Fr. Thomas Matus, OSB Cam

I began preparing this homily (for February 27) early last Wednesday, and since I didn’t have any of my books with me, I went on line to find the text of the Sunday readings and maybe a helpful thought.

I found the website of the Eternal Word Television Network, which gave me the full text of the readings, together with a nice thought by Saint Peter Julian Eymard. He says: “If I love Jesus, I ought to resemble Him; If I love Jesus, I ought to love what He loves, what He does, what He prefers to all else: humility. How may we acquire this virtue? Neither logic nor reflection will help us; thinking nice thoughts about it or taking heroic resolutions would lead us to believe we had already acquired it, and we would content ourselves with that. We must examine our actions to see whether we sought our own interest in them. Let us repeat often, Jesus: so humble of heart, make our hearts like unto thine.”

Of course this thought is in harmony with the gospel in general, but it says little about the words that Jesus, Paul, and Isaiah give us today. If humility does not mean just thinking nice thoughts or taking heroic resolutions, then it has to mean listening to the word of God and putting it into practice. So let us focus on the actual words of today’s readings.

How did Saint Paul the Apostle practice humility? In the reading from 1 Corinthians 4: 1 – 5, he says: “With me, it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. I do not even judge myself. I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart.”

Wow! Do not fear judgment; do not judge, and do not even judge yourself. Jesus says it; James says it; Paul says it: the only “thou-shalt-not” that the New Testament adds to Moses is, “Judge not.” Here is a word of God that is simple as can be, but I still hear myself saying, “What are they going to think of me?” As for the purposes of my heart, I puzzle over them, instead of walking in the simplicity of the gospel word, “Judge not,” and waiting until the Lord comes.

Now, you don’t have to remind me of a question I am already asking myself: How can you have morality without judging? The answer from the gospel is still, “Judge not,” and this answer does not give us any wiggle room. So we have to take it and walk with it.

Saint Peter Eymard tells us to be like Jesus and to love what he loves. Or, do not love what he does not love. Jesus does not love money. Neither does Paul, who in another place says, “The love of money is the root of all evil.” Some Bible translations do not translate Jesus’ word, “Mammon”, leaving it in Aramaic, but what it actually means is “money”. For lovers of money, what they love is in fact their god. Does this sound like a judgment?

It is and it isn’t. It’s what you call “a conditional judgment”: if you love money, then money will be your master and your god. I would be judgmental, were I to say, “You have money; so you can’t serve Jesus Christ and follow his way.” I can only say, to myself, “When you have money, watch out!”

The Catholic Church has a simple teaching about this: If you have extra money – the amount does not matter – you have it in order to give it away. Or, in other words: the common good and especially the needs of the poor have a first mortgage on the money that exceeds your reasonable needs.

This of course is not the moral language of Jesus, which is a morality of virtues. Jesus wants us to be free, and to know that we are all children of his heavenly Father. So he says in today’s reading from Matthew 6: 24 - 34, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? ... [So] be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

I have tried to bend the saying of Saint Peter Eymard, to make it fit into today’s gospel. I do not need to bend the very short first reading, from Isaiah 49: 14 - 15, the prophet who prophesied in a time of exile: “Zion [says], ‘The [One Who Is] has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me.’ [But God says,] Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should have no compassion on the [offspring] of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.”

Here is the humility of God, our Divine Mother, who cares for lilies and sparrows and for all us little ones. This is the God whom Jesus loves, and whom he wants us to love. Today we come to the heavenly and motherly Father through Jesus in the Eucharist, without judging and without anxiety, and here we receive what we truly need.