Homily for the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

July 7, 2024
Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
Washington, D.C.

Ezekiel 2:2-5
Psalm 123:1-2, 2, 3-4
2nd Corinthians 12:7-10
Mark 6:1-6

The relationship between pride and gratitude is very much at the heart of the readings of our Mass this Sunday. Without gratitude to almighty God for His gift of our homeland and community, natural pride becomes egotistical and destructive of the communal fabric of the family and of our nation. In the first reading, God sends Ezekiel to prophesy to the Israelites who have become a proud and rebellious people who have ungratefully rejected Him and His desires for them, choosing instead to follow their own selfish desires under the colorful brand of false gods. The Lord asks Ezekiel’s fidelity more than He promises Ezekiel success, “Thus says the Lord God! Whether they heed or resist — for they are a rebellious house — they shall know that a prophet has been among them.”

Time and again throughout salvation history as revealed in the Old Testament, pride is the downfall of Israel as a people, even as God remains faithful to them. This perennial struggle with pride prompts the psalmist to cry out, “Oh Lord, have pity on us, for we are more than sated with contempt; our souls are more than sated with the mockery of the arrogant, with the contempt of the proud.” It is only turning with a humble heart and pleading God’s mercy that can save anyone from the deadliness of pride.

Saint Paul, in the second reading, recognizes and accepts his own weakness as a thorn in his flesh that serves to open his heart to God. Paul begs God to remove this thorn from him so that he can be free of this weakness. God refuses to remove the thorn and speaks gently to Paul, “My Grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” To which Paul responds, “I will rather boast gladly of my weaknesses, in order that the power of Christ might dwell with me.” Saint Paul’s path to self-acceptance paradoxically requires him not to be perfect but to let go of his pretense of self-sufficiency and instead grasp the hand of the merciful God offered to Paul in his own imperfection. Through the grateful acceptance of his thorn in the flesh as a grace from God, Saint Paul is delivered from the deadly state of sin, especially the sin of pride.

This ingratitude on our part before God deceives us into a cynical complacency with the status quo. In today’s Gospel, Jesus returns to His home after being baptized by John in the Jordan, being tempted by the Devil in the wilderness, then healing the sick, then casting out demons, and finally teaching as a rabbi. On this particular Sabbath, He stands up in the synagogue and begins to teach his neighbors and family members. They were amazed and astonished at His teaching, but also puzzled at where it came from.

They had seen Jesus as a carpenter daily, they knew His mother and family, and became offended and resented Him that He could attempt to be their teacher. They took Him for granted, instead of accepting Him with gratitude. Their taking Him for granted prevented them from truly being open to Him and to His message of conversion. Their pride prevented them from trusting Christ and kept them from salvific faith.

Saint Mark tells us that their amazement turned to resentment and festered within themselves because Jesus challenged them as a prophet, instead of speaking to them with the cordial flattery of an acquaintance. He spoke the Truth to them. Jesus spoke of the radical transformation each person must make to enter the Kingdom of God in order that they align their desires with the desires that God held for them. No one who wants to be a disciple is exempt from this change of heart which makes us value our relationship with God more than anything or anyone else in this world.

We must pray to change our desires to align with the desires of God. His desires are revealed in the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, the entire Sermon on the Mount, and most fully by the life, passion, death, Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus Christ as revealed in Scripture and Tradition. We are called to conform our lives to the Creed that we profess every Sunday and to turn away from our indifference to Christ and to His presence in our neighbor.

As Saint Augustine taught, “Sinful though we are, let us at least be like God in this, that we are displeased with what displeases Him. In some measure then you will be in harmony with God’s will, because you find displeasing in yourself what is abhorrent to your Creator.”

A prophet helps us to see who we really are and who God wants us to become, and often the vision of the disparity between the two is not pretty. We tend to be blind to our own faults and failings, imprisoned by our habits and sins, and we often can be petty and ugly in the way we treat others. Jesus’ call to change our lives is not easy to hear, and like his neighbors, we find ways to ignore or to discount what He challenges us to do. In fact, we can come to love our sins and even begin to cherish them as virtues in which we valorize pride.

But as He did through the prophet Ezekiel, the Lord keeps sending us opportunities to help us face the truth. The truth is that if we, like Saint Paul, can recognize our weaknesses, hardships, and limitations as challenges God permits us to have, then the power of Christ can come alive in us and deliver us from pride and the inevitable destruction that is its fruit. When we follow Saint Paul’s example, we become like prophets; we become the instruments through which the Spirit can work the miracles of forgiveness and mercy and joy and hope that our world so desperately needs.

This past Thursday we celebrated the 248^th birthday of our nation, the United States of America, a democratic republic that is not perfect but strives to respect and promote fundamental rights established in the dignity of our human nature as designed and created by God. These include but are not limited to the right to life, the right to practice religion, and the right to assemble and to speak freely. We thank God for the graced privilege to be Americans and citizens of our nation, a nation that we too frequently have taken for granted.

As we celebrate the gift of our free will, let us ask God for gratitude for the gift of the United States of America and turn away from false idols steeped in pride in exchange for the prophetic responsibilities of citizenship. These graced and prophetic responsibilities have prompted us to turn away from selfishness throughout our history and instead accept the challenge of servant-leadership within our nation and among the nations of the world. The authentic and traditional ethos of the United States of America has never been “me first” but rather, “e pluribus unum” — “from many, one.” This oneness requires our gratitude and generosity as American citizens, the sons and daughters of ancestors who were brought here through situations of sadness and hopelessness, like poverty, religious persecution, or even through the blight of slavery. Our history is a history that requires a humble change of heart to make amends for past sins, for which we should not be proud, and that we thank God for the blessings of our past even if these blessings have come to us as thorns in our flesh. For we can only be delivered from the deadly fruit of sin when we honestly pray together the words of today’s psalm: “Our eyes are fixed on the Lord, pleading for His mercy.”