A Homily for the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

+ Saint Paul is nothing if not succinct: “If you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him,” we are taught in the Epistle of this Holy Mass.
 
We probably do not need to be reminded about which aspects of living according to the flesh or which “deeds of the body” need to be put to death: the Church’s traditional teaching is clear, and we must examine our consciences in its light frequently so that, through God’s infinite mercy made available in the Sacrament of Confession, we can escape the death they bring and live the life of God as His children, indeed, as nothing less than his heirs!
 
But how do we live the life of God as His children? Certainly, yes, by renouncing all that is evil, all that is not of God. That conversion of life is fundamental. But what then?
 
Our response may well be to say that we must live Christian lives, and that is perfectly correct. However, we may well fall into the trap of thinking that living a Christian life is all about being nice and doing good for others—after all, some of the most famous passages of the Gospel instruct us to care for our neighbour (the Parable of the Good Samaritan, the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, etc.). But anyone can be nice. Anyone—including many non-believers—can and do care for their neighbour and exercise practical charity. Congeniality and charity do not make a person a Christian, even if they are most certainly dispositions that ought to be found in them.
 
What, then, makes a person a Christian? What makes the difference between a pleasant social worker who does much that is good, and a child and heir of God?
 
The answer is found in the reason why each of us is here this morning. We monks are not here to put on a nice cultural show, nor is anyone here to enjoy it as a form of entertainment. We could all be doing much more ‘pleasant’ and relaxing things at this time of a Sunday morning—studying our pillows or enjoying a leisurely brunch with family and friends, etc.
 
No, we are here this morning to worship God, to render unto Him, as best we possibly can, the worship that is His due in thanksgiving for the Salvation that He has made available to us through the Sacrifice on the Cross of His Son, Christ Jesus.
 
We would do well to remember that the first of the great commandments given by Our Lord in the Gospel is: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” That “You shall love your neighbour as yourself,” is the second, and indeed consequent, commandment. (cf. Mt 22:37-39) A Christian is a Christian because he or she loves God with their whole heart, and their acts of charity bear practical witness to this love; indeed flow from this worship and love of God and thus become a sacramental of His love in the world.
 
Hence, we must get first things first. We must place our love of God before everything else—as we are doing by being here, and by not being somewhere else, this morning. For, as the 49 fourth century African martyrs of Abitinae responded when questioned as to why they had defied the Emperor’s command by continuing to assemble to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass: “Sine dominco, non possumus”—without the Sunday Eucharist, we cannot live. We cannot live the life of God as His children without Sunday Mass.
 
Indeed, the monk is one who cannot live without preferring nothing to the Work of God. (Rule, ch. 43) Certainly, many (most!?) monks suffer the temptation to prefer their beds to the Work of God when the matins bell rings early in the morning, sometimes even meriting Saint Benedict’s warning about “the excuses to which the sleepy are addicted”! (Rule, ch. 22). Nevertheless, without praising God seven times a day and once at night, we cannot live, let alone flourish and bear the fruits of monastic charity—practical, pastoral and intellectual—that have been the hallmark of Benedictine monasticism for well over a thousand years. Mutatis mutandis this applies to every Christian no matter what our vocation is. Unless God and His worship is placed first and foremost in my life, my Christian life will suffer and die.
 
But we are called to life and to glory as God’s children and heirs. We are called, in the words of the antiphon of the Communion procession of this Mass, to “taste and see the goodness of the Lord.”
 
Whether it be the matins bell or the Sunday morning alarm clock let us never forget what—indeed Whom—comes first, so that we, and through us others also, may come to know that blessedness, that righteousness, promised to all who hope in Him. +