Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time--Liturgical Cycle C

First Reading: Genesis 18:20-32
Responsorial Psalm: Ps 138:1-2, 2-3, 6-7, 7-8
Second Reading:Col 2:12-14
Gospel: Lk 11:1-13

Lectionary Readings

Homily

After his visit at the home of Mary and Martha, Luke places Jesus and the little company of his disciples (which, hopefully, includes all of us) “on the road again.” As “we” continue our journey with Jesus “up to Jerusalem,” we are again presented with the teachings and sayings of Jesus. In today’s gospel selection, we are told, that after Jesus had finished praying, his disciples (all of us) question him about prayer.

Our church liturgy today helps us to understand, to hear this Jesus teaching on prayer, by citing three other passages from the bible:

(1) the story from Genesis on “persistence”

(2) the responsorial psalm on the effects of prayer (“Lord, on the day I called for help, you answered me.”)

(3) and finally the passage from Paul about the power of prayer.

The story of Abraham’s persistence reminds us of a youngster’s nagging, “Mom, please! Can I go? Plea…eese! Can I? Everybody’ll be there. Please, Mom? Can I go? PLEA…EEESE!” Now, under such a barrage, who would hand their child a snake, a disappointment?! When we persist in our prayer, can a loving God ignore our pleas?

Sometimes we can think that our prayers go unanswered, unheard. But anyone who stays at it knows that prayer has its own effect. It will be heard. It will be answered. Maybe not the way we wanted, but the way that is best for us.

As Paul points out in our second reading today, the power of prayer comes from our union with Christ. Those who live the baptismal call are incorporated into Christ. We rise with him to new levels of life. It’s like getting into a jet. We take on the speed and the power of the vehicle. When we are at one with the Christ of God we take on that kind of power. When we come together, as we are today, we form a body in Christ (the Body of Christ) whereby we pray all together as “us” and “we” and “our.” The prayer we say together as Church takes on the very power of God.

We find four kinds of prayer, or types of prayer, mentioned in the bible. They are sometimes referred to by the word “ACTS,” a word which is formed by taking the first letter of each type of prayer:

A = Adoration
C = Contrition
T = Thanksgiving
S = Supplication

(And these are all included in our mass liturgy.)

Adoration is the prayer in which we acknowledge and praise God as the first priority in our lives.

In the prayer of Contrition, we confess our sinfulness and our need for God’s mercy.

The prayer of Thanksgiving proclaims God’s many gifts to us as we do so perfectly in our Sunday Eucharist prayers.

Finally, in Supplication, we recognize our helplessness without God’s loving presence.

In all of these types of prayer, Adoration, Contrition, Thanksgiving, and Supplication, (ACTS) we hear Jesus; “Ask and you shall receive, seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”

We learn from our scriptures today:

All four types of prayer must be persistent.
All are heard.
All are answered.

We, on our part, must never despair. We must be open to the answer that is best for us, and must be living in the way of the Lord Jesus, alive in His Body, the Church.



--Fr. Pat

Excerpt from "A Catholic's Companion: Liturgical Cycle C" (c)2000 C. Patrick Creed

Published by Watchmaker Press. Maggie Hettinger, editor

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time--Liturgical Cycle C

Reading I: Genesis 18:1-10a
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 15:2-3, 3-4, 5
Reading II: Colossians 1:24-28
Gospel: Luke 10:38-42
Texts of Lectionary Readings

Homily
At the conclusion of the story of the “Good Samaritan” in last Sunday’s gospel reading, Luke continues his narrative by once again placing Jesus on the grand journey up to Jerusalem:

On their journey, Jesus entered a village where a woman named Martha welcomed him to her home.

She had a sister named Mary who was also there, but it is the home of Martha and she is the principal person around whom the story today will unfold.

We noted in our introductory remarks last Sunday that Jesus did not answer the question posed by the lawyer: “Who is my neighbor?” but rather reinterprets the situation and forces the lawyer to answer the question which should have been asked. “Which of the three was neighbor to the man who fell among robbers?”

It forces the lawyer (and us) to answer the question which should have been asked, “How can I be a neighbor to others?” In this sense our neighbors are not named. They are anyone who is in need.

Thus the gospel leaves the question open-ended and this idea will be very important for us in the understanding of Luke’s gospel and the teaching of Jesus. In the ancient Lukan community, that little band (community) of Christian disciples in the midst of pagan, hostile Roman culture, will be challenged again and again both as individual Christians and as Church to be neighbor to the community in which it exists – regardless of who these people are: Jews, Gentiles, Samaritans, Romans, Pagans, … whatever.

This “Good Samaritan” story of neighborliness is then followed by Luke with a little story which helps us appreciate the condition, the requirement of discipleship, of sensitivity, of hospitality, of being neighborly. Indeed, it is the attitude required of the disciple, the individual Christian and of the whole Christian community, the church.

Martha, who was busy with all the details of hospitality, came to Jesus and said: “Lord, are you not concerned that my sister has left me to do the household tasks all alone? Tell her to help me.”

Like the question asked by the lawyer, Jesus now reinterprets the situation: “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and upset about many things.”

