HOMILY WEEK 19 06 – Year II
Repentant Childlikeness:
Optional Memorial of Saints Pontian and Hippolytus
(Ezk 18:1-10,13,30-32; Ps 51; Mt 19:13-15)
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A comment I once made to a sister who works in a day-care centre about the innocent and trusting nature of children brought an instant negative reaction – she insisted children are utterly dependent, more so than innocent and trusting.
Today’s readings invite us to be both repentant, and childlike, as the way into the kingdom of God.
According to this sister, children can be controlling, manipulative, hurtful, even at a very young age. Their one constant, she insisted, was that they were totally dependent on adults for their survival. While willing to concede a bit on this point due to her experience, I still think that in general children are innocent, trusting, pure, as well as dependent – an ideal for us that Jesus holds up as criteria for entrance into his kingdom.
I am always amazed at how trusting a child can be when thrown up into the air by a father, fearless, absolutely trusting that it will be caught on the way down. When Jesus chides the disciples for speaking sternly to the parents bringing their children to him for a blessing and prayer, he is highlighting their prophetic role – that they embody those qualities that we must have as adults to experience that kingdom in our own lives.
In the first reading, Ezekiel laments over the sins of Israel, sins that in the light of the gospel, could be seen as a lack of childlikeness. Prophets like Ezekiel were constantly taking Israel to task for their stubborn self-will, their lack of innocence, their independence from God, their “fatal attraction” to the false gods of an over-attachment to possessions, prestige, power and pleasure.
So, Ezekiel calls them to do metanoia, to change their ways, to put on a higher mind, a new way of seeing and relating to reality, God’s way and now, for us, the way of Jesus. We are to reject all false gods and addictions in our lives, to be fair and just in our dealings with others, to be caring and compassionate, and to be totally trusting in God’s love for us. Like Micah, we are to love tenderly, act justly and walk humbly with our God.
I think part of the nature of the metanoia we are called to, is to really believe in how loved we are by God, that we are beloved sons and daughters of a loving Father/Mother God, precious and honored in God’s sight. That might be the biggest challenge we face as disciples of Jesus.
Saintts Pontian & Hippolytus
Today, the church honors two saints, Pontian and Hippolytus, whose stories, while different, can serve as models for us. Saint Pontian succeeded Pope Urban I in 230. When Maximus became emperor in 235, a period of persecution began during which Pontian was exiled to the mines of Sardinia. He resigned his office and died a martyr. St. Hippolytus was a priest in the early third century, a well-known scholar and theologian. A few of his works survive, including a prayer on which our Eucharistic Prayer II is based. When Callistus became pope in 217, Hippolytus rebelled for some reason, and became a lost sheep. In 235, banished to the Sardinian mines, Hippolytus met the exiled Pontian, underwent a process of metanoia himself, was reconciled to the Church, and died a martyr’s death.
The Eucharist is a family meal in which we come as God’s children to be nourished and fed, through Word and Sacrament, and always with an underlying tone of metanoia as we begin with the penitential rite.
May it empower us to believe in how loved we are by God as God’s own children, and then share that love with others in childlike innocence, trust and dependence on God.
