Homily for the
2d Sunday of Ordinary Time
Jan. 15, 2012
Collect
Christian Brothers, Iona College, N.R.
2d Sunday of Ordinary Time
Jan. 15, 2012
Collect
Christian Brothers, Iona College, N.R.
"The Earthly Paradise" by Pieter Brueghel the Younger, c. 1615
“You govern all things in heaven and on earth: bestow your peace on our times” (Collect).
The campaigning is well underway, as we all know. People are telling us how they think the country should be governed and how the country should or should not wield its power beyond our borders. These are important matters with which Christians must be concerned as part of our rendering unto Caesar and as part of our concern for the common good of humanity.
But the Collect of today’s Mass isn’t about all that. It addresses not a politician or statesman but the Governor of the universe: him who made it and continues to order it and is, finally, its reason for being, its purpose in life, so to say.
One strand of philosophy holds that God the Creator is quite detached from his creation. The image of a clockmaker is often used: God makes the universe as the craftsman builds a clock, and sets it running according to the designed mechanisms, and then he has no further involvement in its operation; it just runs merrily along.
That’s not how the Bible sees it, nor our Christian tradition. “Who is this whom even wind and sea obey?” (Mark 4:41), the disciples exclaim in astonishment, almost in disbelief, after witnessing the power of Jesus over nature. Jesus’ own life is the example par excellence of God’s personal interest in his created world, his concern for its well-being: “And the Word became flesh and pitched his tent among us” (John 1:14).
The Bible and the Christian tradition teach us that God does indeed govern all things in heaven and on earth: not only thru the remote, impersonal laws of nature, but even thru personal interest and intervention—in ways that we, of course, don’t understand. We don’t know why some nations and some people are favored, and some appear not to be; why natural disasters strike so many places; why the Lord apparently permits so many terrible human choices to devastate the lives of so many people, e.g. thru war and its related effects, thru AIDS, thru family and social breakdown. We don’t know why God allows “bad things to happen to good people,” including even his very own Son, whom “good people” doesn’t begin to describe.
Nor do we know why God intervenes from time to tome with miracles, often thru the intercession of the saints.
So it is an act of faith, or a statement of faith, for us to maintain that the Lord “governs all things in heaven and on earth,” that somehow what happens works for his glory and our welfare—which is one of St. Paul’s professions of faith: “We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Rom 8:28,31). Whatever is wrong in the universe, whether thru the working of nature, thru the working of human weakness, or thru the working of human malice, God will govern into a right order in the end, as he did in vindicating the injustices done to his own Son, in raising the Lord Jesus to heavenly glory.
Our prayer, however, doesn’t want to wait on heavenly glory for our well-being. We beg the Governor of the universe, “mercifully hear the pleading of your people and bestow your peace on our times”—bestow peace now! Fulfill what you promised when the Savior was born: “peace to people of good will” (Gloria).
The catalog of wars, insurrections, terrorism, international tensions, civil unrest, organized criminal violence, human trafficking, street crime, domestic violence, discrimination seems limitless. And none of that’s anything new; it’s as old as the story of Cain and Abel. How we yearn for deliverance, for Someone greater, more beneficent, more powerful than ourselves to intervene and defend us! Isn’t that the constant prayer of the Psalmist? “O Lord, hear my prayer, and let my cry come to you. All the day my enemies revile me” (102:2,9). “You have made the Most High your stronghold. No evil shall befall you, nor shall affliction come near your tent” (91:9-10). “O God, do not remain unmoved; be not silent, O God, and be not still! Against your people [your enemies] plot craftily; they conspire against those whom you protect” (83:2,4). So our Collect invokes the “Almighty and ever-living God.”
We plead for “peace on our times.” We need to pray constantly for peace and good order within our society and between peoples. Paul commands that as part of our Christian duty on behalf of mankind: “First of all, I ask that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone, for kings and for all in authority, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity” (1 Tim 2:1-2). This is part of our role as Christians, as the soul within the body of humanity, as some of the Fathers of the Church expressed it; we’re the spiritual glue that holds society together, thru our prayer and our good example of peace and good order.
In our times, obviously more democratic than Paul’s time, we Christians also have a responsibility to act on behalf of peace and good order, to take active parts in civil life, to vote, to make our voices heard on behalf of the common good of the nation and of all peoples. In this sense, we are God’s agents in the governance of “all things,” his viceroys, following the original plan of Genesis, in which God gave men and women dominion over all he had created (1:26,28) and charged us “to cultivate and care for” creation (2:15).
In exercising that responsibility, of course, we need divine help. Our prayer that the “almighty and ever-living God bestow peace on our times” includes a plea that he assist us in our working for peace as well as that he influence the hearts and minds of those who actually wield power.
Our prayer for peace has another meaning, as well. Peace isn’t only something external, the state of relations between nations or the good order of our civil life. It’s also something internal, the state of our individual hearts. As part of our Communion rite at every Mass, we pray, “Deliver us, O Lord, from every evil, graciously grant peace in our days, that, by the help of your mercy, we may be always free from sin and safe from all distress.” That prayer refers to communal affairs, but also to personal ones, our personal sins, our personal concerns, our distress. We seek the peace of heart that comes from being in a good relationship with the Creator, thru the redemptive power of our Lord Jesus, and in good relationships with all the people in our lives. Our prayer for peace includes prayers that we be forgiven our sins, that we be empowered to forgive others, that we be able to live in harmony and tranquility with our brothers in community, our students, our spouses, our children, our parents, our employers and employees, with everyone whose lives we touch. This is more than we can do on our own, given our human frailties. So we invoke, we plead with, him “who governs all things” for his assistance—confident that he will hear us because he does want our good, does want our salvation.
