Monsignor Ryan’s Homily for November 17th

THIRTY- THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME – YEAR C
Enrollment of Candidates for Confirmation
One of the most popular storytellers of all time was Aesop, whose fables continue to delight people centuries after his death. Every school child can recite the fable of The Tortoise and The Hare or The Grasshopper and the Ant. The moral of each of those fables cuts across the barriers of time and culture, and are as valid today as when the blind poet first told them around the fire at night. Most of them relied on a contrast between two ways of approaching life. The tortoise is slow but makes his way steadily to the finish line, while the speedy hare gets distracted and fails to finish the race. The grasshopper has a merry old time all summer as the ant works ceaselessly to put aside food for the winter when the grasshopper goes hungry,
The liturgy for this Sunday, close to the end of our liturgical Year of Grace, presents a series of contrasts and choices that determine our future. Will we end up like the hapless hare and the frivolous grasshopper or like the steady tortoise and the industrious ant?
Let’s take a look at what we are offered.
The first choice is between weakness and strength, and it is drawn very starkly by the prophet Malachi. Like Aesop with his fables or Jesus with his parables, the spotlight is always on where we wind up when all is said and done. Certainly, Malachi in the First Reading and Jesus in the Gospel are taking the long view of history, right down to its end on the Last Day. But the moral is still valid for the end of life, meaning the type of man or woman we turn out to be.
Weakness, like the frivolity of the grasshopper, is easy to come by. And just as the hare was easily distracted from the goal of the finish line, we have all been bombarded by phony promises that lead us down paths that lead us to unhappiness. On-line pornography, alone, has turned young minds away from a wholesome appreciation of the gift of sexuality and a deepening readiness for genuine intimacy to superficiality and isolation.
Strength, says Malachi, comes from trust: trust in God, trust in healthy relationships with family and friends, trust in the guidance of our religious tradition. And, yes, we must all cope with weakness, but for those who fear (i.e. respect) God’s name, strength can be found in Jesus, the Sun of Justice, whose healing rays are the power of the Holy Spirit.
St. Paul today tells us his version of The Grasshopper and the Ant, placing before us the alternatives of idleness and effort, urging us to follow his example of steady effort to provide for our own needs and the needs of others. The saints such as St. Elizabeth, whose feast day is today, accomplished amazing things. In her widowhood, Elizabeth built hostels for the sick poor and personally fed them and washed their clothes and bedding. In her way, she paved the way for modern medical centers, and nursing techniques and social service agencies. Service, thank God, is a priority in the lives of so many young people who volunteer for Midnight Runs, and Habitats for Humanity, and summer camps for challenged youngsters, and Mercy Missions in Haiti and Central America. Aesop would smile. And St. Paul would applaud the mature people who volunteer in hospitals and nursing homes, and make quilts for the sick, or collect groceries and staff food pantries. Time well spent issues in lasting joy.
Lastly, Jesus challenges us with the choice between the counterfeit, the flashy imitation, the clever forgery and the genuine article. “See that you not be deceived,” he warns. If you hand a salesclerk a $100 bill in payment, you can be sure that the clerk is not going to put it into the cash register without performing some test to detect a counterfeit. We need to exercise the same prudent caution in accepting claims that we can attain human fulfillment and lasting happiness without discipline, effort and sacrifice. No, it is not easy to find time to pray every day or to find an hour in our hectic schedules to attend Sunday Mass. It is not easy to forgive injuries, to be patient people who are difficult or annoying. It is not easy to learn enough about our religious faith to explain it or defend it to non-Catholics.
But, says Jesus, “By your perseverance you will save your lives.” Discipline, effort, steadfastness. These were promised on our behalf at our Baptism, and they are the things that we vow to pursue at Confirmation.
If we choose strength. If we work steadily. If we refuse to settle for the counterfeit, then we can truly answer the Psalmist’s invitation to “sing joyfully before the king the Lord.”