"BEING FACILITATORS OF GRACE" A homily delivered by Rev. Fr. Jordan Orbe, SJ 16 January 2023 Monday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time
Speaking as a priest, nothing shames me and breaks my heart more than hearing stories of people who experience harshness, rudeness, and even cruelty from other priests. I remember a woman who recounted to me how she desperately needed the grace of reconciliation but the priest refused to see her and even scolded her simply for wearing a sleeveless blouse in church. Another person shared how he felt hopeless that God would ever forgive him after hearing the harsh words from a priest. It is painful to hear from folks who feel harshly judged by their pastors, that instead of being brought closer to God, they are turned away. This is in stark contrast to what we hear today from the letter to the Hebrews: “Every high priest is taken from among men and made their representative before God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He is able to deal patiently with the ignorant and erring, for he himself is beset by weakness and so, for this reason, must make sin offerings for himself as well as for the people.”
As priests, we are meant to be channels, but frequently, as Pope Francis said, “we act as arbiters of grace rather than its facilitators.” We prevent others from experiencing God’s grace through our harsh judgments, our narrowmindedness and hardness of heart. Of course, priests are human beings too, imperfect and flawed. Which is all the more reason we need to be patient and compassionate. I have always believed that the vocation to the priesthood is a vocation to be tender. Tender in the sense of being gentle, and also tend-er, one who tends to others, especially the suffering and vulnerable, and be the channels of God’s grace for them.
It is important to note that this vocation to the priesthood is not just for the ordained clergy. All of the baptized participate in the priesthood of Christ. All are called to be facilitators of grace to one another. Whenever the faithful offer prayers for one another, or offer their work and sacrifices to God, or lead others closer to God through their words and actions, they are in keeping with this baptismal priesthood. It is unfortunate then when lay Catholics themselves act as arbiters of grace instead of facilitators, when lay Catholics are so quick to cast judgment on their fellow men and women. Now with social media and the digital age, there are so many “faithful Christians” who use their platforms to attack and bully others in the name of religion. Many of them disparage their fellow Catholics for matters of liturgical practice. It is ironic that they may be very particular when it comes to rubrics at mass, but they forget, as Jesus said, about the “weightier matters of the law.”
In our Gospel today, Jesus uses the imagery of new wine poured into fresh wineskins. This is his vision of the radical reorientation of our relationship with God. Jesus was very critical of the religious leaders of his time who tried to box in the movement of grace by limiting religion to the legalistic observance of rules. This is religion that is based on fear, rather than faith. In a fear-based religion, we see God as a one-false-move kind of god, who is only waiting for us to fail so he can condemn us. But the new wine that Jesus is inviting us to experience sees God not as petty or cruel, but tender, with a heart that is open and spacious. Let us pray then for the grace to become fresh wineskins, to allow this new wine to enter us and transform us. May we deepen our love for our tender God, who also calls us to be channels of his tender grace for a world that is filled with pain and suffering.
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"BEING FACILITATORS OF GRACE"
A homily delivered by Rev. Fr. Jordan Orbe, SJ
16 January 2023
Monday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time
Speaking as a priest, nothing shames me and breaks my heart more than hearing stories of people who experience harshness, rudeness, and even cruelty from other priests. I remember a woman who recounted to me how she desperately needed the grace of reconciliation but the priest refused to see her and even scolded her simply for wearing a sleeveless blouse in church. Another person shared how he felt hopeless that God would ever forgive him after hearing the harsh words from a priest. It is painful to hear from folks who feel harshly judged by their pastors, that instead of being brought closer to God, they are turned away. This is in stark contrast to what we hear today from the letter to the Hebrews: “Every high priest is taken from among men and made their representative before God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He is able to deal patiently with the ignorant and erring, for he himself is beset by weakness and so, for this reason, must make sin offerings for himself as well as for the people.”
As priests, we are meant to be channels, but frequently, as Pope Francis said, “we act as arbiters of grace rather than its facilitators.” We prevent others from experiencing God’s grace through our harsh judgments, our narrowmindedness and hardness of heart. Of course, priests are human beings too, imperfect and flawed. Which is all the more reason we need to be patient and compassionate. I have always believed that the vocation to the priesthood is a vocation to be tender. Tender in the sense of being gentle, and also tend-er, one who tends to others, especially the suffering and vulnerable, and be the channels of God’s grace for them.
It is important to note that this vocation to the priesthood is not just for the ordained clergy. All of the baptized participate in the priesthood of Christ. All are called to be facilitators of grace to one another. Whenever the faithful offer prayers for one another, or offer their work and sacrifices to God, or lead others closer to God through their words and actions, they are in keeping with this baptismal priesthood. It is unfortunate then when lay Catholics themselves act as arbiters of grace instead of facilitators, when lay Catholics are so quick to cast judgment on their fellow men and women. Now with social media and the digital age, there are so many “faithful Christians” who use their platforms to attack and bully others in the name of religion. Many of them disparage their fellow Catholics for matters of liturgical practice. It is ironic that they may be very particular when it comes to rubrics at mass, but they forget, as Jesus said, about the “weightier matters of the law.”
In our Gospel today, Jesus uses the imagery of new wine poured into fresh wineskins. This is his vision of the radical reorientation of our relationship with God. Jesus was very critical of the religious leaders of his time who tried to box in the movement of grace by limiting religion to the legalistic observance of rules. This is religion that is based on fear, rather than faith. In a fear-based religion, we see God as a one-false-move kind of god, who is only waiting for us to fail so he can condemn us. But the new wine that Jesus is inviting us to experience sees God not as petty or cruel, but tender, with a heart that is open and spacious. Let us pray then for the grace to become fresh wineskins, to allow this new wine to enter us and transform us. May we deepen our love for our tender God, who also calls us to be channels of his tender grace for a world that is filled with pain and suffering.
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