Homily by Fr. Anthoni Jeorge, IC and Fr. John Barry.
In Jesus, God has His heartfelt love and His eye of compassion and truth on you.
This past week we celebrated two incredible feasts in the Church; the Sacred Heart of Jesus on Friday and the Immaculate Heart of Mary on Saturday. They were on the recent weekday Masses, following last Sunday’s Body and Blood of Christ Sunday. The tro of liturgies in a week is meant to be a flourish of celebration in this Pentecost afterglow period on the Church calendar, The theme of this whole month of June is The Sacred Heart of Jesus, er, not Gay Pride—as overdone all June in the secular world–but in the Church, June celebrates God’s eternal Son coming to be the Word made flesh among us, with Jesus having a Sacred Heart, and one that is with us, so, or heart-to-heart with us. Jesus loves perfectly in humanity to us as well as He loves perfectly, as always, as being Divine Son in Heaven. The change of two millennia ago is that God’s Son is with us now—in a human communion—with a Sacred Heart loving us so, poor creatures here below, as the hymn goes. +Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow
As we go into our 11th Sunday of Ordinary time, our readings show a caring God over us, Who always is trying to communicate with us, if muchly on the spiritual lines. Romans 5 is our epistle reading which says that God is acting in a reconciliation mission to us. He cares so much to re-establish the friendship meant to be between Him to His human people. Sin and selfish pride get so much in the way, but He offers means of repentance and re-friending a people who stray so much from Him. God wants us back close to Him. The Gospel communicates how much compassion Jesus shows for us, as on a Galilean hillside seeing a lost flock that needs a dedicated, loving Shepherd. He will be that Good Shepherd. The Hebrew Testament reading is of Exodus times when the people have been delivered out of Egypt’s slavery, but are in the wilderness, needing much guidance to get back home. God calls their leader Moses to come up the mountain there for a whole lot of communication to be offered for the Jews to get back to the Holy Land and fully be His people of faith.
In Jesus, God has His heartfelt love and His eye of compassion and truth on you. He will speak to Moses of His Ways and His Truth and the Life to follow for the covenant people. St. Paul says that in Jesus, we have the Reconciler, that loves us and holds up the Truth of God to which we are measured, and by Whom we need to humbly follow.
Now for some imagery….I was with our parish staff and clergy last Thursday at noon for some spiritual reflection at the Basilica of Mary in D.C., USA’s National Shrine of Immaculate Conception. Most of you have visited and gazed at the huge icon of Jesus above the sanctuary space and high altar of the upper-level of Mary’s church. We did so on as a group on Thursday, standing right in the center of the large church. I was describing how all the dome images in the upper church of Christ-Mysteries lead to that huge icon of the “final Christ,” depicting Him in return at the end of time, as such. The icon is modeled after one in St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, Rome. A 7 foot-1 Mary statue stands atop a baldachino in front of that Final Christ Image.
The Vatican- icon works company did a stunning job, and with some surprises in them. One such surprise is that of the Jesus Icon, the tiles that depict His eyes seems to show them as following you around, wherever you may roam about. You may stand in the center of the basilica upper church, and He looks at you. You may go to any corner, left or right, or to stand beneath the Christ Icon, and Jesus keeps gazing at you.
Fr. Jeorge commented that the icon artists have made it feel so (or experienced as so) that Jesus does not want to leave you or I alone. He wants you in His gaze, now that we have appeared nearby Him. And the art depicts a true thing: (of how) Jesus does not want to take His eye off of you, as He wants to help you (and me) in the way we should go.
We should keep our eyes and hearts on Him, too. There is much going on to distract us from that, fueled by our selfishness and pride in things. But the humble person and penitent person keeps their eyes upon Him in gaze. The month of June is Sacred Heart month, The Eternal Son with a Sacred Heart is our monthly theme, knowing Him as the One to dramatically come in Glory and see if our hearts have responded well to His appeals and His Mercy and His call for our conversion. His heart has sought ours in eternal desire, so now has ours been in desire for His? His eyes of compassion and of Holy Truth look out for His own who have looked to Him as Savior, Lord and God.
