Ordinary Time, 13th Sunday (B) Disintegration, disharmony, dis-ease, destruction... this is spiritual death. Through the envy of the devil it entered the world. As long as we remain in the devil's company we will experience all these things.
It's not that Jesus hands out cures to this or that problem; Jesus himself is the cure. When we are in his company, we experience integration, harmony, freedom and peace. Jesus enters some of the worst possible human experiences: chronic illness and the death of a child. He touches the sufferers and restores them to their true identity as beloved children of God.
On this day 17 years ago, I was ordained a priest at the cathedral in Green Bay. The biggest blessing of priesthood is when I can help people share their difficulty, burden, or pain with Jesus: They experience healing, peace, love and freedom. I get to be in the room as Jesus is curing the sick and raising the spiritually dead.
(30 June 2024)
Going Deeper: When have you felt spiritually alive? When have you felt spiritually dead? Do you know how to share your burdens with Jesus?
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[music] Hi, I'm Father Joel and welcome to Pilgrim's Preach. This weekend we had our last Mass that celebrated by Father George before he headed on to his new assignment in Kiwani. I'm grateful to his yes to Jesus to be a priest and to be a missionary and also to serve our area. I'm grateful to you for your yeses to Jesus. God bless you. [music] Death is a normal part of life. I mean, imagine if there weren't death. There's already too many mosquitoes to start with. Imagine what would happen if they never died. There's a natural cycle in which the mosquitoes get eaten by the fish and the dragonflies and the bats and the birds. And then those creatures get eaten by other creatures until you reach the top of the food chain. And when that critter dies, it gets eaten by vultures and decomposes and it goes to enrich the soil. Death is a natural part of life. And of course we know that there's lots of things that are poisonous, including plants and animals. So it's always struck me as odd that our first reading says that there's no destructive drug among them. But perhaps our author is inviting us to look beyond biological death beyond the normal course of living as a living being here on earth. You see, there's also a spiritual life that we live. And so there's also consequently a spiritual death. And it's this spiritual dying that God did not make and through the envy of the devil, this kind of dying enters the world. What does this feel like? It feels like the burden of life. It feels like heaviness. It feels like hopelessness. This is the sort of spiritual death that we're referring to. The feeling that I can't go on. The sort of feeling that leads to drug use, or even possibly to suicide or murder. That sense of not being spiritually fully alive. Being connected on the flip side, we know that spiritual aliveness has to do with that connection. That connection to God. Even if things are difficult knowing that God is with me and that I don't have to do it alone. That connection to others, that sense of a healthy community. Not always fighting with each other, but actually supporting each other. That sense of connection with myself, with my own body, with being at peace with who I am and with who God made me to be. That sense of connection with the natural world, with being able to see the world as a part of God's creation. But also myself as part of that creation and being in a harmony with the world. It's this connection, it's this harmony, it's this integration that is spiritually spiritual life. And it's that disintegration, that disharmony, that is that sort of spiritual equivalent to death. This comes from the devil. This comes from the devil who through the envy of the world wants us to be ill at ease. It doesn't want us to experience the freedom and peace of being children of God. And so the enemy is often suggesting to us that we can't be at peace, that we have to be worried, that we have to be fearful, that we, something, there's something wrong with me. Whereas God himself wants to comfort and strengthen us and wants to walk with us on our journey. And so one thing we notice is that companionship of the devil brings just ease and I think that all of us probably experience that a little more often than we'd even realize. Jesus comes to be our companion on the journey. And we see what happens when we're in the company of Jesus in our gospel reading. Jesus faces possibly the two most difficult things that human beings have to deal with. The one is chronic illness, and the other one is the death of a child. And Jesus enters right into those places. So in our gospel he's approached by Jairus and told that my daughter is at the point of death, please come and save her. Imagine the burden that that feels like for a father. Perhaps even feeling abandoned by God. Why would God give me this beautiful daughter and then take her away again just at the age of 12? But he sees that Jesus gives him hope. And so Jesus is on his way to cure this girl, to answer this prayer, so to speak, when there's an interruption. And the interruption is a woman who's been suffering with hemorrhages for 12 years. She's run out of options. She's tried every doctor. She's spent all her money. She has nothing left. But she trusts in Jesus and she comes to him. The Holy Spirit has inspired her to realize that if she just touches his cloak, if she has that little of a relationship with him, that will be enough to receive healing. And that's exactly what happens. She reaches through the crowd, she touches his cloak, and she receives healing. Now she doesn't want to admit that she's the one who did it. Why is that? Well, because a hemorrhage makes her ritually unclean and touching someone will make that person unclean. So she doesn't want to defile Jesus. But Jesus won't hand out anonymous cures. Jesus wants a relationship with her. He wants to invite her into his company. And so he pauses and he waits for her to admit who she was, to let go of the shame to come out of the shadows, so to speak. And she tells him the whole story. Probably a long story and a lot of pain. But notice she doesn't have to carry it alone anymore. That Jesus is with her and he lifts that burden