Friday in the 26th Week of Ordinary Time, October 1, 2021

The Feast of St. Therese of Lisieux

Luke 10:13-16

Jesus said to them, “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you. And as for you, Capernaum, ‘Will you be exalted to heaven? You will go down to the netherworld.’ Whoever listens to you listens to me. Whoever rejects you rejects me. And whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”

St. Luke sets these words of the Lord just after he has addressed the seventy-two disciples whom he has sent out to the villages and towns, to prepare the way for him there.

“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida!”  The Lord Jesus is not speaking self-indulgently here: he is not venting.  Nor is he posing, showing himself as the righteous one in comparison with these wicked towns.  He speaks out of the fullness of his heart, almost in incredulity that the inhabitants of these towns have seen Divinity close up and yet failed to be changed by the experience.  They have in fact failed to change themselves as a result of seeing Divinity in action very near to them.  The irony here is almost too much to bear: the Lord has touched the blind and made them see.  He has touched the deaf and caused them to hear.  He has touched the lame and they have walked away, carrying the mats on which they had been brought to him.  He has driven out demons.  In not a single case in which his help was asked did he fail to cure that person.  He changed the lives of all these sick and infirm people, and yet the people who witnessed the miracles were unchanged.  It was as if a block of marble had not allowed Michelangelo to chip at it, or a lump of clay had refused to be handled by a potter: “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? says the Lord” (Jeremiah 18, 6).  St. Luke includes this incident in his Gospel not simply because he knew of it, but because he thought it important for his Greek Gentile converts to know too.  The incident expresses the terrible fact that the Jews, by and large, rejected Jesus: not as a result of some lack of his power and persuasiveness, but in spite of the manifestation of his power and exposure to his preaching.  If you and I are to do our part in the conversion of the world, we must show with our behavior that the Gospel and the Sacraments are so powerful as to have transformed us into something more than the rest of humanity.  Grace must radiate through us so that others can see it, hear it, and feel it.  If it remains unseen, unheard, unfelt by others, then we have buried it, like the man given the single talent by his master to invest.  We become cups of cold water just out of reach, though in the sight, of thirsty men and women.

“Whoever rejects you rejects me. And whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”  The Lord Jesus may have said these words on another occasion, but Luke thought to include them here.  They are amazing words.  If we truly live in him, for him, and through him, then we bear his reflection vibrantly in us, and so when you or I are “rejected”, that is, insulted, assaulted, mocked, ignored, or persecuted for our beliefs and our way of life, then it is the Lord himself who is treated in this way.  Transformed by his grace, we carry him with us.  We do not merely represent him, but present him.  It would be as though we were the mother of the king’s son and we had taken him into public for the king’s subjects to admire and fall in love with, and instead they hurled insults at us, perhaps not daring to insult the prince himself.  The abuse, directed ostensibly at us, the mother, is a grave offense against the prince.  But those who listen to us, listen to the Lord.  Let us become saints through the grace of God so that this is so.  Therese of Lisieux was such a saint.  During her lifetime, her words were heard only by a few of the world’s inhabitants, but they are now published in many languages throughout the world.  Her simple words about God and about her life with him ring true with authenticity because of the sanctity with which she lived her life on earth, apparent to all who saw her.  We may think that our words extend only in a limited way, but sanctity makes them golden and like thunder.