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Deacon Tom's Homily for Sept. 17th, the 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time
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“I’LL TAKE ‘2-LETTER WORDS’ FOR 800, Alex. What is the scariest word in the English language? We’ll reveal the answer after this brief message.”
TODAY’S SCRIPTURE READINGS don’t really need a homily. It’s all spelled out right there in front of us. But, we do have just one question: aside from the obvious people, are there any others we could be forgiving?
WE ALL HAVE PEOPLE WHO HAVE hurt us recently or in our past: the bully in school or at work; the teacher or the boss who humiliated us in front of everybody. Let’s take a moment now and forgive them all. And how about the driver who refuses to wait in a line of traffic, but instead goes around in the other lane, then tries to cut back in right in front of us? And what about that person on the express line at the Shop-Rite who has twenty groceries when the sign clearly says ten items or less, and you’re standing behind him with only a quart of milk! Let’s forgive now all those people who have ever annoyed us.
JESUS COMMANDS US TO BE HOLY as Our Father in Heaven is holy. Jesus is calling each one of us to be magnanimous, which means generously overlooking faults, not subject to resentment. Magnanimous means, literally, to have a large soul, to be big-hearted.
JOHN DONNE, THE 17TH CENTURY English poet, tells us that no one of us is an island sufficient onto ourselves; we are all a part of the continent. Everything that affects one of us affects all the rest of us as well. When a baby is baptized, Donne says, it concerns all of us since the Body of Christ is thereby increased. And when someone dies, it diminishes us all because we are all involved in humankind. Donne concludes his meditation by telling us that, when the bell rings from the Church tower announcing someone’s death, it is not necessary to send to find out for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.
SO, LET US PRAY THE NEWS EVERY time we watch it. When a vehicle in Barcelona, Spain is deliberately driven into a crowd, killing thirteen people and injuring a hundred twenty more, pray, of course, for the victims, for their families and friends, but, let us pray also for the driver and forgive him because he has injured us too.
IF WE CAN BRING OURSELVES TO do it, let us even ask God to bless the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-Un, and let us forgive him for the upset and the anxiety he has caused us over the past several weeks and months.
AS WE DO ALL OF THESE THINGS, our hearts will begin to grow larger and that scariest two-letter word won’t seem quite as frightening. That word is, of course, the word “as” a, s, in the prayer we say so often – “And forgive us our trespasses AS we forgive those who trespass against us.”
WE PRAY “AS” MEANING “IN THE same way” “to the same degree” as I forgive others – just so forgive, please forgive me!
