Homily – 09-21-2008 – Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Joy of Full Surrender is a revised translation in modern English of the 18^th century spiritual masterpiece The Abandonment to Divine Providence by Jean-Pierre de Caussade, S.J. who died in 1751. In it de Caussade outlines a clear cut way to experience the richness of holiness: fully surrender to God's will – and agree to see things his way! After all, he is God and cannot possibly will or permit anything that is not absolutely best for us - in the long run!
If we could try this method out –

If we could also use the gift of faith most fully that God gives us at our Baptism in order to be able to relate to him on his level – to see things his way –

If we could use the tremendous gifts that the Holy Spirit gives us in Confirmation – Divine Wisdom, Understanding, Knowledge – to see clearly God's will – God's way –

And if we could appreciate the gift of the Eucharist to a greater degree and know how blessed we are to have all of the spiritual parts of us fed each time we receive Holy Communion – so that we can love better and serve better and thus more clearly experience and see the reality of God and his will in our lives –

• then the readings for Mass today would make perfect sense! Of course! God's will and way are not only best but they are completely different
  from our own – if our own are not completely transformed by the amazing gifts that he freely offers us as outlined above!
  

It is those "of the world," who live according to the limited and always unfulfilling dictates of their own perspectives that have difficulty in understanding how it is better to be away from the body (dead, but alive in Christ Jesus), than to be in the body alive, yet still on journey to completion in him! We want to possess and be possessed completely by Jesus – and that can only take place after we leave this body and await our resurrection and the arrival of our new spiritual body! This is absurdity to those attached to their bodies, and their pleasures and their never-quite-satisfying pursuits!

The worldly really have difficulty with today's gospel passage. How is it justified that a person who works only an hour gets the same daily wage as someone who has worked all day long? There is reason for a lawsuit here, for sure!

These two categories of worldly folks seem incapable of understanding some deeper realities that will affect them nevertheless. On resurrection day – all will come to realize that fullness of life in Christ is better than life on pilgrimage back to him. And, thanks be to God – the last – the ones of our own era in salvation history –US - who came to faith, and belief and life in Jesus, later than everyone else, through life in his Church, will indeed get the same benefit of God's mercy, redemption, love and an invitation to the Eternal Nuptial Banquet of the Lamb as those who first believed: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the rest. Yes, thanks be to God, His will and way are definitely different and greater than ours ever could hope to be. Yet, how many are still willing to GO IT THEIR OWN WAY!?

In the end, THE CHOICE IS OURS – GO THE COURSE OF LIFE OUR OWN WAY – OR GOD'S. (If we deviate even slightly from his, then it is ours!) BUT IF WE EARNESTLY TRY to find out more and more about his will and his way – and allow ourselves to be guided by the Church, and nourished and strengthened by her sacraments – and we KEEP OUR EYES FIXED ON THE DEATH OF JESUS ON THE CROSS and HIS GLORIOUS RESURRECTION – then we shall end up in the right place at the right time – and begin an amazing new life in the new heaven and the new earth – where we shall always see everything quite clearly – without having to work at it anymore at all!

Great is the Lord and highly to be praised;

his greatness is unsearchable.