Deacon Michael's Homily for the 7th Sunday of Ordinary Time - February 19-20, 2022
Here’s Deacon Michael’s homily for the 7th Sunday of Ordinary Time - February 20, 2022
It deals with “seriousness” in following Christ.
You can find two videos about incidents that here references in his homily HERE and HERE
You can find the Sunday Readings for this homily HERE
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“Seriously? Really?”
“He couldn’t REALLY have meant all that stuff, right?”
Many of those who heard the teaching of Jesus we just listened to could have had such a reaction
…to all this stuff about loving enemies, praying for persecutors, turning the other cheek, forgiving, not judging, and not condemning.
We can imagine it because it is a very common reaction even now.
We often want to polish the sharp edges off the “hard sayings” of Jesus in the Gospels
…trying to round them off into softer spiritualities and dispositions
…more like a hypothetical or a theory
…when it is clearly intended to be a practice.
There can be little doubt that these teachings were essential to what Jesus actually called his disciples to.
They appear in stylized compiled form in both Matthew and Luke as teachings that Jesus likely offered repeatedly.
They are stated so clearly and hold such a prominent place in these Gospels exactly because they were considered
…by our earliest ancestors in the faith
…as central and essential as to how the Lord had called them to actually live.
They are also clearly and prominently laid out in other writings of the early Church
…such as the teachings of the Apostles in what is known as the Didache
…where all that we heard this morning is restated as basic and fundamental to the way Christians are to live.
Taken as a whole they tell us how Christians are supposed to react to opposition and persecution
…with charity and mercy directed at the opponents and persecutors.
This is in a real sense an “otherworldly” response, a response of Kingdom of God, which is enabled by a detachment to “worldly” considerations
…a response rooted in divine mercy and love.
Praying this Gospel in preparation for today I recalled a real life example of the power of such a response.
It was from 2017 in Cairo Egypt.
It involved a live on-air local TV news interview of a Coptic Christian woman named Samira Fahmi, whose unarmed husband had just died in Palm Sunday morning suicide bomber attack on their church by Muslim extremists.
The attack had also killed 44 others.
In a tearful interview live from her living room, with the TV news reporter, Samira said that she was proud of her husband
…who the attackers had sent to “a place that she could not imagine”.
Then flanked by her obviously grief-stricken adults sons, she spoke of the attackers saying,
"Believe me I am not angry.”
"I ask the Lord to forgive them and let them try to think.”
"If they think, they will know that we didn't do anything wrong to them."
She then sadly addressed the attackers directly, "May God forgive you and we also forgive you. Believe me, I forgive you."
On a split screen the news anchor, presumably a Muslim, listened silently, kind of astounded, and after a thoughtful pause he movingly offered the following:
"Egyptian Christians are made of steel.”
"Egyptian Christians for hundreds of years are bearing many atrocities and disasters…
"How great is this amount of forgiveness you have?"
"If your enemy knew how much forgiveness you have for them he would not believe it.”
"If it was my father, I could never say this. These people have so much forgiveness.”
“This is their faith and religious conviction
…these people are made from a different substance.”
Adding that this great woman and her sons were an example to all.
In our own country we had the amazing example of the African American members of the Mother Immanuel Church in Charleston South Carolina.
…who forgave the shooter who had murdered nine of their faith community, including their beloved pastor, after infiltrating a bible study in the basement of their church.
People here similarly expressed both amazement and disbelief at hearing of this.
But, who could doubt after listening to them both that these women, these Christian disciples, in Egypt and South Carolina, found the motivation and the power to forgive
…precisely in the teaching that they had both received in the very same words we heard this morning
...and precisely in the words “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
These women knew this all in their bones.
Today’s Gospel also tells us that we are called not to judge or condemn those who couldn’t offer such great examples,
…which is a blessing because an honest look at our own strength and faith tells us something of our own weakness.
For us the only attitude to have before the Christian witness of these faithful women is profound respect and deep humility.
If we have trouble seeing them, without a doubt or hesitation, as somehow our sisters in Christ then we have really lost the thread.
Is following today’s Gospel hard? Absolutely.
Can we do it without God’s grace and openness to divine mercy itself?
That hardly seems possible.
So…“Seriously? “He couldn’t REALLY have meant all that stuff, right?”
Well…He did. And we need to.
Our part is to seek Him…to hold fast to Him…so that we can do likewise
…remembering that without Him we can do nothing.