3rd Sunday Homily: Rooted in Christ

I was in the High School band. Once we did a half time routine that went so bad our Music Teacher walked away. He was so angry and embarrassed. It was that bad. So on the Monday after we came back to school, we were a bit scared for band class. Now the ironic part was that we were normally quite good, but I think we got cocky and therefore sloppy. So Mr. Conway, known for his temper, calmly and coolly came in and told us that we will be practicing, but we are going to re-start with the basics. Marching band for the next weeks as all about the basics. We were humbled and we got ourselves set straight.

A common theme when people think they or we are messed up or confused or lost: go back to our roots. Not to re-start necessarily, but to remember “Why” we do what we do. We see this in businesses. We see attempts of this in our politics. We see this in church and religion too.

The goal is not to return to a past, but to remember why, so as to go forward with renewed vigor.

In our history as Catholics these return to our roots have happened many times. St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross saw how their community of Carmelites had gotten distracted, lost focus on their true intent; so they returned to the roots. They reformed their community and became something wonderful.

The Second Vatican Council likewise in the 1960’s returned to its roots. The French word used was “Ressourcement” which meant to return to the Source. The Bishops went back to the early writers and theologians of Christianity to recapture the fire and spirit of those early evangelizers. As the Church was getting too caught up in the trappings and forgetting the message.

Every now and then people approach and talk to me about their own faith. They feel disconnected, un-inspired, lost in something. Guess where they and we need to go to.  We Christians, we root ourselves in Jesus Christ. We root ourselves in the core message of Jesus Christ. This Sunday we hear Jesus’ root message: glad tidings to the poor, liberty to captives, sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed: Salvation.

Jesus’s whole mission became centered on this: for it made real and visible the Kingdom of Heaven. We will read in our Scriptures how Jesus brought sight to the blind, how he opened the minds of people to God’s love; how he went to those who were poor and rejected and told them they were loved by God just as much as everyone else. He welcomed the sinner and healed the sick. He brought peace to so many.

He also upset many. Many who had become focused not on God, but on their power, their status, their wealth, their own ways. People who had a vested interest in keeping others beneath them. They attempted to kill the will of God, but Jesus was raised.

We can get lost. We can forget why we believe in Jesus and what our faith is about. We must always remain connected to Christ so as to know who we are and to be true to who we are; as people and as church.

The way we do this as Catholics is through our Scripture and our Tradition.

We Catholics must always have Scripture in our hearts and minds. In Scripture we encounter that person of Christ, and the story of God and humanity. We find the roots of our faith, the firm foundation. St. Jerome, I believe it was, said ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ. This includes the Old Testament, which Jesus would have known, read and studied as evidenced by the Gospel today.

Yet, we as the priests were recently told that if a person attended Sunday mass every Sunday over the three year Lectionary cycle and also every daily mass, and all the holy days, at best they would get 28% of the Bible. So clearly we need to do more than beyond our Worship services.

Our Worship itself takes off from Scripture. It enhances our understanding and it will challenge our understanding of Scripture and Jesus. The same with our Theology.

These past decades, starting with Pope Benedict and continuing with Pope Francis, there has been this constant call to return to Jesus. We are called to this Person of Christ upon which all we do comes from. We are being called to return to our roots and base ourselves first on Christ.

And what does it come down to: Jesus reveals and lives out that God loves all people and God desires all people to experience God’s love. Jesus announces that God loves all people and God desires that all people let the Holy Spirit within them live and breathe.

Jesus does not reveal a God who seeks to diminish or punish, or strike us down. God’s only desire is to lift us up, as Jesus showed us through his Death and Resurrection.

Go to Jesus’ words in this Gospel. There is nothing harsh here, only joy. There is nothing to fear in those words, only rejoice.

If we do fear Jesus’s word, it may mean that we feel challenged. It could mean that we oppress others, blind others, imprison others with our own ignorance, our own desires for wealth and power, our own need to control. So clearly we need to change our ways.

The message of Christ, the message of God is one of JOY! Our response to Jesus Christ must be of JOY!

If we find ourselves lacking this; finding ourselves full of anger, full of fear; full of sadness…maybe, just maybe we are being invited to return to our roots. If we find ourselves lost, or without joy, just maybe we are being pulled back to our roots. Christ calls out to us.

And of course, what does the Eucharist do but center us in Christ, who directs us to God.