Homily for
September 3, 2017
Twenty-Second
Sunday in Ordinary Time
Character Over
Comfort
The
Carmelite religious order was supposed to be an order of priests and nuns who
practiced fasting, penance, and intense prayer – but by the 16th
century, they had become very lax. Instead of praying, they spent their time in
idle gossip; instead of fasting, they practiced gluttony amidst considerable
wealth. A reform had to be initiated, and a young nun with a powerful
personality, St. Theresa of Avila, felt called by the Holy Spirit to begin
reforming the Carmelite order.
But of
course no one likes to be told that they are wrong, so she faced opposition
everywhere she went. Many Carmelite monasteries refused to welcome her;
abbesses fought with her; the other nuns gossiped about her. In all, it was a
difficult mission!
One day
she was riding a horse to get to another monastery, praying desperately and
frustrated about her mission. As the horse was crossing a river, it got
startled and bucked, throwing St. Theresa of Avila into the river, fully
clothed. As she got up, soaked and covered in mud, she famously prayed aloud,
“Lord, if this is how You treat Your friends, it’s no wonder You have so few!”
Many
people expect God to make their life easier. Back in 2005, two researchers
studied the spiritual lives of American teenagers, and they concluded that most
teens thought that God’s job was to make them feel good. They called this
“moralistic therapeutic deism” – basically the belief that God exists, but He
doesn’t interfere with us on a daily basis unless we need Him to solve some
problem or take away some pain.
Sadly,
though, many adults treat God in the same way. God, why don’t you heal my
mother? God, why am I out of a job? God, take away all my suffering…and then
when He doesn’t we often start to question if God exists, if He cares, if He
loves us.
But what
if making life easy isn’t God’s job? In today’s Gospel, Peter wants Jesus to
choose the easy way – “Lord, since you really are the Messiah, just bypass the
Cross! What good does suffering entail?” But Jesus rebukes Peter and then
proceeds to reveal the truth – that following Him will, necessarily, involve
suffering.
The
Protestant pastor Rick Warren said, “God is more interested in your character
than your comfort.” In other words, the goal of life is not to live an easy,
suffering-free life. The goal of life is to be transformed into Christ. And
often, that transformation comes through suffering.
I hope
we can all point to the good that has come from a difficult situation. I know
that from some of my greatest suffering, I matured a lot, grew in compassion
and humility, and learned to trust God more. It’s never easy, but it is the
only path to becoming holy.
Consider
this example – how is a statue carved from marble? Think about Michaelangelo’s “David”
or the “Pieta”. It’s necessary to chip away all of the pieces of marble that
are not part of the statue. But what if the marble block could talk and feel?
It would say, “Stop! Stop this hammering, this chipping! It hurts! Look, I am
losing so much – nothing good can come from this! Too much pain, too much
loss!” And yet, when it is finished, it becomes a work of art.
In the
same way, the Father wants to form us into the image of Christ. But to do that,
He needs to strip away all that is not Christ – all our selfishness,
immaturities, pride, the lies we’ve grown to believe. This takes a complete
reorientation of our life, though – to see everything through the lens of “is
this making me more like Christ?” This suffering, that disappointment, this
pleasure, that relationship – is it making me more like Christ? Because, in the
end, isn’t that all that matters?
The
Cross is not an end in itself, just like death on the Cross was not the end for
Jesus. For Jesus, the Cross led to the Resurrection, just as for us, suffering
can lead to Jesus coming to life in and through us – if we unite our suffering
to Christ’s, trust God through the storm, and learn the lessons of holiness
that He wants to teach us.
So do
not seek an easy life. Seek a REAL life – one that comes from letting God form
you, so that you become like Christ.
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