2nd Sunday of Lent 2012

March 4, 2012 Father De Celles Homily


St. Raymond of Peñafort
Homily by Fr. John De Celles
March 4, 2012

As Sacred Scripture tells us,
and Pope Benedict XVI so often reminds us,
God is love.
In fact, it is true that the only reason any of us exists is because of this love:
God loves so much
that he gives us life so that he can love us, and so we can love him.
And this love is expressed concretely in the fact that he desires to
gives each of us life in the context of a family:
a husband and wife who live and love each other,
and then, like God himself,
extend that love to by giving life and love
to their own children.
So that God holds the family up as a sign of his love:
I love you, he says, like a husband loves his wife.
And, perhaps more profoundly,
I love you and give you life,
like the best most powerful and perfect father
loves his children.

Today’s readings give us 2 examples of how he
uses the sign of the love of the family
to explain the mystery of God’s love
–and the life that springs forth as a the fruit of that love.
In the first reading we find Abraham and his family.
Abraham loves the Lord because the Lord has first loved him:
as we read elsewhere in Scriptures, God shows his love to Abraham
by making him one of the greatest fathers in history:
“I have made you the father of a multitude of nations…
I will make you exceedingly fruitful.”
And as the story in today’s text takes place,
the Lord has already begun to fulfill his promises:
he’s given him a wonderful son, his firstborn–Isaac.

And because of this mutual love between God and Abraham,
Abraham’s willing to do anything for or give anything he has to the Lord
–when God calls him he has only one response: “Here I am!”
But God doesn’t ask Abraham to give just anything
–he asks for the one thing that Abraham loves most in all the world
–he asks Abraham for the life of his beloved only Son, Isaac.

We read this passage and we’re incredulous
–this doesn’t sound like a loving God.
And if love is life giving, why does this loving God
want Abraham to take away the life of his only son?
Now, remember, the ritual sacrificing of children was not unusual
among the pagans who worshipped false gods in Abraham’s day,
so he wouldn’t have been as shocked by God’s command as we are.
But he would have been just as heartsick and confused as we would be:
he loved Isaac, his only child.
Even so, Abraham remains steadfast in his love and trust for God
–and without hesitation he takes Isaac
and obediently goes to the Mountain called “Moriah,”
as ordered, and there he prepares to sacrifice his boy.

But of course, in the end,
God loves Abraham too much to ask this sacrifice of him
–God does bring life, not death.
So when Abraham climbs the mountain out
of love for God expecting only sacrifice
— at the top of the mountain he finds the fruit of God’s love
–God gives him back the life of Isaac
and promises him the gift of the innumerable lives of his descendants.

Then we leave Mount Moriah and move to the Gospel–some 1700 years later
–and find other Mountain–Mt. Tabor
–and another father and son–God the Father and God the Son.
Peter, James and John have followed Jesus all over Palestine
–and finally up Mount Tabor
–because they love Jesus and the God he calls “Father”.
And when they get to the top of Mt. Tabor,
Jesus returns their love in a singularly beautiful gift.
He becomes physically transfigured before their eyes
–his face shines like the sun, and his clothes become white as light
–as God the Father reveals not only his infinite love for his Son,
but also that in that love,
the Father and Son share the same glorious divine life.
A love and a life that when seen in their full glory are almost blinding
–both to the eye and to the heart–
and leave Peter almost speechless,
overwhelmed by a love that exceeds anything he’s ever known.

But the story of life giving love in today’s readings is not complete yet.
Besides the boundless love of the two fathers,
God the Father and father Abraham,
we also find the love of two sons–Isaac and Jesus.
And while at first they seem to be very different
–Isaac is to be sacrificed, while Jesus is glorified
–the reality is that both the sacrifice of Isaac
and the transfiguration of Jesus
both point toward an even greater revelation of God’s love.
As St. Luke’s account of the transfiguration tells us,
Moses and Eli’jah were talking to Jesus about
“his exodus, which he was to accomplish at Jerusalem.”
The two mountains of Moriah and Tabor point toward a third mountain:
Mt. Calvary in Jerusalem:
the mountain where the greatest revelation of God’s love
and its life giving fruit unfolds
–the mountain of the Cross.

As we carefully read the story of Isaac
we’re struck to find that a dramatic similarity between Isaac and Jesus:
they are both the first born
—the only begotten sons and beloved of their fathers,
and both silently and lovingly accept the wills of their fathers
as they both struggle up their mountains carrying the heavy wood
upon which they will be offered in sacrifice.
And as God, in his great love, spares Isaac on Mt. Moriah,
he also looks ahead 1700 years with that same love
to see Jesus on the Cross at Mt. Calvary.
Because its on Mt. Calvary that the divine Father fulfils the sacrifice
he would not ask Abraham to offer.
From the depths of his infinite love,
God the Father gives his only Son, His “beloved Son”,
and God the Son gives himself
as the one perfect sacrifice of perfect love
for the life of the whole world.

Some might ask, how could God the Father allow his own Son to be a sacrifice.
Much the same as a father might send his eldest strongest son off to war
to defend the lives of the rest of the family,
God the Father sends His Son, who volunteers,
off to lay down his life for all of us.
It pains the Father as much as it does the Son
—in a way, part of the Father dies with His son.
But they both accept this as necessary, for our salvation.
And they know that in the end this sacrifice will not end in death, but in life
—the Resurrection!

The Cross is the sign of perfect love, and Isaac on Mt. Moriah points to it.
And as we move to Mt. Tabor, the apostles are given a preview
of the fruits of that Cross of love—the glory of the Resurrection.
So that on Good Friday, even as Peter, James and John
know that Jesus has given up his human life
on the Cross of Mt. Calvary,
they do not loose hope,
because they have seen what Jesus and His Father know:
that the love of Jesus on the Cross must bear the fruit
of the glorious life promised by the Transfiguration on Mt. Tabor.
And so even in their grief and confusion, they await the Resurrection.

During these 40 days of Lent, out of love for our heavenly Father
and his Son our Lord, Jesus Christ,
we’re called to imitate Isaac
and join our Lord by picking up the wood of sacrifice
and walking up the mountain,
retracing in our own lives the way of the Cross,
and by our own sacrifices and prayers sharing in his sublime act of love.
But as we reach the top of the mountain on Good Friday,
the Lord stops us and again, as with Isaac,
out of love for us, makes himself the sacrifice.
And then, as with the Peter, James and John,
as we face the death of our beloved Master,
we can look at the Cross and see his love,
and know that it will bear the fruit of life of the Resurrection.
By entering into his sacrifice, we enter into his love,
and by entering into his love we share in his eternal life.

Today all this is capsulated in a most sublime way,
in the mystery of this Holy Mass.
We find ourselves, sacramentally, going up the steps of Mt. Calvary,
standing at the foot of his Cross.
We offer bread and wine, symbols of our daily sacrifices,
and Christ transforms them
into His own body and blood sacrificed on the Cross,
uniting our imperfect acts of love to his most sublime act of love.
And as we receive Him in Holy Communion,
we begin to see the fruits of that sacrificial love,
as it becomes for us truly the Bread of Life,
the life of the resurrection taking root in our lives today.

Today, as we eat the bread of life,
may we open our hearts to share in the Cross of Christ,
so that this season of Lent may bring about
an ever-deepening conversion of our hearts
to a more perfect sharing in the life and love of God our Father
and His only begotten Son, our brother, Jesus Christ.