| Homily
for the 15th Sunday of Ordinary Time: July 16,
2006
Given by the Most
Reverend Stephen E. Blaire at the Cathedral of the Annunciation
in Stockton.
This first missionary journey of the apostles,
sent out two by two, implicitly contains much to be said to
us today. We continue the work of Christ just as the apostles
were being trained to do on this journey.
It strikes us first what little the apostles
were to take with them. They carried no traveler’s checks
and no ATM cards. They were to rely completely on God. What
little they had or would receive was to be subordinated to
preaching the kingdom of God.
Think about ourselves for a moment. We have
been created by God and we live in a created world. The most
fundamental, radical act of belief is to acknowledge the sovereignty
of God. To accept the kingdom of God is to accept the dominion
of God over our lives and over the world. God is at the heart
of all creation. Without Him nothing has come to be and nothing
can remain in existence.
And yet we are free. Freedom is not only a
gift of creation, but Jesus died to make all free. Nothing
seems to be prized more highly in our society than freedom.
The secular world sees freedom as the right to choose whatever
is wanted so long as it doesn’t seem to hurt someone
else. “It’s my body. It’s my life.”
We also see freedom as choice but never independent of the
sovereignty of God. We are free to choose that which is good.
The choice of evil corrupts freedom and eventually enslaves
us to sin
Because we are free we are responsible for our
actions. We cannot blame God for our sins. We begin every
liturgy by confessing our sins, committed through our own
fault. We are also responsible for our good works. And God’s
grace is there to enable us to do what is good and right.
Everything we do begins in Christ and we ask Him to bring
all our actions to completion of the good.
When Jesus sent out the twelve as an extension
of his ministry He wanted them to teach and to heal with a
sense of total dependence upon God. They were responsible
under the sovereignty of God. And the message they preached
was the same as that of Jesus, that we need to reform our
lives and turn back to God – to accept the dominion
of God and to live under the sovereignty of God.
Last Update February 28, 2007
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