Faith-Suffering-St Boniface

HOMILY WEEK 09 05 – Year II

Faith in Jesus and Redemptive Suffering:

Memorial of St. Boniface

(2 Tim 3:10-17; Ps 119; Mk 12:35-37)

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Who is the shortest man in the bible? The answer is Nehemiah. Why was Goliath so surprised when struck in the forehead by a stone from David’s sling? Because such a thing had never entered his head before.

The readings today, with a bit of humour, invite us to believe in Jesus as Son of God and Risen Lord, and to imitate St. Paul’s example of faith strong enough to accept suffering and even persecution for the sake of the gospel.

The fact that the crowd was listening to Jesus with delight as he posed a riddle to the scribes with the sentence, “David himself calls him ‘lord’; so how is he his son?” suggests Jesus had a sense of humour and light-heartedness as he conveys a serious lesson to the scribes about his identity.

The Word Among Us claims the point of these puzzles is to get us to think outside the box. And that’s the point of today’s Gospel: how could he be son of David if David calls him Lord? A scribe could answer part of that riddle, as they taught that the Messiah would indeed be son of David, meaning “descendant” of David. But that didn’t explain how Jesus could also be David’s Lord. Unless we dared to think differently. Unless we understood that Jesus is more than a man – that he is God incarnate.

By asking this question, Jesus was trying to get the crowds and the scribes to see that the Messiah was more than they expected. He wasn’t an earthly king. He didn’t come to free Israel from Roman oppression. He came to free everyone from slavery to sin. Jesus was the fulfillment of all the Scriptures, not just the ones that spoke of Israel’s future freedom and prosperity.

This can challenge us to also think outside of the box, to perhaps broaden the ways we see Jesus. Can we let him challenge us to see him more as the mercy and forgiveness of God, as one who wants to have an intimate relationship with us, to be our best friend? To see that he just may also have a sense of humour? I know one older man who was sure Jesus never laughed. I think this gospel suggests otherwise in stretching our faith a bit.

In the first reading, we see St. Paul’s faith in action, allowing him to present himself to Timothy as an example of faith, patience, love, steadfastness and even the willingness to suffer and accept persecution for the sake of the gospel. Again, we can expect some persecution when we are truly living our faith, because it will make us counter-cultural to a society losing its faith in God and trying to remove God from many areas of secular life.

Jesus came living the values of poverty, humility and the powerlessness of love which never imposes itself. That flies in the face of the values of so much of our society given over the pursuit of the false gods of wealth, fame, power and control. One who believes in Jesus will naturally want to live his values, which may lead to some opposition or even persecution. One young lady shared with me how she felt persecuted for her strong faith and modesty in her workplace, to the point of being laid off for no apparent reason.

Today the church honors St Boniface, who lived fully these teachings of St. Paul and Jesus. He was born around 680 in Devonshire, England, given the name Wynfrid and was raised in Benedictine monasteries. By 717, he was a renowned teacher and preacher, but gave up his work in response to a call to the mission field of northern Netherlands. In Rome, Pope Gregory II renamed him Boniface. He was made archbishop of Mainze by Pope Gregory III. He was one of the truly outstanding creators of the first Europe as the apostle of Germania. Through his efforts to reorganize and regulate the church of the Franks, he helped shape Western Christianity, and many of the dioceses he proposed remain today. At Geismar, Boniface made a tremendous impression by destroying the great Oak of Thor, an object of pagan worship, without being harmed by “the gods” (a missionary practice we would question today).

Boniface is called the “Apostle of Germany.” He was martyred in Frisia in 754, along with 52 others, and his remains were returned to Fulda, where they rest in a sarcophagus which became a site of pilgrimage. Boniface’s life and death as well as his work became widely known. After his martyrdom, he was quickly hailed as a saint in Fulda and other areas in Germania and in England. His cult is still notably strong today. Boniface is celebrated (and criticized) as a missionary, but he is regarded as a unifier of Europe, and is seen (mainly by Catholics) as a Germanic national figure.

The Eucharist is both a source of and celebration of unity, as well as an experience of forgiveness and healing. May our pondering of God’s word strengthen our faith in Jesus as Son of God and Messiah, and empower us to imitate St. Paul and St. Boniface in accepting some suffering and even persecution for the sake of the gospel.