and she experiences new life. Sometimes when we deal with chronic illnesses, we can feel the burden of trying to make it day after day. And we can wonder why God allows this. And yet if we can walk in the company of Jesus, if we can share that burden with Jesus, then we'll experience that it's not such a difficult journey. In fact, it gives us an opportunity to share in his suffering, to draw closer to him, to be in his company. And it's at that moment that the servants of Jairus come to announce that it's too late. It's too late. Maybe if Jesus had come sooner, he could have saved your daughter, but it's too late. And Jesus' response is, it's never too late. Have faith, just have faith. He says that he is the cure, not only for sickness, but even for death. And no one can quite believe that. So Jesus goes into the room and he says, "Little girl, I say to you, arise." And the little girl gets up. In fact, it's easier for Jesus to raise a dead person than it is for you to wake up your 16-year-old. That's how much death can't resist the power of true life. So the girl is healed. She's returned to her parents. And you'll notice in both of these cures, Jesus refers to them as daughter. He says to the older woman, daughter, and to the younger girl, little girl. He's restoring them to their sense of a right relationship with God the Father, of their true identity, that you are a beloved daughter of God. You see, when we suffer, when we struggle, when we face difficulties, we often think that God has left us to face them alone. And it makes us question, how could I be a beloved child of God if God has let me carry this heavy burden? But God never intended us to carry our burdens alone. He wanted us to carry them with Jesus. The devil, on the other hand, wants us to convince us that we already have a distance from Jesus and we should put more distance between us and Jesus. But we need to continue to walk in that company with Jesus. Because in the end, it's not that Jesus hands out this cure and that cure. Jesus himself is the cure. The true problem that we experience is not sickness or death. The true problem that we experience is isolation. It's being cut off from the true source of life, from our true identity as a beloved child of God. And this is what Jesus comes to cure. Jesus comes to restore us to our true identity. Jesus comes to walk with us to help us realize that none of us is meant to walk alone. And so it's not that Jesus gives the cure, but Jesus himself is the cure. Walking in the company with Jesus is the answer that we're looking for. And it allows us to take his burden, which is easy and light. A burden of simply being a faithful child of God, a faithful son of the Father. On this day, 17 years ago, I was ordained a priest at the Cathedral in Green Bay. And while priesthood is not an easy job in today's world, there's never been a day that I wished I wasn't ordained a priest. I continue to be grateful for this incredible gift. Recently, someone asked me, "Well, what's the biggest blessing a priest to it?" And I think that they were expecting to hear me say baptizing babies or hearing confessions for giving people sins, celebrating weddings, celebrating Sunday mass with my people. And those are all big blessings. But the biggest blessing is when I can walk with someone in their difficulty and pain. When someone comes to talk to me about a heavy burden that they're carrying, and I can pray with them and I can help them pray, bring their burden to Jesus, and then they oftentimes experience some kind of healing. Maybe not a physical healing, though sometimes that happens, but they sometimes experience the healing of Jesus accompanying them, of Jesus listening as they tell him the whole story, of knowing that they are not alone and that it'll be okay and that God is with them in their difficulties. And in that moment, I get to be one of those three. I get to be like Peter, James, and John, who's taken into the room and gets to watch the cure. I get to be a close companion with Jesus, and I get to see to watch Jesus work. The biggest burden of priesthood is a newly ordained priest was thinking that I was the one that had to heal people. I was the one in a sense that had to fix people's faith when they were struggling, convince them not to walk away from Jesus, talk them into believing what the Catholic Church teaches and being obedient to God the Father, like sort of convincing them to be obedient children. And then I began to realize that actually it was me that I had to work on, that I had to convince myself or I could allow Jesus to convince me that it was enough to be God's beloved child. And then I began to realize that Jesus was doing most of the work in priesthood, that it was my job to just show people how to find Jesus in the midst of their difficulties, to help them and allow Jesus to carry their burdens. And then I got to watch really beautiful things happen. And that's my favorite part of priesthood, is seeing Jesus continue to teach and heal and comfort and strengthen and even raise the dead in a spiritual way. And that's a huge joy and a huge privilege to be part of that beautiful gift, the part of Jesus' ministry to his people. So I continue to be grateful for the gift of priesthood. I continue to know that there's more growing that I have to do in terms of my true identity as a beloved child of God. And I continue to be able to be joyful in being able to walk that journey. I would say that the more I lived priesthood, the more I lived priesthood on my own, the more I tried to do it myself, the bigger a burden it was. The more I live it with Jesus, the more I walk with Him, and I'm just a companion as He does the work. I've discovered that it is in fact true that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. [music] A woman came up to me and was thrilled to inform me that her daughter had given birth, not just to one baby, but to two. She had identical twin grandsons. I said, "What are their names?" She said, "Well, she named the oldest one Juan, and the second one she named Amal." And I said, "Can I see a picture?" And she said, "I thought you'd never ask." And she pulled out a picture of one baby. And I said, "I thought you said they were twins." She said, "Well, Father, if you've seen Juan, you've seen Amal." (audience laughing)
