Homily for Second Sunday of Lent - February 20, 2016

Homily for Lent 2

February 21, 2016

Eyes of Faith

 

            In a small town in Spain during the middle ages, the priest was having doubts about whether or not Christ was truly present in the Eucharist. He thought, maybe it was all a symbol? Maybe it just reminded him of Jesus, but wasn’t truly the Flesh and Blood of Jesus. He was torn up about it inside, and as he was saying Mass, he asked God for a sign.

            All of a sudden, as he held up the Eucharist at Mass, a five-year-old boy in the church cried out, “Oh Mommy, Oh Mommy look! Jesus looks so beautiful, just like all the pictures!”

            Rather surprised by this outburst, the priest found the boy’s mother after Mass and asked what that was about. The mother said that the boy had seen the face of Jesus in the small white Host – but the priest was skeptical. Perhaps his mother had told him to say that?

            So he took the boy off to the sacristy to do a test. He prepared three Hosts – two of which were consecrated (blessed at Mass), which he took from the tabernacle, and one of which was not consecrated. When the boy looked at the Hosts, he exclaimed, “There He is! He is so beautiful!” The priest asked him to point out which one was consecrated, but the boy said, “Oh, but there are two!” and he pointed out which two had been taken from the tabernacle. The priest’s doubts left him immediately! Jesus Christ is truly present in the Eucharist, despite what our senses tell us!

            Is this world all there is? Or is there something more? I think our hearts cry out for something more – there must be more to life than just the material world.

            Many aspects of our Faith cannot be measured by science – they are hidden from our worldly eyes. I can’t see Jesus in the Eucharist – but I am willing to give up my life because I believe that He is there. I have never been to Heaven, but I trust that it is truly my home. I never saw with my own eyes the Resurrection of Jesus, but I stake my life on it.

            Abraham never saw his descendants become numerous as the stars – but he believed it would happen. Actually he never even saw the stars – the first reading is very clear that God took Abraham out to the field in the middle of the day and told him to look up at the stars and count them, if he could. Of course he couldn’t count them – he could only see the sun, which obscured all of the other stars. But he knew that just as the stars were present even though they weren’t visible, so God would be faithful to His promise, even if Abraham himself didn’t see it fulfilled.

            The second reading tells us that we are citizens of heaven – we belong to a land that we have never seen. Paul tells us that we need to act like citizens of heaven, not like people who think that this world is all there is. Because if this world is all there is, then death is the end, life is meaningless, Christ died for no reason, and we should just eat and drink and have as much pleasure as possible. This is what St. Paul is condemning, and he tells us instead to fix our eyes on the world to come – the world that we cannot see.

            In the Gospel, the veil is pulled back briefly, and Peter, James, and John are able to see the true glory of Christ. He is not merely a man, but truly divine, and He revealed His glory to them. It was so great that they were struck with terror.

            And that is why the mysteries of our Faith must remain hidden from our senses. It’s like when you walk outside on a sunny day right after fresh snow has fallen. We are blinded, not because there is no light, but because the light is so brilliant. God knows that if He were to show us Heaven, or if we could physically see the True Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, or be present at the Resurrection, we would be overwhelmed, blinded, terrified. So He hides these glories from our mortal eyes, so that we are unafraid to approach Him!

            But simply because we can’t see them or measure them does not make them less real. Yes, it’s true, science cannot prove that Jesus rose from the dead, or that Heaven exists. Science deals with this material world. But science does not – and cannot – say that this material world is all there is. So, science cannot contradict faith, because science and faith deal with different topics. Science, observation, measurement can tell us facts about the material world. But faith tells us why this material world exists at all, what the meaning of life is. Faith tells us about the immaterial world, and about life after death.

            So we cannot look at our life only through our five senses, because there is more to life than the material world. Rather, when we look at our life through the eyes of faith, things start to make sense. Through eyes of faith, we realize that we are not meaningless products of random chance – instead we are made in the image and likeness of a God who is madly in love with us. When we see through the eyes of faith, we realize that we are not made for this world – we are destined for eternity. Through the eyes of faith, we see that life isn’t about pleasure and power and money – but that life is about following Jesus Christ, crucified and risen. Through the eyes of faith, we live out that love for Christ through His Mystical Body, the Church – which is not merely a human institution. Our love for Christ is strengthened through receiving His true Body and Blood in the Eucharist, which to our five senses looks merely like ordinary bread.

            Don’t look at this life with purely materialistic eyes, because the world doesn’t make sense that way. Look at the world with the eyes of faith, faith in things we cannot see – and all of a sudden, everything will come into focus.