Homily Year C Week 20

 Year C Week 26 Sunday Homily 

“Our choices in living have consequences to our relationship with Christ “

 

Shalom, Buon Giorno, bonjour, Buenos Dias, Zaoshang hao, Gunaydon... Good morning. My likely poorly pronounced many languages greeting is aimed at the international students that are joining us at mass today, with their house families as they begin their academic year in Halifax. We welcome you and invite you to our house of worship any time you wish to join us. Hospitality is a core value of Christianity. Enjoy our service , our gathering today as family. Don't worry about making mistakes, we do to all the time.

My health is not what I would like it to be ! I am an overweight guy and this effects many of the systems of my body.  These systems include such things as my respiratory system, muscular skeletal system, circulatory system and endocrine system to name just some of them. The consequences of this extra weight,  have led me to ill health, diabetes and to my knees failing. 

However like many people, after my health had declined to a point where it starting to impact my life ,I started to take serious  steps , I changed my diet, went to several doctors, who started me on insulin, and put me on wait list for stomach surgery and knee replacement surgery. 

Finally my health failed enough that it started to impact my life. I finally begin to change my life more dramatically . For me that has meant changing not my diet , but really my lifestyle . But I needed help and continue to do so in my journey to health . Doing what I had always done no longer worked. 

The story we hear in the Gospel today is similar to my story. The rich man was complacent about his spiritual health, and did not take corrective steps until it was to late. We hear in the Gospel his negotiations for personal relief and then a request to somehow  to warn his family members from the same situation. His systems had failed him and led to a negative outcome.

In the greater context, what are the systems that contribute to a healthy church, what are the things, we  the faithful, need to work on to stay spiritually healthy ourselves.

There are six major systems to a church . They include, Evangelization, Fellowship, Liturgy, Pastoral care, Discipleship and Administration. Let me quickly explain each. 

Evangelization: is our response to the great commission. In other words the efforts to go and make disciples. While “Alpha” is a good example of this so can be RCIA, and Sacramental formation.

Fellowship: Are the activities that we undertake in keeping with the promise of the sign of peace we share at every mass.  How we connect with each other, how we keep in right relationship. This may be seen in prayer breakfasts, or small group gatherings in Christian fellowship or any of our community events

Liturgy: The things we do in the church ; Mass, Funerals, Weddings, Sacraments, healing masses, reconciliation services, but also includes para-liturgies such as saying the rosary, adoration, and all the elements that contribute to raising us up to the Lord.  By the way, experience shows that a community that prays before the blessed sacrament becomes healthy .

Pastoral Care: That which we do that cares for both fellow parishioners and the unchurched in response to their spiritual and physical needs. The works of corporal mercy, from sharing food to, sharing time, to providing spiritual guidance, to simply sharing our time with others

Discipleship: Are the acts of personal formation we undertake each year to further develop our faith life, both in head and heart knowledge. Catechism, guided prayer retreats, bible study etc..

Administration: Simply that which is necessary to keep a community going, answering the phone, paying the bills, maintaining the building, landscaping. All those things that enable the community to focus on the mission.

In a healthy church each of these systems have somewhat equal weight and become a focus of the community and its members both in their communal life and in their individual lives. 

The danger is that the urgent stuff often takes over the important things and becomes the focus of a community. When we focus on maintenance of a building both its physical condition or a desire of a community to maintain the status quo then we can lose sight of the mission of the church and become inwardly focused

  

This was exactly my story as I gained weight over my life. I carried on as the days went by, I enjoyed eating good food I was a foodie and enjoyed the taste, texture and smell that comes in good food, even its presentation. The added weight in no way impacted my ability to work or my home life. My health didn't fail all at once but rather slowly over twenty years.

Churches experience this slow failing too , as their collection becomes not  enough to support the mission of the church and becomes dedicated to just keeping things going. This change doesn't happen painfully or suddenly, but gradually over time. Just like the changes in my health everything was fine, until it gradually it wasn't .

In our own lives, as Christians, we to have to respond to these five systems to maintain our health as Christians. As Aquinas tells us, we become that which we do. To be Christian we must act out Christian lives. 

Being Christian takes commitment. Going to the gym once a week will not transform any ones life to make them healthy. Acting as a Christian by going to church one hour a week will not transform your life, and is insufficient for most to enter into a personal relationship with Christ

So again we need to look at each of the systems and apply them to our lives. 

In evangelization we need to take a step to grow our response to Christ. Pray The Sunday readings each week for example. Starting Monday pray one reading each day , pray them and integrate them on Friday. That way, when you hear the homily, you will gain deeper insight into the teachings of Christ.

Alpha is another great evangelization activity ,an opportunity to strengthen an individual's  relationship with God. I have seen incredible transformations through Alpha, I have see the fallen return to faith and perhaps even more excitingly seen the churched reinvigorated in faith. 

It does transform lives in a Christian context. A few years ago, in an Alpha I was leading we had a retired couple join my group. She was a faithful and regular church goer and he was a loving husband who reluctantly went along to Church activities because he loved his wife. I remember him pulling me aside and telling me that as retired pharmacist he only  believed in things that were provable and repeatable, a modernist and a man of science. He didn't expect much from the program but he came for his wife. Six weeks later his wife asked the group for prayers for their 38 year old daughter who was hospitalized and suffering hugely from headaches and had been unable to sleep for a few hours for week. We did! The next day Mom called me to report that even though the daughter had not known that we had prayed for her, that the previous evening around 730 pm (the the same time we were praying as a group)  she had fallen asleep and slept soundly for the first night in weeks. She called mom out of the blue that morning to share the good news. 

There is more to the story ,but the real news, came in Dad who some months later told me that  his life was transformed through his experiences at Alpha . That  people who had known him for years began telling him about the positive changes they could see in his life . He attributed this to Alpha and reigniting his personal relationship with Jesus. Evangelization is about reaching out to others but the first step is transforming our own lives.

In Fellowship you can work on your relationships within the community in a Christian context, share the sign of peace with someone you don't normally sit beside, create your own small community of believers that support each other in Christ. 

In liturgy attend more than Sunday mass, go to reconciliation more often,  bring yourself more fully to God's grace.  

In pastoral care, undertake an action of charity with someone you are not in relationship with , someone who is perhaps not loveable. 

In administration, think about what you can do to support the community, gardening, cleaning, all those things things that make a church a space that we can take for granted that allow us to undertake the sacred. While not the mission this enables the mission.

Lastly Discipleship. We are called in Christ to be in a personal relationship with him. In the same way when we first met a friend or partner, we spent some time exploring them, asking them about themselves , finding out about their friends and family. Christ is calling us to do the same thing. I invite you to discover more about your Lord and Saviour. Sign up for a Lenten discipleship group , participate in an adult formation activity  such as a bible study. 

If you are interested in faith formation, e-mail me your interest and we will see what we can do about connecting you with someone or a program that meets your need s. I invite anyone here who is free and interested  to meet with me either next Thursday at 11am  or next Thursday at 6 pm at the “St Peters & St Paul’s” office  and next Tuesday at 1 pm at St Michaels to share your interests in learning and we will explore together  and see what we might do together .  If you can't make it , e-mail your interest to me and we explore your interests that way.  I am planning to offer a day time activity and an evening activity for discipleship development not sure where or what , that will depend on you.

Remember the steps to health are both individual and collective. As we strengthen our individual spiritual health we will strengthen the health of the community.  I challenge you to reflect on the spiritual systems in your life and in our community and take steps to strengthen your/our connection with Christ. Let us be an example to the world of what a Christian community should look like. Let us begin or renew our journey to become missionary disciples! What are you going to do To grow in your faith?