October 13, 2024
Paulist Fr. Rich Andre preached this homily on the 28th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year B) on October 13, 2024, at Old St. Mary’s Catholic Parish in Chicago, IL. The homily is based on the day’s readings: Wisdom 7:7-11; Psalm 90; Hebrews 4:12-13; and Mark 10:17-30.
In our gospel, a faithful Jewish person asks Jesus what more he must do to inherit eternal life. When Jesus tells him that he needs to sell his possessions, he is crestfallen. In hearing this, perhaps we are crestfallen, too. But all is not lost. I’d like to think that Jesus knew what was holding this particular person back in his ongoing quest for holiness, and that is why Jesus suggested that this man sell all his possessions.
Clearly, many of you have obligations to other people that cannot be fulfilled if you became missionaries like me. I think the more important question for us to ask today is: what is holding me back in my journey of discipleship? Is there an obvious “next step” that I’ve been afraid to take?
Let us ask God to provide us with the graces of wisdom, discernment, and mercy.
Lord Jesus, you were born into our world and walked among us. Lord, have mercy.
Christ Jesus, you understand the challenges that hold us back from following you more closely. Christ, have mercy.
Lord Jesus, you sent us your Holy Spirit to help us surmount these challenges. Lord, have mercy.
May almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life. Amen.
When a young man named Angelo Roncalli was growing up in the last years of 19th-century Italy, he despaired that he was not as holy as St. Aloysius. But eventually, he had a revelation. As Roncalli later explained:
Roncalli grew up to be a priest and eventually he was elected Good Pope St. John XXIII, one of the most influential popes in all of Christian history.
Now, you’ve probably heard plenty of homilies on our gospel passage today extolling the virtues of priesthood and religious life, of people like John XXIII or me, who have given up their possessions and their homes to travel wherever Christ calls us. It’s a wonderful life, and I am convinced that several people at Old St. Mary’s are called to it.
However, I think that that’s too narrow a focus for today’s homily. Each of us is called to a life of holiness. God has given each of us different gifts. I’m not called to be Aloysius or John XXIII and neither is anyone else hearing this homily. God has given us different capacities and placed us in different circumstances than either of them. And for each of us, different challenges and temptations hold us back on the path to holiness.
If you ran up to Jesus, knelt before him, and asked him what more you needed to do to inherit eternal life, what would he say to you?
No, really. Take a moment right now to pray about it. If you had a one-on-one conversation with Jesus about your life of holiness and you asked him what one thing you should change, what would it be? We should continue this conversation with Jesus every day of our lives. It doesn’t need to be scary to talk with Jesus in this way. Jesus looks on the rich man with love. Once the author of our first reading received God’s wisdom, he says that all good things came to him.
In January 1959, shortly after being elected pope, John XXIII stunned the world by calling for the Second Vatican council. One of the reforms of Vatican II was a desire to make the Church more consultative. The bishops of the early Church often held local councils to resolve their differences. These councils were often called synods… but synods became less common in the Middle Ages. Vatican II called for a re-introduction of synodality.
Pope Francis has rekindled the idea of synodality. He’s encouraged bishops to speak honestly. He’s made the process more deliberative, allowing more time for the Holy Spirit to blow wherever she wills. Francis has encouraged every diocese to survey lay people – including non-Catholics – beforehand. It’s a far messier, less predictable process than those initial 4-week gatherings in the first decades after Vatican II.
The most ambitious synod since the 1960s is wrapping up as we speak. Representatives from all over the world are in a month-long meeting in Rome at the end of a 3-year process asking how the Church can become more intrinsically synodal.
All too often when it comes to exercising responsibility in the Church, we emphasize ordination over baptism. Pope Francis is attempting to transform the philosophy of leadership in the Church so that it is based more on the universal gifts of baptism than the particular gifts of ordination.
We need to value the gifts, insights, and experiences of all members of Christ’s Body, not just the people who are ordained. We need to share our journeys with one another. To be a responsive Church, we need to be a listening Church.
Oblate James has been doing some great work in trying to make all of our Lifelong Faith Formation processes more responsive, more listening, more synodal. We have the Parent Advisory Team designed to lift up the voices of families in the School and in the Sunday program while also listening to families whose children haven’t reached school age yet and to the wisdom of previous generations. We’re developing a teen peer program. We’re listening to adults about what sorts of education and enrichment they’re seeking. And like the attempts at synodality during the era of Pope Francis, I’m convinced that our consultative procedures will get better as we go along.
St. John XXIII recognized that we all have different paths to holiness. Once, when he was visiting a hospital, he asked a boy what he wanted to be when he grew up. The boy said he wanted to be either a policeman or a pope. “I would go in for the police if I were you,” John said. “Anyone can become a pope; look at me!”
Everyone can build up the kingdom of God. Look at us!
Photo credit: Curious Expediations via Flickr under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license