HOMILY WEEK 18 02 – Year II
Attitudes Underlying Actions
Memorial of St. Jean Mary Vianney
(Jer 30:1-2,12-15; Ps 102; Mt 15:1-2,10-14)
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“Check your attitude!”
We may have been addressed that way sometime in our past, or perhaps we uttered those words ourselves. Today’s gospel invites us to do just that.
In the first reading, the focus is on the attitude of our loving God. Here, God comes across as a rejected lover who uses Semitic hyperbole to communicate the depth of God’s hurt and disappointment in God’s beloved, unfaithful Israel. God portrays them as hopeless and almost beyond redemption.
Then, halfway through the reading, the tone changes completely. God takes on a stance that is totally opposite, and totally true to God’s nature as a faithful God true to God’s covenant and promises. God will have compassion on Israel, shower unconditional love upon her, and restore her to her former glory, even honoring her.
Slipped into one of those paragraphs is the promise of a prince who will be one of them, a ruler who shall come from their own midst. This ruler alone will be able to approach God, to be drawn near to God.
Psalm 102 continues that same thrust of unconditional love, proclaiming the Lord will build up Zion again. God will look down upon destitute and imprisoned Israel and transform them into God’s own people once again who will gather together to worship the Lord.
In the Gospel, Jesus, that prince who did come, responds to the scribes and Pharisees, the legalists of Judaism who question the actions of his disciples, by inviting them to go deeper and check their attitude, with the words, “It is not what enters one’s mouth that defiles the man; but what comes out of the mouth is what defiles one” (Matthew 15:11). Underlying this statement is the truth that the words we say reveal the attitudes of our hearts.
If we are critical and complaining, chances are deep down we are not at peace with God. On the other hand, if we are at peace with God and walking with Jesus, then the fruit of his Spirit – love, peace, patience, joy, kindness, gentleness and self-control – will manifest themselves both in our thoughts and in our relationships.
Jesus’ insight into the close connection between the heart and the mouth is a good one to hold onto. It’s a simple way to keep track of where our heart is during the day. When we hear ourselves speaking kind and loving words, praise God. When we are complaining or lashing out verbally, we need to stop and look at what is going on inside us. As we become more sensitive to these inner attitudes, the Holy Spirit can help us become a brighter reflection of her joy, light and love.
I came across a saying that may have come from Eleanor Roosevelt, which I adapted as follows: Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become attitudes. Watch your attitudes; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
St Jean Vianney
Today, the Church honors St. Jean Mary Vianney, whose basic attitude or philosophy was to give everything away. The name of this French priest may be unfamiliar to many but his title is known around the world: the Curé of Ars. He was the son of a peasant farmer, and a slow and unpromising candidate for the priesthood, who was eventually ordained in 1815 on account of his devoutness rather than any achievement or promise.
In 1818 he was sent to be the parish priest of Ars-en-Dombes, an isolated village some distance from Lyon where most of the people were not interested in religion or God. He was a noted preacher, and a celebrated confessor: such was his fame, and his reputation for insight into his penitents’ souls and their futures, that he had to spend up to eighteen hours a day in the confessional. People would cut pieces from his clothing and his hair as he walked by. For 30 years he served all who came to him: people were healed and converted, and many were given appropriate words of wisdom or advice even before they had explained their predicament. He remained there for the rest of his life because his parishioners would not let him leave.
When he died in 1859 at the age of 73, John Vianney already had the reputation of being a saint. He was canonized in 1925 and is patron of parish priests. The tens of thousands of people who came to visit this obscure parish priest turned Ars into a place of pilgrimage. The French State recognized his eminence by awarding him the medal of the Légion d’Honneur in 1848, which he sold and gave the money to the poor. A group of us attending an Oblate renewal program at Aix-en-Provence in France were privileged to celebrate the Eucharist in his small chapel, sit in his confessional, and view his uncorrupted body on display in a glass casket behind the altar!
The Eucharist is our prime example of our prince and ruler reaching out to us, making God’s self totally available to us, forgiving and healing us. May our celebration empower us to be the true and faithful people of God whose positive attitudes underlie our words and actions.
