Paulist Fr. Rich Andre preached this homily for the 18^th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year A) on July 26, 2020 at St. Austin Catholic Parish in Austin, TX. The homily is based on the day’s readings: Isaiah 55:1-3; Psalm 145; Romans 8:35, 37-39; and Matthew 14:13-21.

Today, it’s easy to connect our opening song and the first reading with the sacrament of baptism and to connect our gospel passage with the sacrament of communion. But when more than ten times as many people will participate in this Mass online than in person because they don’t think it’s safe to receive the sacraments, it doesn’t seem like a time to focus on sacraments.

Instead, we’ll dive into our second reading, in which Paul asks the Romans: what will separate us from the love of Christ? 

In this time when we feel tragically separated from one another, let us celebrate that we still believe that nothing can separate us from God!

Last weekend was extra special here at St. Austin! Paolo Puccini was ordained to the priesthood, and he joins Chuck and me on the St. Austin staff full-time. When there are so few Paulist priests to spread among our ministry commitments around the country, I’m grateful that our community leadership is investing extra manpower into St. Austin at this time. If the Development Project continues moving forward, most of Chuck’s time will be consumed by meetings. Paolo and I will be attending to most of the pastoral needs of parishioners and hospital patients.

Of course, in this time of pandemic, it’s extremely difficult for Paolo to get to know all of you and for all of you to get to know him. Last weekend, people organized three creative events to help begin the process: an outdoor reception for the 75 or so guests at the ordination, a world-wide virtual reception that included congratulatory videos from some St. Austin parishioners,¹ and a drive-by parade in which members of the St. Austin community could receive a blessing from Paolo.

It was a real shot in the arm for St. Austin’s and the Paulists. But that joyous weekend has heightened our sense of what we’ve been missing during this time of pandemic. Yes, we have sacraments for those who feel safe enough to come to church; yes, we have our widely-watched online Masses; and in any given week, lots of small groups are meeting via videoconference. But it’s not the same sense of connection we have when hundreds of people gather in one space to celebrate liturgy together. And we don’t gather physically, we can’t have those impromptu conversations over coffee, donuts, and tacos. 

Instead of inviting everyone to come without money or price, we’re encouraging people to stay home. Even if we could find a place for 20,000 people to gather – because at St. Austin, we ALWAYS count the women and children – even with proper social distancing, we couldn’t safely pass the bread and the fish to one another. But we’re in the fifth month of this extraordinary time. We need to figure out additional creative ways to reconnect as the Body of Christ. We’d like your ideas on this: if you go to the very bottom of the www.staustin.org home page, you’ll find a place to send us feedback. (It’s easier for us to collect all this info there than if you call, email, or send private Facebook message to various members of the staff.) So, please: brainstorm with us how we can celebrate that nothing can separate us from one another… even when we’re forced to keep our distance from one another!

Which brings us to our second reading. After spending years crisscrossing the eastern half of the Roman Empire, Paul had dreams of venturing farther west. So he asked St. Phoebe to deliver a letter that he wrote to the best-known community of Christians already established in the western Empire: the Christians in Rome. 

Unlike Paul’s other letters, written to people he knew well in response to specific incidents in their communities, Romans has a different character. Paul tries to impress the Romans with the wisdom he has gained from proclaiming the gospel over two decades. He hopes that they will accept him as one of their own. He seeks their support in sending him on to Spain. He wants this community – presumably made up of both Gentiles and Jews – to contribute to the collection he’s taking up for the impoverished Jewish Christian community in Jerusalem. Therefore, Romans is not really a letter, but a treatise on the Christian faith. It is often called “Paul’s Gospel.” 

Paul begins Romans by explaining that everyone – Greeks and Jews alike – are part of God’s family. There’s nothing wrong with performing the precepts of the Jewish Law, Paul argues, but we are not saved through the Law itself. God promised Abraham that he would bless all nations through his descendants, and God made that promise before he established any rules for Abraham to follow. God didn’t give up on the promise when both Gentiles and Jews rejected the covenant. God fulfilled his promises through Jesus, a direct descendant of Abraham. 

After all that, we reach the midpoint of Paul’s magnum opus with the beautiful, lyrical passage we heard today. And even though Paul is writing for very different purposes and in very different circumstances, his point is still relevant to us today. Our desire to reconnect with one another as the St. Austin community is the same holy longing for relationship, for belonging within the family of God. I’ll change a few of Paul’s words and read the passage again:

I am convinced that neither Covid-19, nor limited testing, nor hospital overcapacity, nor loneliness, nor the lack of novelty in our day-to-day lives, nor our worries about the upcoming school year, nor government leaders, nor housing insecurity, nor economic depression, nor any other circumstance will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Do we need to make public demonstrations to one another that we’re still connected as members of St. Austin Catholic Parish? Maybe not, but some creative celebrations wouldn’t hurt! When we reassure ourselves that we’re connected to one another as the Body of Christ, we reassure ourselves that we’re connected to the love of God. Once again, if you have ideas about how we can better connect with one another during the pandemic, please use the website to send us feedback. Thank you!

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