Homily for Notre Dame High School Retreat - March 6, 2015

Homily for Notre Dame High School Retreat

March 6, 2015

The Fruits of Holiness

 

            One of my favorite saints is St. Joseph of Cupertino, who was perhaps the most unlikely saint ever. He was very unintelligent – he failed all of his lessons in school. He was apparently pretty ugly, and he was socially awkward. Everyone made fun of him in school, he was sick all the time, and even his parents treated him cruelly. Because of his lack of intelligence, he dropped out of school and tried to work for a shoemaker but he couldn’t even master simple tasks. Finally, in desperation, his mother told him to go become a Franciscan friar – a poor follower of St. Francis who would earn his living by begging. But even though he tried, he even failed in this, because the other brothers found him to be so dumb and annoying that they kicked him out of the monastery. He was forced to return home in shame, but his mother kicked him out of the house and made him reapply to the monastery.

            He finally did so, and they allowed him to stay there and be a slave, mucking out the horse stables. But little by little, Joseph’s humility and natural joy started to shine forth. The other brothers began to spend more time with him, and they discovered that beneath the ugly, stupid exterior, Joseph possessed an uncommon love for God. Everyone around him saw his joy, and he loved everyone – great and poor alike – with supernatural love.

            Finally, his Franciscan superiors offered to allow him to study to become a priest. But try as he might, he was still too unintelligent to master anything, except for one short Scripture verse which he memorized. Finally, the day of the test came, and his examiner asked him only one question – he opened the Bible at random and asked him to explain a certain passage. It was the Scripture verse Joseph had memorized! So he passed the exam and was ordained a priest.

            God gave this young man incredible spiritual gifts. He had the gift of healing, and most notably, he could levitate. People recognized his holiness and began to come to his Masses from all around. He is now a saint; the patron saint of those who struggle in school. All this from a man whom the rest of the world considered useless, a burden, annoying. God took him, and made him into a saint.

            Today’s Gospel talks about fruit. Jesus tells a story about these men who worked in a vineyard but wouldn’t give the fruit to the owner. It’s an important parable, because it describes our relationship to God. What is the fruit that we owe God? We owe it to Him to become a saint, to live a holy life. Think about it – God has done everything He could do for you to produce this fruit – He gave you the gift of faith, He gave you (hopefully) a good family and good friends, the gift of life in this great country, and He gave you the gift of going to a Catholic school. Every day, He offers you His Body and Blood for food; and He is willing to forgive any sin you ever commit through the Sacrament of Confession. He even gave His only Son for you. All He asks in return is for you to give Him the fruit – the fruit of a holy life.

            If you are not living a life of radical holiness, why not? What is preventing you? Are you too attached to the pleasures of this world – the money, the popularity, the cool shoes, the latest technology, the sex/drugs/rock & roll? Are you too afraid of what others would say if you started to strive to become a saint? Do you think that if you are holy, you won’t be happy?

            Being holy is simple. It involves only two things. One, it means putting God first, above everything else in your life. I know of a young man – currently in eighth grade – who is seeking to live a holy life. Over the summer, this teen’s parents wouldn’t take him to Mass one Sunday – they were “too busy”. So on Monday morning, this fourteen-year-old boy got up early and walked two miles, by himself, along Route 58 to Mass. That is putting God above all else.

            The second thing is a radical love of neighbor. Many years ago, a friend of mine named Daniel started hanging out with this other kid who was kind of an outcast. He had a lot of psychological and family problems, and Daniel starting spending a lot of time with him. I asked Daniel what was up, why he was spending so much time with this other kid, and he said, “Yeah, it costs me a lot to spend time with this kid, but I know that’s what Christ would want me to do.” I was amazed – that was heroic love of neighbor: treating the outcast like a friend, obeying your parents when it’s tough, patience with your siblings.

            Don’t say that you can’t become a saint. Neither could Joseph of Cupertino – and yet he is one. God demands the fruit of a holy life from each one of us – if we’re not striving to be a saint, we’re wasting our life. Why live for the passing pleasures of this world when we were made for eternity?