NB. Con-celebrating Mass at the seminary this morning. Here's another 2008 Roman homily that I've yet to preach. . .
21st Sunday OT
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Convento SS. Domenico e Sisto, Roma
We
say to the Lord this morning: “Lord, your love is eternal; do not
forsake the work of your hands.” We do not say this because we believe
that the Lord might forsake us. We do not say this because we doubt that
we are the Lord’s handiwork. Nor do we say this because we believe that
the Lord’s love is limited by the timepieces of His creation. We say
“Lord, your love is eternal” because—though we know that this is true—we
must hear it said with our own tongues for only by tasting the words
will we come to live the truth that we speak! We beg the Lord, “Lord, do
not forsake the work of your hands”—though we know He would never
forsake His promise to us—we beg because we must feel the steel of His
promise in our mouths, the cold, metallic resolve of the ordering Word,
the First Breath, the finality of our Lord’s enduring guarantee. What we
know, we pray: “We give thanks to you, O Lord, with all our heart, for
you have heard the Words of our mouths”—the Word You Yourself placed on
our tongues “because of Your kindness and your truth!” What we know, we
pray: “When he opens, no one shall shut; when he shuts, no one shall
open.” Peter opens his mouth to say, “You are the Christ, the Son of the
living God” and when he shuts his mouth, the Lord opens his own to say,
“Blessed are you…whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;
and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” And so, we
are loved forever. And so, we are never forsaken.
We should
celebrate on this twenty-first Sunday of Ordinary Time, the teaching
office of the Church, embodied in and employed by he who sits in Peter’s
Chair. After all, our Lord says to Peter that he is the rock of the
Church, the foundation stone of the Body that will grow into history and
produce the great saints (and sinners!) of our western civilization.
Our Lord is not speaking metaphorically or symbolically when he says
that he will be with us always. His promise to abide with us to the end
is best understood as a promise to found, concretely and in perpetuity, a
living organism; a breathing, growing entity capable of bringing to it
constituent members the stuff of everlasting life, all that which
nourishes, cherishes, and sustains holiness and hope. At the head of
this Mystical Body is Christ himself, drawing all parts and pieces of
creation to him, elements known to the Body and some unknown, seducing
and attracting any and all who will perk up an ear to hear the gospel of
mercy, or blink open a blearied eye to peek at the glory Christ
reveals—the invitation to come to the feasting table is a broadcast not a
telegraph, made on an open-mic not a secured line, directed to the
milling crowds and not just the favored few, to bring all who will come
and not only those who fit.
And all those who come in answer to
our Lord’s open-handed, open-hearted broadcast of “come-one, come-all”
flavor the Body with a distinctive diversity, an exciting assortment of
faces, tongues, customs, rhythms, textures, and for this catholicity we
are deeply grateful. As we watch the Lord’s face multiply in his Church,
we see him come more sharply into focus as he reveals himself through
his creatures. Each beautiful face exposes Beauty Himself. So, it is no
wonder at all that we are tempted to celebrate this abundant diversity
as a good end in itself, to raise up this bounty of variety and make it
the point of the Church, the purpose of Christ’s Body in the world. But
if we succumb to this temptation—to glorify the human diversity of the
Church for the sake of diversity—we overlook entirely that which
attracts and binds the diversity of the Church: the emphatic YES of each
beautiful face, each rhythmic tongue, each soul, seduced and delivered
to the perfecting love of Christ. It is the commitment of our YES to
Christ that unites us as a Church, not the variety of our packaging, not
the impermanent assortment of skin and hair and speech but our willed
participation in the permanent unity of love, Love Himself.
How
difficult would it be for us as creatures of body and soul to live
together in the unity of Love Himself without a Body to ground our
common spirit? In other words, given what we know to be the case about
ourselves as sinful persons, how difficult would it be for us to live
together without a concrete expression of God’s love for us? Surely, we
have the historical events of the Passion and the empty tomb of Easter
Sunday. But none of us now were there then. We have the witness of
scripture, the eyewitness accounts of what happened at the moment when
the Father revealed His enduring love for us on the cross. Yes, of
course, and surely scripture lives with us, but it with US that
scripture lives. Our committed YES to the love of Christ is certainly
given the gravity of history and the excitement of scripture, but
concretely how do we live day-to-day with our YES? How do we make
history now? How do we make scripture alive now? If our history is to be
more than tall-tales and our scripture more than those tall-tales
written down, there must be a living tradition, that is, a breathing,
growing body of “that which is handed on.” That Body is the Church and
the Church is where our committed YES is held in trust, unpacked in its
fullness, suited up, put to work, and elaborated to be handed-on to the
next set of beautiful faces and rhythmic tongues.
In handing
Peter the keys to the kingdom, Christ not only makes Peter and his
successors stewards of the heavenly household, he also founds the
rock-bottom slab of the Church, the Body to be energized at Pentecost
with the coming of the Holy Spirit. Christ establishes, institutes; he
plants and provides nourishment and care for his emerging Body. At the
proclamation made by Peter that Jesus is the only Son of the Living God,
Christ reveals that the Father Himself has made Peter privy to what has
until now been a secret. And now that the disciples know, and now that
Peter has been confirmed in his office, Jesus assures his friends that
“the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against [my church]. Do
you hear the psalmist singing, “Lord, your love is eternal”? Do you hear
Isaiah prophesying, “When he opens, no one shall shut; when he shuts,
no one shall open”?
Christ’s promise to be with us forever is not
a symbol or a sign or a metaphor. His promise is a Church. Founded on
Peter and the revelation the Father Himself gave to Peter. Binding and
loosing, the Church, through the office of Peter, teaches the faith;
that is, what it is to believe and what we are to believe. We know our
God’s love is everlasting. And so, we are loved forever. And so, we are
never forsaken.
____________________
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