Lent 4 - No More Excuses

 

Homily for Lent 4

March 19, 2023

Excuses and Invitations

 

            When I was chaplain of Trinity High School, often kids would eat lunch in my office. One time a girl was eating lunch and I asked her what she had given up for Lent. She said, “I gave up burritos.” I looked down at her plate…and she was eating a burrito! So I said, “Gabby, what’s that you’re eating, then?” She said, “Oh, it’s not a burrito, it’s a southwest chicken wrap.” Same thing!

            We are at the point in our Lenten journey where we may be tempted to make excuses and cut corners. We think, “Oh, it’s not really dessert because it’s pineapple upside-down cake, which means it has fruit in it, therefore it’s healthy.” Or we say, “I gave up gossip for Lent, but it wasn’t really gossip to speak about so-and-so, because I really needed to vent and share what she did wrong.” Or maybe we committed to praying the Rosary every day, but we get to the end of our day and reason, “Well, I’m just too tired, and God wouldn’t want me falling asleep praying, so I’ll just put it off to tomorrow.” Human beings have a remarkable ability to make excuses – and I am preaching to myself first and foremost, as I am the master of excuses!

            There was once a woman who was getting ready for church, when she saw her husband lounging in the chair, reading the newspaper. She asked him, “Aren’t you going to church with me?” He replied, “Eh, no. I don’t like that new pastor.” She responded, “You don’t like that new bartender, either, but that hasn’t stopped you!” The point was made – and he joined her in church.

            And in today’s Gospel the Pharisees are filled with excuses of why they won’t acknowledge this miracle. “Oh, this man healed on the Sabbath – it couldn’t be a miracle.” “Oh, this man is a sinner – it couldn’t be a miracle.” Notice the damning words of St. John when he writes that “the Jews had already agreed that if anyone acknowledged [Jesus] as the Christ, he would be expelled from the synagogue.” They already made up their minds, and just looked for excuses and reasons to disbelieve this absolutely remarkable miracle that occurred right in front of their eyes. There’s no real reason for this disbelief except for pride – they don’t want to experience what Fr. Mike Schmitz calls “the joy of being wrong.” It’s easier for them to think themselves right and ignore all the evidence plainly before their face, like a blind man regaining his sight.

            But what about us, who may have never seen a remarkable miracle? Perhaps we’re struggling in our faith and we’re saying to ourselves, “Oh, I will follow Jesus more faithfully if I saw a miracle. If He raised the dead. If I saw Him open the eyes of the blind. If I could really see a Eucharistic miracle.”

            But, my friends, isn’t life itself a miracle? We’ve never seen the eyes of a blind man opened, but we opened our eyes this morning – that was a gift! We’ve never seen a dead man rise, but we arose from sleep to a new day of life – which is itself a miracle. We’ve never seen the sun dance in the sky like the 70,000 bystanders saw at Fatima, but we’ve seen the beauty of hundreds of sunsets – is that not miraculous? God has never audibly told us that He loves us, but has He not showed us that He loves us through the love of our family and friends? Often we think these everyday gifts are so insignificant and commonplace that we take them for granted. We can’t say we’ve never seen God’s handiwork, because all of Creation shouts of His glory.

            But one might object, “Yes, but science can explain all of that – sunsets and breathing and the psychology of human love.” True – science can explain a great deal. It can explain how our respiratory system works, but can it explain why life is valuable and a gift from God? It can explain how a sunset is light refracting off of dust particles in the air, but can it explain why we find it beautiful and awe-inspiring? It may be able to explain that love is nothing more than chemicals in our brain, but then why do we have a longing in our hearts for infinite love? Our human experience recognizes that we are more than just a random collection of atoms and molecules – we intuitively know that there is something supernatural going on beneath the material world.

            One may then ask, “Well then, why doesn’t God do more obvious miracles? Why is His action in the world so hidden?” Because He respects human freedom and would never want to force us to love Him. Even after this miracle in the Gospel, Jesus did not force the man to come to faith. In fact, it was a gradual process – notice how he starts off by calling Jesus “a man”…only later did he say that he was “a prophet”…and by the end, he calls him “the Son of God and Lord” and worships Him. Jesus respects the man’s freedom and doesn’t want to force him to worship Him. In the same way, if God was constantly doing great and mind-blowing miracles, we would have no choice but to worship Him. Instead, He wants to offer us a gentle invitation, not an earth-shattering miracle to compel us to love Him.

            This has a practical consequence. In a couple of weeks, religious education at St. Jude’s will wrap up another year. This past year we have required families to attend Mass together – not to make it a hoop to jump through, but to develop the habit of worshipping together weekly as a family. In a couple of weeks, when CCD ends, the hope is that families will accept the invitation to continue worshipping weekly at Mass. We can’t force, and we wouldn’t want to, because love is not forced. Love responds freely to the invitation.

            At the same time, we know that a thousand and one excuses will arise in our hearts for why we can’t come to Mass, why we can’t pray, why we can’t live according to the moral teachings of Christ: we’re too busy…we’ve got sports games…we’re too weak and it’s too hard…it’s just not practical…will people think we’ve become Jesus freaks? What must we do to counteract these excuses? We must keep our eyes fixed upon Jesus Christ. Love doesn’t count the cost or worry about other people’s opinion. Love responds to the invitation that God, Who is love, has already offered us in Jesus Christ.

            To sum up: as we continue our Lenten journey…and our journey through life…we will be tempted with many excuses to abandon the love of God and the practice of our Catholic Faith. But God has shown His love and presence in so many ways – in the amazing things He did in history by dying and rising for us…in sustaining our lives here on earth and filling it with good things…in offering us union with Him in the Eucharist and inviting us to everlasting life. Today, we make resolution to accept God’s lavish invitation, and putting aside every excuse and burden of sin, and pursue a life of a generous YES to Him.