HOMILY, UNITED NATIONS DAY
St. John’s Convent, October 24, 2014
St. John’s Convent, October 24, 2014
We are sitting here under the
equivalent of our vines and fig trees – with the stunning beauty of autumn
reflected in our trees and gardens – and yet I feel afraid – afraid for the
world we live in, and guilty that we live in a place of relative peace. Both my
fear and my guilt are heightened by the events of this past week, with the
killing of Warrant Office Patrice Vincent in Quebec, and Corporal Nathan
Cirillo at the National War Memorial in Ottawa yesterday – bringing the terrors
of our world much closer to home.
But the readings today speak
of neither fear nor guilt – both of these emotions are really useless, and the
fear-mongering of some of the media just renders us more helpless. Fear and
guilt make us blind to the purposes of God. They make it difficult to hear what
God is really saying to us, as individuals and as a nation. And they play into
the hands of terrorists whose strongest weapon is fear.
The readings today speak of
very different feelings – feelings of hope, of obedience to the Word of God,
and of trust in the purposes of God. They speak of good news, not bad news.
The last words of the reading
from Micah remind us that the prophet is not just mouthing his own wishful
thinking – he speaks the Word of God: “they shall all sit under their own vines
and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has
spoken.” The mouth of the Lord – the Word of the Lord – instructs and
teaches, judges and arbitrates. The prophet himself is speaking the Word. And
the people are asked to do two things:
First, we are asked to “go up
to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may
teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” We may not be able to
change the thinking of those who believe that violence is the way of God. And
we may have ineffective weapons against the insidious pull on young people
through the internet and social media to a life of violence. We know that
terrorism in the modern world is harder to confront than traditional war because
it knows no national boundaries and can spread its darkness through the ether. But
we have been promised that the light of Christ will never be overcome by the
darkness. And we can allow our prayer to reach out to the darkest corners of
the world with the love of God. People may not be streaming into the Lord’s
house in our time in our society. But we are called to go anyway, to be
faithful and obedient to the call of prayer.
And second, we are asked to
listen to the Word, to allow ourselves to be instructed by God – “for out of
Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” What
is it that each of us is called to do in order to spread peace on the earth and
to cooperate with the purposes of God? God’s word may speak to each of us in
the privacy of our hearts, calling us to reconciliation with those closest to
us with whom we may be in conflict. And God’s word may speak to us as
communities of Christians as well, to hear what we may do to promote healing
and reconciliation around us locally. If we listen, we shall surely hear, and
we shall be instructed.
And then the gospel reading
today gives us our third mandate: After we have prayed and been instructed, we
are to say the words that are left out of the appointed reading: “Here am I,
the servant of the Lord: let it me with me according to your Word.”
The angel promises the same
thing that the prophet Micah promises – both of them are prophets who speak the
Word of God, and the words spoken to Mary are similar in many ways to those
from Micah: “Do not be afraid”; “you will conceive and bear a son . . . God
will give to him the throne of his ancestor David . . . and of his kingdom
there will be no end.”
Mary would have had no clue
what this might mean in concrete terms. She could not have imagined the
suffering that would precede the resurrection. But she said “Yes” to the
instruction of God.
May God give us the grace to
go up to the House of God, to pray for the United Nations and all organizations
and efforts that make for peace, to release our fear and guilt, and to live
instead in hope and with obedience to the instruction of God.
