Father Rick Bolte's Homily

C: Twenty First Sunday of Ordinary Time                  2007-08-26

One could easily be tempted to think of our faith as an easy religion.  We have a God who is so loving, forgiving, and merciful.  We don’t have to earn our way into eternal life, it is a gift.  The good and the bad are invited to God’s banquet.  Jesus describes himself as the Good shepherd who goes after the one lost sheep.  God, as the father of the son who treats his father as dead and wastes all the inheritance on decadent living, is out looking to welcome his son back.  Jesus ultimately gives his life for us sinners.  If God is so for us, what do we need to do or worry about?

Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel that many who attempt to enter through the narrow door (into God’s kingdom) will not be strong enough.  People who ate and drank in his company and were present for his teaching will indeed be left out in the cold.  The eating and drinking in his company is an obvious reference to the Eucharist.  The preaching refers to the ongoing preaching to the apostles and those who followed them.  How could someone who attends Mass and listens to the word of God be left out of the kingdom God wants us to partake in?

Simply being in attendance at the Eucharist and listening to the scripture readings is not enough.  Jesus tells us we need to “hear the word of God and keep it” and “to do this in memory of me.”  God’s word and the Eucharist are to have an effect in our lives.  Like Mary, we are to say “Let it be done to me according to your will.”  We don’t need to earn it but we do need to invite the realization of God’s love for us into our hearts.  God’s love is not intellectual as much as experience.  When we realize how unworthy we are of such great love and realize it is ours nonetheless, we can’t walk away unaffected.  It changes our view of what is most important in the world.  It changes the way we live, why we live, and our relationships with others.  When we truly take in the experience of God in our lives, we indeed live lives in Christ’s memory!