Homily for Ordinary Time 2 - January 16, 2022

 

Homily for January 16, 2022

Second Sunday of Ordinary Time

Bride of Christ

 

            A couple years ago, I came across an article on the Internet about a famous Catholic speaker who publicly decided to leave the Church. He said he was fed up with the scandals, the lack of community, the boring homilies, everything. So he publicly disavowed his Catholicism.

            That kind of stuff hits me like a punch in the stomach. It always depresses me when I hear of anyone leaving the Catholic Church, whether a famous speaker or a regular churchgoer. That whole day I was kind of depressed – why should I stay Catholic? I mean, he’s got a point – there are lots of scandals and bad behavior – we can all point to inappropriate behavior by those who call themselves Catholic. For example, I’ll never forget when I was about ten years old being cursed out by the deacon of my church for doing a bad job altar serving.

            But that night I was praying Evening Prayer, and the reading was from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, where Paul wrote: “Christ loved the Church.” I thought, if Jesus Christ could love the Church, with all of its flaws, then so can I.

            Christ loves the Church so much that St. Paul calls the Catholic Church the “Bride of Christ”. In the Old Testament, God’s relationship to Israel is always spoken of as a Bridegroom and Bride. Makes sense – much like a husband and wife promise lifelong faithfulness to each other, God is constantly faithful to His Bride, Israel – even when She was unfaithful to Him. God would do anything for His Bride, even to the point of laying down His life for Her, as a husband should do for His wife.

            So it is fitting that Jesus should do His first miracle at a wedding feast! He is forming a new Israel: you and I, the Catholic Church. Look how He does it – He takes these jars which are used for Jewish ceremonial washings – a symbol of Judaism’s Law – and turns that water into the most delightful wine – a symbol of the grace that we will experience through our faith in Him. The Church then begins at the end of the Gospel today, when it says that “His disciples believed in Him.” Now we have the beginnings of the new Bride of Christ, the Church, which is the gathering of all those who believe in Jesus Christ.

            But, so often we don’t see the Church as the Bride of Christ. A lot of times it just looks like a mess. People leaving the Church, fellow believers who are not truly living their Faith, leaders who are uninspiring or worse. This is when I have the hope that God promises in the first reading: “Nations shall behold your vindication, and all the kings your glory; you shall be called by a new name pronounced by the mouth of the LORD. You shall be a glorious crown in the hand of the LORD, a royal diadem held by your God. No more shall people call you “Forsaken,”

or your land “Desolate,” but you shall be called “My Delight,” and your land “Espoused.” For the LORD delights in you and makes your land his spouse.” At the end of time, we will see the Church as a radiant Bride, perfectly holy, faithful to Jesus – as She was always meant to be.

            Until that day, though, “The Church is not a hotel for saints, but a hospital for sinners,” as Pope Francis says. Thank God, because I’m a sinner! All of us find a home here in the Church, no matter where we are on our spiritual journey.

            Nevertheless, there is real holiness in the Church, in four ways. First, the Founder of our Church is Jesus Christ – so our Founder is holy! (No other church can claim that they were founded by the Lord Himself!). Second, the goal of the Church is to get us to Heaven – out goal is holy! Third, the way we accomplish the goal is holy – the Sacraments and the Teachings of the Church. Only the Catholic Church has preserved the teachings of Christ, unchanged, for the past two thousand years. Finally, we really do have holy people in the Church – the saints! If this is the Church that could produce St. Francis, or Mother Theresa, or St. Patrick – then what can God do with you and I if we stay in the Church!

            Ultimately, where else can we go? Jesus promised that the gates of Hell will not prevail against His Church. There was a great writer in the early 1900s named Walker Percy. His early life was filled with tragedy – his father committed suicide when he was thirteen, and only two years later his mother also took her own life. He was left in the care of an uncle who provided for his education, and he started studying to be a doctor. Years later, he caught tuberculosis and had to recuperate in upstate New York. During his time in recuperation, he began to ask the deeper questions of life: why is there so much suffering in the world? Is there any meaning behind it all? He read voraciously and encountered some Catholic authors who made him wonder if there were answers in the Catholic Church. Much to everyone’s surprise, he and his wife converted to Catholicism very suddenly.

            He was later asked, “What did it? Why did you convert?” He responded, “My life has been such a disaster – this modern world is such a disaster – that I demanded from God a gift equal to the disaster.” The gift was faith in the Catholic Church, the only thing that could make sense out of his tragic life.

            Later on, when a fellow writer was contemplating becoming Catholic, Walker Percy wrote her a letter and said, “The Church is a very untidy group that you’re hooking up with, but it’s the one thing that will be around until the end.”

            If Jesus Christ can love His Bride, the Church, then so can we!