I recently heard a person comment; “People nowadays give more importance to the saints than Jesus Himself.” This is not the first time I have heard this kind of comment, having heard this often during the Exposition of the Sacred Relics of St. Francis Xavier, where there was an opinion circulating that we seem to be giving more importance to St. Francis than to Jesus.
But could our Lord be jealous of His saints? Could His saints lead people anywhere else other than to Our Lord? These opinions are, in fact, profoundly uncatholic, and the lectionary this Sunday offers us multiple examples of how recourse to the intercessory power, and prayer, of the saints is deeply rooted in Catholic tradition and teaching.
In the first reading we read of the awesome encounter between Abraham and God, where Abraham, quite literally bargains with God to ensure that should there be only ten innocent people, God would not destroy the towns of Sodom and Gomorrah. While there is a tendency when reading this episode to focus on the merciful nature of God, when saint Ambrose commented on this episode, he also saw in it the value of saintly people, teaching that:
from this we should understand what a powerful bulwark a just person can be for the country and how we should not be jealous of saintly persons or criticize them with temerity. In fact, their faith saves us, their rectitude preserves us from destruction.
My dear brothers and sisters, these words of St. Ambrose should remind us of not just the nature of the relationship with the saints, on which I will reflect in just a while, but also the power of the relics of the saints. The physical presence of the saints preserves us from destruction. We should remember that no matter how bad things are in Goa, the fact that we have the relics of St. Francis Xavier, and so many other saints in altars across Goa, keeps our land safe from the even greater destruction that the powers and principalities of the world would seek to wreak on our land.
This teaching should not be seen as merely some innovation introduced by St. Ambrose. If we pay attention to the day’s Gospel, we see that Our Lord Himself sets up a culture of intercessory prayer. Indeed, as the Catechism teaches us (CCC 2634-2636), Our Lord himself intercedes for us before the Father, and no matter whom we pray to, it is eventually the Father, our Father in heaven, who heeds and answers our prayers.
In the Gospel today we hear Our Lord telling us a parable of a man who wakes up a neighbour at midnight, so that he can host visitor who had just arrived. The neighbour refuses to extend his hospitality, but Our Lord recommends persistence, because:
I tell you,
if he does not get up to give the visitor the loaves
because of their friendship,
he will get up to give him whatever he needs
because of his persistence.
Our prayers to the saints are often insistent, and persistent. We keep turning to them and asking them for the favours we require. And Our Lord assures us, and not just in this parable, but in other parables as well (Lk 18: 1-8), that if we are persistent, our prayers will be answered.
Our Lord does more than recommend intercessions. He also indicates to us the nature of the relationship between the saints and ourselves.
"Suppose one of you has a friend”
Just as He teaches us that the Almighty God in heaven is our Father, He teaches us that the saints are our friends in heaven. And because they are our friends, we can be sure that they want to help us, and are in fact, waiting to help us. All we need to do is petition them.
And how should we be asking? And what should we be asking for? Once again, Our Lord offers instruction in the parable about the good father. Contrasting our Father in heaven with good earthly fathers, He asks us
how much more will the Father in
heaven
give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?"
In other words, petition like we were children, that is with full trust and confidence; and petition, not necessarily for this, or that, but for the Holy Spirit, for the grace that “thy will be done”. Our prayer must ideally, “this is what I want, but thy will be done,” because the child trusts that their father will give them what is good for them. And this prayer should not be difficult because, as the Gospel acclamation echoes:
You have received a Spirit of
adoption,
through which we cry, Abba, Father.
May God bless you all, and may all His holy angels and saints intercede for you.
(A version of this homily will be preached to the faithful in Concanim on 27 July 2025 at the Sé Catedral, Old Goa.)
(Image reference: Adoration of the Trinity, Albrecht Dürer, 1511, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.)
No comments:
Post a Comment