{"id":1347,"date":"2018-08-24T03:51:17","date_gmt":"2018-08-24T03:51:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/?p=1347"},"modified":"2018-08-24T03:51:17","modified_gmt":"2018-08-24T03:51:17","slug":"homily-week-20-04-yr-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/2018\/08\/24\/homily-week-20-04-yr-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"HOMILY WEEK 20 04 – Yr II"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wearing the Wedding Garment \u2013 Optional Memorial: St. Rose of Lima<\/em><\/p>\n

(Ezk 36:23-28; Ps 51; Mt 22:1-14)<\/p>\n

*************************************************************<\/p>\n

Have you ever felt out of place because you were not dressed right for a particular occasion?<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s readings invite us to put on the garments of profound repentance, deep faith and genuine love.<\/p>\n

In the gospel, Jesus uses a parable, a literary tool that seeks to loosen our \u201cstuckness\u201d to one worldview and open us up to a bigger world view. This parable is aimed at the corrupt religious leaders of his day who have failed utterly in being the holy people of God that God wanted and who, worse, actually thought they were.<\/p>\n

The first reading from the prophet Ezekiel and the psalm both carry the same message \u2013 God will forgive them, heal them and renew them if only they admit their failure, repent and allow that to happen. That is a clear call to us to come to Jesus for forgiveness of our sins, healing of our shortcomings, and then to pass on the love we have received through selfless service.<\/p>\n

The wedding garment of the gospel stands for that radically new way of life making up the kingdom of God \u2013 a response of humble repentance to God\u2019s unconditional love, genuine faith in Jesus as the Messiah, and a life of fidelity to God\u2019s will manifested through heartfelt compassion and love.<\/p>\n

Ephesians 6:14 is a good description of that kingdom reality: Fasten the belt of truth around your waist, put on the breastplate of righteousness, and as shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. With all of these take the shield of faith. Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Colossians 3:12 adds these qualities: Clothe yourself in \u201cheartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fellow thrown out into the wilderness represents those religious leaders of Jesus\u2019 day whose hypocrisy gave them the appearance of holiness, but they were missing the essentials of all those qualities described above. He also represents those of us today who act nice to others on the outside, but are full of anger and bitterness from family of origin wounds about which we are in denial, have never faced or healed, and take out on those close to us whom we are supposed to love.<\/p>\n

Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church in California and author of the best-selling book The Purpose Driven Life<\/em>, speaking at the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress, describes a life lived according to God\u2019s will through five purposes: 1) Planned for God\u2019s pleasure<\/em>, including loving God back through worship; 2) Formed for God\u2019s family<\/em>, referring to fellowship and loving others; 3) Created to be Christ-like<\/em>, meaning a strong character developed through the acceptance of suffering in our lives as Jesus did; 4) \u00a0Shaped to serve others<\/em>, including a life of selfless service and ministry, and 5) Made for mission<\/em>, a readiness to share our faith with others as well as work for justice in our world.<\/p>\n

Warren shared a story of a bishop visiting a leper colony. The chain on his pectoral cross broke as he leaned over to talk to a leper, and the cross fell into the man\u2019s puss-filled wound. The bishop, filled with Christ-like inspiration and love, reached down into the wound and picked up the cross. That is our task as Christians, he pointed out, to reach down, put our hands into the leprous wounds of our world, and pick up the cross.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Today the Church honors St. Rose of Lima, who lived that message fully.Rose was born in Lima, Peru in 1586 and died on August 15, 1617. While still a young girl, she embraced a selfless life of prayer, devotion and penance which she practiced to an extreme, subjecting her body to austerities as well as deprivation of food and sleep. Rose was confirmed in 1597 by the Archbishop of Lima, Toribio de Mogrovejo, who was also to be declared a saint. She refused to marry and became a Dominican tertiary at the age of 20. Rose lived in a small hut in her parents\u2019 garden, working to help support them, and also cared for the sick, the poor, the Indigenous and slaves. Her asceticism and her intense spiritual experiences (periods of darkness and desolation as well as mystical experiences) aroused some criticism from her family and friends and the suspicion of Church authorities. Nevertheless, in 1671, she became the first person in the Americas to be canonized and is patron saint of South America.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Eucharist is both an experience of the unconditional love of God made present through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and a mandate to live out the Eucharist by sharing that love with the world through selfless compassion and service.<\/p>\n

May our celebration today empower us to clothe ourselves with the garments of profound repentance, deep faith and genuine love, as did St. Rose of Lima.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wearing the Wedding Garment \u2013 Optional Memorial: St. Rose of Lima (Ezk 36:23-28; Ps 51; Mt 22:1-14) ************************************************************* Have you ever felt out of place because you were not dressed right for a particular occasion? Today\u2019s readings invite us to put on the garments of profound repentance, deep faith and genuine love. In the gospel, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ordinary-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1347"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1350,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1347\/revisions\/1350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}