Now that’s her problem. She is concerned about so many things that she is not able to pay attention to the needs of both her guest (Jesus) or to the needs of her sister (Mary). That is the one thing that is required – to pay attention, to be hospitable, to the needs of others – whether the one set upon by robbers, the guests in one’s home, or one’s sister or brother or family.

Martha was not being a good neighbor. She is not, however, told to stop what she is doing, nor is Mary told to help her. But what is told to Martha is that she should have the attitude of respect for the needs of others. Martha is told how to relate to others in the community, in the family, whomever.

And that is what is important for us today to learn from the teaching of Jesus about being his followers, his disciples. We must pay attention to (be hospitable to, be good neighbors to) all those in our acquaintance, in our families, our community, our work place, our church. This is the one thing that is required.

--Fr. Pat

Excerpt from "A Catholic's Companion: Liturgical Cycle C" (c)2000 C. Patrick Creed

Published by Watchmaker Press. Maggie Hettinger, editor

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time--Liturgical Cycle C

Reading I: Deuteronomy 30:10-14
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 69:14, 17, 30-31, 33-34, 36, 37
Reading II: Colossians 1:15-20
Gospel: Luke 10:25-37
Texts of Lectionary Readings

Homily

The story of the Good Samaritan is pivotal in Luke’s presentation of Jesus. As we are invited to go along with Jesus, to become one of his disciples, to be sent out like the seventy-two in last Sunday’s gospel event, we now come to that part of the journey which is critical. Our allegiance to Jesus now begins to require our concern not only for those who love us (“for what good is that?”) but also for those who turn us off, especially those who are in need.

We read in Chapter 9 that while they were on their way, someone said to Jesus: “I will be your follower wherever you go.”

Jesus answered, “The foxes have dens and the birds have nests but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

To another, Jesus said, “Come after me.”

The person replied, “Let me bury my father first.”

Jesus said, “Let the dead bury the dead; come with me and proclaim the Kingdom of God.”

Yet another said to him, “I will be your follower but first let me take leave of my people.”

Jesus answered him, “Whoever puts his hand to the plow but keeps looking back is unfit for the Kingdom of God.”

But what exactly does it mean to proclaim the Kingdom, to be worthy of the Kingdom? In Chapter 10, Luke begins to pivot this teaching of Jesus to address this phase of “what it means to be a follower,” what it means to call oneself a Christian.

The teaching begins with the question of the lawyer: “Who is my neighbor?”

Jesus does not answer the lawyer’s question. Instead he tells a story, the story we all know by heart – the story of the good Samaritan – and tells it in such a way that he poses the question which should have been asked: “Who was neighbor to the man in need?” rather than “Who is my neighbor?” It places the burden of being neighborly to all who are in need rather than being of service only to someone who happens to fall within the definition of my understanding of who my neighbor is.

It has long been a precious understanding by our church tradition that we as church people (as followers of Jesus) respond to people in need no matter who they might be – even those who despise us or who do us harm.

We have but to look at our church members’ long and historic response to health care going all the way back to heroic people like Anthony of Padua, or Angela Merici. But we don’t have to go very far back in our history. We have but to look at our own Sisters of Nazareth, as reported in the Courier Journal on July 20, 1986.

AIDS MISSION IS JUST OLD ROLE IN NEW FORM FOR SISTERS OF CHARITY

Dozens of angry phone calls poured into Nazareth Nursing Home of Louisville after the news broke that the nursing home operated by the Roman Catholic Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, had asked the state for permission to care for AIDS patients.

“Why don’t you stick to your religion?” one caller asked the home’s administrator.

“I think I am,” Sister Gwen McMahon relied. “I think this is what Jesus would have done.”

Anyone who knows the Sisters of Charity shouldn’t have been the least bit surprised at their decision to set out on such a risky mission – or at their reason for doing so.

The Sisters of Charity, one of the first two Catholic religious orders originating in America, have been taking risks since they were founded near Bardstown in 1812.

For 165 of those 174 years, they’ve been caring for the sick.

Sister Gwen said, “There’s a lot of fear and apprehension right now. We’re talking about a fatal disease that nobody knows much about.”

Sister Charles Adele, 78 years old and a resident of the nursing home, said that the fear of AIDS reminds her of the fear of polio when she worked in the iron lung ward of the sisters’ Little Rock, Ark. hospital during the epidemic in 1949. “It was the same thing,” she said, “People were scared to death.”

She said she intends to visit the AIDS patients. “People near to the end like to talk and like to have somebody’s hand on their arm,” so “they know somebody’s there.”

“I think that’s what AIDS victims fear – that they’ll be left alone.”

From today’s scripture:

“Which of the three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the man who fell in with the robbers?”

The lawyer answered, “The one who treated him with compassion.” Jesus said to him, “Then go and do the same.”

That’s what it means to be a disciple, to call yourself a Christian. And that’s what it means to proclaim the Kingdom.

--Fr. Pat

Excerpt from "A Catholic's Companion: Liturgical Cycle C" (c)2000 C. Patrick Creed
Published by Watchmaker Press. Maggie Hettinger, editor