Homily for January 18, 2015: 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Homily for January 18, 2015: 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time January 17, 2015

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Photo: from Knights of Columbus

This Sunday’s scripture has a very simple theme, surrounding the ways that God calls to us.

It may happen as it did with Samuel, while we are sleeping—perhaps while we are not just asleep physically, but also spiritually.

Or it may happen, as it did in Galilee, by just being in the right place at the right time.

That, in effect, is what happened with Dr. Agnes Donovan.

Thirty years ago, Agnes Donovan moved to New York from Pennsylvania, to accept a prestigious position at Columbia University. Her achievements were considerable: a doctorate in psychology from the University of North Carolina, and experience directing the graduate program in psychology at the College of William and Mary. At Columbia, in addition to teaching, she directed the school’s literacy center and conducted a private practice. “I was happy,” she once said, “and I thought I would be there the rest of my life.”

But something, she knew, was missing. She felt a pull at her heart.

In 1990, she took an extended retreat. A few months later, she found herself attending Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Sitting in the pew, she heard Cardinal John O’Connor announce his plans to start a new women’s community, a new order, devoted to protecting the sacredness of human life.

That particular Sunday, Dr. Donovan was in the right place at the right time.

Something within her was awakened.

And she answered: “ Here I am.”

On June 1, 1991, she became one of the eight founding sisters who established the Sisters of Life.

As she describes it, the reaction at the university was not wildly enthusiastic. Pat McNamara in his book “New York Catholics” says some of her peers considered it a “devastating waste of talent.”

But the university president understood. When she announced her decision and told him her story, he said very simply, “You know Agnes, in my day, we called it a gift.”

It is a gift that continues to give.

Today, Mother Agnes Mary Donovan is the mother superior of the Sisters of Life, overseeing an order with 80 sisters working in New York, Connecticut, Washington and Toronto.

This week, as we prepare to pray once again for an end to abortion, on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we should pray in gratitude for all the Sisters of Life and people like Mother Agnes Donovan—people who embrace the sacredness of life. But this Sunday, we’re reminded that they also have embraced something central to this Sunday’s scripture: the sacredness of God’s call.

It is a call he sends out to each of us, one way or another. And it’s significant, I think, that we are hearing these readings here and now, just after Christmas. The Christmas season was a celebration of God’s incarnation. But here, we are reminded of what the Incarnation entails. These two readings, from Samuel and John, are juxtaposed for a reason.

They show how far God will go for us.

God doesn’t just call us to come to him.

He also comes to us.

And he invites us to draw closer. Where can we find him? “Come and you will see,” Jesus told his first apostles.

Scholars tell us that the Greek word for “staying” that John used in the original text is the same word he used at the Last Supper, a word which can also be translated as  “dwelling.” John wrote of Jesus saying he “dwells” in the Father and the Father “dwells” in him.  In that context, we realize: what John was describing in this gospel passage is more than a geographical location.

Those first disciples saw more than a room in a house.

They saw where Jesus truly stayed, where he “dwells.”

They were among the first to realize: Jesus dwells with compassion. With mercy. With wisdom. With love.

Jesus dwells with the poor. The broken. The hungry. The imprisoned.

He dwells with those trying to uplift and heal. He dwells with those seeking to do the Father’s work.

He dwells with women like the Sisters of Life.

Who among us would not want to stay with Jesus and dwell with him?

That is the great call God is sending forth to each of us. Come dwell with me, stay with me. God sent his son into the world to make that call tangible, to give it flesh.

How will we respond?

It cannot be said enough: each of us has a vocation. It may be to religious life. For most of us, it is not. But God is asking us to devote ourselves, somehow, to living the gospel, and to loving him, and to loving one another.

Are we listening? Or are we asleep?

Those first apostles were in the right place at the right time to encounter Christ.

So was Dr. Agnes Donovan.

But really, so are all of us. There is no better place than here—and no better time than now.

Come and see where I am dwelling, he says.

The invitation has been extended.

Are we going to accept it?

Are we willing to go and see?


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