That is, after all, why he gave us his only Son, and his Son remains with us in the Word of God, in the sacrament of Reconciliation, in the Eucharist, which our Prayer over the Offerings today will refer to as “these mysteries” that both “celebrate” and “accomplish the work of our redemption.”
The campaigning is well underway, as we all know. People are telling us how they think the country should be governed and how the country should or should not wield its power beyond our borders. These are important matters with which Christians must be concerned as part of our rendering unto Caesar and as part of our concern for the common good of humanity.
But the Collect of today’s Mass isn’t about all that. It addresses not a politician or statesman but the Governor of the universe: him who made it and continues to order it and is, finally, its reason for being, its purpose in life, so to say.
One strand of philosophy holds that God the Creator is quite detached from his creation. The image of a clockmaker is often used: God makes the universe as the craftsman builds a clock, and sets it running according to the designed mechanisms, and then he has no further involvement in its operation; it just runs merrily along.
That’s not how the Bible sees it, nor our Christian tradition. “Who is this whom even wind and sea obey?” (Mark 4:41), the disciples exclaim in astonishment, almost in disbelief, after witnessing the power of Jesus over nature. Jesus’ own life is the example par excellence of God’s personal interest in his created world, his concern for its well-being: “And the Word became flesh and pitched his tent among us” (John 1:14).
The Bible and the Christian tradition teach us that God does indeed govern all things in heaven and on earth: not only thru the remote, impersonal laws of nature, but even thru personal interest and intervention—in ways that we, of course, don’t understand. We don’t know why some nations and some people are favored, and some appear not to be; why natural disasters strike so many places; why the Lord apparently permits so many terrible human choices to devastate the lives of so many people, e.g. thru war and its related effects, thru AIDS, thru family and social breakdown. We don’t know why God allows “bad things to happen to good people,” including even his very own Son, whom “good people” doesn’t begin to describe.
Nor do we know why God intervenes from time to tome with miracles, often thru the intercession of the saints.
So it is an act of faith, or a statement of faith, for us to maintain that the Lord “governs all things in heaven and on earth,” that somehow what happens works for his glory and our welfare—which is one of St. Paul’s professions of faith: “We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Rom 8:28,31). Whatever is wrong in the universe, whether thru the working of nature, thru the working of human weakness, or thru the working of human malice, God will govern into a right order in the end, as he did in vindicating the injustices done to his own Son, in raising the Lord Jesus to heavenly glory.
Our prayer, however, doesn’t want to wait on heavenly glory for our well-being. We beg the Governor of the universe, “mercifully hear the pleading of your people and bestow your peace on our times”—bestow peace now! Fulfill what you promised when the Savior was born: “peace to people of good will” (Gloria).
The catalog of wars, insurrections, terrorism, international tensions, civil unrest, organized criminal violence, human trafficking, street crime, domestic violence, discrimination seems limitless. And none of that’s anything new; it’s as old as the story of Cain and Abel. How we yearn for deliverance, for Someone greater, more beneficent, more powerful than ourselves to intervene and defend us! Isn’t that the constant prayer of the Psalmist? “O Lord, hear my prayer, and let my cry come to you. All the day my enemies revile me” (102:2,9). “You have made the Most High your stronghold. No evil shall befall you, nor shall affliction come near your tent” (91:9-10). “O God, do not remain unmoved; be not silent, O God, and be not still! Against your people [your enemies] plot craftily; they conspire against those whom you protect” (83:2,4). So our Collect invokes the “Almighty and ever-living God.”
We plead for “peace on our times.” We need to pray constantly for peace and good order within our society and between peoples. Paul commands that as part of our Christian duty on behalf of mankind: “First of all, I ask that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone, for kings and for all in authority, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity” (1 Tim 2:1-2). This is part of our role as Christians, as the soul within the body of humanity, as some of the Fathers of the Church expressed it; we’re the spiritual glue that holds society together, thru our prayer and our good example of peace and good order.
In our times, obviously more democratic than Paul’s time, we Christians also have a responsibility to act on behalf of peace and good order, to take active parts in civil life, to vote, to make our voices heard on behalf of the common good of the nation and of all peoples. In this sense, we are God’s agents in the governance of “all things,” his viceroys, following the original plan of Genesis, in which God gave men and women dominion over all he had created (1:26,28) and charged us “to cultivate and care for” creation (2:15).
In exercising that responsibility, of course, we need divine help. Our prayer that the “almighty and ever-living God bestow peace on our times” includes a plea that he assist us in our working for peace as well as that he influence the hearts and minds of those who actually wield power.
Our prayer for peace has another meaning, as well. Peace isn’t only something external, the state of relations between nations or the good order of our civil life. It’s also something internal, the state of our individual hearts. As part of our Communion rite at every Mass, we pray, “Deliver us, O Lord, from every evil, graciously grant peace in our days, that, by the help of your mercy, we may be always free from sin and safe from all distress.” That prayer refers to communal affairs, but also to personal ones, our personal sins, our personal concerns, our distress. We seek the peace of heart that comes from being in a good relationship with the Creator, thru the redemptive power of our Lord Jesus, and in good relationships with all the people in our lives. Our prayer for peace includes prayers that we be forgiven our sins, that we be empowered to forgive others, that we be able to live in harmony and tranquility with our brothers in community, our students, our spouses, our children, our parents, our employers and employees, with everyone whose lives we touch. This is more than we can do on our own, given our human frailties. So we invoke, we plead with, him “who governs all things” for his assistance—confident that he will hear us because he does want our good, does want our salvation.
That is, after all, why he gave us his only Son, and his Son remains with us in the Word of God, in the sacrament of Reconciliation, in the Eucharist, which our Prayer over the Offerings today will refer to as “these mysteries” that both “celebrate” and “accomplish the work of our redemption.”
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