Homily for 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
21st Sunday of Ordinary Time

Aug. 27, 2023
Collect
Matt 16: 13-20
Our Lady of the Assumption, Bronx
St. Francis Xavier, Bronx

In the opening prayer of the Mass, properly called the collect because it brings together or collects our silent, personal prayers, we praised God for “uniting in a single purpose the minds of the faithful.”  Now, we might ask ourselves, “What is that ‘single purpose’ on which, by God’s grace, we’ve set our minds?  The prayer answers that question:  that we all may love what God commands and “our hearts may be fixed on that place where true gladness is found.”

If you watch TV—which I do now and then—you’re sure to see ads for places to go on vacation and have a good time, such as Quebec, the Bahamas, or an ocean cruise.  If you can afford something like that, you can indeed enjoy yourself and find a measure of happiness, especially if you’re with family or good friends.

But is that “true gladness,” lasting happiness?  If we’re in touch with reality, we know it’s not.  Vacations come to an end, and we return to our everyday lives.  Even honeymoons end.

King Solomon's Plan for the Temple

(Providence Lithograph Co.)

So where ought we to fix our hearts?  Or, in the other words of the collect, what is the single purpose on which we faithful followers of Jesus ought to be united?  Our responsorial psalm suggests that we desire to worship at God’s holy temple, to sing his praise in the presence of the angels (Ps 138:1-2).  In a temporary sense, our church building is God’s holy temple.  But church buildings, like vacations and honeymoons, come and go.  Lord knows, we’ve been reminded of that repeatedly by the closing of parishes and the sale of church properties.  The collect spoke of “the uncertainties of this world.”

Where is true gladness, then?  In eternal life, as we pray always for our loved ones when they pass away:  “Eternal rest grant unto to them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.”  True gladness is found in a lasting relationship with Christ, who loves us and promises to meet our deepest desires, with whom we hope to feast at an eternal banquet.  We prayed that we might desire what God the Father promises us:  eternal life, true gladness, the perfect satisfaction of all we long for.

How to attain what the Father promises us thru Christ?  By loving what Jesus commands, and pursuing what we love; better, pursuing the One whom we love.

In our 2d reading, St. Paul, quoting the prophet Isaiah (40:13), asks, “Who has known the mind of the Lord?” (Rom 11:34).  Christ has revealed to us “the mind of the Lord,” which is that by repenting of our sins we should be granted forgiveness and be joined to him in eternal life.  Jesus is the true “key of the House of David” of which Isaiah speaks in our 1st reading, the one who opens so that “no one shall shut” (22:22), i.e., he opens for us the road to heaven, the road to “true gladness.”

We hear over and over in the Gospels that the road to heaven entails following Jesus, loving what God commands, viz., loving God and our neighbor—in practice and not just in words.  And how are we to know what God commands?  How are we to know what’s right and wrong?  In the gospel reading today, Jesus tells us that God reveals heavenly knowledge to Simon Peter:  “flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father” (Matt 16:17).  And Jesus gives to Peter “the keys to the kingdom of heaven” (16:19), i.e., true teaching on how to follow Jesus on that road.  That’s why we consider St. Peter heaven’s gatekeeper.

Pilgrims passing by Peter's statue

in St. Peter's Basilica, Rome

If Jesus’ promise to Peter is to mean something in the 21st century, 1,960 years after Peter’s death, if “the gates of the netherworld [the gates of death] shall not prevail” over us who try to follow Jesus into eternal life, then the promise of Jesus must have a permanence that extends into the 21st century.  We find that permanence in Peter’s successors, in the bishops of Rome, the Popes, who secure Peter’s apostolic teaching.  We know what Jesus teaches because Peter tells us and Peter’s successors tell us.  They bring divine teachings, the mind of God, to the 21st century.  In the 1st centuries of the Faith, those teachings mostly concerned Christian doctrine, e.g., that Christ is truly God and that Mary is truly the Mother of God.  In our time, those teachings mostly concern morality:  matters of war and peace, of life and death (e.g., abortion, euthanasia, and capital punishment), of human sexuality, of care for the environment, of basic human rights (e.g., the rights of migrants and refugees, resistance to human trafficking).  The divine teachings of Peter’s successors are not part of what the collect calls “the uncertainties of this world.”  The Pope, whether that’s St. John Paul II, Benedict XVI, or Francis, points us to where we can fix our hearts, “where true gladness is found”; the Pope helps unite our minds and hearts in a single purpose, helps us discern right from wrong, helps us know what God commands, guides us as Google Maps can never do along the safe road toward eternal life.