In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Our Lady, Refuge of Sinners,
St. Joseph, our patron saints and guardian angels,
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The reading that I was hoping to be the reading today was Naaman the Syrian in the Old Testament,
who was on this Monday of the third week of Lent,
was the teaching in the Old Testament of the course,
the pagan Jehovah,
the general who was struck with leprosy and how he heard through this little servant girl
who was captured from the kingdom of Israel about how there was a man in the kingdom of Israel
who could cure him of his leprosy.
And right away we see in one sense the charity of this little girl
and that here is considered to be a great enemy of her own land,
and she could have said good for him that he had leprosy,
but instead she told him that there was someone who could cure him.
And he took her advice and told his king and was sent with a group,
with a retinue to the king of Israel to be cured of his leprosy.
The king of Israel though thought it was a trick.
He said, who am I that I can cure anybody of their leprosy?
And of course then Elisha the prophet said to him,
sent a messenger to the king,
why have you torn your garments?
You know, why are you making a, he's not here looking for you.
Let him come to me and find out that there is a prophet in Israel.
So Naaman brought all of his retinue to Elisha, Elisha,
however you want to pronounce his name,
and asked,
to see him and instead Elisha just sent his servant out
and told him to go bathe seven times in the Jordan River.
We know that Naaman was indignant that he should do that.
He said, why there's far better rivers in Damascus,
and I came all this way from Syria to bathe in that.
I will not do it.
He was quite upset and was turning around and heading home
until his servants also came
and said to him, you know,
if the prophet had told you to do something extraordinary,
would you not have done it?
All the more now since he said to you,
wash and be clean should you do as he said.
And so Naaman again,
even though he has this first reaction as a proud one,
he also has it seems to be an open heart
and listens to counsel from others,
which is kind of extraordinary
that a general would listen to his servants so readily.
And maybe that shows a little inkling of humility that he has.
And he goes and finally submits himself
to the command of the prophet.
And he is of course cleansed from his leprosy
and he returns to thank God and Elisha the prophet
for this gift of restoring him
to health and not only that,
but restore gives him the gift of faith.
He says, now I know that there is no God
in all the earth except in Israel.
That he realized that the true God
was the God that the Israelites worshiped
because only a true God can work a miracle
in this case and one who represents that true God.
And our Lord uses this Old Testament story
and reminds his Jewish brothers and sisters
in the Gospel today
when he is back home in Nazareth,
in his hometown,
to remind them of this incident
and another one when Elijah the prophet
was sent to the widow of Zarephath,
another pagan,
to remind them that God's message of salvation
is not just for the Jews.
Of course salvation comes from the Jews,
but it is not only for the Jews.
And these two examples anger them so much
because in one thing that the Israelites,
it seems that the Jews of the time of our Lord
had gotten this idea that they were special
and of course they had a special grace given to them,
but they somehow,
took it as being proprietary,
that it was only for them
and that it was meant for them
to be lording it over everybody else.
And that's why they considered the goim,
you know, the Gentiles,
which was a very insulting word,
to refer to those who were non-Jews.
And our Lord uses this occasion to remind them
that, you know, you got it all wrong.
You were given this special grace
not to hold it to yourself,
and just keep it,
and think that it's, you know,
to lord it over others.
As He even said to His own disciples
when He gave them that teaching about
in this kingdom or in this kingdom
that I'm going to establish,
you're not going to be in a position of authority
to lord it over others
as the pagans do
or even as you might think
you're going to do as Jews.
It's to be of service.
And that is what the Israelites,
that's what the Jews,
when they were given this special grace,
they were to be the starting point,
you might say,
or the place where the word was first planted,
but it wasn't just meant to be kept there,
but was rather meant to be the starting point
and to spread out from the Jews
to the rest of the people.
They were to be the first missionaries
that God was going to use,
and they were going to be the first place
where the seed was planted
so He could begin His church.
But it wasn't meant to be only for them.
And sometimes today we can even look and see that
sometimes those who are Catholics
sometimes think that ecumenism is to be,
you know, well, you stay where you are
and I'll stay where I am
and we'll just be fine.
But that's not what true ecumenism is all about.
It's to be that we have this special gift of grace,
being Catholic,
but we're to go out and spread this,
to give this.
We have been blessed so greatly
to have this gift of grace to be Catholic.
And we should desire and want others
to experience and to have this same gift,
the fullness of the truth,
the fullness of God's grace,
so that they can be already living
the life of heaven in its fullness,
in sacramental form, you might say,
while already on this earth,
and not have them to wait
until they get to the other side and see,
oh, I should have been doing this when I was on earth.
I should have known all these things then.
I should have experienced these joys
of all the things that the Catholic Church has to offer
before I pass from this world to the next,
if they were able to,
because they may not even pass to the next world,
into heaven.
They may not get there because
we didn't give them the message of salvation
or didn't share the faith with them.
Because, of course,
the ordinary means of God's grace
is the sacraments.
And that's where God wants his people to receive
his grace of salvation ordinarily,
is through the sacraments.
And that's why our Lord established his church
in the first place,
was so that men could receive
the grace of salvation.
And our Lord is just saying today in the Gospel
to his audience
that we're not being given this special grace
to just, you know, be complacent
or to think that, you know,
it's just me and I don't have to do anything else
or the rest of those poor devils out there,
you know, they can be damned.
That's not the attitude that one should have
if one is truly a follower of Christ.
And so the audience of our Lord in the Gospel today,
they wanted to kill him,
to throw him over the cliff.
And our Lord again works another miracle.
Some fathers and doctors of the church said
that he made his body take on that impassibility
where they tried to grab at him
and he passed right through them,
like he would pass through the door
on the day of resurrection
and appear to his disciples,
that they couldn't grab him
because he just passed through them
like light through a window
and they couldn't grab him.
Our Lord just walked away
because it wasn't his time
to be offering his life.
But he did come to give them a message
of truth.
And he wasn't worried about offending his audience
with the truth.
When they were so filled with themselves,
they lacked the humility
that Naaman the Syrian
and the widow of Zarephath,
that humility that is so important and necessary
for the gift of faith.
And that is something that,
as we said throughout this season of Lent,
that the season of Lent is to help foster in us
that virtue of humility
because it's the beginning point.
It's the foundation for all other virtues,
as Saint Francis said.
You know, the poverty that he practiced
in a material way
was even more a greater example
of the spiritual poverty,
the importance of humility
in growing in the life of grace.
It's the essential for even beginning
the life of grace.
Who can make an act of faith
in the Son of God
without the virtue of humility?
It's so important in the life of a soul.
And so today, as we continue our season of Lent,
let us examine ourselves
and always foster to be humble
by putting others ahead of us,
by seeing how we can humble ourselves
in direct ways,
and how we can accept humiliations
when they come our way.
That we accept them with
the right kind of grace.
Not becoming bitter or more proud
because we've been humiliated,
but rather to say,
Thank you, Lord,
for this grace
to be shown that I am my place
to be brought low
so that you can exalt me
in your own way
and in your own time.
Let us look to the widow of Zarephath
and Naaman the Syrian today
and see how we can
practice the virtue of humility
and obeying, listening to others,
maybe especially,
and having that faith to know
that we need to seek counsel
and listen to those around us sometimes
when we need to know
what God wants us to do.
He uses sometimes the little people
in our lives
to point the way to us.
In the name of the Father,
and of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.