On our staff recollection at the Shrine, I, Fr. Barry, commented to our staff group that two new millennial images for the Church is of Firstly, Christ the Wonderful Communicator, and Secondly, of The Church turning to Him and His Spirit’s Work in a Universal Call to Holiness.
As Christ the Great Communicator, the Lord Jesus is outreaching to us in many ways, to our conscience, to our minds, to formed thinking of the higher calling…Christ is outreaching to us addressing desires in us that may have been falsely responded to in idolatrous sin but that He is presenting as Himself as the only satisfaction for the desire… Christ is communicating to us bodily, even bodily in such as His body and blood presented to our bodies and souls, for a blend or sweet communion of love, if we would realize it so, and humbly take in the healing effect…. Christ communicates in the Church and her teachings, the Holy Bible, and in voices of the wise and loving people in His flock following Him, and with even the saints before us…. Christ communicates via nature and via life lessons and coincidences or providence noticed from His hand. Christ communicates through the arts and humanities. Our staff went out to a C.S. Lewis play on his works, pondering Lewis’ Christian ministry via book, media and now theatre, thanks to actor Max Maclean of D.C.
Back to the Scriptures of today, Fr. Jeorge says that this Gospel Christ, the same Lord previously in meeting Moses, and the Reconciling Christ that meets us in Sacraments, He gives us this powerful message, that:
GOD is gracious in communicating, interacting with, and nurturing humans. GOD calls individuals to join Him in spreading the divine message of GOD’s love. We have an example of this in the First Reading. Moses responds to GOD’s call. He climbs the mountain of the LORD because GOD is beckoning him. He spends a long time on the mountain listening to GOD’s voice, receiving GOD’s commandments, and preparing to care for GOD’s people.
The message there? It is that God responds when we share our needs! His response is compassion. Today’s Gospel begins by revealing to us the compassionate heart of God. In Christ Jesus, this compassion of God is tangible. His Heart is “moved with pity.” The Greek word here in the Gospel verse expresses a profound, heartfelt, or “gut” reaction of compassion: His insides turn within him. And so Jesus goes out to the people because of compassion, as noticing how we are “troubled and feeling abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.” He will minister wholly and heart-fully to them.
This is a beautiful image to ponder prayerfully. As Jesus looks at you, He gazes at you as He gazed at the crowds long ago. As He does, the same depths of mercy and compassion are evoked within His Sacred Heart. Sometimes, when we think of God, we allow ourselves to have inaccurate perceptions of Who He is and how He sees us. If you do not regularly see the compassionate Heart of Jesus, then ponder this passage and know that His Heart of love for you is the same as it was for the crowds.
Another closing point: God’s shepherding will continue for all of us. This shepherding will occur through your participation in the Mass, through the Sacrament of Confession, pondering and reflecting on the holy word, following the witness of another, and in many other ways. God will help us when we are feeling temptation, or feeling hurt or wounded, or inwardly anxious.
Let us close with realizing that, as Psalm 100 today was proclaimed, His gaze falls on all of us, wherever we are, for ‘We are his people: the sheep of his flock.’ Come before Him, and lay down in His pasture. Rest. Then remember our shared baptismal vocation is to live as children of God. We have a baptismal vocation and life, not an abysmal life. June celebrates the Heart of God leading us to truth and love and light, to last the endless Summer, to not be stuck in pride.
In Jesus, God has His heartfelt love and His eye of compassion and truth on you. Humbly respond. ================================================================== TEXT Ex 19:2-6a The Israelites came to the desert of Sinai and pitched camp. While Israel encamped in front of the mountain, Moses went up the mountain to God. Then the LORD called to him and said, “Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob; tell the Israelites: You have seen for yourselves how I treated the Egyptians and how I bore you up on eagle wings and brought you here to myself. Therefore, if you hearken to my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my dear special possession! TEXT Romans 5:6-11 Reconciliation in Christ richness But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. How much more then, since we are now justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath. Indeed, if, while we were (once as) enemies (to God, in our sin and apartness), we were reconciled to God through the Sacrifice and Offering of his Son, how much more, once reconciled, will we be saved by his life?! Not only that, but we also boast of God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
TEXT Gospel Matthew 9:36 At the sight of the crowds, Jesus’ heart was moved with pity for them
because they were troubled and abandoned,
like sheep without a shepherd.