Sunday, June 15, 2008

Homily, Sunday, June 15, 2008

Brothers and Sisters, Today our Gospel shows us Our Lord's attitude when faced with adversity. It says, “At the sight of the crowds, Jesus' heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.”

The Hebrew word for “pity” literally means “having your bowels turned over,” what we normally refer to as “being sick to the pit of your stomach.”

We learn how to deal with adversity by looking at him.

First, He said, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; . . .”

Here he sees this revolting situation as a harvest ready to be harvested. He sees it as a moment of plenty.

Very often when we meet adversity, we develop a tunnel vision that has no light at the end of it. We get depressed. Everything is gloomy, dark and hopeless.

Not so with Our Lord and Master.

With his stomach revolting he says, this is a moment of great harvest. When your family goes though the valley of tears, you say, “this is a moment of opportunity.” You are swallowed by a deadly disease and illness, you say, “this is a moment of plenty. Where are the laborers? We are going to gather bushels and bushels of graces today. Where are the laborers? We have sickles, but where are the laborers. Where are the combines?

Moments of adversity, are moments of opportunity. Moments of adversity, are moments of possibility.

Your cancer pains is just too much to bear, you say, “There is going to be a great harvest today.” You suffer the pangs of delivering a baby, you say, “There is going to be abundant life out of this.”

Out of pain, comes gain.

Second, Our Lord gives us a tip: “so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for the harvest.”

A. Pray about it. So, the next thing after being hopeful against the odds, is to pray about the situation. Don't be macho about it. Do-It-Yourself kind of attitude. Consult God. E.G., You hear that Moses, as he was doing something about liberating and accompanying the people of God through the desert, he customarily went up the Mountain to pray (consult) with God. “While the Israelites were encamped here in front of the mountain, Moses up the mountain to God.”

And God was able to propose a marriage covenant with the people of Israel. “Tell the Israelites: You have seen for yourselves how I treated the Egyptians and how I bore you up on eagle wings and brought you her to myself. Therefore, if you heaken to my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my special possession, dearer to me than all other people, though all the earth is mine. You shall be a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.”

It takes our decision to climb the mountain of the Lord for the Lord to meet us and be able to say what's on his mind. It takes a date for the suitor to state/express his/her marriage proposition. No Date, No Covenant. That's how it works. Similarly, no church/prayer, no relationship with God.

JESUS, OUR NEW MOSES

Even Jesus our New Moses did this custom of climbing the mountain to God with regularity. The Gospels tell us of how after feeding the masses he went up the mountain by himself to pray. How he was consumed in prayer. We hear in the Gospels, also of how he ordered his apostles to remain on a spot in the Garden of Gethsemani while he went a stone throw ahead to pray. And while he was absorbed in prayer, “behold the angels of the Lord came and ministered to him.”

It takes prayer for the Lord to accomplish anything with us and for us.

LESSON # 1:

See! Everytime you set up time apart, every time you designate a time and earmark it as a time of prayer, everytime you set up a pilgrimage, every time you go on retreat, God is right there with you. He is not a kind of God who breaks appointments, or who is too busy to attend an invitation, like we are prone to be and even to make excuses that we have new span of oxen to try in the fields. We give God excuses that “Sorry, God, something came up.”

And the more we have those excuses, the more God disappears from our radar, until we think he is not there, while in fact it's us who do not have time for God. We don't free ourselves, at every chance we get.

LESSON # 2:

The Altar as the Mountain of the Lord. Today that mountain of the Lord is the one that the New Moses who redeemed us from the Egypt of Sin climbed. Today the Mountain to God is the Altar. The psalm says, “who shall climb the mountain of the Lord? He who is without sin.” This is where we meet God. This is where our covenant with is ratified. This is where we exercise our Priestly Nationality.

“You shall be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.”

To be priestly is to be in constant contact with God. To be priestly is to be constantly solemnizing the agreement, the covenant between God and Mankind. Every time God established a covenant with the patriarchs, Abraham, there was a sacrifice to be offered to ratify and solemnize it. Noah after the Flood, there was a sacrifice to ratify and solemnize that God would never again do anything like that to anihilate the world.

Third, we’ve got to do what is humanly possible about the adversity. Be Positive, Be contemplative, and Be Active/Engaged.

PROBLEM/CHALLENGE:

Sometimes when faced with adversity (problem), we get disheartened and dispondent, depressed, dejected. We feel overwhelmed by its immensity, its vastness. We can easily be frozen into inertia/motionlessness.

We become paralized by it, so to speak. We think, “What's the use?” “What difference does my effort make?” “Whatever I do is simply a drop in the ocean of adversity.” “I will never cure all the diseases of the world.” “I will never be able to feed the millions of hungry nations.”

E.G., Like the Apostles in the Desert: Multiplication of Loaves and Fish. They thought, “Lord, five loaves of bread. What's that for this many people. Sent them off hungry as they are.”

But the Lord asked for how many resources they had available, to find our how much is humanly possible. Then he proceeded to pray to divine intervention.

The combination of humanity and divinity results in amazing results. 5,000 men were fed until they were fed-up.

That's what Our Lord wants from us, to give our Humanity (bring in what is within our human abilities) and he will cap that with divine Authority over the demonic powers, all kinds of diseases, and illnesses.

In the gospel, he summoned his 12 disciples and enriched them with the authority over evil spirits, to drive them out, and cure all kinds of diseases and every illness.

He took the human resources and empowered them with divine powers. These men had no credentials of ever achieving anything in life. It didn't matter their weakness, their liabilities, their deficiencies.

This is Jesus in Action. He poses a positive attitude in the face of adversity; sees it as a golden opportunity and great moment of harvest/plenty. He then climbs the mountain of the Lord in prayer. Exercised his priesthood. And then he employs what is humanly possible. Combines the divine and the human to accomplish the impossible.