Homily for Ordinary Time 17 - July 24, 2022

 

Homily for July 24, 2022

Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

The Reason Behind It All

 

            Once when I was teaching a Confirmation class, there was a kid named Jake who clearly didn’t want to be there. He sat in the back with a scowl, arms folded, totally unresponsive. About halfway through the year I finally pulled him aside and asked him, “Hey, what’s the deal? Do you not want to be here or something?”

            He replied, “I’m an atheist.”

            Oh great, a thirteen-year-old atheist. “Okay, Jake, so why are you an atheist?”

            He replied, “Because I prayed for my grandma to get better, and she died.”

            I’d bet that this is one of the main reasons why people lose faith – because they pray for something and don’t get it. But doesn’t Jesus say that “ask and we shall receive”? Did He not promise that anything we ask the Father for in His Name will be granted to us?

            The key is in the last line of today’s Gospel. Jesus promised that “how much more will the Father give…The Holy Spirit…to those who ask.” Not that the Father will give riches, healing from every illness, a perfect life. No, He will give us the Holy Spirit, whose role is to make us holy.

            I often hear people say, especially when bad things happen, that “everything happens for a reason” – but they never give the reason. Well, I will tell you the reason, and it’s not mysterious: everything happens for your holiness. Everything God does or allows is for your holiness.

            Protestant pastor Rick Warren once said, “God cares more about your character than your comfort.” As Christians we have to view everything in the light of eternity. In the light of eternity, sickness can help us to grow in patience and give us something to offer up to God. In the light of eternity, death is a passageway to eternal life. In the light of eternity, having financial troubles helps to detach us from undue care about earthly goods and helps us to trust God alone.

             So much of what we ask for will not actually help us to become saints. If we ask for a new job with better pay, we might become more attached to riches and start to live self-indulgently. If we ask for healing, perhaps we are passing up an opportunity to grow in virtue through our sickness.

            As an example, there was once a young college girl who fell in love with this certain young man. Every day she would pray that he would fall in love with her in return, but month after month passed and he showed no interest. Finally, he started dating another girl…and they got engaged…and they got married. The first girl was devastated, and questioned why God had not answered her prayer – this young man was perfect for her, she thought!

            In her sorrow, she started to go to Mass and to Eucharistic Adoration more, and now that the young man was out of her life, she began filling that void with God. She discovered a love for God that she never knew…and God began to win her heart to Himself. She is now Sr. Mary Catherine TOR, a Franciscan nun. She would never have found her true vocation if God had answered her prayer all along…and now she is closer to the Lord than ever before.

            St. Theresa of Avila once said that “more tears are shed over answered prayers than over unanswered prayers.” He knows what will make us truly happy. Yes, He wants us to be happy in this world, but He desires our ultimate and eternal happiness. Parents have to hold down a young child who is receiving a shot, and the child doesn’t understand why he must feel pain, but it’s for their health. In the same way, we don’t understand in the moment why God seems silent to our pleas, but knowing that He is a good Father, we trust that He will make holiness

            So whether or not God answers our prayers, our attitude should always be: “Lord, how are you using this to make me holy? What virtues are you trying to form in me? How are you trying to bring me one step closer to Heaven?”

            I have since lost touch with Jake, and I pray for him. I pray for him to be blessed in this life, yes, but most of all I pray that he may regain his faith in the good Lord Who loves us. Because I know that the one prayer God always delights in is, “Lord, make us holy – make us like Yourself – and bring us to Heaven with You forever.”