27th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)

Sunday, Ocotber 5, 2008
Holy Martyrs of North America Catholic Church; Falmouth, ME
Sacred Heart Catholic Church; Gray, ME

Isaiah 5: 1 – 7
Psalm 80: 9, 12, 13 – 14, 15 – 16, 19 – 20
Philippians 4: 6 – 9
Matthew 21: 33– 43

[Homily given in preparation for Redemptorist Mission in Cluster 24 of the Diocese of Portland, ME]

Good morning! My name is Fr. Paul Borowski, one of the two Redemptorist Missionaries here this week. I always feel that the role of a Missionary when he preaches at the weekend masses before the Mission is to get you excited and to try to entice you to come to the Mission. I always love going to the movies and I like to get there early. I get my bag of popcorn, a soda and make sure that I’m at the theater in time to watch the previews before the main event. If they do a good job, they show you wonderful movie trailers so that you say to yourself: “I need to go see that film when it comes out.” Hopefully, my reflections with you today will have you nodding your head and saying: “I need to go to the mission this week and hear more.”

As I mentioned, I am a member of the Redemptorist Congregation and I recently spent the last sixteen years working in New York City. I was involved with the formation of our college age seminarians and spent a good part of that time teaching at St. John’s University in Queens. I taught Business Ethics and regret not being there now since I would have tons of material to teach about. Just this past August I was assigned as pastor at St. Clement’s Parish in Saratoga Springs, NY just north of Albany. However, I am not a stranger to Maine and the Portland area. Since 1995 I have been coming up to the area to work with Habitat for Humanity and have brought teens from all along the East coast to work building houses. My trips each summer would range anywhere from one to four different weeks and for the past five summers I slept on the Parish Center floor at Holy Martyrs. I have even said Mass here in this Church for the teens when we arrived on Sunday nights. I was thankful yesterday when I showed up that Fr. Ford had a room for me in the rectory and I wouldn’t have to spend the night in the Parish Center.

Today’s Gospel is rather straight forward – we readily understand what Jesus is talking about. During the history of the world, God sent prophets to call the people to a closer relationship with him, but the prophets were not accepted. Finally in the course of history, God sent his only Son to bring a message of love and compassion to the world. We all know how that ended up … Jesus, God’s only Son, was rejected, mocked, crucified and died on a dusty hill outside of Calvary. The people of his day saw who he was but did not completely grasp their relationship with him. They failed to truly see Jesus for who he was. Unfortunately, many of us today sometimes fail to grasp completely who Jesus is for us. Our relationship with him is one of great importance and hopefully this time of mission will help each of us to deepen our relationship with the Lord.

During these autumn months, Bishop Malone has invited the Redemptorists into the entire diocese of Portland, the entire state of Maine to help all of us renew our relationship with the Lord. You know better than I do about all the recent clustering and changes that are going on within the Church here in Maine. The Redemptorists have been invited in to help all to reflect on what it means to be one family of God. The theme is “Gather Us.” Gather us together as one family. Gather us together as one Body. We may be from different towns such as Falmouth, Gray, Yarmouth or Freeport but by our baptism we are all one. So we will gather us together as one family this week.

A time of mission is to help us focus in on our relationship with the Lord. Already you have a relationship with our God that we are called to deepen each day through prayer. To see and recognize and understand who God is for us, we need to talk to him. If a married couple came to me and said they hadn’t spoken to each other in twenty years, you don’t need to be a marriage counselor to know that something isn’t right in their relationship. In our relationship with the Lord, we need to constantly talk to him and listen to him. That’s what prayer is all about. All our other traditions within Church are there to help us draw closer to the Lord. The very act we are about now of coming together as one family around the table of the Lord is to help us strength our relationship with our God. This upcoming week the time of Mission is once again for us to reconnect, renew, re-energize our relationship with our loving God.

We will come to meet a God who loves us since the day of our baptism. We will be gathered together to reflect on a God who never stops caring for us. Today, I come before you and it is not I, nor Fr. Ford, nor Bishop Malone who invites you to the mission; rather t is God himself! God today calls you by name, the same name he gave you the day water was poured upon you head. The same name you were given that day now listen to hear again as He invites you to spend some time with him this week. St. Alphonsus Liguori, the founder of the Redemptorists, once wrote something that may at first sound blasphemous. He wrote that God is crazy, that God is insane. Insane with love for you and I. More than we can imagine our God cares for us and loves us. Today he invites you to come and recognize him, to come and spend time with him. Today God himself invites you to this mission as he will gather us all together.

As I mentioned, I use to be a college professor at St. John’s so I enjoy giving homework. Today I want to give all of you a little homework assignment. When you come to the Mission this week do not come alone. Bring someone else. Bring someone who needs to hear again how much God cares for them. Bring someone to the Mission who perhaps has forgotten how much God loves them. The people that truly need to hear this message are not in the church this morning and I won’t be able to get out and meet them today. You know who they are. They are perhaps members of your family or your co-workers. They may be friends or yours, people who live next door to you, people that you know from the supermarket. The message of God’s love is not just for us alone but it is to be shared freely with all men and women. So, my friends – be disciples of Jesus Christ, share your faith and invite someone to come to the mission with you this week.

About five years ago I was given a mission and made this plea to not come alone at the weekend masses. The first night of the mission as I was giving my sermon there were two men in the front row. One of them was singing, talking, occasionally nodding off and snoring during my homily. After a while I could not ignore his disruptions and had to do something. I went over to his friend and say that I’m sorry but could he kindly ask his friend to leave. He responded: “Father, it took me a fifth of gin to get him to church and now you want him to leave?”

You don’t need to bribe anyone and feed them gin to get them to come to the Mission. Just extend an invitation by telling them you want to come and meet someone who loves and cares for them. You want them to come and meet our God of love. If you can’t make the mission I ask that you pray for us. Pray for the people of Falmouth, Gray, Yarmouth and Freeport that this may be a time when God himself gathers us together. Pray that this may be a time where we reflect on the call to be one family of God. Know also that we will be praying for you that this week may be a time of immense blessings for all of you. May it be a time when all of us once again strengthen our relationship with our God. This is a week to rejoice, to celebrate and be glad. God who is mighty has done great things for us, may He continue to work in our midst! AMEN!