HOMILY WEEK 09 03 – Year I

Faith and Trust in God

Optional Memorial of Saints Marcellinus and Peter

(Tob 3:1-17; Ps 25; Mk 12:18-27)

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Can you remember a time when you were in dire distress? What was your prayer like at that moment?

The liturgy today invites us to trust God at all times.

Psalm 25 provides us with motivation to do that: “To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.” That is the classical definition of prayer – lifting up to God whatever is in our minds and hearts and souls.

That is what both Tobit and Sarah do in the first reading. Tobit, experiencing blindness as well as rejection by his fellow Jews and oppression by his fellow citizens, asks for God to deliver him from life, so desperate is his situation. On her part, Sarah, facing the loss of seven husbands, shame and ridicule from even the servants, with everything seeming hopeless, prays for essentially the same thing as Tobit.

We are told that the angel of God heard their prayers, and will respond to both their needs in a way that will connect them intimately. For some reason, however, it seems that both have to hit bottom before the answer comes. This is a reminder of what seems to be a principle of spiritual life – it is when we are on the bottom that we can connect best with God. Richard Rohr even expresses that in the titles of two of his books – Breathing Under Water, and Falling Upwards. It is when we do it wrong that we get it right, as he puts it.

Shirley is a woman religious who was principal of a Catholic school. For some reason, an ill-conceived bureaucratic decision to change the way things were done led to her being dismissed unlawfully – under the pretext that she was planning to retire, which was far from the truth. Worse, as the process was unfolding, the principles were all forced to sign a confidentiality agreement that they would not talk about the process until it was complete. Being somewhat codependent, Judy did not speak out or resist, and ended up basically being railroaded, shafted and stabbed in the back at an awards night where she was thanked publically for her great work, all the while she was being ushered out the back door.

Her reaction was to do some therapy, as this wound built upon some childhood sexual abuse that she had not really dealt with. But she now had a choice – to stay in her pain, or the move through it to a new and stronger self. Her prayer that was “saying a lot of prayers” now has to move towards “offering her pain and struggle to God” and trust that God will take her through this liminal space.

Today the church invites us to honor Saints Marcellinus and Peter. Little is known about these two saints who lived in Rome during the time of the Emperor Diocletian. Peter is said to have been an exorcist who ministered under Marcellinus, a priest. Put to death for their faith about the year 304, the two are commemorated in the canon of the Mass. Accounts exist of miracles which resulted when their remains were moved to a German monastery in 827.

The gospel, connected with the first reading by a similar although opposite fictional situation of a marriage to seven men, provides us with the assurance that the final hope is resurrection and the fulfillment of all our dashed hopes and thwarted plans.

Today the church invites us to honor Saints Marcellinus and Peter. Little is known about these two saints who lived in Rome during the time of the Emperor Diocletian. Peter is said to have been an exorcist who ministered under Marcellinus, a priest. Put to death for their faith about the year 304, the two are commemorated in the canon of the Mass. Accounts exist of miracles which resulted when their remains were moved to a German monastery in 827.

The Eucharist is a profound act of faith in God’s power to transform humble gifts of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus, and to transform us into the Body of Christ. So let us pray for a stronger faith that is able to trust God at all times.