JUNE 5^th 2016.  TENTH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

GOSPEL: Luke 7:11-17

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading ...

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GOSPEL: Luke 7:11-17

Jesus journeyed to a city called Nain,
and his disciples and a large crowd accompanied him.
As he drew near to the gate of the city,
a man who had died was being carried out,
the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.
A large crowd from the city was with her.
When the Lord saw her,
he was moved with pity for her and said to her,
“Do not weep.”
He stepped forward and touched the coffin;
at this the bearers halted,
and he said, “Young man, I tell you, arise!”
The dead man sat up and began to speak,
and Jesus gave him to his mother.
Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, crying out
“A great prophet has arisen in our midst, “
and “God has visited his people.”
This report about him spread through the whole of Judea
and in all the surrounding region.

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . In the first reading, a widow gives hospitality to Elijah only for her son to die soon afterwards of sickness. The widow interprets this to be a punishment visited upon her by God for her sins. How prone we are to thinking that our woes are a punishment from God! It is essential that we cease to think of God as a clockmaker who mechanically causes sufferings to befall us in perfect proportion to our faults. Our God is a God of the living! He wants us to have life and salvation, not death and punishment! In the Gospel, the widow of Nain is on the way to the cemetery with the body of her dead son. The funeral cortege of the widow then meets the cortege of life that is led by Jesus. And Jesus brings life and happiness to the destruction and sadness of the funeral cortege. How often our existence is like a funeral cortege headed for the cemetery! How often it seems as if our lives are just an exercise in avoiding death that is guaranteed eventually to fail! The funeral cortege of our existence desperately needs to encounter the person of Jesus who will redirect us to life, positivity and salvation. In the Gospel, the people rejoice when Jesus raises the dead man and they exclaim, “God has visited his people!” The desperate situations in our lives; the woes, sufferings, illnesses and bereavements may have no hope from a human perspective. But when we are visited by the presence of God, these situations are transformed into life and redemption.

Life can seem like a journey towards the cemetery unless it is redirected by Jesus

This Sunday we resume the journey of Ordinary Time. The account in Luke’s Gospel tells of the restoring to life of the only son of the widow of Nain. Sometimes life seems like a hurried trip towards the cemetery, but when Jesus comes along, things can change radically and we find ourselves directed along a different path. How often it happens that a person who had no future prospect other than death experiences the eruption of God in their lives through the preaching, presence and life of the Church. Lives that were once focussed on the avoidance of death now become focussed on eternity, on the greatness and joy of divine sonship.

It is essential that we cease interpreting our woes to be a punishment from God for our sins. This mechanical view of the world is refuted by the innocent lamb who suffers for all of us even though he is innocent.

In the first reading we hear the story of Elijah. He has been given hospitality by a widow who provides him with a room on the first floor. It is interesting that the room of the prophet is on an upper floor, for the business of prophesying involves seeing things from a new and higher perspective. Shortly after Elijah arrives, the son of the widow dies. The widow reacts by asking Elijah why this punishment has been visited upon her. How often the spirit of darkness prompts us to interpret things according to the categories of guilt and punishment! Life is seen as a process of making repayment for our sins. Sickness, suffering, the death of a child are all understood in terms of the reparation that we must make for our past faults. It is absurd and unacceptable that Christians, even today, continue to interpret life in this manner. Certainly, sin has consequences. But Christ has defeated sin and is greater than sin. We cannot revert to a mechanical vision of reality in which everything is understood in terms of sin and punishment. God is not a clockmaker that has set up reality to operate in such a robotic way. Deism holds to such a vision of the world and it has been refuted long ago. If we read the book of Job we see immediately that our sufferings and woes are not to be interpreted as consequences for our personal behaviour. Indeed, if we look at the life of Christ, we see one who suffers not because he is guilty, but because he is filled with love. And in the case of Elijah, we see something similar. This man of God has not come to punish but to do something else altogether. He has come to ensure that a situation that is hopeless from a human perspective can be visited by God.

When the funeral cortege of our lives meets the living cortege of Jesus, our existence is radically altered. The presence of Jesus brings life and salvation always.

The Gospel tells of a widow who had just lost her only son. According to the laws of that time, a woman had no hereditary rights. Once her only son had died, all of her possessions and property would be inherited by others and she would be left destitute. But Jesus has compassion on her, and this situation becomes the place where life is manifested. It is a tale of the meeting of two corteges. One is a funeral cortege on the way to the cemetery, composed of a family destroyed by death. The other cortege is that of the crowd who follow Christ, who will be the first-born from the dead. When the corteges meet, the funeral cortege is redirected from death to life. When the compassion of Christ touches the destruction and pain of our existence, everything becomes renewed and filled with life. When the people see Jesus raise the boy to life, they exclaim, “God has visited his people!” In a similar way the widow had told Elijah after the raising of her son that she now believed that he was a man of God and that the words he spoke were truth. Whenever God is present, life is present, always! We should never think that God visits us to bring death or punishment. God only comes to bring life. We do not receive the sacraments and live the Christian life in order to be punished. Certainly, penitence is important and does us good, but it is something positive for our salvation, not for our destruction. We live the Christian faith in order to have authentic life. Too often the lives we lead are not visited by God. They are merely horizontal. But a life visited by God is reoriented to eternity, positivity, love. Our God is the God of the living, one who loves his creatures. We may say no to life and salvation, but that is all God wants for us.