August 3, 2021
Paulist Fr. Rich Andre preached this homily on the 18th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year B) on August 1, 2021, at St. Austin Catholic Parish in Austin, TX. The homily is based on the day’s readings: Jeremiah 23:1-6; Psalm 23; Ephesians 2:13-18; and Mark 6:30-34.
We’ll be hearing from the Letter to the Ephesians until the end of August. A good way to think about Ephesians is to imagine it as a corporate merger document, negotiating how two very different groups of people – Jews and Greeks – will become a single faith community. In today’s passage, the Greeks are the people “who once were far off,” and Ephesians is saying that “the dividing wall of enmity” between Jews and Greeks has been destroyed so that together the two groups can become “one new person.”
Our first reading and our psalm today have been chosen to pick up a theme in the last line of today’s gospel, that the people coming to Jesus “were like sheep without a shepherd.” All of our readings give us a place to talk about the historic pilgrimage that everyone in the St. Austin Catholic Parish community has begun this summer!
We begin our Mass by recognizing that we are sheep lovingly pastored by the Good Shepherd, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
The following prayer was found among Teresa of Avila’s personal effects:
Let nothing disturb you; let nothing frighten you.
All things are passing. God never changes.
Patience endurance gains everything.
The one who has God lacks nothing.
God alone is enough.
Too often, my attitude about the vicissitudes of life is less like Teresa and more like Mark Twain, who said: “I’m in favor of progress; it’s change I don’t like.”
Everything changes. St. Austin Catholic Parish is now engaging in one of the biggest changes in our 113-year history. Last month, the school moved to San Jose Parish, south of the river. Next week, the parish office and meeting spaces move into our parking garage. Next month, the rectory moves to Hyde Park. In the following months, the current buildings – except the church and lobby – will be torn down to make way for brand-new facilities in 2-3 years.
All things are passing. Before we can build something new and wonderful, we have to let go of what we currently have. Generations of St. Austin parishioners before us have done the same through all our previous property transitions. There are parishioners among us whose grandparents built the 1908 church, the 1909 church (when the 1908 church burned down), and the 1917 school. Their mothers lived in Newman Hall during college, back when it was a dorm, and married their fathers in the third church built in 1953. These parishioners themselves were enrolled in the “new” elementary school built in middle of the 20th century, and their own children played in the gym built in 1984. Every previous transition at St. Austin began with a farewell, was followed by a period of uncertainty, and ended with an exciting new beginning.
God is always with us. What an exciting new beginning we will have in late 2023! Most importantly, St. Austin Parish will be better equipped to enable our children, the university community, government officials, and other people in downtown Austin and throughout Central Texas to experience God’s unchanging, all-powerful, all-forgiving love, for generations to come!
All things are passing. That alone will be enough, but the new campus will give us even more. It will help us to recognize, once and for all, that St. Austin School is not a separate entity from St. Austin Church. The school – and its close ties to our Faith Formation program – is the largest ministry of St. Austin Parish! Both the school community and the parish community may feel a little bit like the Jewish Christians at the time of the Letter to the Ephesians. The Jews surely welcomed the first Greeks joining their communities, but they probably also wished that the Greeks could be a little less “Greek” and a whole lot more “Jewish.” But as Ephesians counseled both the Jews and the Greeks, the dividing wall has been broken down. We at St. Austin will no longer be separated by walls or an alley! We, like the Greek and Jewish Ephesians, must continue to grow together into one community.
Everything changes. I had originally dreamed of parishioner Gina Chavez walking in from the back of the church right at this point in the homily. But Gina’s currently on tour. So, I’ll be singing Gina’s part, and YOU will be singing the refrain with me whenever I raise my arms. The words are in Spanish, but they are simple: “Cambia, todo cambia.” It means: “Changes, everything changes.” The verses talk about the things that change as part of God’s plan: the flocks, the seasons, even our hair. Sometimes we need to deliberately change the world. The first two verses end by declaring, “That I change is not strange.” The final verse acknowledges that certain things do not change: not my love, and not the past experiences we’ve had as community, no matter where time and distance takes us.
God is always with us. Let’s sing about it!
“Todo Cambia,” as performed by Gina Chavez and Eliza Gilkyson
|
Cambia lo superficial Cambia el clima con los años Cambia, todo cambia (4x) Cambia el sol en su carrera Cambia el pelaje la fiera Cambia, todo cambia Pero no cambia mi amor Lo que cambió ayer Cambia, todo cambia (4x) |
Change the superficial, The weather changes over the years; Changes, everything changes. (4x) The sun changes in its course. The fur on the beast changes. Changes, everything changes. But it doesn’t change my love, What changed yesterday Changes, everything changes. (4x) |
Let nothing disturb you; let nothing frighten you.
All things are passing. God never changes.
Patience endurance gains everything.
The one who has God lacks nothing.
God alone is enough.
We will be a new community, a changed community… but a community enriched by change, with more efficient buildings to weather all passing things, and more united in our devotion to our God, whose love and commitment to us is unchanged.
May we continue to strengthen our love and commitment to God by renewing our love and commitment to one another within this diverse and dynamic St. Austin community!