Saint Luke Old Catholic Parish

Beloved Disciple Catholic Church

Current Homily:

Dominica Vigesima Septima Post Pentecosten [Twenty-seventh Sunday after Pentecost]: November 16, 2008 [St. Gertrude the Great, V]

Delivered by Most Reverend Roger LaRade, OFA

Beloved Disciple Catholic Church, Toronto

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1 Thessalonians 1: 2-20; Matthew 13: 31-35.

“Lives lived in God’s loving presence”

Today, in addition to celebrating the Mass of the Twenty-seventh Sunday after Pentecost, the liturgy of the Church also commemorates St. Gertrude the Great, her feast day being today, November 16.

It has been twenty-seven weeks since our celebration of Pentecost, since our liturgical reliving of the sending of the Holy Spirit and our prayer that the Holy Spirit continue its action through and in us by the gifts of grace. In two weeks we will begin our liturgical cycle again with the First Sunday of Advent, once again launching ourselves on a journey of prayer to deepen is our hearts and souls God’s loving presence in us, and in our world. The time in which we find ourselves is that of our living our life as Christians awaiting the coming again of Christ; it is the time in which we strive to live lives of faith, lives guided and molded by the Holy Spirit, lives of hope and charity. The antiphons, prayers and readings of the Masses of this period reflect this concern.

The mustard seed and the leaven of which the Gospel passage for this Mass speaks are representations for this process of deepening, or growing, in awareness of God’s loving presence within us, and in our world. In the Epistle, we hear that the word of God produces in the hearts of Christians the wonders of faith, hope and charity. In the Gospel, our Lord reveals to us "things hidden from the foundation of the world”, things which will not be measured and fully known until the Last Day. It is the experience of living in awareness of God’s loving presence that is spoken of by Saint Paul of the Thessalonians. It is this living in the awareness of God’s loving presence that animated and sustained St. Gertrude during her earthly life. It is this living in the awareness of God’s loving presence to which we are called by Baptism and which is nourished in us through prayer and especially by our partaking in the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ at Communion.

Indeed, we certainly can experience the holy Eucharist as “a mustard seed and a leaven”.[i] The Sower of course is Christ whom we receive in our beings in the Host, a mustard seed sown in our soul. And, the woman in the Gospel, we can see as the Church, which through the Liturgy and prayer “places the leaven of the Eucharist in my soul”[ii] that it may permeate my whole being – thoughts, words and actions. The Eucharist and the Church’s nurturing of our faith through Her liturgy and prayers are not in themselves the mustard tree nor the leavened bread. Rather, they are the mustard seed and the leaven; and, as with seeds and leaven which need care and attention to grow into their fulfillment, so too our faith, hope and charity – our awareness of living in God’s loving presence – needs our care and attention.

Our faith journey started “as a tiny seed, a seed of grace: the sanctifying grace, which in a hidden and mysterious way, was sown in us by God at Baptism, and the actual grace of good inspirations and of the divine word…which Jesus the heavenly Sower, has scattered plentifully in our souls.”[iii] The leaven is a “beautiful image of the work of grace…in our souls: grace has been placed in us like leaven which little by little must increase until it permeates our whole being and divinizes it entirely. Grace, the divine leaven, has been given to purify, elevate, and sanctify our entire being…”[iv]

The Introit of this Sunday’s Mass puts our efforts at living this life in proper perspective. Through the Gregorian chant setting of the Introit we heard these words: The Lord says: I think thoughts of peace and not of affliction. You shall call upon Me and I will hear you, and I will bring back your captivity from all places. “You shall call upon Me and I will hear you.” Our efforts at living our lives in the awareness of God’s loving presence are rooted in God’s love for us, a love which ceaselessly draws us, even when our efforts are lukewarm or when we utterly act contrary to our Faith. God remains and continues to invite us. For our part, we must continually bring to our attention the fact that the “divine seed, this supernatural leaven, is within us”[v] and we must in an ongoing way ask ourselves “what can prevent it from becoming a gigantic tree, capable of giving shelter to other souls; what can impede the leaven from fermenting the whole mass”.[vi]

St. Gertrude, living her life as a Cistercian nun during the late 1200s in what is now Germany, lived in the awareness of God’s loving presence. She lived her life asking herself these questions, guided by the liturgical prayer and Eucharist of the Church. At the age of twenty five she was favored with celestial visions, and towards the end of her life she received the stigmata. Her mystical life was lived in the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. Indeed, Jesus revealed to her His Heart as a mystery of grace and love, the source of life for our own growth in awareness of God’s loving presence.

In the Collect prayer for her feast, we pray that “God prepared for Himself a lovely dwelling-place in His saint”. Through this prayer, we should realize that God dwells in us. Through faith, hope and charity, we are called by God to respond to His indwelling, that the mustard seed and the leaven may be tended by us and grow in us the fruits of the divine life: faith, hope and charity.

In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.