HOMILY EASTER SEASON WEEK 05 03 – Year II
Abiding in Jesus and Bearing Fruit:
Optional Memorial of St. Joseph the Worker
(Acts 15:1-6; Ps 122; Jn 15:1-8)
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In the Domano Retreat centrr in the Diocese of Prince George, there is a vine covering most of a wall that both clings to and reaches out. That vine is a metaphor for today’s readings and the message they hold out to us.
We are to both cling to Jesus and reach out to others; pray and love; abide in Jesus and bear much fruit.
Abiding in Jesus involves prayer. The Church breathes with two lungs – devotional prayer, such as the rosary, and the public prayer of Jesus Christ, or the Eucharist.
While discursive prayer (prayer that we recite) has its value, I suspect the kind of prayer Jesus has in mind when he speaks of “abiding in him” is the prayer of contemplation he himself practiced communing with the Father. According to Fr. Thomas Keating, contemplation is a very mature way of praying. It involves listening to God’s word, meditating on it, praying with it and finally, just resting in God’s presence, trusting that God is doing whatever God wants to do deep within us. Keating reminds us God’s first language is silence.
Elijah in his cave in 1 Kings 19:11-13 experienced God in the “sheer silence” of this kind of prayer, and not in the hurricane, earthquake or fire. Mary of Bethany is another biblical model for the prayer of contemplation. She was sitting at the Lord’s feet, the posture of a disciple, not so much listening to the words Jesus was saying, but more so aware she was in the presence of the Word – a big difference – just soaking up his love.
It is rather ironic that the Western Christian world has largely given lip-service to this kind of prayer when tourist pamphlets advertise doing yoga on a beach to lure people to an exotic destination. A Buddhist monk attending a retreat I was conducting told me she meditates at least six hours a day when she is on retreat. The late Bishop Sheen attributed his success in preaching completely to the time he spent in contemplation during his morning “holy hour.”
Fr. Armand Nigro SJ taught us the importance of a “holy hour” during a thirty-day retreat in Spokane before I was ordained a priest. It is a practice I have continued ever since, into which I have inserted the four stages of Lectio Divina: lectio (reading), meditatio (meditation), oratio (praying with the passage) and finally contemplatio (contemplation – just being in the Lord’s presence like Mary of Bethany).
In this holy hour I try not to think or feel anything but rather just trust that God is doing whatever God wants to do within me as I waste time with God. It is a real test of faith and a great way of praying for a recovering workaholic, as I am not doing anything for a whole hour! I can honestly say that my homilies very often mysteriously seem to form themselves during that special time. I would encourage us to make some time each day for contemplative prayer. As Franciscan Bob Mitchel used to teach, most people live busy days into which they try to insert moments of prayer. It should be the other way around – we should live prayerful lives into which we insert activity.
The second part of Jesus’ teaching on the vine is to bear fruit. The words that best describe this action are agape love and selfless service. A very pertinent question we can ask ourselves is, “What would Jesus do?” and then proceed to do it, regardless of the cost.
Bearing fruit is to be like Jesus, caring for others and sharing ourselves with others in trusting fellowship. Like Jesus, we are to use our skills and talents in an unselfish way.
St. Joseph the Worker, Battleford by Pietro Agnigoni
Today we honour St. Joseph the worker, who is seen as a model of fatherhood, and a key intercessor in modern times. After the Virgin Mary, no other saint has been mentioned as frequently by popes. Francis said the figure of St. Joseph had been on his mind in a particular way during the coronavirus pandemic, a crisis he said showed how “our lives are woven together and sustained by ordinary people, people often overlooked.”
With the backdrop of the pandemic, Francis said faithful can rediscover St. Joseph, “the man who goes unnoticed, a daily, discreet and hidden presence,” as an intercessor and source of support and guidance. Saint Joseph, he said, “reminds us that those who appear hidden or in the shadows can play an incomparable role in the history of salvation. A word of recognition and of gratitude is due to them all.”
Pope Francis then offered a series of personal reflections on St. Joseph, focusing on different aspects of his fatherhood based on the bible and devotion to St. Joseph in the Church, describing him as a “beloved,” “tender and loving,” “obedient,” “accepting,” “creatively courageous,” and “working” father, as well as a father “in the shadows.”
“Today, in our world where psychological, verbal and physical violence towards women is so evident, Joseph appears as the figure of a respectful and sensitive man. Even though he does not understand the bigger picture, he makes a decision to protect Mary’s good name, her dignity and her life.” Francis pointed to St. Joseph’s reaction to the unexpected twists and turns of his life, noting that while most people’s reaction would be “disappointment and rebellion” when things don’t go as planned, Joseph embraced them.
The Eucharist itself is an experience of abiding in Jesus through Word and Sacrament, that also mandates us to go out and bear fruit by sharing the love of God with all others. May our celebration deepen our intimate relationship with Jesus and empower us to live it out through selfless service.
