Journey's Weekly Homilies

Journey Catholic Community                                                     Malachi 1:14-2:2
31^st Sunday Ordinary Time                                                          I Thess.2:7-9,13
11/3/02   Homily:  Nancy                                                               Matt. 23:1-12

The San Damiano cross, that famous cross before which St. Francis of Assisi prayed, is quite different in style from the familiar crucifixes hanging in some of our homes and churches.  It is actually a Byzantine-style painting on a cross-shape, which portrays Jesus crucified, and surrounding him there on the cross are various figures:  John, the beloved disciple, Mary his mother, the other Mary’s, and angels, lots of angels looking on.  Even in death, as in his public life, Jesus is the center of a community, the focus of a crowd, the hub of a circle of disciples.  He drew people to him with words and deeds of love, he invited them to love one another. 

“Love one another,” he said.  Remember Sam’s reminder to us last week…”Love your neighbor as yourself.”  It has been repeated down through the ages; by Paul, by John, by Augustine, by every saint and preacher and teacher the church has known.  Love is the hallmark of the Christian, and today we hear that the greatest among us, the ones most able to bring about the reign of God, are the servants.  The one who acts humbly, the one who centers on Jesus and lives toward others as Jesus did, this is the one who brings to life the kingdom of God in our midst.

“Why, then, do we break faith with one another?”  The plaintive question of the prophet Malachi, which we hear today, echoes in our time as well as his own.  Why do the priests of Malachi’s era cause people to stumble in their faith?  Why do the prophets of Micah’s time lead people astray? Why do the scribes and Pharisees lay on heavy burdens, lord it over others, climb on the backs of others to raise themselves up?

“Why, then, do we break faith with one another?” Why do marriages fail, and friendships grow old?  Why do we belittle each other, betray each other, exploit each other, fear each other?  Why is there among us every day, somewhere in our world, people who are intent on torturing each other, killing each other?  Why must we, once again, be forced to protest a war?  Why do we, who were BORN for loving, baptized to the task of loving, seem to work against our very call.  Why do we run from the simplicity of what we are asked to do?  Is it TOO simple?  What is it about being a “servant” that we do not understand?  SERVANT…that’s what our scripture calls us to be.

I have recently learned of a quiet saint who is among the community of saints named by the church.  St. Alphonsus Rodriquez was a Spanish man.  His feast day is October 31, which we just celebrated this week. (Tho I doubt if any of the costumed children who went trick-or-treating Thursday night actually dressed as St. Alphonsus.) 

He was a man who was forced to deal with heavy losses all his life, from childhood to his death.  He became responsible for his family at far too young an age, because of the death of his father.  He married and had three children, and soon his small family began to fight illnesses until all of them had died, his wife and all three children.  At this point he joined the Jesuit order and became a lay brother.  By the time he was accepted finally into the Jesuits, he had already gained a reputation as a quiet servant.  It seemed that Alphonsus fed all his grief into the religious life he would now live.  Alphonsus saw himself as servant, and he began to live the life of a servant.  We know from his journal writings that he waged a great war within himself during all of these times.  He fought within himself to achieve a faith-filled silence and a peace about him that allowed him to truly be who he was called to be. 

Alphonsus walked throughout the rest of his life as a simple man.  His intelligence and his theological wisdom spilled out to every person who crossed his path, but he asked for nothing, he just served.  He was an extraordinary listener.  People came from far and near to just sit and talk with him. He called himself to the beautiful task of seeing every person he encountered as the face of Christ. When a knock came, at the door of the Monastery, as he approached the door he would be heard to call out, “I’m coming, Lord.” 

There are many stories, and of course small miracles, which are told about St. Alphonsus.  He was the best friend and advisor of St. Peter Claver, who left Majorca and went to South Africa to help bring justice to the people there.  Peter Claver was sent on this saintly journey in part because his good friend and advisor, Alphonsus, reminded him how the Spirit moves in strange ways, and that we are to answer the calls that come to us for service in our lives.

The story also goes that the highly educated priests of the monastery, as they sat in the refectory at their own special table, were being served by the porters.  As Alphonsus was delivering more bread to their table, one rather arrogant priest turned to Alphonsus, and began to tease him in front of the other men, knowing that Alphonsus did not have the years of education that the other men at that table could claim.  They laughed as this man derisively suggested that Alphonsus should “Go to the ambo and deliver us all a fine homily in Greek.”  They kept on laughing at this notion, but Alphonsus just quietly sat down the bread basket and walked slowly toward the ambo at one side of the room.  The room became quiet, except for some snickering from the philosophers table.  Alphonsus stood behind the ambo and looked out at the gathered monks, lifted his hands and spoke six powerful words, (Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy) in Greek:  “Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison.  Amen”  A homily to end all homilies.

Gerard Manly Hopkins spent time in Majorca, and wrote a poem about the powerful story of a simple servant who lived his truth.  The poem was written in honor of this Alphonsus, who was named a saint long after he lived and died.  The poem is about the inner struggle, this war within us that we wage day after day after day.  The poem was written because, for Alphonsus, the war within him was fought in quiet hope.  Alphonsus was that rare and glorious believer who somehow managed to do something that was the most simple and basic:  he actually knew what he was called to do.  And, miracle of miracles, somehow it seems he managed to actually do it. 

Alphonsus has become my new hero.  Alphonsus lived his calling. Hopkins summed up his calling in the image of his watching the door.  What a marvelous metaphor this has become for me.  To remind myself of who I am and what my true purpose in life is, I can remember Hopkins’ poem, and just think to myself, “while went those years and years by … that in Majorca, Alphonso watched the door.”  Alphonsus, welcomed and served profoundly every face of Christ that entered his life.  It changed everything.  Not only for him, but for everyone around him. It changed everything.

The poem is printed in the newsletter today.  Perhaps Hopkin’s words, with the scripture stories we have today, can bring us to some new level of understanding and commitment within ourselves.  Perhaps, while all the world is falling apart around us, while every where we look, we are breaking faith with each other in the human community, we can remember St. Alphonsus.  Perhaps we can simply find the door, and the community, the circle of God’s creation in which WE are called to watch and listen and answer

This kind of thinking causes the war within me to rage.  Thomas Merton wrote so well that we create an alienation within ourselves.  We, or our egos, become our own judges and jury.  We are not wicked people, bad people.  And neither were the priests of Malachi’s time, or the Pharisees of Jesus’ time, whom we hear about in today’s readings.  No, we are not bad, but neither are we (like them) worthy of imitation.  Jesus told the crowd, “…practice and observe whatever they tell you, but NOT what they do; for they preach, but do not practice.”  We are not bad people, we are just people who have difficulty practicing what we preach.  We wage the war within ourselves, and we lose as many times as we win.

Sisters and Brothers, if we are wounded and out of touch with the truth of God’s love for us, and our relatedness to one another, then, I believe we create glorious protective shells around ourselves, “widen our phalacteries” as the Pharisees did in Jesus day.  And Jesus, sent to us as a healer, calls all of us out of our glorious-looking shells, whatever they are constructed of,  because,  with God’s power and love we don’t need them.  Jesus shows us that we can simply become servants. 

St. Francis of Assisi meditated before his special cross, and saw there and realized he was among a crowd of believers.  Every time we gather around this table we have a glimpse of this life-giving truth.  Here we can recognize ourselves as one body, gathered around Jesus who is the center of our community, the hub of this circle of disciples.  Fed and strengthened, then, we are sent forth, with a new capacity for receiving the gifts and for giving them to one another as servants.  That IS what our scripture calls us to be…SERVANTS.