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2023-06-18– 11th Sunday ●● Exodus 19:2-6a ●● Psalm 100 ●● Romans 5:6-11 ●● +Matthew 9:36-10:8 ●●
TITLE: Healing
[_01__] In 1960, in the year 1960, the novel To Kill a Mockingbird was published. It is the story especially of a young girl and her father, they are the main characters. The setting is the southern state of Alabama, during the Great Depression in the 1930’s
In the novel, the main character and narrator
of the story is a young girl – nicknamed Scout because she is both adventurous
and intelligent - and Scout is the
daughter of Atticus Finch, a noble and generous man and lawyer in their Alabama
hometown.
[_02__] Scout cannot recall any time in her young life when
she did not know how to read and thus is shocked on her first day of school –
her first day of first grade – when her literacy as a reader is displeasing to
her schoolteacher .. who is astonished that Scout can read not only the
alphabet and the textbook but also the Wall Street stock market price
quotations in the newspaper. The teacher says Scout should learn to read only
at school during the day. No extra curricular reading !
Coming home from school, Scout is discouraged and tells
her father she is not going back, giving up on school altogether.
Atticus, her father, asks, “Do you know what a compromise
is?”
Scout, “Bending the [rules / the ] law ?”
Atticus, “No, a compromise is an agreement reached by
mutual concession. If you [Scout] will
concede the necessity of going to school, we’ll go on reading every night as
always. Is it a bargain”
Scout is on board
with this “bargain”
The describes it, a bargain but I'd suggest it's
more not just a bargain. It also comes close to covenant agreement of love
between two people who really love each other.
[_03__] In our Exodus reading, the Israelite people are about to be introduced
to the covenant with God at Mount Sinai.
God says, “If
you hearken to my voice, you shall be my special possession.” This is God's word to the people of Israel.
Yet it’s also
true that the people of Israel do not always keep their side of the covenant.
Yet God does not abandon them, even though God has seen their wickedness and
sinfulness.
It is not
spite of this wickedness – but because of this – that Jesus is sent to give up
his life and die.
Paul writes:
“Perhaps for
a good person, one might find the courage to die. But Jesus loves us so much
that even when we were still sinners, he gives up his life for us.”
In other
words, this is not a bargain. It's a covenant.
And a
covenant is something for example, we see the sacrament of marriage, where the
husband and wife don't simply say it's going to be 50/50 split, but rather 100/100
surrender for both of them. W
hy does Jesus
bring you in me into the covenant? He brings us into the Covenant – not only to
stay up late at night reading the law. Yes, we are called to read God's Word
and study God's Word. But also we are called to go out and be His disciples.
[_04__] In the
Gospel this Sunday, we read of Jesus sending out his disciples, sending them
out on mission ..and that part of their mission part of our mission is to be a
healer, expressed as:
“[Jesus] he summoned his 12 disciples and gave them authority over
unclean spirits to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness.” (Matthew 9:36-10:8)
[_05__] In other words, we are called to be healers. What
does it mean to be healed or to be a healer?
A few months ago, I needed “healing”. It was early
April, Holy Week and I had lost the ability to speak due to laryngitis. The
medical diagnosis by doctor was nothing serious and quite simple: stop talking.
Do not speak.
[_06__] I also wish to consider how do I live my life as a priest. Do I just
sit in my room and at my desk and text instead of talk ?
That was OK, but after about 2 days of texting
behind closed doors, I decided to venture out.
The Catholic practices of prayer and fasting applied
to me to me in this case. I did not set out to make this healing mission one of
prayer and fasting, but that is how it turned out.
[1ST. PRAYER] On
Saturday Evening – the Easter Vigil – I arrived to co-concelebrate the Mass I could not and did not say a word. There was
nothing to say, I couldn't speak.
I suggest to you that your prayer and our prayer
is not simply about retreating into silence and not saying anything.
Because there are times that we do not know what
to say, Aren't there times that you don't know what to say?
Perhaps, you do not know what to say to someone in
a crisis, to someone who is in disagreement with you. Or you do not know what
to say to someone who seems too busy. Or, you do not know what to say because
you feel rejected.
Jesus teaches us to pray for those we are spiritually
distant from – this could be someone who is “opposing” us, against us, an
enemy.
Jesus does not teach that we compromise with or
concede to our enemies, but to pray for our enemies, to pray for those we have
serious difficulty with.
This is the covenant.
So we need continued healing, and also to pray
that we can find the right words to say my vocal cords are working right now.
But sometimes I still have laryngitis in terms of
the gospel. In other words, I don't really know what to say. And I say the
wrong thing. Prayer is a healing remedy. And it helps us to heal others.
[2nd. FASTING] My lack of talking was also a
form of fasting. And, I experienced this “fasting” as a form of Communion and
connection with you.
I had to fast from talking.
Talking is good, but I had to fast from it.
Talking is something that unites us to others. But
can silence not also bring us together?
I’d like to make a parallel with fasting from food
as a form of Communion.
That is, we naturally associate eating and dining
with connection.
However fasting also unites us to others fasting
unites us to Jesus who fasted for us in the desert who gave up his life for us,
fasting unites you to many hungry bodies and souls, around the block or around
the world.
Fasting is something we are called to do in the
form of abstinence from meat on Fridays, were called to abstain from meat on
Fridays, or to abstain from something on Fridays, to remember Jesus's death and
resurrection.
Fasting is also helped helps the body to recover
physically, but fasting and prayer helps us to recover spiritually, and helps
us to it's a way that we can make reparations for sin and for sinfulness to
give something back to God.
This fasting and prayer does not mean that I Padre
James Ferry take away the sins of the world, you do not take away the sins of
the world. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. But
by our fasting and prayer we share in his mission. We share the Good News of
healing by our own practices, and we recognize that the real good news is
received without cost and we are called to give without cost. This is not just
a bargain or a compromise. It is the covenant.
It is the way of reading God's word each day so
that He can speak and we, his servants, can listen and be healed.
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