Catholic Homily for CYCLE B 7TH ORDINARY
by Fred Karpuk (Is. 43, 2 Cor.1, 18-22, Mk 2, 1-12)
1. You and I are standing out on the street talking. You say that your long list of things to do includes painting the living room walls. And your thinking you might go buy the paint today. And maybe you’ll get started and maybe not. I chime in that I was planning to wash the car today, but today my wife is after me. Either I or a plumber has got to put in a new water heater. The old one sprung a leak yesterday.
But then lifting my eyes and voice, I say, “YOU BETTER RUN YOUR HOUSE IS ON FIRE! You turn and look and yell, “YOU GO CALL 911…HURRY! And You RUN off to see what’s going on.
2. Matters of the Spiritual Life and Faith probably run on a similar Prioritized List of things that need to BE DONE. Like:
- Daily prayer: Do you even pray? Today yes, tomorrow your not sure?
- Helping your neighbor: The Phone ring and you answer quickly with I’ll be right over and hang up the phone.
- Charitable giving: Do you make excuses about how much and when?
- Going to confession: When was the last time you were there? 1 month ago…5 years ago?
- Getting your child baptized: The norm would be 3-4 weeks after birth. Some take way longer than that.
How about seeking an annulment or getting your marriage blessed in the church. What is the delay?
These are issues of Faith that if left undone today, only get worse as time goes on or harder to accomplish.
Faith also has those 911 PROBLEMS that demand a immediate, timely and measured response from someone somewhere down the line. We CANNOT SIT ON OUR HANDS. The sex abuse scandal, people not living chaste lives before or after marriage, care for the immigrant, and certainly the Abortion issue, to name a few. Where there is a problem…there also a Christian should be.
One issue that certainly underlies all problems and certainly is on God’s ‘List of things that need to be done’, is evangelization, which means to bring the ‘Good News’ to mankind. And for us, because of the importance of belonging to the church…if you know of someone who, in our midst who is an In-Active Catholic, (And they could be your brother, sister, parent, child or friend) you may or may not need to call 911, but we do need to implement timely and measured action. I think today’s reading underscore the Point.
3. The Healing of our sins and calling us back to faithfulness, is what Isaiah describes in the 1st reading. This story brings out once again that it was not Yahweh who did not live up to the Covenants. It was the Israelites who burdened God with their sins and wearied Him with their crimes. These sins sent the Israelites to Exile in Babylon, and brought on the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. But Isaiah reminds us that just as before and now again if we turn back to be faithful to the Covenant, God will WIPE these sins away and REMEMBER them no more.
4. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians defines for us, our role as evangelizers that Paul himself FOLLOWED. Paul used the HIGH STANDARDS that Jesus HIMSELF set. A examination of Jesus’ life shows that Jesus DID NOT WAIVER in His commitment in fulfilling God’s plan of Salvation. All Gods’ promises starting in the Old Testament, attain their YES through Jesus life and ministry. Jesus is the Seed of Abraham, Jesus is the Davidic Messiah, Jesus is the source for the forgiveness of sin as the LAMB who died on the cross. Jesus said YES to KEEPING and PROCLAIMING the love of God for us.
And when WE were baptized, that is made as another Christ, and WE received the Spirit in confirmation, we became apart of this Promise of forgiveness of sin, but we also become apart of the evangelization effort. We must NOW say YES and NEVER WAIVER in our commitment to live and preach the Good News of ‘Forgiveness of Sins’ to others.
5. The Gospel brings us the story of the cure of the Paralytic. His importance for us is NOT that he was actually cured of this Human malady, but as a METAPHOR for the individual who is PARALYZED by sin. This type of Paralytic, is a person who has gotten to that point, where they can’t even help themselves by God’s Grace, to seek the Sacrament of Reconciliation. And now he needs the assistance of Friends and loved ones to break out of SIN, DESPAIR, PAIN and even FEAR, that keep them separated from God.
6. The UNSUNG HEROES, and very important to this whole Gospel are the FRIENDS of the PARALYTIC. The ones who like God of the Old Testament and Jesus of the New, knew no bounds in bringing that Paralytic to Jesus. They tore Peters roof apart. And for the Love of their Friend, they overcame their fear of being ridiculed by the Pharisees. And broke with the social convention of the time, by caring for People who had such maladies, because they were considered to be a grave sinners. These good friends NEEDED to get him to Jesus, the man a lot of people were growing anxious to see, hear and touch. Jesus was working miracles and GAINING their confidence. But today, Jesus more importantly wants us to believe he COULD and did COME to forgive sins.
7. We need to thank God for all the people, GREAT and SMALL alike, from Pope to Mother, who in the history of salvation, teach us that we have a MANDATE and VOCATION to go out and seek the PARALYTICS in our midst. We must abandon our fears, Not worry about the loss of human respect when we confront and bring our IN-ACTIVE friends to the feet of Jesus for forgiveness of sins.
8. Lent starts next week. You will find this parish has many opportunities to ‘BOLSTER your Faith’ so that we can learn to be STRONG and become good evangelizer. Activities such as Adoration, Stations of the Cross, Faith Sharing, Daily mass to name a few, will help us to know the WHO, WHY and HOW of Evangelization.
But for SOMETHINGS, like bringing the Inactive Catholic Back, our lesson tells us we find it’s important to ‘PUT OUR FAITH INTO ACTION’ shoulder to shoulder with others. Some things are done with the help of others. The work of the Church is to evangelize…and that means all of us who are ready, willing and able. The questions is though, are you Ready, willing and able or are you PARALYZED?
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