September 26, 2021 (26th Sunday in Ordinary Time)

by Fr. Xavier Lavagetto, O.P.

[This is the text composed by the homilist prior to delivering the homily.]

I was raised in a defensive Church. The Baltimore Catechism was our defense manual; and it was not unjustified. A religious wall divided America and a glass ceiling kept Catholics down. We were immigrants and we clung to the Church for security and identity. Yes, at times, we demeaned them right back. But we did not succumb to the temptation of saying: We are saved, and you are lost.

A Jesuit priest in the 1930’s, Fr. Leonard Feeney, grimly taught that you had to be Catholic to be saved. His Jesuit Superiors and his Bishop were not happy. He won’t listen to them. Rome heard and was unhappy. He did not listen to Rome, and he was expelled from the very Church he taught you needed for salvation.  

I always thought it a credit to the Church that it did not succumb to the thinking that would damn 80% of humanity for not being Catholic. The Church refused to confine God’s love to a select few.   

Just like Fr. Finney, Joshua, son of Nun, was not a happy man! Eldad and Medad were not at the assembly; Moses had not given them a share in the Spirit he had received. They missed the meeting, yet the Spirit rested on them, and they prophesied. …  Joshua wanted them stopped: “They are not one of “us!” Moses replied, “Would that all the people of the LORD were prophets! Would that the LORD might bestow his spirit on them all!”

The apostles weren’t happy either! How dare some unknown use Jesus’ name to cast out demons! He is not one of us!  Jesus said: “Do not prevent him. There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me.”

Feeney, Joshua and the apostles wanted to limit God to their group. Group identity and power had to be protected.

Why is it when we get very fervent, we can get exclusive? … “I’m saved; you’re not.” “I’m in; you’re out”… Both the Book of Numbers and Mark’s Gospel are clear: God cannot be boxed; his Spirit blows where it wills.  Moses wanted all the people to be Spirit-inspired. Mark’s wants us all to be Gospel-led.  

Mark offers no easy path. He demands a committed way of thinking and acting, hence the curious language of cutting off and plucking out.

How hard would you fight to keep your hand or foot from being cut off? With such tenacity fight sin! How much would you fight to preserve your eyes? With such tenacity follow the Spirit’s light! …  Being Catholic is not knowing the answers; it is living the answer; it is living Christ in you together.

That’s scary! Where will God ask of me? Yet God told us to expect surprises: No need to remember past events, to harp on what was done before. Look, I am about to do something new, now it springs up, can you not see it.  (Is 43:16b-17) Do you see the new happening now?

There is a revolution named Francis. … Have you noticed? He keeps insisting that we live the Gospel joyously and boldly.

He keeps talking about discerning the Spirit’s call as individuals and as community. He is asking for a listening that recognizes the Lord’s voice in our day.

Pope Francis is inviting the Church down the road of synodality. We’ve heard the word synod; we’ve seen pictures of Bishops meeting in Synod in Rome, but it is more than a meeting! It is a listening process. Synod means “journeying together.” That synodal listening begins in listening to the Gospels and to each other’s experience, in probing it by shared prayer and conversation, in celebrating it in Eucharist and living it in serving together!

We were to have a Synod of Bishops in 2022, but the Pope postponed it a year and is asking for a truly unprecedented listening to the laity. Beginning locally in October 17th, that collective listening is to be gathered in a diocesan synod, and then taken to the episcopal conferences and then to Rome in October 2023.  … You might say, what’s in it for me? … Your faith rediscovered. … Pope Francis is recapturing a process that is at the heart of the Gospel: Discerning the Spirit’s voice in you, in the people.

Sadly, our way of doing politics invades the Church, Pope Francis said: I feel tremendous sadness when I see a community that has good will take the wrong road because it thinks that the Church is built up in meetings, as if it were a political party. “But, the majority, the minority, what do they think about this, that and the other… “  But I asks myself:  “Where is the Holy Spirit there? Where is prayer? Where is communitarian love? Where is the Eucharist? Without these four, the Church becomes a human society, a political party … But the Holy Spirit is not there.”

The Pope is not complaining about meetings, but about meetings without prayerful listening. It is not about winning an argument or winning vote, but recognizing the Spirit’s call! …

Some of you have begun by engaging in one of the small groups or as a group serving others. … Deep listening takes practice, prayer, and trust. It asks; What is God saying in my life?

It isn’t enough to simply say we are Catholics. Being Catholic is about living expansively together our trust in Jesus.

Don’t let timidity keep you silent and apart. Fear limits us when we are too reticent to share ourselves. Fear isolates when we don’t practice engaging conversations.  Fear inhibits us when we hold back. Fear easily gives birth to a hostility toward the different, to a rigidity that enslaves, and to a legalism that doesn’t understand Jesus. Fear is a commodity! It is bought and sold on social media. It is a virus without reverence for truth.

Annie Dillard once quipped, “you cannot test courage cautiously.” The same is true for faith. Really living risks being changed, but God keeps saying: Be not afraid. I encourage you to join a small group, to come together to serve those in need, or to lead and minister within this community. Above all engage in lively conversation that really listens and explores. Jesus calls you on a journey together; he says, “Come and follow me.”  …

P.S. Keep your eyes posted for more information on participating in the synodal process.