Homily for Friday
12th Week of Ordinary Time
June 26, 20202 Kings 25: 1-12
For
most of the week, we’ve been reading of the downfall of the kingdoms of Israel
and of Judah—with a reprieve granted to faithful King Hezekiah (2 Kgs 19). Were we to read the entirety of 2 Kings, we’d
find quite a depressing story of repeated infidelity in both kingdoms—the story
compounded when paired with the words of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, and other
prophets.
The
story culminates with the total destruction of Jerusalem, including Solomon’s
splendid temple, the apparent end of David’s dynasty, and the exile of all but
the poor of the land. Those who went
into exile in Babylon in the 1st wave of captives in 597 B.C., of whom we read
yesterday (2 Kgs 24), and those led away in this 2d, larger group today, in 587
(ch. 25), together can lament: “By the streams of Babylon we sat and wept when
we remembered Zion. May my tongue cleave
to my palate if I remember you not,” O Jerusalem! (Ps 137:1,6).
By the Waters of Babylon (Gebhard Fugel)
Why
such a terrible downfall from the power and splendor of David and Solomon? Why the abandonment by the God of the
covenant who had, as recently as Hezekiah’s time, ca. 700 B.C., miraculously
saved the kingdom. The Chronicler has
been giving his interpretation all along, and he gives us a grand summary in 2
Kgs 17, our reading on Monday: because
of the repeated, constant, contumacious infidelity of the kings, nobles,
priests, and people, and in Jeremiah’s experience, of false and lying
prophets. They’ve worshiped the gods of
the nations, Baal and Astarte, offered child sacrifice to Moloch, committed
adultery, violated the Sabbath, oppressed widows and orphans, cheated one
another in commerce; in short, they’ve abandoned God’s covenant with them.
So
God abandoned Israel to the Assyrians, and now he abandons Judah to the
Babylonians.
All
of which gives us concern for our own country, which—as various commentators of
a religious outlook have said—needs a moral regeneration. It also gives us concern for the Church. As we know, many have fallen away, with about only
a quarter of American Catholics attending church regularly before the pandemic;
fallen away, in part, because as Jesus says in the parable of the sower, “They
are people who hear the word, but worldly anxiety, the lure of riches, and the
craving of other things intrude and choke the word” (Mark 4:18-19). And, alas, as we know, many have been driven
away by bad shepherds. To be good
shepherds is our concern, to be shepherds who will stay close to God’s flock
and do whatever we can to look for the lost, shepherds who will be faithful to
the new covenant in the blood of Jesus and help others be faithful. Not for nothing does our profession cross
bear the image of the Good Shepherd.
Finally, we need to be concerned, as Don Bosco warns us, to be faithful Salesians, e.g., in the Dream of the 10 Diamonds (BM 15:147-152) and in his exhortations to work and temperance. In one dream, he’s told his Congregation will flourish “only as long as its members love work and temperance. Should either of these two pillars fall, your entire edifice will collapse and crush superiors, subjects, and followers beneath it.”[1] He tells us that our Society’s day will be over if we begin to seek our own comfort and become lax about the commitment we’ve made to God and to the salvation of souls.
Don Bosco's dream of the 10 diamonds
In today’s gospel (Matt 8:1-4), Jesus shows his
desire to cleanse a leper—to cure human afflictions; which is a sign of the
deeper healing he wishes for us. He
tells the leper, “Go show yourself to the priest.” We priests and religious are charged to
verify the works of God, to bear witness to all the good things Jesus Christ
does for humanity; in words we all know, “to be signs of bearers of God’s
love.”
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