Homily General Chapter 2014 Opening Mass
11/09/2014 11:44
The Gospel of today’s Mass puts us before the magnanimity of God and shows us just how much his thoughts are above out thoughts, his ways above our ways. It is a message which could discourage us and lead us to give up on ourselves and on God if we focused too much on our own limitations. We who can find it so hard at times to be kind or patient or forgiving to a brother or sister are called to: love, do good, bless, pray for, lend, be compassionate and this not just to a brother or sister but to an enemy, to those hate us, curse us, treat us badly and even rob us. In all of this of course we are being introduced rudely perhaps into another way of being, another way of looking at our world, another way of living. The curtain is being drawn back just a little to give us a glimpse of what God is like, to reveal to us something of the mystery of God’s being.
Jesus has already in the opening salvo of this discourse proclaimed his disciples the fortunate ones because they are among the poor, the hungry, those who weep and those persecuted for his sake. God, Israel had been taught, had a preference for the poor and the small, that was how Israel saw itself but the message never quite got through to its rulers and so justice and peace were never something that all God’s people ever enjoyed. Now in these last times God sent his Son, who as Son shared God’s Spirit, bringing good news for the poor, freedom for prisoners, sight to the blind, liberation for the oppressed and the Lord’s graciousness for all. The rich of this world, the well-fed, those whose lives are one long party and those who have the acclaim of the world are living a mirage – they have lost the plot and the plot where true treasure is to be found. For the truth is that we are all poor in the sight of God – and the clearest sign of this is our mortality – naked we came into this world and naked we will depart it.
Now to us poor who have listened to his words Jesus urges us to follow this heavenly script. But he not only teaches us, he gives us an example of what God is like in human form, what it is to be truly human as God wishes us to be – to be like God. We see this blessedness at the moment of death with his: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”. This Spirit is the great gift of his resurrection to his disciples, who form the community that is the Church. This is the great gift that makes the Christian community Christian as Luke shows in the book of Acts and to which Paul testifies so eloquently in his letters.
Poor and all as we are we have been baptized in his Spirit and are called to be his witnesses in the world, not to show how good we are but how great God is and how his grace can transform our human weakness and help us do much more than we can ever ask or imagine. Gathered for this General Chapter we remind ourselves with this Mass of the Holy Spirit of the greatest gift that God has given us, the Spirit of his Son that makes us cry out Abba, Father. We pray that God may stir up his gift within us so to guide our thoughts and our deliberations, our exchanges and our relationships that together we may come closer to the truth and walk with greater freedom and confidence in the path of life that God wants for us and for the Order that we may be witnesses of goodness and mercy in our world.
F. Eamon
Assisi, September 11, 2014
