Fr. Roger J. Landry

Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Thursday of the 25th Week in Ordinary Time, Year II

Memorial of Our Lady of Mercy

September 24, 2020

Eccl 1:2-11, Ps 90, Lk 9:7-9

 

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

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* Today we begin three days pondering the Book of Ecclesiastes. There has been debate over the course of time as to whether this book is inspired and therefore whether it should be part of Sacred Scripture. Is everything a “vanity of vanities?” Is there “nothing new under the sun?” Does man “profit nothing” from all his labor? Is everything just cyclical, where what has been will recur and what has been done will be done again? Is there no remembrance of men of old and no hope that others will remember us? The Christian faith is ready to reject what these questions imply, but before we do, we should ask again why the Church would consider this text nevertheless inspired. The fundamental reason is because it shows the meaningless of a life without reference to God and eternal life and shows the longing of all created reality for the radical newness that the kingdom of God will bring.

* St. Paul talked about this vanity of a life without the Risen Christ in the passage we had a week ago: “For if the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain; you are still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all.” The Exultet each Easter proclaims the same truth: “Our birth would have been no gain had we not been redeemed!” Jesus himself mentions it in the image of building an earthly grain bin, or in placing our treasure in the things of this world, or in trying to take our possessions through the eye of the needle.

* We see an image of the vanity of earthly life and the newness that happened with the resurrection in today’s Gospel, where there are several references to raising from the dead. The paranoid Herod Antipas worried that Jesus was John the Baptist or one of the other prophets risen from the dead, but for him and for the people of his day, to be risen basically meant resuscitated, only to die anew. If John were really resuscitated, the Herod could just chop off his head again at a lustful whim. But Jesus’ resurrection really was something new, something that gave meaning to suffering, crucifixion and death. It was truly a new life that gave all things meaning. In response to Ecclesiastes’ pessimism that we can never really say truthfully, “See this is new!,” Christ, risen from the dead, says in Revelation, “Behold, I make all things new!”

* How does that revolution happen from vanity to newness and meaning? It happens through the mercy of God, the mercy received in Baptism, in Confession, in the new life of conversion. Jesus speaks to this in his conversation with Nicodemus about being born anew. He speaks about it when he tells us to work not for the food that perishes but for the food — his Body and Blood — that leads to eternal life. Christ seeks to bring us into communion with him through the grace, through the Sacraments, and to innest us on Him who is the Vine and the Resurrection and the Life. Once again from the Easter Praeconium, “Our birth would have been no gain had we not been redeemed!” But we have been Redeemer. And we praise the Mercy of the Redeemer!

* Today the Church celebrates the Memorial of Our Lady of Mercy, in which we see the meaning of a life lived in communion with the mercy of God. This feast has a special meaning for me not merely because I, like you, love our Lady and am so grateful for her maternal merciful love for me in the ways I’m aware of ...