Sunday 2 March 2025

8rd Sunday During the Year – Year C

Homily by Father Emmanuel Schwab

1st reading: Sirach 27,4-7

Psaume : 91 (92),2-3,13-14,15-16

2rd reading: 1 Corinthians 15,54-58 Gospel: Luke 6,39-45

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For the third Sunday in a row, we read what is called the Sermon on the Plain, in chapter 6 in the Gospel of Luke, which began with the beatitudes and curses.

Last Sunday we heard the call to a love that goes to the end of love, that goes to the love of enemies, and Jesus' teaching ended with: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” The words we hear today are a continuation of what Jesus teaches.

We must understand, with the apostle Paul, that through baptism something radically new has taken place in our lives. When I speak of baptism, I mean the set of three sacraments of Christian initiation: baptism, confirmation, Eucharist; these sacraments through which we enter into a new relationship with God, a filial relationship since he adopts us as his own children. He makes us members of the only Son, Christ Jesus. Through confirmation, we receive the fullness of the gift of the Holy Spirit who pours out the charity of God into our hearts, and through the sacrament of the Eucharist, this communion with Jesus in the Spirit is constantly renewed, constantly nourished. This is how we have passed from death to life. This is how we share in Jesus' victory over sin and death. This is how we are made capable of being merciful as our Father in Heaven is merciful. This is why the Church asks those who are preparing to become priests to have received the sacrament of confirmation in addition to baptism. This is why the Church asks engaged couples who are preparing for marriage to receive the sacrament of confirmation in addition to baptism, to be able to be filled with the gifts of the Holy Spirit in order to be able to go to the end of love. What is first in our path of Christian life is what God has done for us. When Saint John, in his first Letter, attempts to define love, he tells us this: “This is love: It was not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice of forgiveness for our sins" (1Jn 4,10:XNUMX). Amazing definition of love. What love is, is that God loved us first! And it is by welcoming this merciful love that everything can fall into place. This is the great teaching of Saint Therese: what comes first is God's merciful love for each of us. And it is this love that transforms our lives, it is this love that the Holy Spirit gives us.

The Holy Spirit thus comes to pour out charity in our hearts, as Paul says in the letter to the Romans (Rom 5,5:XNUMX). But the Holy Spirit also comes to bear witness to Jesus and make his word alive. We could say that it is the Holy Spirit who transforms the dead letter of the Holy Scriptures into the living Word that is pronounced today. It is today, in the liturgy, that Jesus says to each of us: “Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?”. The Lord never ceases to speak to us. The Holy Spirit makes his word resound in our hearts, and it is this word that can gradually transform us. And as Thérèse remarks in a letter to Céline: what does it mean to “keep the word”? In fact, to keep the word is to keep Jesus himself, because Jesus is the Word of God who became flesh (Cf. LT 165). To keep Jesus… he is the good tree that bears good fruit. It is through Him, with Him and in Him that we will be able to bear good fruit. It is through Him, with Him and in Him that we will be able to truly go to the end of love.The disciple is not above the master said Jesus, but once well trained, each one will be like his master. None of us is above Jesus. None of us knows better than God what is truly good. What Jesus asks of us is to become disciples. And when Jesus sends the apostles on a mission, he does not send them to baptize: he sends them make disciples. It is at the end of the Gospel of Saint Matthew: “As you go, make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And I am with you always, to the close of the age.” (Mt 28,19-20). The only imperative is: make disciples. Being a Christian means being a disciple of Jesus, that is, listening to his word, loving him, doing what he says, understanding that we can do what he says because he saves us and gives us a share in his Spirit. We are not disciples of an elder who once lived in time, and who is no longer because he died. We are disciples of the Resurrected One who is alive today, and today, interacting with us. When I read wise men, from ancient times like the Greek philosophers, for example, I am before a wisdom that was said by Sophocles, by Plato, by whoever you want, which is very precious. But I am not talking with Plato: he is dead! While I am talking with Jesus, Jesus speaks to me today and Jesus interacts in my life. And the whole point of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus is that through her writings, she tells what the Lord did for her. The Bible already tells us what God did for his people. The Bible teaches us to decipher how God intervenes in our lives and Therese does the same. She sees how God accompanied her, how Jesus accompanied her, she tells it. And so she teaches us to do the same. We are not above Jesus. It is about becoming his disciples, letting ourselves be taught by him.

