Hi everyone, and welcome to Weekly Homilies with Father Mark Suslenko, Pastor of SS. Isidore and Maria Parish in Glastonbury, Connecticut. We are part of the Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford. I'm Carol Vassar, parish director of communications, and this is Episode 12 of Season 6 for the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time: Feb. 19, 2023. Our Gospel reading is from Matthew Chapter 5, verses 38-48.
Jesus said to his disciples: "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one as well. If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand over your cloak as well. Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go for two miles. Give to the one who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow.”
"You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same?
And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same? So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect."
The Gospel of the Lord
“Wholly Holy,” by Father Mark S. Suslenko, Pastor, SS. Isidore and Maria Parish, Glastonbury, Connecticut
Many years ago, I was preparing to do a parish retreat, not unlike the one I'm doing for us in October at Enders Island. And trying to figure out who would be coming or who would be interested, I approached this fella. His name was Joe. And Joe regularly came to Mass, and even on occasion would come to daily Mass. And so I saw him and I said, "Joe, are you planning on coming to this day of recollection we're having?" And he looked at me square in the eye and with all seriousness said to me, "Father," he said, "I'm not that holy." And I looked back at him, and I said, "Joe, neither am I."
How we define holiness is going to determine whether it's something we want.
Very often when we hear that word "holy," or we use it to describe someone else, we immediately begin to think of the person who's always in church, always saying their prayers, doing their daily devotions, attending all of the rituals and the obligations of faith, keeping all of the commandments. They're the ones who are always in the confessional line and the ones who simply just look very religious. And we tend to associate with holiness, with prayers and stuff that we do in church, the embrace of the faith.
And then we look at ourselves, and we have that image of holiness, that image of perfect piety, the saint on a pedestal, and we look at our own brokenness, and either one of two things happens. We either conclude that we're not worthy enough of that or good enough for that, or it's simply not something I really want. It's not something I'm really attracted to or desiring. And so, we part ways with the journey of holiness, keeping it at a distance.
As Lent begins this week, it's a good opportunity to redefine holiness once again because a good working definition of holiness can be very useful to us as we plot the course through Lent and embark upon this discipline of forty days. Be holy as I, the Lord your God, am holy. Be holy as I, the Lord your God, am holy.
Can we imagine God simply just praying to himself? Is that what God's definition of holiness is? Or can we peel that back and look for something a little deeper? Well, if we substitute a word in that definition, we can begin to unlock and open up a workable definition of holiness. And the substituting word is this: whole. Whole. W-H-O-L-E. Whole. As God is whole, so too must we be whole.
Now, what does that mean? Well, God is always God. So to use a double negative God is never not God. So God is always merciful. God is always forgiving. God is always loving. God is always creating. God is always sustaining. God is always redeeming. God is always saving. God is never not God. God does not face confliction. God is not divided, and God is certainly not swayed by passion or by emotion. God is always God.
So the injunction given to us is to be whole as God is whole. To always be who we are, as God is always who he is.
Well, who are we? Well, in addition to being the wonderfully created, unique person we find ourselves to be, we have a higher calling even than that. Because at some point in our lives, we've all had our heads over a baptismal font, and water has been poured on us, baptizing us and elevating our dignity to that of Christ so that we become, in a very intimate and real way, another son or daughter of God. And through those waters of baptism, we take our old self off, and we put on the new one of Christ. And God says to us, "You are now in my image. And in my likeness."
So because of our baptism, what's good for God is also good for us. What's good for God is also good for us. And now we look at our lives as we begin to interact in the world, as we begin to process information, how often conflicted we are. We're hearing voices from all over the place. Voices that can easily convince us of this or that. We find ourselves very divided within ourselves. Should I do this? Should I do that? We find ourselves easily swayed by passion, easily swayed by emotion, and sometimes it has a great power over our lives.
And so we live very fragmented lives. And they're not very whole at all at times. And this becomes very clear, especially on a day like today, when we are listening to our Lord give us some very clear instructions.
How do we feel when we hear those words? Because they touch that divided, conflicted part of ourselves. So when God says to us today, "If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn and offer them the left one." How do you feel?
When God says to us today, "If someone wants that coat that you're wearing, go in the closet and give them all the rest of your clothes." How does that make you feel?
When God says to us, "That person that hurt you last week? Who really doesn't like you very much? Love them. Love them." When God says to us, "That person who's been persecuting you and hurting you? Pray for them. Pray for that person.
You see, there's something within us that wants to believe that, but then it doesn't. And it's that part inside of us that if somebody were to come and hurt you, how would your husband feel about that?
See, there's a part of us that really likes this "eye for an eye" and "tooth for the tooth" business. We like this idea of "You do that to me? I'm gonna come after you and give you worse. You hurt that person I love? You're gonna regret that until your dying day." There's part of us that is very attracted to returning violence with violence because it's this earthly justice.
When Jesus preaches the Gospel, we wrestle. We like being a daughter or a son of God, but we are not always convinced of living out his image, and we're divided and conflicted and passion gets the best of us, and we act out of emotion.
So we have this lenten season before us, an opportunity once again to recollect our divided lives. To look a little closer at those things we really struggle with. Those things we find difficult to do. Our failure to love and to make friends with that divided itself, that conflicted itself, that self that is so easily swayed by passion or emotion.
And the Church lays before us a three-fold pass: prayer, fasting, almsgiving, as all ways to bring us out of ourselves and to put us in a different place; to bring us closer to the image of God we are.
So, yes, prayer does serve in the task of becoming holy, but it's not the end of holiness. Sacrifice could help us become holy as long as it's sacrifice for a purpose, and not simply just because.
So as we're thinking about Lent, if our goal is simply to give up those two cookies that I look forward to at night and do so for 40 days, and then come back after Easter and start having those same cookies again with nothing having changed, then have we really immersed ourselves into this season of change and renewal?
And then there's almsgiving. As Jesus said, do we give people the scraps, or do we truly tend to their needs? To give of my time, not only my treasure and my talent.
And so we have this perfect opportunity to really immerse ourselves, body, mind, and spirit in this season of renewal and conversion so that when we gather on Ash Wednesday this week and have our heads marked with ashes once again, who we find ourselves to be at Easter ought to be a bit different. Change and renewal ought to have occurred, even if only in some small measure.
Be holy as God is holy. Be whole as God is whole. Remember that always and everywhere, you are a son and a daughter of God. You live, and you act in his image and likeness. Those are his words, not mine.
Father Mark Suslenko is the pastor of SS. Isidore and Maria Parish in Glastonbury, Connecticut. Learn more about our parish community at www.isidoreandmaria.org. And follow us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Our music comes free of charge from Blue Dot Sessions in Fall River, Massachusetts. I’m Carol Vassar. Thanks for joining us.