Homily, 23rd Sunday Ordinary Time, Cycle B
Fr. Paul D. Williams, Jr., pastor Saint Joseph's, Dalton GA
Over
the years, I’ve been asked “why” about the faith many times.
Why do we fast on Fridays during Lent? Why do we have to confess our
sins to a priest? Why do we have to go to church every Sunday? Why
do we stand and kneel and sit and make the sign of the cross and
genuflect?
You can
look at today’s Gospel and ask the same type of question: when he
cured the man who was deaf and dumb, why did Jesus put his fingers
into the man’s ears, spit and touch the man’s tongue, look up to
heaven, emit a groan, and then say “Ephphatha”? Why did he use
all these external actions, which, by themselves, seemingly have no
meaning? Why didn’t he just do what he did for the Centurion
(Matthew 8:8-13) who said, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter
under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed.”?
Remember how Jesus said to him, “You may go; as you have believed,
let it be done for you.” And at that very hour his servant was
healed, even though Jesus never saw or touched the man.
Well,
the answer is very simple: Although it is the words of Jesus, his
divine will and power, that worked the cure of the man who was deaf
and dumb, Jesus wished to use visible, material objects and actions
in a way that expressed a more profound, inner meaning. In other
words, he was preparing us for the sacraments, which he would
institute and give to his church. St. Augustine defined a sacrament
as “the visible form of invisible grace” or as “a sign of a
sacred thing.” Jesus knew that after he died and rose again, he
would be returning to his heavenly Father, but he wanted to remain
with us in external, tangible ways. And he does this through the
sacraments, as St. Leo said, “what was visible in our Savior has
passed over into his sacraments.”
Now
there are various levels of sacraments, and many meanings to the
word. At the first level are what we call “sacramentals”, which
are lesser than what we know as the seven sacraments. Sacramentals
are “Sacred signs, whether an object or an action, by which
spiritual effects are signified and obtained by the intercession of
the Church.” Sacramental objects would include things like holy
water, scapulars, medals, rosaries. Sacramental actions would
include blessings and exorcisms, the sign of the Cross and
genuflecting.
Now
what’s the difference between Sacramentals and sacraments? First,
Christ instituted the sacraments directly, whereas the Church, with
Christ’s authority, institutes and can change sacramentals. But
they also differ in the manner of imparting grace, the manner in
which they are effective. A sacrament imparts grace in virtue of the
rite (the action) itself, while the grace of the sacramentals depends
on the dispositions of the recipient and the intercession of the
Church.
So, if
you bless yourself with Holy Water and make the sign of the Cross
without faith or without being well disposed, then you are simply
getting your finger wet and touching your forehead, heart, and
shoulders. If you get anything out of it, it will only be because
someone else is praying for you. But if you do it with faith, then
you are reminding yourself of your baptism, when you were baptized
into Christ’s death on the Cross, and you are asking God to bless
you, which he does. If you genuflect in the presence of the
tabernacle without faith or without being well disposed, then you are
simply touching your knee to the ground. But if you do it with faith,
then you are performing an act of adoration, latria,
the highest form of worship, acknowledging that Jesus is present in
the Eucharist, and that he is your Lord and God.
Now the
seven sacraments are greater and more important than sacramentals.
These sacraments are, as we all learned in CCD: Baptism,
Confirmation, Eucharist, Penance, Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders,
and Matrimony. They are greater because they were instituted by
Christ himself and were entrusted to his Church so that we might
share in his divine life. When celebrated worthily in faith, they
confer the grace they signify. In other words, they are efficacious
because it is Christ himself who is at work in the sacraments. Jesus
is continuing his saving mission on earth, by allowing us to unite
ourselves to his Passion and Death and the promise of the
Resurrection, and he does this through his sacraments.
Now,
having faith and being well-disposed to receive the sacraments is
important, helping you to more fruitfully receive them, the but the
sacraments work, ex opere operato,
“by the very fact of the actions being performed… From the
moment that a sacrament is celebrated in accordance with the
intention of the Church, the power of Christ and the Spirit acts in
and through it, independently of the personal holiness of the
minister.” Just as Christ worked the miracle with the deaf and
dumb man, so he works now through the signs and symbols of the
sacraments of the Church.
That is
why sacraments can be received unworthily. In Baptism,
through the sign of pouring the water, we really were cleansed of
both original sin and personal sin, and we wear a white garment to
signify this new purity, but if we fall back into sin and don’t
rely on God’s grace to help avoid temptation, then we, in a sense,
soil that white garment and need to be cleansed again. In
Confession, we confess
our sins to Christ through the sign of his priest, and we are truly
forgiven by the priest with the authority of Christ, but we can
dishonor that sacrament by not going or not taking it seriously. In
Confirmation, the
bishop anoints our forehead with sacred oil and lays hands on us, and
we receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit, but we can ignore those
gifts by living a worldly life instead using those gifts to build up
God’s kingdom on earth. In Marriage,
we join hands and exchange rings as a sign of union, pronouncing vows
before Christ and his Church, and then God truly creates an
indissoluble bond that man cannot break, but we can dishonor that
bond by not living the promises of marriage: permanency, fidelity,
and fruitfulness in love and life. In the Eucharist,
Holy Communion, the body and blood of our Lord are given us under the
signs of bread and wine, but if we lack faith, are not well disposed,
or are in a state of sin, then we still receive Jesus in communion,
only we may have offended him and prevented him from working in your
soul, by our lack of faith, lack of preparation, or lack of
repentance.
The
Church itself is an effective sign of God’s work and presence in
the world, and you can not substitute for it. In that sense, the
Church is a type of sacrament, which Christ instituted. Vatican II
called the Church the “universal sacrament of salvation... The
Church, in Christ, is like a sacrament – a sign and instrument –
of communion with God and of unity among all men.” So, the
Church’s first purpose is to be an instrument that unites
individual people with God, and it is also a sign of that unity. But
also, because the Church is Catholic, universal, it unites all
peoples, from every nation, race, and language. It is a sacrament of
the unity of the human race and it is Christ who works in his Church
to unite all peoples to himself and to each other.
That’s
what it means to be the Body of Christ, and that’s why it’s
important to not only be
a Catholic, but to be a practicing
Catholic. By being a Catholic, you belong to the Body of Christ,
which is God’s desire for the whole human race. By being a
practicing Catholic, you help build up the Body of Christ. The
sacraments of the Church are meant to nourish our spiritual life.
And just as you can harm your physical health by not eating, so also
you can harm your spiritual life by not partaking of the sacraments.
And that’s why the greatest of the sacraments is the Eucharist,
(John 6:51), “I am the living bread that came down from heaven;
whoever eats this bread will live forever.” It is our viaticum,
our food for the journey.
And
that’s the final purpose of all the sacraments: to allow us to
share in the very life of God on this earth, so that we might one day
share it with him for all eternity in heaven.
