to forgive even our enemies. We are loved beyond measure by the Father in Jesus, and can now love others as he loved us. We can also love ourselves by living a disciplined life, avoiding anything that might harm us or offend God, and above all, we are given the kingdom of God which is, as St. Paul describes it, the peace, joy and justice of the Holy Spirit.

Paul is so filled with the reality of Jesus risen from the dead and the gift of his Holy Spirit that he is ready and willing to suffer for the sake of this gospel. And suffer he did, as he at times shares with us in his letters. He is an example for us to be ready to believe as he does, and to accept some inconvenience or suffering in our lives without bitterness or resentment, like Jesus on the cross.

That suffering may be the result of random life events, such as this current pandemic, or the result of our faith in Jesus, who was poor, humble and used the power of love, the power of powerlessness, in a world given over so often to the false gods of wealth, fame and power. We are called to be counter-cultural, like Paul, and that will inevitably lead to some suffering, perhaps being ridiculed, laughed at or discounted.  May we find joy as did St. Paul as we bear that suffering with patient forgiveness.

It so happens that today we are invited to honor some fellow believers whose faith in Jesus was so strong that they forfeited their lives for it in martyrdom – St. Charles Lwanga and his Companions. Evangelized by the White Fathers, they were servants of King Mwanga, and were executed for rebuking the king for his cruelty, such as debauchery, immorality, murdering an Anglican missionary for “praying from a book,” and refusing to allow themselves to be ritually sodomized by the king.  The vengeful king, determined to stamp out Christianity, ordered Charles and his twenty-one companions (the youngest, Kitizo, was only 13) put to death. They died between 1885 and 1887. Most of them were burned alive in a group after being tortured.

They were certainly true disciples of Jesus, who shared in his fate, and the fate of St. Paul. However, far from stamping out Christianity in Uganda, within a year of their deaths the number of catechumens in the country quadrupled, and by 1890 was estimated to be ten thousand. St. Charles Lwanga is the patron of Catholic Action and of black African youth, and the Ugandan martyr’s feast day is a public holiday in Uganda. What an inspiration these, our fellow believers and true disciples of Jesus, are for us and the world.

The Eucharist is the food of martyrs, and nourishment for the disciples of Jesus. May our celebration deepen our faith in the resurrection, empower us to live in Christ, and imitate St. Paul in suffering joyfully for the gospel.