Miserando atque Eligendo... the Lord, looking upon us with mercy, calls us!

+ J. M. J. +

Homily Outline for the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

I hope some of you may have had a chance to read the big interview with Pope Francis that I distributed after Masses some weeks ago, there are still copies by the doors if you didn’t get one yet. The very first question that the Fr. Spadaro, asked the pope was a deceptively simple one, “Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?” Having used the pope’s baptismal name, he describes Pope Francis pausing, thinking, and saying, “I do not know what might be the most fitting description…I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner.” “I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon…I am one who is looked upon by the Lord.” Then the Pope referred to his papal motto, Miserando atque Eligendo. This Latin phrase is taken from a commentary written by St. Bede the Venerable in the early 700’s, where St. Bede says, “Jesus saw Matthew, and since he looked at him with feelings of love and chose him, he said to him, ‘Follow me.’” Miserando atque Eligendo refers to Jesus looking upon Pope Francis with mercy, aware of the pope’s need for love and mercy, and choosing him, calling him, even as Jesus offers him mercy. In mercy the Lord called the Pope, offering him healing grace in the midst of his call to serve. In mercy the Lord looks upon you and me, offering us healing mercy, in the midst of His call to us, a call to serve. Pope Francis with great humility and great clarity pierces through the murk that often surround our identities: we focus on our weakness, and end up discouraged. We focus on our strengths and accomplishments, and we get puffed with false pride. Like St. Matthew whom Jesus called from the midst of his sinful life as a dishonest tax collector, Pope Francis is able to see his need for God’s mercy while also seeing God’s loving call.

As the days shorten, and the temperature plummets, as snow piles up and green plants wither, we too might be tempted to discouragement in the face of nature’s death. On the other hand, we might look at our nicely stacked woodpile, or our full freezer, or our savings account, and count ourselves well prepared for whatever storms may come. We might be afraid, or complacent, and in either case we would be noticing only part of the truth. At this season of the year that the Church calls our attention to the last things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell. The two beautiful and compelling feasts this coming week draw these to our attention. This coming Friday, we celebrate All Souls’ Day, and we praise and thank God for the shining example of His many saints, both the formally canonized and the anonymous. The veil is pulled back a little between heaven and earth. Halloween may have become commercialized in recent decades, but the feast itself, the Eve of the celebration of all the Hallowed, all the Saints, has deep Christian roots. Even the ghosts and the ghouls point to the closeness of death and judgment as nature dies the death of fall. Ghosts and ghouls are scary, and should be scary… they remind us not to toy with sin, not to toy with the Enemy, whose true face is hideous and fearsome.

Having joyfully thanked God for holiness, the holy lives of the saints that show us the way, on Saturday we remember All the Faithful Departed, All Soul’s Day. Traditionally we think of the Church in three parts: The Church Militant, the Church Suffering, and the Church Triumphant. We are the Church Militant: those alive upon this green earth who are engaged in the daily battle to choose good and reject evil, the daily struggle to Love God and Neighbor, the daily choice to follow Christ or to turn away. We, the Church Militant, celebrate our deep connection in faith and love to the Church Triumphant on All Saints’ Day, asking for the saints’ intercession. Then on All Souls’ Day we in turn intercede for the Church Suffering, all those who are in the midst of the loving and yet painful purification of Purgatory. Every soul in Purgatory is going to heaven, and knows it. The suffering of Purgatory is filled with hope and gratitude, and yet its not fun! Because we are connected in faith and in hope to every member of the Church, living and dead, we can assist those in Purgatory with our prayers, and so we pray for all the dead.

As the natural world grows cold and brown, the Church wants us to honestly and hopefully remember the truth of death, the passingness of this mortal world, and the great promise of eternal life that we are offered by Jesus Christ. Our two feasts, All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day, help us to remember.

In our Gospel, Jesus commends not the apparently virtuous Pharisee who is consumed with his own virtue and accomplishment, but rather the despised tax collector who knows both essential facts: his own sinfulness, and God’s mercy. The tax collector pierces through the murk of both despair and arrogance, and chooses contrition and hope. As he is living in touch with reality, he is able to touch and taste the most fundamental reality, God’s love.

Are we living in reality? Are we able to look in the mirror, to look within, and be honestly aware of our own sinfulness and weakness? As we see our great need for help, perhaps we taste the temptation to despair. Are we able to look within, and to look up, and to gaze upon the beauty of God’s face, His perfect and steadfast love for us, the mercy He is always ready to give us if we will but ask for that gift? God through His Church invites us to pull back the veil, to pierce the murk of confusion, and to see ourselves and Him, embracing contrition and hope, rejecting arrogance and despair.

We see this very clearly modeled for us by St. Paul in our 2nd reading. He knows that he is being marched towards his own martyrdom and death, using a vivid image from the pagan world, “I am already being poured out like a libation, and the time of my departure is at hand.” The pagans poured part of their wine on the ground as a sacrifice to the capricious gods, and Paul purifies this image… he has freely chosen to pour out his own life, offering it to God and man for the spread of the Gospel, whatever the cost. In his trial Paul knows where strength comes from, “The Lord stood by me and gave me strength.” In God’s strength he is able face martyrdom and death with calm hope.

This world is passing, even as it is full of beauty, and all that we have is a gift from God. At my retreat this past week, one of the priests gave a very beautiful homily. He told us of visiting his sister’s house, and seeing her confront her little adopted son who had been selfishly clinging to a toy. She bent down and looked into little Peter’s eyes and said, “Oh, Peter, you must have forgot, you don’t own anything.”  Can we hear God speaking those words to us today, with gentle love? We are not to despair because of our sins, nor be complacent because of our possessions, but rather to hope in God who has given us all as a gift.

+ A. M. D. G. +