Homily of Sunday, November 10, 2024
Tomorrow, November 11th, marks the 106th anniversary of Armistice Day, the date in history when Allied Forces ceased hostilities with Germany on the 11th day of the 11th month at the 11th hour in 1918. It is a Day of Remembrance, as we prayerfully honor the 9 million combatants and the 7 million civilians who died as a direct result of World War I. It is also the time of year when we honor all our veterans who honorably served in uniform of the Armed Forces of this great Country, as well as all Gold Star families who continue to live this day and every day in solemn memory. And so, I ask that we take a moment and bow our heads in silent prayer in gratitude to “those who gave all and those who gave some” as they answered the call to help protect and defend the Divine right of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” for all people.
As I was preparing my homily for this morning, I was struck by how the stories of the widows in our First Reading and the Gospel compare in some real human way with those who paid the ultimate price in the Great War, and all the many other wars and conflicts around the world and across time. Each widow gave all she had, not from her surplus, but from her want and from her need. Without hesitation and without a half-hearted attitude of reluctant generosity, our brave men and women in uniform also sacrificed all that they had for the good of others. And many still do so today. Whether paying the ultimate sacrifice in combat or suffering the ill effects of war many years later, the Divinely inspired human spirit of generous self-giving is the badge of courage of their indomitable character.
In today’s Gospel, we hear again of the Lord’s disdain towards the Scribes. As Fr. John Bartunek, LC points out in his homily notes, “Instead of exercising their leadership as a service to the Nation and to their neighbors, the Scribes flaunted their intellectual gifts and elevated social function to stoke their vanity, increase their comfort, and enhance their reputation. The higher they climbed, the more they looked down on everyone else. They considered themselves superior because they gave more time, talent, and treasure to the Temple than anyone else. Theirs was a one-dimensional generosity.”
Just think about how hurt and angry we feel when we work hard to help or to please someone, and then they don’t show any appreciation for our efforts. Or, to take another example, think about how sensitive we may become when someone criticizes us or misinterprets our motives. We truly need to purify our minds and hearts of any and all self-indulgent attitudes that tend to diminish or corrupt or even destroy our sense of generosity and our willingness to place all that we have, including our very lives, at the disposal of God’s holy and perfect will.
However, this is not something we can do on our own, nor is it something that usually happens easily or expediently. In fact, it can take us many years, for God’s grace to “heal our souls of sin and to sanctify them” so that we may “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God, listening carefully to the revealed will of the Lord.” In other words, we must desire of our own free will to do whatever it takes to make the necessary changes in our lives, for only by our free response to God’s gift of grace, can a “soul enter freely into the communion of love with God” and receive the necessary “supernatural disposition to live and act in keeping with God’s call to generosity.”
But first, we have to take small steps, being patient with ourselves as we gradually learn to do what is right out of a desire to please God, and not other people. And secondly, we have to sincerely want and consistently ask God to help us. His grace is our secret weapon, “the free and undeserved help that God gives us” to become “partakers of His Divine nature.” Sometimes, quite frankly, we may not know how to ask for His help or afraid to do so. The feelings and thought patterns that we developed over years and years of life experience can be an obstacle to the grace God wants to give us or worse still, they can tempt us into believing that this is just the best it’s gonna get. If you have ever felt this way before or see it as more than just a rare and isolated occasion, or if you are experiencing this sort of difficulty or challenge in your life presently, then know you are not alone. God has permitted this to unfold in your life right now at this precise time in the hope that you would reach out and grasp His hand so that He could draw you closer to Himself and fill you with His every grace and blessing to encourage you as you persevere in a life of ever greater faith and more generous love. Let Jesus be your EVERYTHING…so that everything you think and feel and do will be for Him.
A short prayer composed by St Ignatius of Loyola is particularly suited for growth in this type of heart-felt generosity. It goes like this: “Dear Lord, teach me to be generous; teach me to serve You as You deserve; to give and not to count the cost; to fight and not to heed the wounds; to toil, and not to seek for rest; to labor, and not to ask for any reward …except that of knowing that I am doing Your holy will. Amen.”
As we continue with Mass, let us choose to live it more generously and gratefully from our hearts, exercising our trust in God’s goodness and power, while offering our lives to Him in thanksgiving for all that the Lord has given us, just like the poor widows in today’s Scripture Readings and all those whom we remember this Veterans Day.
In closing, I want to say something in regard to the Election results this past week. Over the many, many months of the presidential campaign, we have seen and heard, both personally and indirectly, the many sides of our fallen yet redeemed humanity. Perhaps at no other time in our history, has there been such divisiveness and cruel rhetoric, excepting our Founding Fathers as they aggressively tackled the challenges of this once nascent Republic, especially during the summer of 1787 as 55 delegates of the Continental Congress met in Philadelphia to amend and subsequently reject the Articles of Confederation and instead produce the very first written Constitution for any nation in the history of the world.
Like many of you, and the nearly 60% of our Catholic brothers and sisters across the Country, I am overjoyed with the outcome of the election and resoundingly optimistic that with the grace of God, our Country will be restored to its Divinely inspired greatness for the common good of all people, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, or creed. The dignity of the human person, which is innate and inviolable, begins with conception and therefore, no such politics, policy, or person has the right to interfere with this just, moral code of God in any way for any reason. Archbishop Timothy Broglio, President of the USCCB, in a recent interview stated: “Our preeminent concern for the dignity of the human person is one thing that influenced voters.” He then went on to say, “I think in a very real sense, Catholics have seen what the first Trump administration did to support human life.”
Also aligned with this view is Bishop Joseph Strickland who wrote recently: “We must seize the opportunity this election gives us to more freely speak of the truth of our Catholic faith, to more boldly pray and oppose the destruction of unborn children in abortion and all the other threats to life; to do our best to live by the Godly principles that flow from His Church, from Sacred Scripture, and from all the ways that God has revealed to us the truth that is essential for all of us.”
And so, let us pray for one another in this nationally and globally volatile climate that people will seek true peace by rising above the differences that separate us and focus rather on what unites us as Christians and all people of faith. Let us pray for true repentance and the reparation for the countless offenses we and the people of our Country have committed against God and His Sacred Teachings. Let us pray for revival across the land that will usher in a new outpouring of God’s Spirit that will return our Nation and her people back to God. And let us pray that as we renew and grow our lives of faithful discipleship and citizenship, America will once again be that “shining city on the hill,” and that we as Americans will “let our light shine before others, so that they may see our good works and give glory to Our FATHER Who is in Heaven.” Now and forever. Amen!