Homily for Monday of the Third Week of Lent

March 13, 2023
Theological College
Washington, DC

2 Kings 5:1-15ab
Psalm 42:2, 3; 43:3, 4
Luke 4:24-30

Today’s readings carry us further into our Lenten preparation for our celebration of the Easter mysteries: a time for reflection and for conversion. The readings offer us the themes of healing and redemption. Naaman is in need of healing and the Nazarenes are in need of redemption — for which another word is vindication (Go’el).

A common element for Naaman and the Nazarenes is that both seek to be healed and redeemed by God but on their own terms and immediately. They each are in pain and they want their pain and discomfort to go away — Now!

For our own human, spiritual and pastoral formation and our pastoral ministry, I offer a key distinction between the now and the present. The “now” is an atomized unit of time without reference to the past or to the future. It is puncti-linear. The now is unintelligible in itself. The present is extended time — it’s related to the past and to the future — individually, communally and teleologically — ultimately eternal. Pain compels us into the “now” without reason or hope, simply sensations and emotions, but the present opens for us the path to healing and redemption through the mystery of redemptive suffering.

To that end — pain too frequently acts as a catalyst for sin, the human temptation is to take the first selfish escape to numb the pain — pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth. Pain drives us to the immediacy of the “now,” sin locks us into the now.
Emily Dickinson wrote,

“Pain has an element of blank
It cannot recollect
When it began, or if there were
A day when it was not.

“It has no future but itself
Its infinite realms contain
Its past, enlightened to perceive
New periods of pain.”

Elisha brings Naaman to God’s healing of his leprosy by his repeating seven times washing in the Jordan — healing takes time. Naaman perseveres despite his initial craving for the immediacy of the now.

Jesus calls the Nazarenes into God’s redemptive plan. Jesus is neither a political messiah nor a tribal messiah, He calls them from the immediacy of the “now” to the extended present — “reality is bigger than me” and that God is our origin and our terminus, my beginning and end, Christ the Alpha and Omega, all time belongs to Him.  Jesus reminds them of the past prophetic actions of God that are bigger than them and that point to Him. Yet, they demand revenge now, not redemption. They demand redemption on their own terms and now!

Healing is not an anesthetic, redemption is not retaliation.

“Pain has an element of blank
It cannot recollect
When it began, or if there were
A day when it was not.

“It has no future but itself
Its infinite realms contain
Its past, enlightened to perceive
New periods of pain”

Pope Francis, with whom we celebrate the tenth anniversary of his pontificate, gave us the metaphor of the Church as a field hospital. This compelling metaphor requires deeper reflection.

As priests, we are ministers of healing and redemption. The field hospital requires us to accompany the patients from the unintelligible “now” of pain into the purposefulness of redemptive suffering received as a grace in the present moment.

We do this by listening to those wounded by sin. We do this by guiding the patients of the field hospital in an examination of their conscience, how they became sick and wounded. It requires a diagnosis made with the compassion of a pastor and not with the distant eye of the clinician. This requires examination of conscience regarding the past and firm purpose of amendment for authentically Christian behavior.

The Eucharist, is a medicine of mercy, but is not ordered to the remission of mortal sins. To use the metaphor of the field hospital without reference to the need for sacramental confession of mortal sins confuses anesthesia with healing. The use of the metaphor of the field hospital without reference to the sacrament of anointing of the sick closes the door on real healing and locks one into the “now” with only pain — no past with peaceful acceptance, no future with discernment of redemption.

When asked in the early days of his pontificate to identify who he is, Pope Francis responded simply, “I am a sinner.”

As priests called to the ministry of mercy, our formation requires us to learn to preach as sinners, as repentant sinners, as redeemed sinners. It is only then that we can grow out of the pain of “now” first as grateful recipients of His grace in all its fullness and then as effective and credible ministers of sacramental grace for all sinners.

Otherwise, we cannot be present to God and the People of His flock, and we ourselves will be locked in the “now” reduced to functional dispensaries of formulas and not ministers of the medicine of redemptive mercy sharing with the wounded His healing grace —”gratia sanans.”

Given what we have seen and heard as we contemplate the Word of God, as we approach the altar of Christ’s Eternal Sacrifice, how then shall we live? As men in seminary formation preparing for priestly ministry, how must your lives be changed by grace in the light of God’s Word?

First, face your own pain and wounds, whether self-inflicted or otherwise, and present them to Christ for healing through sacramental confession, spiritual direction, and if applicable professional counseling. Secondly, ask that your suffering might be elevated to the Compassion of Christ Suffering, who calls you to the sacrificial love of a man to be configured through ordination to Christ, Head and Shepherd of His Church. Finally, pray attentively in the real presence of Christ that you may have the generosity and humble honesty to bring the compassion and sovereignty of Christ to a broken world, lost and locked now in the unintelligible and vicious cycle of pain and sin.