29th Sunday in Ordinary Time--Liturgical Cycle C

Lectionary Readings
Reading I: Exodus 17:8-13
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 121: 1-8
Reading II: 2 Timothy 3:14-4:2
Gospel: Luke 18:1-8

Homily
This is the first weekend I have been with you this month. Let me fill you in. The four Sundays of October all stress some aspect of the virtue of faith. The word faith can be used in many ways. It is like some of our English words, e.g. play, which can mean a “play on Broadway”; or we may say – I like to “play” sports or I “play” the piano – or “play” the stereo! Faith can be a set of articles we believe, like “An Act of Faith,” or we can use the word to mean that we have faith in our car starting on a cold morning. The four Sundays of October speak to us about “faith” as a relationship with our God. I call it an “Octoberfest” of Faith.

On the first Sunday we heard the disciples pray, “Lord, increase our faith.” and we examined how our relationship with God can be increased, deepened, made stronger as well as lessened, weakened, destroyed. Like muscles in our arms and legs, our relationship must be exercised and fostered in order to grow and develop.

Last Sunday the Leper who returned, falling on his face, gave thanks and praise and Jesus interpreted those gestures as acts of faith. “Your faith,” he said, “has been your salvation.” We saw that our gestures, especially at Eucharist, are the language of our relationship with the Triune God.

Today three figures are presented: Moses, Timothy, and the Widow—each are seen in a faith relationship of persistence. A couple of Sundays ago we read from Paul’s letter to Timothy (2 Tim 1:5): “The Spirit God has given us is no cowardly spirit, but rather one that is strong, loving, and wise.” God does not give up on us and in a strong, loving, and wise relationship, people of faith do not give up on God.

This first season of our Renew 2000 invites us to take a close look at our relationship with our God, which is the same thing as saying, take a close look at our faith. The first week we zeroed in on our communion with the Triune God (Father, Son and Spirit) and last week on our relationship with God as Creator and Father of us all. This week we concentrate on our interchange with God the Son, second person of the Trinity-the Word of God made flesh who dwelt among us!

A couple of years ago, before my retirement, I made a habit of visiting the classrooms (all 18 of them) most days in the morning after mass. I would just pop in—nothing formal—and we’d briefly talk about what was on their minds. My favorite was the second grade (when they were in the first grade I had called them “worst graders” and they had retaliated by calling me “grandpa.”) One day we were talking about the “sign of the cross,” (Father, Son and Spirit) and one tike shot up her hand. She said, “Grandpa, which one is your favorite?”

Kids have favorites, you know. Like favorite clothes, TV programs, ice cream flavor, pizza, etc. So which person of the Blessed Trinity is your favorite? Logical question!

And we DO have favorites, you see. We talk to, we thank and praise, God, Father and Creator, when we are overcome with awe at some wonderful works of the Creator and Father, like a sunset or a delicately formed flower.

We stand humble before the Son of God when that powerful Word sinks deep into our hearts.

We Spirit dance with joy at the spark of life in a newborn child.

Suppose we see today the persistence of Moses with his tiring arms outstretched as a figure of that very Word of God, our Redeemer and friend; that all-powerful Word, like a two-edged sword cutting out the cancer of our weakness, our selfishness, our foolishness, so that we stand before our life with courage as one who is strong, loving and wise!

In this view, then, it is not Timothy, it is the inspired Word of God that reproves and corrects and trains in holiness. Timothy is but the figure of that strong, loving and wise Word made flesh, Jesus the Lord, which stays with the task whether convenient or inconvenient—correcting, reproving, appealing—constantly teaching and never losing patience.

Suppose we understand the poor widow as that strong, loving and wise Word of God: that all-powerful Word which persists until the wronged receive justice. Could we be the weak, the unloving, the foolish judges so hounded by that Word, that Christ of God, so tenaciously hounded by that Word that we finally give in, finally surrender ourselves wholly into our God?

We recall Francis Thompson’s Hound of Heaven,

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him...
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat -- and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet
"All things betray thee, who betrayest Me."

We can see in Moses, Timothy, and the Widow powerful expressions of their faith relationship with their God, that majestic Word made flesh, the Son of God, the Hound of Heaven. We are called by our Renew meditation this week to a deeper relationship with the person of Jesus into a faith courage which is strong, loving and wise as we stand daily before the immorality and injustices of the world in which we live and move and have our being.
--Fr. Pat

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