Homily for the14th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Why did you come here this morning? There could be many reasons. I want to suggest that at the bottom of them all is a desire to encounter Jesus. Jesus is the one who as we heard in the prayer raised up a fallen world. That means he performed the greatest deed the world has ever seen. He freed God’s beloved children from the sin that had separated them from God. You came to meet him not just as a spectator but to participate in his great action by which he saved the world, namely his death on the cross. That is the one event which changed human history from a destiny of death to one of eternal life. He has saved this beautiful world of creation from corruption. He did this by becoming one of us to undo the damage done by our sin. On the cross he gave to his Father the obedient love that human beings had refused to give. And for that reason the Father not only raised him up but sent his Holy Spirit to communicate to us that same obedient love which was in Jesus.

Dear brothers and sisters, you came to Mass this morning because Jesus has said, “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened.” He has invited you to participate in his self-gift to the Father on the cross. The Church asks of us a full, conscious and active participation in the liturgy. This means that you first listen to the readings which are always Gospel, good news, reminders of the great things God has done for us out of love. Then moved by love and gratitude you want to give yourself to him—this is what happens when the priest prepares the gifts on the altar. The bread and wine are you and me, our very bodies and spirits offered in gratitude to our creator. Then most astonishingly when the priest pronounces the words of Christ over the bread and wine they are transformed into his Body and Blood, the sacrificed body and blood which he offered to the Father on the cross for the forgiveness of sins. Our sacrifice becomes his, his sacrifice becomes ours.

You are priests by your baptismal consecration, a kingdom of priests, what is called the priesthood of the laity. That means that you offer the sacrifice with the priest. You listen to the words of the prayers and make them your own, offering your and Christ’s sacrifice to the Father. According to a simple formula for the Mass: we and Christ offer Christ and us.

Before the Consecration you will hear the priest ask God to send the Holy Spirit over the gifts to make them the Body and Blood of Christ. Then after the Consecration you will another invocation of the Holy Spirit, this time to make all of us who receive Christ’s Body and Blood into members of his own body. In Pope Leo’s words drawn from St Augustine, “in illo uno, unum,”—“In this one person we are all one.” One single person in Christ joined to the Father by their Holy Spirit. That was the great trinitarian vision we heard from St Paul: “If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead (namely, the Father) dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit that dwells in you.” That is the union that will be renewed and strengthened when we actually consume the Body and Blood of the Lord and then are sent out to bring the same Good News to the world.

On this occasion I think we all want to add a particular reason to offer a sacrifice of thanks to the Lord, and that is the 250 years of freedom and prosperity that has been the United States. We are a rare sanctuary of freedom which we may have taken for granted, and we have shared our prosperity and expertise with the rest of the world so that we are the envy of all nations, notwithstanding the very real blemishes in our history. Let us be grateful especially for the contribution of the Catholic Church to the good of our country. Christ is working in his Church to bring peace to the world, as we heard in the first reading: our humble king will come proclaiming peace to the nations. Today we offer thanks to God for our country and our Church and ask him fervently that both may be his instruments for bringing peace to the world and respect for the life of every human being.