"Why do you notice the speck in your brother's eye?, said Jesus, while the dust that is in your own eye, do you not notice it? Hypocrite! First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly.". I fear that sometimes these few gospel verses are interpreted as Jesus asking us to mind our own business. This is not the case at all.

Jesus tells us: then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. And in the Gospel of Saint Matthew he tells us: “If your brother sins against you, go to your brother alone. If he listens to you, you have won your brother.” (Mt 18,15:XNUMX). Yes, but in some versions of the Gospel - you know that we do not have the text written directly by Saint Matthew, we have copies of copies; there are different copies - on some copies, we do not read: “If your brother sins against you », but just: " If your brother sins, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won your brother."

Jesus answers Cain's question, who says to God in an arrogant way: "Am I my brother's keeper?" (Gen 4,9:XNUMX). Yes, Jesus answers. Yes, you are your brother's keeper. And in marriage, you will be given to each other through the exchange of your consents to be each other's keeper, both the helper, but also the keeper of this brother, of this sister who will be given to you as husband, as wife, by Jesus. The keeper to help you each other walk on a path of holiness. We cannot be uninterested in the way our brothers live.

When Thérèse discovers how Jesus saves her on that Christmas night in 1886, when she discovers that in an instant, Jesus has done for her what she could not do in 10 years, and she understands at the same time that Jesus does it with her, not without her… She immediately understands then that what Jesus has done for her, he wants to do for everyone; then rises in her heart this immense desire to work with Jesus so that all men are saved. We cannot be disinterested in the salvation of our brothers, starting with those around us. But how can we help us? It is not a question of moralizing us. It is a question of helping us to be disciples of Jesus, that is to say, to listen to what the Lord says. I do not correct my brother according to myself; I correct my brother according to Jesus… and I can only correct my brother if I let myself be corrected. And the Lord, to correct us, can of course use the Holy Scriptures, but he can also use other people, loved ones who love us and who, with sensitivity, make remarks to help us renounce such a fault, such a sin. And sometimes the Lord goes through our most faithful enemy who sends us a meanness that is perfectly true and just, and if it is true, it comes from God. And if it comes from God, it is to be received with thanksgiving in order to do something with it, that is to say to convert me. Thérèse will exercise for a while the task of novice mistress. She describes this in manuscript C (20r°-24v°). I will read you an extract of the way she proceeds:

From a distance it seems all rosy to do good to souls, to make them love God more, finally to mold them according to one's personal views and thoughts. Up close it is quite the opposite, the rosy has disappeared... one feels that doing good is as impossible without the help of the good Lord as making the sun shine in the night...

But precisely, at night there is no sun...

We feel that we must absolutely forget our tastes, our personal ideas and guide souls by the path that Jesus has traced for them, without trying to make them walk [23r°] by our own way. But that is not yet the most difficult; what costs me above all is to observe faults, the slightest imperfections and to wage war against them to the death. I was going to say: unfortunately for me! (but no, that would be cowardice) I say therefore: fortunately for my sisters, since I took my place in the arms of Jesus, I am like the watchman observing the enemy from the highest turret of a fortified castle. Nothing escapes my gaze; often I am astonished to see so clearly and I find the prophet Jonah quite excusable for having fled instead of going to announce the ruin of Nineveh. I would a thousand times prefer to receive reproaches than to make them to others, but I feel that it is very necessary for me that this be a suffering for me because, when one acts by nature, it is impossible that the soul to whom one wants to reveal one's faults understands its wrongs, it sees only one thing: the sister charged with directing me is angry and everything falls back on me who am nevertheless filled with the best intentions.

I know well that your little lambs find me severe. If they read these lines, they would say that it does not seem to cost me the least bit to run after them, to speak to them in a severe tone while showing them their beautiful soiled fleece, or to bring them some light flake of wool that they have let torn by the thorns on the road. The little lambs can say whatever they want; deep down, they feel that I love them with a true love, which I will never imitate The mercenary who, seeing the wolf coming, leaves the flock and [23v°] runs away. (Manuscript C 22v-23v)

This is being merciful, as our Father is merciful.

Amen

Father Emmanuel Schwab, Rector of the Shrine