Homily for Lent 5
March 17, 2024
Unless A Grain of Wheat
Back in
the early 1900s, a young medical doctor named Dr. William Leslie had a profound
conversion to Jesus Christ, and began to feel a burning desire to bring the
good news of the Gospel to people who had never heard of His salvation. So he
began a medical mission in the Congo, working among the Yansi tribe to provide
medical care along with the Good News of Christ. But after working for years
and years, very few Yansi tribesmen seemed interested in the Gospel – they
preferred their tribal religions, where they worshipped their ancestors and
animal-spirits. Discouraged, Dr. Leslie left after 17 years, having only
baptized a few people, feeling like a complete failure.
Fast-forward
to 2010. Another missionary named Eric Ramsey traveled to the Congo with the
same hope, to reach souls for Christ. He expected to find the paltry faith that
Dr. Leslie preached to have completely died out. But he was completely
unprepared for what he saw.
When he
first reached the first tribal village, the villagers heard he had come to
preach Christ – and they took him to the brick church that they had built in
the center of the village! Moving on to other villages, he was shocked to see
that they had built a 1,000-seat stone cathedral in the middle of the jungle!
The faith that Dr. Leslie came to preach had not died out but grown
exponentially, with the majority of the Yansi people believing in the Name of
Jesus!
It
seemed a failure, but because it was God’s work and not Dr. Leslie’s, it was a
resounding success – even though he never lived to see it. Truly the words of
the Gospel were lived out: “Unless a grain of wheat fall to the ground and die,
it remains a grain of wheat…but if it dies, it will bear a great harvest.”
Pope St.
John Paul II said so perfectly, “Man can only find himself in a sincere gift of
himself.” The vocation of every Christian is the vocation to self-gift. In
matrimony, the call is to make oneself a gift to one’s spouse and children. In
the priesthood or religious life, our self-gift is to Christ and the Church. In
the single life, the self-gift is to sanctify the world through your work, your
example, and your service.
No life,
no vocation is about self-gratification. Our world says, “Find yourself…follow
your heart…be true to yourself…blaze your own path.” Recently I was watching a
documentary about the first man to ever attempt a triathlon on Antarctica. It
was quite the endeavor – he quit his job, spent months training and over a
hundred thousand dollars on gear, hired a whole team, and then sailed to
Antarctica. The triathlon was considerably harder than he anticipated – the snow
was fluffy and thick, which made biking tremendously difficult. As a result, it
took him much longer than the 36 hours they had marked out for the event – and a
blizzard arose…for days. The men began to freeze, run out of food. The wind was
so strong that it snapped one of the anchors for the ship, so some of the team
had to brave severe danger to take a tiny boat back to the ship during the
blizzard to keep the ship afloat. Finally the storm subsided and he was able to
finish the race, after 100 hours…far longer than they anticipated. The whole
documentary made it seem like this was a grand human achievement, and it was…but
for what purpose? He undertook this challenge simply because he was bored with
his life and wanted a challenge…and in doing so, he risked the lives of ten
other men who almost died to help him achieve his dream, which was really all
about boosting his ego. Yet our world holds this up as an example – follow your
dreams, no matter the cost.
Christ
offers us a better way to live. Don’t follow your dreams…follow His plan
for your life. And no matter your vocation, His plan has those two parts: “Unless
a grain of wheat fall to the ground and die” (your vocation is self-gift,
dying-to-self, living-for-others)… “It will then produce a rich harvest” (your
vocation, well-lived, will produce fruit).
What
type of fruit? Two types. First, virtue within yourself. As St. Francis said, “Sanctify
yourself and you will sanctify society.” Every vocation is meant to form virtue
within you – virtues such as courage, humility, purity, patience, and most
especially charity, which means that we love as God loves, sacrificially. Aristotle
defined virtue as “excellence in being human” – every life is lived excellently
if one develops virtues within themselves.
The
other type of fruit is the souls that are brought to Christ through you. If
your vocation is marriage, then God expects you to lead your spouse and kids to
Heaven, and anyone else within your sphere of influence. If your vocation is
priesthood or religious life, then your parish or ministry is your “mission
field”. If your vocation is the single life, then one must evangelize one’s
friends, coworkers, and neighborhood.
Both the
fruit of virtue and the fruit of souls led to Christ are the natural
consequence of living one’s vocation with generosity and heroic self-gift.
Despite what the culture tells you, your life is not about self-fulfillment,
but self-gift. Christ’s self-gift on the Cross brought billions of souls to
salvation. Your self-giving life will likewise have eternal repercussions.
Paradoxically, this self-giving life is where we will find joy.
After
all, man can only find himself in a sincere gift of himself.
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