Firstfruits of His Creatures: Homily for the Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

"Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written:
This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines human precepts.
You disregard God's commandment but cling to human tradition."

Brothers and sisters,

Pope Francis has often pointed out to us, precisely what Our Lord quotes from the Prophet Isaiah, we honour him with our lips, but our hearts are far from Him. In vain do we worship Him formally, if we disregard God’s commandments while clinging purely to human traditions.

So, what is it that Our Lord wants from us? What will make us pure in His eyes so that we can benefit from the sacrifice that is conducted on our altars?

The psalm today has a full list of things that good and righteous people do. But before I get to some of those, let us listen to the second reading, from the letter of St. James, which says that the righteous:

care for orphans and widows in their affliction

And that the righteous man will:

keep oneself unstained by the world.

How do we keep ourselves unstained by the world? By not doing what the world does; which Our Lord helpfully listed in the Gospel:

evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly

In other words, the world does the opposite of what the righteous man, who is guided by God, does. And this is one of what the righteous man does:

lends not his money at usury

It is in fact an ancient, and still mandated, teaching of the Church, that Catholics do not lend money at interest. This is something we should take, very, very, seriously.

I can understand that, living as we do in a capitalist world, many of you may consider it impractical to not place money in the bank and gain interest. Fine. But there are further evils that we can avoid in the spirit of this teaching. For example, there are some, who in their lust for greater returns, give money to private money lenders so that they can get a higher interest rate. But do we know what is the cost of this money brothers and sisters?

Money that is given at a higher rate is taken by people who cannot get money from the banking system, by people who are desperate, and very often have no way to repay the money. And to get the money back all kinds of violence is done to them by the moneylenders. My dear brothers and sisters, if you “invested” money by giving money to private money lenders, please, at the end of the period you invested it for, take back the money, and give most of the interest acquired for charity, to make penance for the wrong you have done.

I should not fail to mention the very worthy initiative of the Archdiocese of Goa and Daman, the institution of the Good Samaritan fund, which seeks to provide financial support for those in financial need – an understanding that is presently restricted, as I understand it – to health care. This is a truly laudable activity and something that we must all wholeheartedly support.

The psalm also tells us that the righteous man

accepts no bribe against the innocent

If you have ever accepted, or given a bribe, this is something that you must confess to a priest as soon as possible. Only true repentance for this sin, will allow the Eucharist to do its work properly in your heart.

The righteous person, the psalm tells us:

thinks the truth in his heart
and slanders not with his tongue.

Once again, if you have ever spoken ill about someone, especially if you do not know whether it is true or not, even if you know it is untrue but you said it anyway because you simply do not like them, this is something that is coming between you and God, and you must confess it, and genuinely promise to never repeat it.

My dear brothers and sisters, in the acclamation to the Gospel we heard:

The Father willed to give us birth by the word of truth
that we may be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

This is to say that even before we were born, even before each and every one of us was born, God had a special plan for each and every one of us sitting here. He chose to have us born into our families, here, in Goa, and that we should be Catholics. He wanted us to be Catholic so that we could show those living around us, how to lead good, moral, righteous, and sanctified lives. So that people would see the way we live, the goodness of our lives, and choose to become like us, both in practice, and in faith.

My dear brothers and sisters, during this Mass, let us ask ourselves if we are doing what God planned for us. If not, let us be truly repentant, make a confession after Mass, and then with the grace that we receive from the sacrament and from the Eucharist, go out to make the world a better place.

(A version of this homily was first preached in Concanim to the faithful at the parish of Our Lady of the Rosary, Fatorda.
Image reference: 'The Calling of Saint Matthew,'Marinus van Reymerswaele, c.1530, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid.)