We are always “missionary disciples”

Homily for March 22, 2015 (5th Sunday of Lent)
Jeremiah 31:31-34; Psalm 51; Hebrews 5:7-9; John 12:20-33
Brothers and Sisters of Charity Retreat, Plano, Illinois

Given the state of popular entertainment in general and cable TV fare in particular, it’s hard to be shocked about much these days.  However, viewers of the HBO documentary series, “The Jinx:  The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst,” got more than they bargained for last week.  Mr. Durst, whose family oversees a multi-billion dollar Manhattan real estate empire, had been suspected in the deaths of several women, including his wife, over the past thirty years.

Near the end of his final interview, Mr. Durst decided that he needed to use the bathroom.  Unfortunately for him, he forgot to turn off his microphone and could be heard mumbling to himself, “There it is. You're caught!  What…did I do? Killed them all, of course."  In the wake of that interview, he was charged with the murder of a friend in Los Angeles fifteen years ago.

We live in a world increasingly filled with words.  They come to us through many media, in many languages, 24/7.  There are so many it sometimes seems hard to sort them out.  But even in the midst of this blizzard of verbosity, some words still have the capacity to stand out and even stop us in our tracks.  Robert Durst’s unguarded mutterings in the bathroom certainly had such an effect. Our readings today provide several far more edifying examples:

A clean heart create for me, O God, and a steadfast spirit renew within me (Ps. 51:12).  Isn’t this the purpose of our Lenten season and our various disciplines:  to “clean house” spiritually in order to enable God to become more and more a part of us?  Tradition tells us that David wrote and prayed Psalm 51 as he came to terms with his doubly grave sin of adultery with Bathsheba and arranging for the death of her husband and his loyal servant Uriah in battle.  It is a reminder to us that, no matter what we have done, we are never beyond God’s mercy if we sincerely seek it.

Unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit (John 12:24).  During Lent and indeed throughout our lives, regardless of our particular vocations, we are daily challenged to die to ourselves.  This past week, we celebrated the memory of St. Patrick, who was called to preach the gospel and serve among the very people who had enslaved him as a youth—a powerful example of one emptying himself to fulfill the mission that God and the Church had given him.

Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered (Heb. 5:8).  Pain, if we are attentive to it, can be a great teacher.  Jesus found meaning in his suffering, not as something to be grimly endured or morbidly sought after but rather as a fact of our human and natural existence that is part of a deeper mystery of life.

I will place my law within them and write it on their hearts (Jer. 31:33).  As we grow in God’s grace, we also grow in our capacity to know God’s will and bring God’s word into our daily lives.  In his apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis reminds us that “Every Christian is a missionary to the extent that he or she has encountered the love of God in Christ Jesus: we no longer say that we are ‘disciples’ and ‘missionaries,’ but rather that we are always ‘missionary disciples’”(120).  May the word we proclaim and, more importantly the word we live, be so powerful that will stop people in their tracks and turn us all more and more to the Lord. +