Fr. Roger J. Landry

Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Thursday of the 32nd Week of Ordinary Time, Year I

Memorial of St. Martin of Tours

November 11, 2021

Wis 7:22-8:1, Ps 119, Lk 17:20-25

 

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click here: 

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/11.11.21_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* The Pharisees in today’s Gospel asked Jesus when the Kingdom of God would come. They were doubtless asking this within messianic expectations, presuming that the kingdom of God would erupt through fulfilling the Jewish hopes of evicting the Romans from Israel and reestablishing the Davidic throne. In the question, they were probably egging Jesus on to see whether he thought he was the Messiah and what his future plans might be. But Jesus, as he is wont to do, transcended the question. He said that the inauguration of the Kingdom wouldn’t be a spectacle to be observed. There wouldn’t be trumpets sounding. There wouldn’t be heralds indicating that the kingdom is “here” or “there.” Rather, Jesus said, “Behold, the Kingdom of God is among you.”

* This means, first, that the Kingdom had already come because the King was present. The Kingdom is where the King is and Jesus was already present. Second, the Kingdom had already come because some people had already embraced it, entered it and were living in it because they were living with the King. There’s a couplet in the Our Father in which we pray, first, “Thy kingdom come!” and then repeat it in other words, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The Kingdom of God is wherever God’s will is done, whenever one begins to live in relationship with God and his kingdom. Jesus reveals to us various other qualities about his kingdom and the conditions for entering it and living in it. He says that the kingdom of heaven belongs to those who are “poor in spirit,” to those who treasure God more than all the treasures of the world. He says that it belongs to those who “convert and become like little children,” who trust in God and accept it as a gift. He says that the kingdom is like a “wedding banquet” full of joy and those who live in the kingdom are those who are profoundly and serenely joyful. He says the kingdom grows like a mustard seed or yeast, imperceptible to people on the outside but the growth is real. Third, Jesus says that we should look for the kingdom and the King not just “among” us on the outside, but the Greek preposition can also mean “within.” We should seek to find the King and the Kingdom in ordinary life, in the gentle whisper, rather than in the earthquakes, hurricanes, and firestorms.

* Cardinal Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI, said very powerfully in a 2000 talk to catechists from around the world, “The kingdom of God … is ‘not a thing.’ The Kingdom of God is God. The Kingdom of God means: God exists. God is alive. God is present and acts in the world, in our – in my life. God is not a faraway ‘ultimate cause,’ God is not the ‘great architect’ of deism, who created the machine of the world and is no longer part of it – on the contrary: God is the most present and decisive reality in each and every act of my life, in each and every moment of history.” The kingdom has come to a person when God is truly God of each and every act of one’s life.

* Once we’re living in the kingdom in this way, all of life begins to change. We become more and more a reflection of the King we’re serving. In today’s first reading, we hear “Wisdom” described with a waterfall of 21 adjectives. All of these predicates can be said of the God-man who incarnates wisdom and the way the Holy Spirit, who is likewise wisdom,