14TH SUNDAY 0F 0RDINARY TIME – YEAR B – JULY 4, 2021
Rdng I: Ezekiel 2:2-5; Rdng II: 2 Corinthians 12:7-10; Gospel: Mark 6:1-6
HOMILY
In our Reading from St Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians, Paul says that he is content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, and persecutions. Why would any reasonable person be content with these things? All of them look like the very things we should avoid, if we possibly can.
Well, what would anyone be content with? How about beatitude? That would be worthy of contentment, wouldn’t it? Gaudium et Spes teaches us that “We have been created for eternal beatitude … seeking and loving what is true and good.” (GS 15:2)
But in the Sermon on the Mount, Christ connects beatitude to persecution: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’s sake, for their’s is the kingdom of heaven.” (cf. Mt 5:9). In the very next sentence, Christ connects beatitude to being insulted, also. (Mt 5: 3-12) So it’s easy to see why Paul, or anyone else, would be content with persecutions and insults, and hardships. Beatitude goes together with them.
Christianity turns the ordinary standards of the world up-side down. When we follow Christ and suffer persecution, insults, and hardships with him, we are not among the world’s losers. We are among the prize-winners. Beatitude is ours! We are truly blessed!
But that still leaves weakness. Paul says, “Therefore, that I might not become too elated, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, an angel of Satan, to beat me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me, but he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’” (Paul’s prayer was insistent, like that of Jesus in Gethsemani, a sign of how intolerable Paul felt the thorn to be.) And, of course, for us, one kind of weakness that comes from Satan is sin. Could anyone … should anyone … be content with his own sin? Of course not! A person should never accept what he believes to be sinful!