HOMILY WEEK 11 05 – Year I
Priorities, Perception and Perseverance
(2 Cor 11:18-30; Ps 34: Mt 6:19-23)
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Three words capture the essence of the readings for today’s liturgy: priorities, perception and perseverance.
We are invited to make the kingdom of God the number one priority in our lives, to become more aware of how we perceive reality, and to persevere in our faith commitments despite all obstacles.
The statement by Jesus, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,” speaks about making priorities that reflect our faith. The late Fr. Paul, Ehle OMI of Brazil, reminded me of that during a visit to the scholasticate once where I was studying theology. After I admitted to him that I felt a bit guilty I had not stayed more in touch with him, he replied simply, “The Portugese have a saying – where you spend your time and your money reveals what is important to you.”
Needless to say, that did not assuage my feelings of guilt, as I obviously had not spent either time or money to stay in touch. But the lesson he was imparting is the same one Jesus was teaching – we must be willing to invest time and money into our relationship with God, or it is not important to us.
Philosophically, there are four created goods God has given to us that are intended to help us on our journey to a deeper relationship with God: possessions, prestige, power and pleasure. The problem is that in our lack of faith, we over-attach to these secondary goods, and they become substitutes for God, false gods that can even become addictions. I like to put it this way – when we lose our faith in a God who loves us, we place our faith in false gods that don’t love us, that will addict us, and in the end, even destroy us.
So, let us heed the words of Jesus, and make sure that our relationship with God, expressed through prayer and worship, as well as loving others, remains our top priority in life.
A second statement by Jesus in today’s gospel, “The eye is the lamp of the body, and if healthy, we will be filled with light; if not, we will be filled with darkness,” suggest that how we perceive reality is important. That brings up the whole area of not jumping to conclusions, and not making assumptions or premature judgements.
As an example, Robert, a Spanish speaking child who grew up in a dysfunctional family with an addicted father, was hospitalized at the age of five for three months for an illness. Whenever he responded to the medical staff in Spanish, they found him cute and amusing, but he perceived that they were laughing at him, so he stopped speaking Spanish, and started to make only those English sounds he heard. Three months later, he left the hospital an English-speaking child who had lost most of his ability to speak Spanish. Years later, a therapist pointed out to him that he was wounded enough by his family background to perceive that the medical staff were laughing at him, when in reality they just found him cute and were enjoying him.
It is very easy for us to jump to conclusions when we hear sensational news items that could be fake news, such as the mention by the media of a mass grave at the residential school in Kamloops, whereas in reality it was a burial ground spanning a century and many epidemics. That false perception created extreme reactions, and perhaps distracted from the real tragedy that was children taken away from their families at a young age and dying without their deaths being officially recorded, as well as the unimaginable anguish of parents, having been separated from their children, not knowing what had happened to them.
So let us take in the wisdom Jesus is trying to teach us – to be patient, not fall for the first dramatic announcements of any event, wait for more facts to emerge, not jump to conclusions, and hopefully not be bearers of inaccurate information ourselves.
Finally, if we want to see an example of perseverance once one has landed on the priority of faith in one’s life, we need look no further than St. Paul. First, he asserts his credentials as a genuine Jewish Pharisee. Then he lists the many ways he suffered and was even tortured for that faith, as well as the stress of the responsibility he felt for the communities he had established. None of that could slow him down or faze him – nor did it go to his head in any way. He who had suffered so much remained humble, aware that all that mattered was that God was loved and glorified, and if anything, he focused on his weakness that put the light on the power and love of God at work in his life – certainly a sign of a very mature, strong faith that nothing in this world could shake.
The Eucharist brings these three core principles of faith together. Our presence celebrating it shows it is a priority for us; we are listening to God’s word with a perceptive ear, discerning God’s will for us, and hopefully it will empower us to, like St. Paul, be willing to suffer for the sake of the gospel and the greater glory of God.
