A Homily for the Second Sunday after Pentecost

+Excuses. Excuses. Excuses. How often we hide behind them! How often we busy ourselves in their many details (real or imagined) so as to avoid dealing with what is essential: the matter to hand in any given moment. “I cannot…” we murmur, rapidly grasping for some tangential activity with which to look busy in order to conceal our fears and perceived inadequacy. “I must be getting on with this…or that…indeed, with anything other than what is being asked of me…”, we fret.

We intoxicate ourselves with excuses—and we can quickly become addicted to their use. So much so that when an invitation comes to us, when something is asked of us (or when anything is asked of us) we run, we hide, we turn inward in fear and most certainly do not accept or do that which is asked of us.
 
If the Church in her Sacred Liturgy through the Holy Gospel of this Second Sunday after Pentecost teaches us anything this morning, it is that there is no place in the Kingdom of God for excuses! Indeed, Our Holy Mother the Church warns us sternly of those who indulge in them: “None of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.” This warning is stark: the banquet is the unending feast of eternal life, nothing less. We can either accept the invitation we receive to participate in it, or we can refuse it—with the realisation that if we do so we shall be justly excluded. The choice is ours. So too are the consequences of our choice.
 
Thus, if we hope to share in the Eternal Banquet, if we aspire to the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God in the life to come, we must attend very carefully to the invitations we receive in this life—invitations that call us forth to a more faithful, even radical, following of Christ. This has many applications, from the discernment of one’s vocation in life and in the faithful and courageous perseverance in it, to the acceptance of the crosses suffering, of calumny and injustice and of grave illness when they are laid upon us. Such invitations are rarely gilt-edged, and all of them involve a cost. But, if we may invert the Gospel’s warning: those who do not make excuses and who accept the Master’s invitation, and who faithfully persevere in so doing, shall indeed taste His banquet.
 
One of the most excuse-ridden areas of Christian life is that of vocational discernment. How many times have the expressions “but”, “I can’t possibly”, “if only”, “maybe one day”, “I’m not sure” or “just let me do this first” seduced young men and women into passing year after year without acting on the invitation that Almighty God has written in their hearts to come and follow Him more closely in the priesthood or the monastic or religious life? There are as many excuses available as anyone can want to avoid following Christ—and if we lack the imagination to create excuses, we may be sure that the devil will waste no time in providing them! But they are not the answer. They do not lead to the heavenly banquet. Rather, they exclude us from it. If Almighty God has indeed invited us to follow Him in a particular way, we must respond with faith, trust and courage, lest we find that the place that was to be ours at the heavenly banquet has been given to someone else.
 
So too, in perseverance in our vocation—whatever it is—excuses can grow like a cancer that kills the life of grace at work within us. “I did not sign up for this!” we exclaim indignantly when demands are made upon us, or the going gets tough. “I’ve had enough. I quit,” we shout as we take our hand off the plough, look back and walk away (cf. Lk 9:62) tearing up the Master’s invitation along the way.
 
St Benedict has some advice for us here. He advises the monk commanded to do something he believes to be impossible to make calm representation to his superior, and if the superior insists, to “obey out of love, trusting in the assistance of God.” (Rule, ch. 68) What we deem “impossible” is therefore no excuse: God may well know better than we ourselves that of which we are capable, if only we cooperate with His Will.
 
St Benedict also reminds us that when we meet “with difficulties and contradictions and even injustice” we “should with a silent mind hold fast to patience, and enduring neither tire nor run away, for the Scripture saith: He that shall persevere to the end shall be saved.” (Rule, ch. 7). Our sufferings may be great, but by our faithful perseverance in God’s grace they will be overcome.   
 
Indeed, there is no place in the Kingdom of God for excuses. What there is, however, is grace in abundance and for the asking in getting on with the task to hand, with accepting all that the invitation to the eternal banquet requires of each of us in our particular circumstances. In faith and in trust let us lay down our excuses at the foot of the cross this morning and offer ourselves anew upon the altar, begging for an increase in the graces we need worthily to accept the invitation of the Master and to persevere in fulfilling His Will. +