Homily for the Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

July 2, 2023
St. Patrick Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas

2 Kings 4:8-11, 14-16a
Psalm 89:2-3, 16-17, 18-19
Romans 6:3-4, 8-11
Matthew 10:37-42

In today’s Gospel, Jesus says, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”  Jesus said it, but did He mean it? His words are shocking to our ears.

It is natural for each of us to desire peace within our families. It is natural for us to desire harmony and unity among the members of our families. The family is the foundation of society. The family, rooted in marital love of husband and wife, is essential for the flourishing and development of a healthy human being. This is a point of nature, so why does Jesus speak of not loving father or mother more than Him or of not loving son or daughter more than Him for the sake of being worthy of Him? He is telling us this because He means that which we naturally think is the most important part of life, is also imperfect and not as important as the cross, which is the only way for us to get where He desires us to go.

To love Christ more than father or mother, more than son or daughter means that we are made for something greater and grander than even the best that this world can offer. We cannot get to eternal life on our own because we are created to be united with perfect love, but the reality of sin frustrates that desire and leads to polarization and chaos. Our only hope is to listen and to be converted and transformed by Christ, that the Father might look at us and see and love in us what He sees and loves in Christ.

For example, the responsibility of Christian mothers and fathers is not simply to provide and educate their children to be successful in society, but that their responsibility is to teach and set an example for their children to follow the Commandments by loving God and our neighbor as Christ taught. To be serious about this means that their children might not be successful according to the terms that the world sets as the measurement for happiness.

Because of the grace of our Baptism, we are destined for something grander and greater than the best that this world can offer. We need Christ to accomplish this with us. The summons of the Gospel calls us to a greater maturity of discipleship that requires fathers and mothers to set an example of moral rightness, integrated discipleship, and involvement with their children that challenges them to conversion and corrects them from time to time. It requires each one of us to seek God’s mercy and forgiveness of our own sins through a regular examination of conscience and frequent reception of the sacrament of penance and reconciliation.

The mission of the Church is such that natural aspects of the Gospel for human life like the indissolubility of marriage between one man and one woman; the immorality of cohabitation; the destructive character of contraception and pornography; the need for honesty by telling the truth and respecting personal property; the refusal to speak harmful words and violent deeds performed in anger; the obligation to keep holy the Lord’s Day; and the sanctity of human life in the womb are things that cannot be ignored for the sake of salving the conscience of each of us who should rightly be made uncomfortable by sin so that recourse to God’s sacramental grace and conversion might be sought.

Otherwise, to paraphrase the words of today’s Gospel, the family will find its life in this world and lose it instead of losing its life for the sake of Christ and finding it. Family life needs an orientation beyond itself and the limits of this world so that the family’s members might help each other. God’s grace provides that capacity and direction as spoken and meant by Jesus in the Gospel.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus says and means, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”  Christian life necessarily involves committed caring about people as Christ cares for them. It is about caring for people by listening, and by patiently sharing with them the truth of the Gospel through our own conversion to the Truth even though that conversion might cost us persecution and rejection.

For example, the great Carmelite saint John of the Cross did not suffer persecution from Islamic fundamentalists or from Marxists. He suffered from Catholics, clergy, religious and laity, who did not want to be converted to live authentic faith in Christ and His mercy. John of the Cross suffered from those who preferred to make the Church and their vocation a membership in a club directed to doing their own will but with a religious veneer. This was his Cross that he offered out of love for Christ for the sake of the very people who rejected him — in imitation of Jesus’ perfect love. In many ways, it is the share in the cross offered by faithful but imperfect priests, religious, and laity today in a world made hostile not so much by avowed secularists as by us Catholics, who have been frustrated by the inflexibility of Christ’s Gospel to conform to our own ideological preferences.

As Pope Francis once observed, “It does not matter then if, as for every human being, he or she has limitations and even makes mistakes — as long as he or she has the humility to recognize them; the important thing is that they not have a duplicitous heart — and this is dangerous. I am a Christian; I am a disciple of Jesus; I am a priest; I am a bishop, but I have a duplicitous heart. No, this is not okay. One must not have a duplicitous heart, but a simple, cohesive heart; [one must] not keep one foot in two shoes but be honest with oneself and with others. Duplicity is not Christian. This is why Jesus prays to the Father so that the disciples may not fall prey to the worldly spirit. You are either with Jesus, with the spirit of Jesus, or you are with the spirit of the world.”

To get beyond the polarization of today’s society requires us to love as Christ loved which always entails a share in His Cross — not suffering for its own sake, not simply being in pain, not emotional codependence, but suffering rejection for the sake of the Truth including the truth that we are sinners redeemed and loved by God who created us, died for us, and sanctifies us, and offers us the only way forward to eternal life.  The cross is the way by which we come to know Christ and the way by which we prepare to rise with Him. The Cross is made real in our world today through the sacrifice of the Mass which we offer again today. In today’s Gospel, Jesus says and means, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”