Homily for the Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time

Mass for the Conferral of Papal Honors

February 10, 2024
Saint Patrick Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas

Leviticus 13:1-2, 44-46
Psalm 32:1-2, 5, 11
1 Corinthians 10:31-11:1
Mark 1:40-45

Today’s Gospel shows Jesus’ compassion in healing a man with leprosy. Jesus then sends the healed man to the priests of the Temple to show them that he has been healed in accord with the norms of the Old Covenant and the regulations for the Temple. Yet, Jesus does more than simply bring the man into compliance with the norms of the Temple. Rather, Jesus truly cures the man at the root of the disease that causes true alienation and ostracism from society, that is sin itself. In so doing, Jesus shows Himself to be not only the Christ but the Son of God who fulfills the Old Covenant that is only provisional until the coming of the Christ.    

The man healed from leprosy not only goes to show the priests of the Temple, but he cannot help but give witness to the uniqueness of Christ and the freedom from sin that Christ has brought about in healing him not only from a disease but from sin. As Benedict XVI once insightfully offered about this Gospel story, “Today’s Gospel tells of the healing of a leper and expresses most effectively the intensity of the relationship between God and man, summed up in a wonderful dialogue:  “‘If you will, you can make me clean,’” the leper says. ‘I do will it; be clean,’ Jesus answers him, touching him with His hand and healing him of leprosy.”

In a certain sense, the people whom the Holy Father honors with the Benemerenti honor, have witnessed how the Lord has touched them and healed them from alienation and the isolation that follows from sin. They have witnessed and served as His disciples bringing about the Good News of Christ through their lives and service to others, because of the grace of their Baptism. In granting the Benemerenti honor, the Holy Father carries out a necessary aspect of his ministry as the Successor of Saint Peter, to confirm his brothers and sisters in the authentic faith handed down by Christ through the Apostles and their successors, the bishops. Like the healed man in today’s Gospel and like so many others unrecognized throughout the Church, they cannot help but show others the difference that Christ and His saving Gospel proclaimed faithfully by the Church makes not only in their lives but also in our society.

The people whom the Holy See honors today with gratitude have followed the example of Saint Paul who wrote to the Corinthians, “Brothers and sisters, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God. Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.”

While all members of the Church are called to follow the example of Saint Paul, this is especially true for the baptized laity who are entrusted with the mission to sanctify the world and society. As the Second Vatican Council taught, “But the laity, by their very vocation, seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and by ordering them according to the plan of God. They live in the world, that is, in each and in all of the secular professions and occupations. They live in the ordinary circumstances of family and social life, from which the very web of their existence is woven. They are called there by God that by exercising their proper function and led by the spirit of the Gospel they may work for the sanctification of the world from within as a leaven. In this way they may make Christ known to others, especially by the testimony of a life resplendent in faith, hope, and charity. Therefore, since they are tightly bound up in all types of temporal affairs it is their special task to order and to throw light upon these affairs in such a way that they may come into being and then continually increase according to Christ to the praise of the Creator and the Redeemer.” Lumen Gentium #31

The people who are gratefully recognized by the Holy See today have carried out their vocations throughout the Diocese of Fort Worth and beyond as members of the laity in married life, in widowhood, as fathers and mothers, in government, in the practice of law, in healthcare, in care for the poor, the unborn and their parents, in education, in philanthropy, and through service in particular apostolates of the Catholic faith whereby humble but profound witness has offered encouragement to all who seek belonging with God, that only comes through the gift of His Son.

As the Second Vatican Council further taught, “Each individual lay person must stand before the world as a witness to the resurrection and life of the Lord Jesus and a symbol of the living God. All the laity as a community and each one according to his ability must nourish the world with spiritual fruits. They must diffuse in the world that spirit which animates the poor, the meek, the peace makers — whom the Lord in the Gospel proclaimed as blessed. In a word, “Christians must be to the world what the soul is to the body.”

Today, we are mindful of the leprosy of hatred, war, injustice, crime, racism, domestic violence, poverty, abuse, abortion, and sin in all its forms that assaults the body of our society including family life. We cry out together to Jesus with the leper in today’s Gospel, “If you wish, you can make me clean.” With confidence, we trust that the Lord continues to respond through the actions of all the faithful members of His Church: “I do will it. Be made clean.”