Homily
for July 9, 2006
Liturgical Year B - Cycle II
14th Sunday in Ordinary Time
By Fr. John Carney Topic:
A prophet is not welcome in his own town.
+ + +
Reading
I
Ez 2:2 - 5
As the LORD spoke to me, the spirit entered into me and set me on my
feet, and I heard the one who was speaking say to me: Son of man, I am
sending you to the Israelites, rebels who have rebelled against me;
they and their ancestors have revolted against me to this very day.
Hard of face and obstinate of heart are they to whom I am sending you.
But you shall say to them: Thus says the LORD GOD! And whether they
heed or resist—for they are a rebellious house— they shall know that a
prophet has been among them.
Reading II
2 Cor 12: 7 - 10
Brothers and sisters:
That I, Paul, might not become too elated, because of the abundance of
the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, an angel of
Satan, to beat me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I
begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me, but he said to me,
“My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in
weakness.” I will rather boast most gladly of my weaknesses, in order
that the power of Christ may dwell with me. Therefore, I am content
with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and constraints, for
the sake of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am strong.
Gospel
Mk 5: 1 - 6
Jesus departed from there and came to his native place, accompanied by
his disciples. When the sabbath came he began to teach in the
synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished. They said, “Where
did this man get all this? What kind of wisdom has been given him? What
mighty deeds are wrought by his hands! Is he not the carpenter, the son
of Mary, and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And
are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. Jesus
said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his native
place and among his own kin and in his own house.” So he was not able
to perform any mighty deed there, apart from curing a few sick people
by laying his hands on them. He was amazed at their lack of faith.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I am not
going to preach on
the second reading today but it is a tantalizing reading.“In order that I may not become too elated,
God has given me a thorn in the flesh, an angel of Satan.Three times, I begged that He remove this,
but He said ‘My grace is sufficient for you.’For God’s power is perfected in human weakness.”What was the thorn in the flesh that Paul
received?No one knows.I was discussing this with Fr. Joshua last
night, and he kind of thought it was perhaps a physical problem, some
illness
or sickness.I personally think it was a
moral problem. A sin that Paul had trouble
cleansing himself from and that kept him humble.Another
translation of exalted is humble.I don’t
know, but it is interesting and a wonderful reading.The conclusion is, “Yes, Paul, you are
imperfect, but with Me, I will fill you up with My grace and you will
be
perfect.”Maybe that thorn in the flesh
was given to Paul so that he would not see the people he was talking to
as
“them”, but he would realize that he was one of them and not different
from their
human condition. Today
though, I want to talk
about, “A prophet is not welcome in his own town,” which is the point
of the
Gospel.A Gospel we are so familiar that
that is actually a saying we have, a dictum, or proverb, that “no
prophet is welcomed
or respected in his home town.” First, a
little story about a
priest named Paride Taban, who is actually a retired bishop today.In the early 60’s, he was converted to
Catholicism, and he wanted to become a priest but he couldn’t attend
seminary
because there was no seminary to attend in the Sudan.In
the early
60’s, late 50’s, the persecution against Catholics broke out.Taban found himself in seminary in nearby Uganda, where he studied and was
ordained a priest. When things improved
enough for him to return
to the Sudan, he did.He
was assigned as a parish priest in one of the villages.He writes that people absolutely, totally
rejected him because he was black, just like them.In his words, he said, “They were saying. ‘How could a black man be a priest?’”All
their priests before Fr. Paride were
missionary priests, mostly Italians, some French, and some Germans. This was the first black priest they had ever
met.Not only that but missionary
priests had a lot of stuff to give, to help them.Taban
was as poor as his people were – he was
as black as they were and as poor as they were.Not only that, when he showed up, it was right after the Vatican
Council
and he had to introduce the changes in the liturgy.You know, move the altar, celebrate the mass
in the vernacular, their language, etc.Obviously,
he was accepted in time. He became a
bishop and retired just a few years ago.I had heard his story years ago but I didn’t know he was a
bishop.I Googled him up a few days ago
and he is
still speaking, and writing very forcefully on the persecution that is
ongoing
even many years later in the Sudan against Christians and
Catholics.“A prophet is not welcomed in
his home town.” Ezekiel
knew that.We heard in the first reading
that God sends
Ezekiel into the heart of faith and obstinate of heart people.The Jewish people, the Hebrew people, God’s
people.He loved them but boy were they
hard headed.If you have been to Israel, nothing has changed.Of course, God tells Ezekiel, “They will probably reject you,
