{"id":74208,"date":"2011-09-24T09:27:18","date_gmt":"2011-09-24T14:27:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aleteia.org\/?post_type=post&p=74208"},"modified":"2011-09-24T09:27:18","modified_gmt":"2011-09-24T14:27:18","slug":"homily-for-september-25-2011-26th-sunday-in-ordinary-time-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2011\/09\/homily-for-september-25-2011-26th-sunday-in-ordinary-time-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Homily for September 25, 2011: 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

[Click here for readings]<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Here at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs, it\u2019s customary to remember and honor the martyrs of different cultures. This weekend, we\u2019ll have a special mass commemorating a Filipino martyr, Lorenzo Ruiz.\u00a0 We also have special masses for the Korean Martyrs and the Chinese martyrs.<\/p>\n

Last week, I learned something remarkable about one of the martyrs whose feast we celebrated this summer: St. Mark Ji Tianxiang.\u00a0 He was a Chinese layman who was executed in 1900, along with dozens of other Catholics in his village during a bloody persecution of Christians.\u00a0 St. Mark was steadfast in his faith, and refused to renounce it \u2013 and for that, he gave his life.<\/p>\n

That is extraordinary enough.\u00a0 But so are the circumstances under which he died.<\/p>\n

St. Mark, you see, was an addict.\u00a0 An opium addict.\u00a0 In the 19th<\/sup> century, the Church didn\u2019t understand addiction as it does now \u2013 and his life was seen as gravely sinful and scandalous.\u00a0 As a result, for 30 years Mark Ji Tianxiang was denied communion.\u00a0 Yet his devotion never wavered.\u00a0 Witnesses say that he sang a litany to the Blessed Mother as he was led to his death.<\/p>\n

It is tempting for us to think of saints as superhuman \u2013 and certainly, many of them, like St. Mark Ji Tianxiang, show phenomenal courage and commitment to the faith.\u00a0 But his story also reminds us: whether or not a saint is superhuman, he or she is also human.<\/p>\n

Jesus understood that, and it\u2019s one of the points in this Sunday\u2019s gospel.\u00a0 He told the story of two sons \u2013 one obedient, one disobedient \u2013 and made clear that sometimes the person who appears to be the holiest, or who seems to say the right thing, isn\u2019t necessarily the one doing God\u2019s will.<\/p>\n

\u201cTax collectors and prostitutes,\u201d he said to the chief priests, \u201care entering the kingdom of God before you.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was a shocking thought at the time \u2013 but one that should be familiar to all of us today.\u00a0 The story of our church, after all, is a story of transformation, of change.<\/p>\n

It is a story of salvation and redemption \u2013 of changing course, and beginning again.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the story of people starting over.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been said that the Church isn\u2019t a museum for stained glass saints \u2013 but a hospital for sinners.<\/p>\n

Well, we are all patients in that particular hospital.\u00a0 Some of us are in intensive care.\u00a0 But a lot of remarkable people have been here before us.<\/p>\n

There was Peter the liar, and Thomas the doubter, and Paul the persecutor and the thief called Dismas, who was saved in the final moments of his life by Jesus on the cross.\u00a0 There was Mary of Egypt, a prostitute.\u00a0 There was Augustine the pagan, who had a mistress and a child.\u00a0 There was Dorothy Day, who had an abortion, and Matt Talbot, who was an alcoholic.<\/p>\n

There was St. Mark Ji Tianxiang, addicted to opium.<\/p>\n

And there\u2019s you and me.\u00a0 No matter how we\u2019ve sinned, or what choices we\u2019ve made, God holds out this beautiful possibility: no matter what we have done, we can still be saints.\u00a0 Like the son in the parable, we can change our minds \u2013 and change direction.\u00a0 We can<\/em> make that journey.<\/p>\n

And we have good company for the trip.\u00a0 Not only the communion of saints, the great \u201ccloud of witnesses\u201d who are praying for us and with us, but also Jesus Christ.\u00a0\u00a0 He knows our struggles.\u00a0 Because he took them on as his own.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe emptied himself,\u201d Paul wrote, \u201ctaking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.\u201d<\/p>\n

He became one of us.\u00a0 And then he took it as far as his Father asked him, all the way to the cross.\u00a0\u00a0 As Paul wrote elsewhere: he was a man like us in all things but sin.\u00a0\u00a0 He \u201chumbled himself\u201d to be one of us \u2013 living, struggling, hungering, and dreaming among fishermen and tax collectors, prostitutes and thieves.<\/p>\n

And so he walks with us still, as we fumble our way through life \u2014 falling, then getting up, with our knees scraped and our hearts broken, as we try in our own imperfect and clumsy way to become what God wants us to be: saints.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth remembering: in the parable that we heard, the son who ultimately does the father\u2019s will \u2013 and, presumably, is finally saved \u2013 isn\u2019t the son who said \u201cYes.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s the one who at first said \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n

He changed his mind \u2013 and changed his heart.<\/p>\n

And that made all the difference.<\/p>\n

God gives us that chance again and again, the chance to take another road.\u00a0 He gave it to Paul and Augustine and Dorothy Day and Mark Ji Tianxang.\u00a0 And he gives it to us.<\/p>\n

Many of the greatest saints were like us.<\/p>\n

And we have it within us to be like them<\/em>.<\/p>\n

No matter how many times we may have said \u201cNo\u201d to the will of God, by His grace we still have a chance to say \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Click here for readings] Here at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs, it\u2019s customary to remember and honor the martyrs of different cultures. This weekend, we\u2019ll have a special mass commemorating a Filipino martyr, Lorenzo Ruiz.\u00a0 We also have special masses for the Korean Martyrs and the Chinese martyrs. Last week, I learned something remarkable about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":74216,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-homilies"],"yoast_head":"\nHomily for September 25, 2011: 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Here at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs, it\u2019s customary to remember and honor the martyrs of different cultures. 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