HOMILY for 26th Fri per annum (II)
Job 38:1,12-21,40:3-5; Ps 138; Luke 10:13-16
The fishing town of Bethsaida was home to Peter, Andrew and Philip, the first of the apostles. And it was here that Jesus healed a blind man, and nearby, he fed five thousand. And the name of the town, some say, means ‘House of Mercy’. This town is thus an image of the Church which is the definitive House of Mercy. For the Church is home to the apostles, founded on their witness and teaching. In her the blind are healed through the gift of faith in the sacrament of baptism, and in the Church, Christ feeds the multitude with the Eucharist.
Just as Christ worked miracles and did great things in Bethsaida (as well as in Capernaum), so now Jesus continues to act and do great wonders in his Church, for he is her Head, her Bridegroom, and she his Mystical Body and beloved Bride – the “sacrament of salvation” as Vatican II says. Within the Church’s walls, sinners are reconciled to God and one another, those who walk in darkness and sin are enlightened by grace, and those who hunger for love are fed. Thus, she is the House of Mercy because in the Church sinners are called to repentance, strengthened, and empowered to live a new life in Christ. This is what mercy truly means – that people are called to repentance and have the means of doing so, and of living a new and risen life in the grace of Jesus Christ with the power of the Holy Spirit. Mercy means that Jesus offers forgiveness and a new changed way of living after the death of mortal sin.
That a genuine encounter with Divine Mercy entails repentance and necessitates change on our part is evident from today’s Gospel. Jesus’ wrath is for those who, despite having had such signs of mercy and compassion extended towards them; despite the wonders he worked and graces he gave, would not repent and change their lives and follow him. It would be better, indeed, if the unrepentant people had remained ignorant as the people of Tyre and Sidon had been, rather than to have seen Christ’s works and heard his teaching and remained indifferent or to persist in living sinful lives. The result of this, Jesus says, is that one shall be “brought down to Hades” (Lk 10:15).
In our time, then, Jesus continues to work wonders and call many to repentence through the teaching and sacramental ministry of the Church. It is within the Bethsaida, the House of Mercy, that is Christ’s Church that we encounter Christ’s mercy and receive sanctifying grace. So, let us hear her teaching, heed her invitations to repentance, and so, receive new life, and even eternal life. For as Jesus says: “He who hears you [the Church] hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me”.