but that’s
not your problem.You speak the word and
you will do your job as a prophet.” Then of
course, the greatest
prophet, Jesus Himself, the Son of God, the perfect prophet, and they
said,
“How can a carpenter know about God?”They knew Him.They knew His
mother, they knew His father, they had seen Him from the time He was a
little
boy.Because of this lack of faith in
His hometown, He could do no work there.He could do no miracle there.You
could say that His mission failed in His hometown because there was no
faith in
Him. Really,
this is human
nature.We take for granted those we
know.We take for granted those who are
closest to us. An expert has been
defined as, “A person at least a day’s travel from home, who charges a
fee, and
is never there when the problem is finally addressed and solved.”You’re laughing.Some
of you are experts and are always on
travel.However, when you come home, we
won’t respect you at all.So, welcome
home. Nevertheless,
we need to
listen.God loves us as much as He loved
those hard of face and obstinate of heart Jews.He still loves them that way, of course.However, He loves us just as much.We are the New Jerusalem. We are
the New Zion.We are the new Body of
Christ.He loves us, and He needs to
tell us His message.He needs to send
prophets to us today, just as much as He did His people over 2000 years
ago and
He does.He speaks to us, and we need to
listen. Unfortunately,
we often
listen to other voices.Go to the
self-help section of the library or the bookstore. There
is a lot of good stuff there. In fact,
more so now than ever.There is also a lot
of junk: many books about
empowerment, claim yourself, you are number one, and take care of
number one.That is not the Christian
message at
all.The Christian message is “Pour your
life out in selfless service,” That is the opposite of what many say. To whom do
we listen?Well, any time you are about to
pay for your
groceries, all those tabloids – The Enquirer, etc, distract you….In the Albuquerque newspaper every day,
there’s a section called
“Newsmakers.”Who are the
newsmakers?Hollywood stars.You
know, I don’t want to bad mouth Hollywood but I feel sorry for
those poor people.I do.All the money in the world, I wouldn’t want to be a celebrity in
Hollywood.They
are
miserable.Yet, they kind of want to
teach us.Well, I am not listening!Because I can see what can happen to
you.That is like a fat guy telling you
how to go on a diet.You know?We need to listen to the prophets God sends
us – those who really love us.Of
course, we find those prophets, Ezekiel and Isaiah and Jeremiah and
Amos; we
find them in the Bible today.The
message has not changed, because human nature has not changed. We find
those prophets in
God’s Church.Our Holy Father is in Spain this week, and he is
talking about the sanctity of
marriage, between a man and a woman; only a man and a woman can marry.For that he is rejected, persecuted, and
mocked. There is
an article in the
newspaper today about these new Catholic churches, which are not
Catholic, who
teach everything people want to hear, or certain people want to hear.Those are not prophetic voices.Those are voices that agree with some people
and are empty.We need to listen to the
church, the Pope.Moreover, the people
you need to listen to you are probably sitting next to – your spouse.Your spouse loves you.In
1Corinthians 13, we often read that in
marriages, and it says, “Correct and admonish one another.”I know you don’t like that, but she does have
something to say, and so does he.Parents
and children. You know children, your
parents speak for God.Sometimes in
confession, children will say, “I disobeyed my mom.”We talk about that and I say, “In reality,
you disobeyed God.Because your mom,
your father are empowered by God to speak as prophets, to tell you what
is
right and what is wrong.So listen to
them.”Listen to your parents.Parents may not always give the best advice
always, but I have never known a parent that intentionally misled their
child.They give advice that they
believe is true because they love their kids.Isn’t that true?Everybody is
agreeing with me today. We suspect
someone who is
speaking prophetically when what they tell us, we don’t want to hear,
especially
when it’s challenging, and difficult.You
know, the prophets ask a lot of us because God asks a lot of us.He asks a lot of us because we are made in
His image and we are capable of great things.We are capable of holiness, every one of us.Yes, we have that thorn or two in the flesh
that will keep us humble.Still, we are
capable of emptying ourselves and becoming other Christs, as Paul did. He said, “It is no longer I but Christ that
lives in me.”We are capable of that, and
the prophets call us to those standards and to that righteous living. We
baptized a young baby,
Edward, Thursday afternoon.Today, there
is a baptism, a Connelly baby, after this mass.Part of the baptism rite, (assuming you were baptized as a baby,
you
don’t remember this) but the priest touched your ears and your mouth.He said, “The Lord Jesus made the deaf hear
and the dumb speak.May He soon touch
your ears to receive His word, and open your mouth to proclaim His
faith, to
the praise and glory of God the Father.”We again hear those words today.We need to speak as prophets.We
know what is right and wrong.We need to
listen to those who love us, who want us to be holy. May
He soon touch your ears
to receive His word, and your lips to proclaim His faith, to the praise
and
glory of God the Father. Now and
Forever. Amen.