Homily for the Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 14/15 2012, St. Margaret Mary:

Our Yorkshire Terrier is always the first to notice someone coming to our door.  She perches on our sofa, and peers out the front window, watching and waiting, and she loudly barks to warn us whenever our home is about to be attacked.  OK, it might just be the UPS driver, but she doesn’t know the difference.  To her, every visitor is a potential menace, and she earns her dog chow by being a heckuva good watchdog. 

            Hearing her barking, one of us will usually peek out the window to see who’s coming to the door, and if you’re like me, if you see two young men in pressed dress trousers and clean, white shirts and ties, you immediately think “Oh no, the Mormons!” and you might leap into the coat closet before they see you through the window.  And wait there until the dog stops barking to let you know the coast is clear.

            At least that’s the way I used to act.  But somehow, that seemed cowardly to me, so the last time I was home when the young Mormon missionaries came around, I bravely greeted them at the door with a smile.  I explained that they probably wouldn’t be making any converts that day at our Catholic household, especially since I was approaching ordination as a deacon. 

            But before sending them on their way, I told them that I truly admire what they were doing – how much I admire their dedication, their courage, and their faith.  And I wished them well.

            And I meant it.  These young people, with a faith that is alive and on fire, are doing precisely what Our Lord sent His apostles out to do in today’s Gospel  – He sent the twelve out two by two to preach the Good News of repentence.   To the neighboring towns and villages.  This wasn’t yet the great commission that we read about at the end of Mark’s Gospel, when Jesus sends the disciples out to the whole world to proclaim the gospel to every creature. 

            But it’s a commission nonetheless, and it seems to me that it’s quite instructive for us here at Blessed Kateri parish, at this time and in this place.  Perhaps we are likewise being sent out right here into our Town of Irondequoit to preach the Good News, with our words, yes, but more importantly with the witness of our lives.  Perhaps not door to door, but it’s a call to evangelize nonetheless.

             Blessed Kateri parishioners are a minority of the Town’s population, and those who regularly come to Mass are but a fraction.  There are many folks in our Town who have no faith at all.  Moreover, there are  people in our Town who have never experienced the love of Jesus, who have no idea how much God loves them and cares for them.  Who is gonna tell them?  Who is gonna show them, if not us?

            But it’s a call that requires that our own faith be alive and on fire.  If we stop to think about how blessed we are as Catholic Christians, about what we have right here, how can we NOT spread this great good news?  How can we not proclaim the Lord from the rooftops?

            Have you ever received some really good news?  Marriage proposal?  Birth of a child?  You want everyone you know to hear about it.  I recall 15 years ago, after my wife Pam and I made a Marriage Encounter weekend, how alive and on fire our love was after that weekend.  I wanted every single married couple we knew to have the gift we had received. 

            Now if we stop to think about what we have right here in our faith community, shouldn’t we want EVERYONE to have what we have?

            For we have here a community  - the community of Christ’s companions, living the Faith passed on to us for over 2000 years.  A community of sinners, hopefully open and inviting to other sinners.  Sinners striving here to become saints.

            We have here Christ’s unbounded mercy - the forgiveness of sins He promised us, and the assurance of His forgiveness we hear in the words of absolution.

            We have here a tradition of justice and service to the poor, the sick, the uneducated, those who mourn, a mission of love which flows forth from the realization that God loves each of us and so we must love.

            And we have here the very Body and Blood of Our Blessed Lord, broken and shared at this table, to strengthen us and unite us and send us forth in love and service. 

            Yes, we have here the very presence of Jesus Christ in the Town of Irondequoit.  We ARE the very presence of Jesus Christ in the Town of Irondequoit.  You and I are being called to live and proclaim that presence everywhere we go, in everything we do.  It’s the reason we’re here.  I dare say it’s the very reason we were created.

            May we be truly thankful today and always for all of the good gifts God has given to us here.  And let us go forth with faith alive and on fire to proclaim Our Blessed Lord in our words and in our deeds.  For we exist for the praise of His glory, now and forever.  Amen.