A spring morning some years ago, I am lost in thought, puttering in the garden at the Cottage. Fr. Simon drives by in his motorized wheelchair, he is off to work in the treasury office, even though he is at this point bent and twisted and practically crippled with the Lou Gehrig’s disease that will eventually take him. He cranes his head toward me and pauses to say hello. “Oh Simon,” I say, “I’m so sorry.” “Sorry,” he says without missing a beat. “What’s to be sorry about? I have this wonderful chair.” And motioning to the hills, “And look at this beautiful place, our beautiful monastery. Nothing to be sorry about.”
Was the man simpleminded, overly pious, his sensibilities dulled after too many years in this place? I don’t think so; no, it was simply Fr. Simon’s natural self-forgetfulness. He could see far beyond his present situation and, trusting in the Lord, he shifted his focus to love, appreciation, and gratitude. My brothers and sisters, mindfulness of the gift received is always reorientation. It is after all what that one leper did, suddenly feeling his face soft and clean again, he realizes and rushes back to thank Jesus. What in our own experience will lead us to such gratitude?
This morning Jesus sees his Father’s outpoured love as the source of all blessings, and he rejoices exultantly. In the first movement of our Gospel narrative, his disciples return after successfully casting out demons in his name, and he reminds them most humbly, to rejoice not because of their newfound authority in using his name but because their names are written in heaven. In other words, they are remembered by the Father, fully known and beloved as he himself is. Jesus doesn’t dampen their enthusiasm; he reorients it; he ramps it up.
The power of Jesus’ name is effecting Satan’s demise, and he sees the Accuser falling like lightning. The kingdom is being established, the defeat of evil in all its forms has begun, and the dominion of Satan over humanity is over. And so Jesus exults in the Holy Spirit. How could he not? “At that very moment,” Luke tells us, Jesus rejoices in the Holy Spirit and says, “I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to little children.” The Greek word Luke uses to express Jesus’ exultation is agalliáō (ah-ga-lee-ow’); it means being so glad you could jump for joy in celebration. It is the same expression Our Lady uses in her Magnificat – her heart leaps for joy because God Most High has looked with favor on her lowliness. Like his mother, Jesus rejoices because he knows himself first of all as beloved child of the Father, dependent always on the Father’s “good pleasure.”
And so, his elation blossoms into this ecstatic prayer of praise, adoration, and thanksgiving, which is often referred to as the “Cry of Messianic Exultation;” it expresses his intimate communion with the life of the Father in the Holy Spirit and his self-understanding as channel for the abundant life and blessing that God is and wishes to bestow. Jesus delights that he is Son, Child of the Father. Jesus delights that he is Receiver par excellence and that all he has received from the Father, he will pour out on us his disciples.
With Jesus and in him, we too are receivers, God’s own children, ever dependent on the gifts our Father delights pours out on us. Our greatest reason for rejoicing then is that we are endlessly remembered by God, our names written in heaven. We are unforgettable to God; his faithfulness is absolutely unwavering. And the scars forever engraved on the wounded body of the risen Lord Jesus are proof of God’s everlasting remembrance of us. This is our reason for hope, a hope beyond hope, in promises beyond our imagining. Gracious, open-handed receiving is our endless duty because receiving what does not end is itself endless. What is more, by humbly receiving ourselves in this way, we truly become ourselves and become conduits of grace for others with and in Jesus.
Still, how dare we rejoice and give thanks at this time? It can seem hare-brained, crass, and insensitive. Thanks for what? Things are falling apart everywhere – endless acts of terrorism and senseless gun violence in our country, daily calamity and heartbreak in Ukraine, Haiti, and erratic shifts in climate that signal our globe’s utter precarity. It’s all too much. Thanks? Better to say our prayers quietly and forget about it. But we dare not, for that would be to give Satan ascendancy. No, we do better, for though we do not see, we believe that the Lord is endlessly at work incognito - in us, through us, through our prayer, pouring himself out in love endlessly. Our faith demands this reorientation.
Empowered by our faith in his love, we dare to hope and give thanks, and even rejoice. The kingdom is coming to birth, and Satan is falling as Jesus the Messiah comes to reign. Blessings keep blossoming in the midst of despair. Our belovedness can never be trammeled, for God is doing everything to transform all creation - with us, through us; no defeat or terror too daunting for the interruption of his love. As his very beloved children in Christ, we acknowledge his dominion in our lives and together pledge our surrender to his mercy. And so, like Fr. Simon we reorient our vision and refuse not to give thanks, thanks born of confidence in God’s power and love, thanks for the humility that Jesus is.
As one ancient sage will assure us, “though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he enables me to tread on the heights.” Hab. 3 With hope and joy and gladness then let us go up to the altar of God.
Homily by one of our monks with insights for this piece from the USCCB website, Pope Benedict, “With the Heart of a Child,” an address given in 2011, and Jean-Louis Chrétien: A God of Speech and Beauty by Christina M. Gschwandtner and the writings of Gerhard Lohfink.
