Saturday, November 5, 2022

Homily for Saturday, Week 31 of Ordinary Time

Homily for Saturday
31st Week of Ordinary Time

Nov. 5, 2022
Phil 4: 10-19
Provincial House, New Rochelle, N.Y.

“I have learned, in whatever situation I find myself, to be self-sufficient” (Phil 4: 11).

When I went to my laptop last nite to type this—reading 2 pages of longhand scribble would’ve been a chore—I discovered that 2 years ago I preached here on this same reading.  But I assure you that I haven’t looked at that homily, and I’m sure there isn’t much resemblance between them.

Flooding in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina
(https://www.history.com/news/hurricane-katrina-photos)

In one of my commentaries on Philippians, I placed a news clipping from October 2005[1] about a teenaged girl who’d been displaced by Katrina from New Orleans to Montclair, N.J.  She and her family had lost everything in the storm and been given shelter with relatives.  Atho she told the reporter, “New Jersey is boring,” they received aid in various forms, including tuition assistance from a Catholic high school and a free school uniform.  This teen girl had been planning for high school homecoming—with all the hoopla that only the Crescent City can offer, I’m sure—and had just purchased but not yet picked up her class ring.  Now, a month later, she’d gained a whole different perspective on what was important:  “The little things don’t matter compared with not having anything.”

Paul’s conversion to Christ gave him a new perspective—not only on material things like food and security but also on the life of the spirit.  “I know indeed how to live in humble circumstances” (4:12).  All that’s really important is to possess the “glorious riches in Christ Jesus” (4:19).  St. Charles Borromeo said that in different words:  “Take care to pass thru temporal things in such a way as not to lose things eternal.”[2]

Paul spoke of being “self-sufficient” (4:11).  He meant that in a material sense; elsewhere he boasts of supporting himself with his own hands, paying his own way on his travels and in his stays in the various cities where he preached the Gospel “free of charge” (Acts 18:3; 2 Cor 11:7; 1 Cor 9:18).

But Paul also knows he’s not totally “self-sufficient.”  “I have the strength for everything thru him who empowers me”; or in a translation we may be more familiar with, “I can do all things in him who strengthens me” (4:13).  He can manage hunger or abundance, dangerous travel or good companionship, and persecution, because Christ is with him and bears him up.

Still, he appreciates and accepts human support:  “It was kind of you to share in my distress” (4:14).  He is, after all, writing from prison.  Brotherly support from his friends is a comfort, and it cheers him up:  “I rejoice greatly in the Lord that now at last you revived your concern for me” (4:10).  In 2 Timothy, another letter that purports to come from an imprisonment, he laments that all his co-workers except Luke have left him for one reason or another (4:9-13).  So now a visit from Epaphroditus, a message from distant friends, and some material assistance are more than welcome.  Put this also in the context of imprisonment in the ancient world—well into modern times, in fact—that prisoners relied heavily on what family and friends brought them for food, clothing, and other supplies, jail fare and clothing being notoriously scanty in both quantity and quality and jailers often corrupt.

My 1st year of practical training was really hard; not quite prison-like, altho we weren’t allowed off the property except for a serious reason; and that year included the infamous case of the director-principal trying to fire one of the clerics, and the vice provincial having to fly in and make an intervention.  There was a real division in the community between the senior SDBs and the others; the clerics (4 of us) were treated like peons.  We were saved by our sticking together and by the support of 3 of the younger priests, including John Blanco.  (Yes, John was once a young priest!  I think he was 7 years ordained at that time.)  By God’s grace, I had a very different experience of community in my 2d and 3d years of practical training.

Mutual support gives comfort and strength—to Paul in prison, to us when life beats us up somehow and throws at us challenges personal or communal.  May what we offer to one another, singly and collectively, be for us as brothers “a fragrant aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God” (4:18), and may God “fully supply whatever” we need (4:19) to live our Christian and Salesian vocations.



[1] Ford Burkhart, “Home Left Behind, New Perspective Gained, New York Times, Oct. 4, 2005.

[2] “Prudent Living,” Meditation of the Day, Magnificat, Nov. 2022, p. 66.

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