(Micah 7:14-20; Ps 85; Mt 12:46-50)<\/p>\n
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\u201cFor whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.\u201d<\/p>\n
The message for us today could not be clearer: to be close to Jesus, we must do the will of God.<\/p>\n
The readings providing this message also give us a portrait of just who that Father of Jesus in heaven is, and how we can do God\u2019s will.<\/p>\n
Micah, in the first reading, paints a picture of God who is forgiveness and mercy \u2013 pardoning iniquity, passing over our transgressions, not holding onto anger, delighting in showing mercy, full of compassion, treading our iniquities underfoot, casting all our sins into the depths of the sea – all out of unswerving loyalty and faithfulness to God established with our ancestors in the faith, Abraham and Jacob.<\/p>\n
Psalm 85 fleshes out this portrait of our God even more as one who not only forgives our sins, but also heals us, restores our fortunes, and grants us God\u2019s salvation. This fits in with a Father who would send his Son Jesus among us with a two-fold mission \u2013 to redeem and to sanctify, to forgive and to heal, to not only take away our sins, but also heal us of our sinfulness, that which makes us sin (our painful emotions and negative attitudes). This is all Good News!<\/p>\n
Pondering these two readings describing the nature of the Father of Jesus Christ, one can glimpse why Pope Francis has made mercy the defining quality of God for his pontificate. I am sure what also influenced his insistence on that quality of God is the actions of the loving Father in the story in Luke of the two lost sons \u2013 one prodigal, and the elder self-righteous. We are invited, as friends and disciples of Jesus, to do what pleases him the most – the will of his Father, in imitation of Mary, his Mother.<\/p>\n
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An evangelical student once asked me why we Catholics \u201cworshipped\u201d Mary when Jesus pushed her away when she wanted to see him, as in today\u2019s gospel. My response was that this student did not understand the scriptures. Jesus wasn\u2019t pushing his mother away at all. Just the opposite \u2013 he was honouring her by using her as an example. Basically, Jesus was saying that as close as he is to his mother physically, as she had given birth to him, we can be even closer to him spiritually, if we do the will of his Father.<\/p>\n
What is the will of God? In the Old Testament, it would be keeping the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, as well as the prescription of Micah himself, who advises us to act justly, love tenderly and walk humbly with our God.<\/p>\n
In the New Testament, it would be living out the Beatitudes or eight ways of being Jesus gave us, as well as his commandments I like to summarize as: loving God with our whole being; loving others as we love ourselves, loving one another as he has loved us (a sacrificial love), and above all, loving our enemies by trying to forgive them from the heart.<\/p>\n
Given what Jesus said of Mary of Bethany sitting at his feet when Martha, her sister, complained about being left alone to do all the work, I would dare to say doing the will of the Father would include spending time with Jesus his Son in contemplative prayer, as did Mary, who according to Jesus, chose the better part.<\/p>\n
And giving the emphasis in the first two readings on the mercy, compassion and especially, the forgiving nature of God, who forgives all our iniquity and casts into the depths of the sea all our sins, I would venture to say that the will of God could also include the celebration of the sacrament of reconciliation on a more regular basis \u2013 coming to God for God\u2019s freely offered forgiveness and healing. That is something I personally try to do on a monthly basis, as part of my poustinia or retreat.<\/p>\n
The Eucharist is what Ron Rolheiser OMI calls in his book by that title, our one great act of fidelity. Jesus took and blessed bread and wine, and told us to do this in memory of him. While the church has made many mistakes over the ages, we have been faithful to this teaching of Jesus for over two thousand years. Certainly, to celebrate the Eucharist is to do the will of the Father.<\/p>\n
May our celebration draw us closer to the Father and to Jesus, and empower us to live out the Eucharist with love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
HOMILY WEEK 16 02 \u2013 Year II Doing the Will of God: (Micah 7:14-20; Ps 85; Mt 12:46-50) *********************************************** \u201cFor whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.\u201d The message for us today could not be clearer: to be close to Jesus, we must do the will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homilies","category-ordinary-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6276","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=6276"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6278,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6276\/revisions\/6278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}